Halloween Costumes and Candy Land

Today I'm letting out a giant sigh of relief (or maybe exhaustion) because all the Halloween costumes are made and all my "big" projects are finished. Woo-hoo!

Last week was the end stretch of the craziness and one of my last projects was putting together this Frodo costume.  Here's a little break down of how I made/assembled this costume.

Pants - $3 at the thrift store - hemmed them to make them hobbit length

Vest - $2 thrift store find

Cloak - $10 of fabric to sew the cloak.  This could have been cheaper if I used felt but instead I went with a faux suede fabric.  I used this tutorial to sew the cloak, click here.

White shirt - free via our closet

Ring - free - part of the the LOTR Risk Game

Pin for Cloak - free - I used a lizard pin I had.  I know it's not the elvish leaf pin but it looked like something you would find in Middle-earth. 

Last week I mentioned that I was prepping  a giant Candy Land game for our school carnival.  I decided to dress up as gingerbread woman to go with the Candy Land theme.   I found the idea for this costume via Living Lucurto.  Details for making the costume can be found on the Chocolate Cake Moments blog.

Sadly, this is the only picture I have of the Candy Land game.  I was so busy getting everything ready that I neglected to take a picture. You can see a little bit of the chalk game board in the background along with the giant lollipops. 

Okay, that's all I've got.  How about you? What are you doing for Halloween?  Did you make your costume?  Please share.

American Girl Doll Birthday Party

Last week I mentioned I was planning an American Girl Doll birthday party so I thought I would share a few pictures with all of you.

If you keep up with this blog, you know I have a very talented Aunt Susan who makes all the cakes for my children's birthdays.  I had her make a mini cake for the dolls as well.  All the girls loved this and were excited about having a piece of cake for their dolls.  I found some mini plastic forks at Daiso for the dolls to eat with.

If you're familiar with American Girl dolls, you know you can get matching outfits for them.  It was by chance that I discovered  Kohl's also sells matching outfits for a more reasonable price. I purchased this set for $31.  The jacket in the picture is the American Girl doll brand.

For the party I made a life size doll box that the girls could get into it and have their picture taken.  I found the idea at Coolest Homemade Costumes.  The doll box was actually pretty simple to make. There was no paint involved, the secret is wrapping paper and duct tape.

Yes, that's heart shaped California Rolls!  My mother-in-law made them for the party.  I decided to serve finger food for lunch.  I thought it went well with the theme, tiny food for tiny dolls.

I wasn't too impressed with the games I was finding so I came up with this version of the memory game.  Here's the how to:

American Girl Doll Memory Game:

1.  Copy and print image above so it fits on a 8 1/2 x 11 in paper.  Print and cut out circles. 

2.  Adhere circles to bottom of chocolate kisses.  You will need one standard size bag.

3.  Place all kisses in a grid shape. 

4.  Taking turns, have one child look at the bottom of the two kisses to find a match.  If they get a match, they get to keep the kisses and try a second time.

5.  Continue to take turns trying to find matches until all the kisses are gone.

*  I recommend announcing in the beginning of the game that they can not eat the candy until later. 

So that's what I was up to last week.  If all goes well, next week I'll be sharing some pictures of the oversized Candy Land game I'm making.

Crafting Outside the Blog

Even though I went missing on the blog last week, I was doing a ton of crafting.  But before I get into that, let me tell you what I'm doing this week.  You can find me over at Cut Out + Keep sharing craft tutorials each day.  There's also a small interview on the site if you want to learn more about me. 

Now about last week....

Last week I made over 500 Shrinky Dink beads for a women's retreat I attended last weekend.  The bracelets we made were inspired by this tutorial by Cathe Holden.

I was also prepping for a photo shoot for my next book with Chronicle Books.  Since I can't tell you about the book yet, let me share a link to Chronicle Books where you can find all kinds of awesome crafty books.  Or, take advantage of the Chronicle Books app to make your own Grumpy Cat Photobomb.

Since I still had to cook dinner through all this madness, I turned to my trusty slow cooker and made this recipe from Budget Bytes.  This also happens to be my new favorite food blog.  I can't wait to try out the naan recipe!

Now if you would excuse me, I have an American Girl Doll birthday party to plan along with an oversized Candy Land game to make for this year's Halloween carnival.  For real.

On My Nightstand

Reading one of Haruki Murakami's books has been on my to-do list for a while now.    Haruki is a famous Japanese author who has won numerous awards.  In fact, there has been talk that he's the favorite for this years Nobel Prize in Literature.  I wanted to read a book that reflected what he is best known for, surrealism. So after a little research, I chose Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of The World.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of The World is written as two parallel narratives (Hard-Boiled Wonderland) and (The End of the World).  Hard-Boiled Wonderland is narrated by a split brained data processor who faces the end of the world.  The End of The World is narrated by an outsider who is adapting to a new town that is surrounded by a large wall.  In this new town he's given the job of "dream reader".

I'm about two-thirds through this book and have been really enjoying it.

Have any of you read this book?  Did you like it?

I'm always on the lookout for unique reads for my children (you know, something other than Diary of a Wimpy Kid). I was familiar with the Moomin comics but I didn't realize there was also a novel series. So when I stumbled upon the Moomin series by Tove Jansson at the book store, I decided to give it a try.

Comet in Moominland introduces you to the Moomin family.  In this book you follow the adventures of Moomintroll and his friend Sniff.  I just started reading this to my children (ages 7 & 10) and they both seem to like it. 

So that's what I'm reading.  How about you?  Any recommendations for me or the kids?