Halloween Mini Crystal Ball DIY

I shared my Crystal ball DIY with you and now I'm sharing how I made a handheld one for my daughter to carry around while dressed at a fortune teller.

What you'll need:

-Plastic Snow globe from Hobby Lobby

-Iridescent material from Michael's

-Battery operated candle from the dollar tree.

-Scissors

It won't take but a few minutes to put this together.

1. Unscrew the lid on your globe. You'll be an inner lid. Take that out.

2. Use your scissors to make a hole in the center of your inner cap.

3. Push the candle "flame" through the hole.

4. Fill the globe with the iridescent material.

5. Insert the inner cap followed by the outer cap.

6. When you want to turn it on, just unscrew the outer cap and flip the switch on your candle.

Halloween Crystal Ball DIY

It's that time of year again!! Halloween is so close and I have a lot to do to prepare for our annual Halloween party. Truth be told I started decorating about a month ago. I go all out for Halloween so it takes me a long time to decorate.

This year is going to be even better. With the new house I have more space to decorate and a better backyard so I'm having to add new elements. I thought it would be fun to have a fortune teller display. I wasn't wanting to spend a ton of money on store bought decoration since I'm going to need a lot more.

Thought I'd share my DIY in case you wanted to try it for yourself...

(The tarot cards were purchased at Michael's and I used painters tape to tape them up along the walls)

For this craft you will need the following:

-A glass bowl in any size. I used a medium sized one I found at Michaels. It was $7.99 and I used a coupon to get it even cheaper.

-String lights. Also from Michael's. They were only $5.

-Iridescent basket filler also purchased at Michaels for $3.99. I wanted a roll of it to crumble up but all I could find anywhere was this stuff.

-Batteries for your lights. I used cheap dollar store ones since this was basically only going to be on the night of the party.

-cardboard 

-scissors

-marker

-hot glue gun and glue stick.

Once I had everything it was pretty simple and quick to put together. 

1. Turn the bowl upside down on the cardboard and trace where the glass touches.

2. Cut out the circle then cut a little nitch out for the string lights to pop out.

3. Fill the bowl with the iridescent material.

4. Next take your string lights and put them in your bowl mixed through-out the material.

5. Glue around the edge of your cardboard circle. Avoid gluing on the nitch you cut out. After turn upside down (or right side up)

6. Your ready to go! 

When Halloween is over you cant easily pop off the cardboard circle and remove everything and reuse your glass bowl for another holiday.

Mummy Jar Craft

The Mummy Jar

What you'll need:

A jar

Gauze

Tape and or glue

Googly eyes

A battery operated tea light candle

I prefer to use clear tape because it makes this project a lot faster.

Tape the end of the gauze to the jar. Next wrap the gauze around the jar until it's covered.

You can glue or tape your eyes to the jar or gauze.

Turn on your light and place it inside.

How easy is that?!

Even though I clicked on the website to get the full tutorial,

it wasn't available. I did however find other Halloween mason jar project tutorial. 

Click here to see more projects from Crafthub.

Milk Jug Ghost Craft

This craft is practically free!

And oh so easy!

What you'll need:

Clean and empty milk jugs.

You can use any kind of jug as long as its frosty like a milk jug.

You can also use any size.

Black permanent marker.

Some kind of light like a string of clear Christmas lights or battery operated candles.

Scissors or a utility knife.

Start by drawing your face.

Hint: you can't really go wrong here so let your kiddos have fun.

Cut a small hole in the back of the jug, just big enough to insert your light.

I like the battery operated tea lights because there's no cord and the flicker.

Next just place there where you want and turn them on.

Enjoy your "spooky" scene as soon as the sun goes down.

Check out more crafts on Babble.

Fun Halloween Learning Activities

Found at Child Care Land Blog,

this activity is great for fine motor skills

and counting.

I just love this Halloween activity.

Found at Teachers Pay Teachers

You can get these free worksheets at 

http://teachingfirst-abc.blogspot.com/2014/10/october-freebies-galore.html 

Found this cool worksheet on Pinterest

Halloween Magic

What happened to that mom?

That mom who decorated every holiday no matter how big or small it was?

This year she is gone.

Hiding some place refusing to come out.

I don't have the energy this year.

I so wish I did.

I want to get past this chronic fatigue and chronic pain,

hoping that decorating will make me feel better.

Is it even possible to feel better?

Is it even possible to push past this?

I have no clue.

I wish I could bring back that mom who got overzealous about all the holidays.

That mom that no matter what decorated.

That mom who always baked for every occasion.

That mom who was just so desperate for something normal that she made it happen.

What's changed?

Yes I have fibermyalgia,

but I know I've had it for some time.

It only got worse coming up on a year ago.

I want to dig through the decoration.

I want to scale the counters to hang things from the ceiling.

I want to stand on my tippie toes on the top of the step stool to hand fake spider webs.

I want to hang black gossimer in the windows,

black paper owls on the door,

glowing eyes in random places.

I want to stand back at the edge of the yard and admire my work,

knowing that all the kids in the neighborhood will point and laugh,

and be excited about Halloween.

Halloween is my favorite holiday.

You get to dress up and become anyone you want.

You get to scare and be scared just for laughs.

And most of all,

my husband proposed to me on Halloween.

At 2am.

When he didn't even know I LOVED Halloween.

It was meant to be right?!

And even though things have been difficult since Liam was born sick,

I still love him with all my heart.

Even when at times I feel it would be easier to leave him,

I still love him.

Love isn't easy.

Your supposed to work for it,

make it work.

Because otherwise it isn't true love.

So maybe that's why I am so saddened by the fact that I haven't decorated.

In my own way,

it's me celebrating the day he realized he loved me ad couldn't loose me.

Halloween is magical.

It's when everything we don't believe or shouldn't believe in comes alive.

It's the only time of the year where the taboo is not taboo.

Princesses find their princes.

Or happiness in HUGE bags of candy.

Ghost and witches fly around from door to door saying the magical words that get them candy,

trick or treat.

Everyone can be who they want to be.

For once they can have hope and see the "magic" of this world.

It's great fun seeing all the costumes.

Watching the kids fill their bags with candy then later gorge on it.

Fun Halloween games,

bobbing for apples,

haunted hay rides,

haunted forest.

Hogwarts come to life,

whole blocks turned into pirate ships.

Halloween is about discovering the magic.

I want to rekindle old memories.

I want to show my kids that there is magic out there.

I want to see their faces light up as the house transforms from just an ordinary home,

to something greater.

So can I get my body to cooperate?

Can I work past this?

I honestly don't know.

What I do know is that I want too.

Instead of sitting here feeling sorry for myself,

I'm going to get up and at least try.

I shouldn't give up before at least trying.

My kids need to know that even if you fail,

it's ok because at least you tried.

You don't give up before the game even starts.

Pumpkin Theif

October 16th 2013

(Playing catch up here)

We woke up to one of the kid's pumkin's being stolen.

Lanie noticed it as we were leaving to take her to school.

She was so broken hearted and upset that it broke out hearts.

Both Lanie and Liam's pumpkins were pretty big.

Lanie had decorated hers the day we brought it home.

Liam's however hadn't been decorative yet,

so they took it.

In fact just the night before,

I dug out the decoration for his pumpkin to put on.

There were bicycle tire tracks in the yard.

We found the broken off stem in the rock bed,

and pumpkin residue on the bricks from where the pumpkin fell

when they picked it up by the stem.

Seriously,

WHO STEALS A KID'S PUMPKIN?!

WHO RIDES A BIKE TO STEAL A PUMPKIN?!

Anyhow.

After we dropped Lanie off at school,

we went to replace the stolen pumpkin.

We wanted her to come home and see it and be happy again.

She is so protective of Liam.

Atleast we're convincing ourselves of that

after her outpouring of emotions.

After replacing the stolen pumpkin with one slightly bigger,

we went on search for a HUGE fairy tale pumpkin.

Not only could we NOT find any fairy tale pumpkins,

but we couldn't find any HUGE pumpkins.

After giving up the search

and being irritated that someone would steal a pumpkin

and seeing Lanie so upset,

we had to come up with a way to keep this from happening again.

Justin drilled holes through the stems,

then chained them up to the post on the porch.

The stems hardened around the metal chain stuff

making it extremely to take them.

The only way would be to break off the stems.

We understand that if they really want to steal,

they will find a way.

But this is a detourant.

We noticed the neighborhood hoodlums heading up towards our porch

and pumpkins when they thought we weren't looking.

They saw the pumpkins locked up,

then turned around and walked away almost annoyed.

So far so good.

Check out what we did:

A Look Back at Last October

 

This time last year we spent our time at Childrens Hospital with Liam. He was admitted for Failure To Thrive, vommiting and not tollerating feeds. He was 3 1/2 months old and had only spend a total of 2 weeks at home. We were scared. Liam ended up staying in through October into early November, a total of 6 weeks straight during this stay. He ended up needing a Nissen Fundoplication and a G-tube. We are so very happy that this year, Liam has NOT been admitted at ALL during the month of October (lets hope it stays that way) and that we are getting to spend Halloween at home, the way it was intended. It's Liam's first Halloween home and we are so very happy for that.

 

 

 

Stranger Danger

What happened to the "Good Old Days" when children yelled "stranger danger" and ran away from "danger"? I guess its time to install that into my daughter. We've been having some behavorial issues with her that have increasingly got worse. At first we were leiniant because we figured it was due to the birth of her brother and the upset CDH had on our lives. Today was a prime example of why we can no longer go easy on her.

So Justin took Lanie to the park today and she went where he could see her several times, he had  to search for her. She talked to strangers, thank God they were just 2 teenage girls, then talk to more strangers, a couple, not good, and even devulged personal info (name, age, where her daddy worked). When he got onto her and made her sit in timeout on the basketball courts with him she talked back and said she was telling mommy, she was going to through grass at him and made faces at him. So he brought her home where she is now in her bed after a talk about what she did wrong and how dangerous what she did was and talked back to me as well. Shes lost her snacks and her cartoons and on the verge of loosing all her toys for a week as well. We've done everything but clear out her roon of toys. Its so frustrating.

The reason I am posting this is because there are just some things that parents dont think of. We though telling Lanie to stay where we can see her and explaining to her not to talk to strangers back when would be enough. We never thought that this would happen. She had been well behaved untill this last year. This situation has made me open my eyes and realize "What else do I need to talk to my daughter about?"

So I did some googling:
The National Crime Prevention Council has a website that can help with some of those talks where you just dont know what to say.
What To Teach Your Kids About Strangers   

They have a ton of articles on topics like...
Bullying
Cyberbullying
Drug Abuse
Halloween Safety
School Safety
Even Senior Safety

So even if you think your kids know the basics in safety, its always good to gather more info and to have another talk with them. Lanie will be getting some day to day "training" in safety from now on.


 

Looking forward, Moving on and celebrating

      On tuesday, just 4 days away, Liam will be home for a total of 10 weeks (2 1/2 months) without a hospital stay or ER visit. This is a new record for us. The last record fell short at 5 weeks and that was through Christmas and New Years. Although we are NOT counting his surgery he had right before his birthday to replace his GJtube because he was only there a few hours.  The fact that he has a cold and is still home is AMAZING to say the least. The last time he cought a cold, it was January and it landed him in the hospital for 3 days.

      With this new record, I feel elated and over joyed and comfortable looking forward and planning ahead again. We didn't even plan too far ahead with his birthday. We knew we wanted to have one so set a date and procured a location and invited people. Behind the scenes, I was a nervous wreck. We waited until the very last minute to buy everything for his party. I spent the day before Liam party dragging my neice from store to store with me to buy everything we needed. You can't really blame us for waiting until the last minute with Liams track record. If something had gone wrong, all we had to do was call everyone off figure out how to consume 4 dozen cupcakes before they expired.

     So now I am truely happy to announce that I am planning Halloween already. I am looking ahead into the future for the first time in a year and I have to be honest. I am not being overwhelmed with anxiety or foreseeing scary events to come. When I look ahead, what I see is no longer a black cloud of uncertainty and misery but a bright future filled with joy and happiness. I can easily think of how i'd like the holidays to turn out. I can finnaly plan crafts that will turn our home into a spooky haunted house or winter wonderland.

        The entire last year of holidays was planned out on the thought "how do I make this holiday good if we end up stuck at the hospital?". Last Halloween we did spend in the hospital and thanks to family we had 2 foux pumpkins and 1 very large real pumpkin. We also used Lanie travel lightbrite to create a glowing pumpkin. Instead of carving the large pumkin, I drew George the giraffe, Childrens Hospital mascot, and we taped it to the front. All our pumkins were displayed in the window for everyone passing to see.

      Liam doned a pumpkin hat I purchased at the gift shop. On the day of Halloween, I modified his costume by cutting holes for his wires to go through. I was determined that my little man would wear his costume on his first Halloween. Lanie dressed up in her costume and got to go trick or treating with all the other kids. According to Lanie, it was the best Halloween ever. I think its because she ended up with 2 huge bags of candy. And as much as I enjoyed seeing her glow with happiness, I would prefer to have this years Halloween out of the hospital.

      So costumes are being planned, crafts ideas are being thought of and trick or treat routes are being mapped out. I am thrilled to yet again have a chance to sit down and create something. I just hope I'm not setting my sights to big :)

Heres some cute fall/Haloween decor and costume ideas:

                                     Funkin Mummy By Joann.com

Click here for details

No-Sew Woodland Fairy Costume by Joann.com

Click here for details

No-Sew trick-or-treat bag by Joann.com

Click here for details

Fall Floral arrangement by Joann.com

Click here for details

Animal Costumes:

Chicken, Lamb and fish

by MarthaStewart.com

Click here for details

Cheesecloth Spider Webs

by MarthaStewart.com

Click here for details