Homemade Star Wars Costumes!

Here they are! The kids looked darling when they went trick-or-treating! (Our town does trick-or-treating on Thursday night if Halloween falls on a weekend).

As we were walking door to door, a bounty hunter walked by. There was a bit of tension in the air as he aimed his gun at my Jedi and the boys held their light sabers :) It was pretty funny. But we were on the good side. Always.

We always see Clone and Darth Vader costumes. It was refreshing that my little guys were the only  Jedi that we saw this year.

And look at this little princess. Just darling!

I used these patterns to create our Star Wars look. The pants were done from scratch, just using pj bottoms as my pattern. All other patterns were purchased over the years for .99 on sale! We've done the astonaut pattern and scarecrow pattern in the past, so it was nice to re-use those.

I used this pattern to create the tunics.

Capes


Boots

Princess Leia.

I didn't have a pattern for the boy's belts. Just made them out of felt and added velcro.

The best part is that these will be added to the costume box downstairs which gets almost daily use. So my time and effort will be utilized for more than just one night.  Enjoy your Halloween Weekend!

Perfect Pumpkin Seeds

 WE LOVE PUMPKIN SEEDS!! This year we had 11 pumpkins.
Err, make that 10---someone (in our nice suburban neighborhood) stole one off of our front porch last night and threw it at the newly laid foundation of a new home being built next to us. It was my favorite pumpkin, nice and warty. I felt extremely violated that someone would steal from me and waste my perfect pumpkin....alas, we now only have 8 small and 2 large from the pumpkin patch. All destined to be gutted and the seeds roasted. Last night we carved the 2 large ones and made a huge batch of seeds today! I've tried many methods over the years and this is what works best for us for perfectly sweet, salty, and CRUNCHY (not chewy) seeds.

I don't have exact measurements since every pumpkin yields a different amount of seeds. But here is our method:

Seeds from 2 large pumpkins

sea salt

olive oil

sugar

Rinse seeds from pumpkin guts and place in a medium pan. Fill with salt water and boil for 12 minutes.

Strain seeds in a colander and spread seeds on a cookie sheet over night. You can bake instead of waiting over night, but they are much crunchier if you wait.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Drizzle seeds with olive oil and sea salt. Toss lightly. Roast in oven for 20-30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes until golden brown. Sprinkle with sugar (about 1T).

If anyone has any other variations or spices they like to use, I'd love to hear about them! We have more pumpkins that are destined for this fate (and they are safely in the house being used as decorations)!

Ready To Create Again!

We went to Walmart today. NOT a good idea on a Saturday morning....or any day for that fact. Such a crazy place. Anyways...I saw some 3 drawer storage bins on clearance for $4!! So I grabbed a couple of them and thought they'd make a great place to hold some of the kid's art supplies. No biggie. So I brought them upstairs and started rummaging through my closet and craft corner in the office, trying to decide how to organize the totes. One thing led to another and the quick task turned into a purge session...

These are a bit embarrassing. I HATE clutter....on counters, floors, etc. So I do a pretty good job at hiding it all behind closed closet doors :) My house always looks clean and I seem to find the things I need, but the craft closet was getting out of control. I was finding myself not doing as many projects with the kids because I didn't know what supplies I had in the back of the closet and to get to half of the stuff, I had to brace myself for a possible avalanche of foamies, glue sticks, pom poms, etc.

 DURING

Notice the helpers. It was like Christmas. They kept finding kits from Oriental Trading, stamps, markers, stickers.....fun!

And the FINISHED PRODUCT....before you laugh at the lack of a really impressive "after", I will tell you that there were 3 LARGE TRASH BAGS full of stuff that I got rid of while organizing. Believe me!

I'm sure there are many more impressive craft areas out there, but this works for us. We craft in the dining room, in the basement, and I sew in the living room or at the kitchen table. No central location like many crafters. No fancy organizational system, no pretty labels, but we still create!

The red tote and the orange tote were the clearance finds.

I can't wait to start working on more projects with the kids! Next, I will tackle my sewing stuff...again. I did it a few months ago, but it never lasts long! I feel like I had a Tiffany day. My friend, Tiffany, loves to organize and her house is always spotless. The difference between us, I don't enjoy organizing, but I do enjoy the finished product, lol.

Halloween Treats (and a recipe!)

I love butter cookies. Usually they are made around Christmas time, but I like coloring them to match different seasons. I made a triple batch of orange ones and Kaylee and Aaron helped me add sprinkles before baking. I like a lot of flavoring in my cookies, so these are a mixture of butter, almond, and vanilla flavorings...yum! Recipe at the end of the post! 

I made a bunch of treat boxes as gifts for teachers, visiting teachers, bus driver, etc. They were easy to put together, just a little time consuming. I may have made way more cookies than I needed, but the kids didn't seem to mind. 

 

 I had just enough pumpkin cupcake liners in the cupboard which helped hold the cookies in place while I wrapped them with cellophane.

 Oreo pops!  I used double stuffed oreos so that I could just slide the stick in. I got the stick wet first, then slid it in between the layers, dipped in melting chocolate, and placed on waxed paper. I wasn't always able to get a clean dip in the chocolate. I had to use a butter knife to spread the chocolate around on most of the pops (my melting chocolate was being tempermental today),but they were still quick and easy to make. Then I added sprinkles.

 I used the cricut paper doll cartridge to cut out little monsters for tags, and made some decorative clothes pins (applied mod podge, then scrapbooking paper, then another layer of mod podge....then added dots with puffy paint).

 Finished! I think they turned out cute and I hardly spent a thing :)
 

Spritz Butter Cookies
{Our Version}

1 cup butter, softened (or butter flavored crisco..NOT margarine)

1/2 cup sugar

2 1/2 cups flour

1 egg

2 tsp. vanilla

2 tsp. butter flavoring

2 tsp. almond extract

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and flavorings. If you want to color your dough, you can add the coloring now as well. I like Wilton's concentrated paste because it doesn't water down the recipe.

 If you are using salted butter, you don't need to add salt in your recipe. If you are using unsalted, add 1/4 tsp.

Add flour (and salt if needed) to butter/sugar and mix until dough forms.

Drop onto ungreased cookie sheet using a cookie press. Add sprinkles. Bake @ 400 degrees for 7 minutes.

Store in air tight container. These cookies freeze really well.

Yield: 4-5 dozen cookies.

The first time I made pressed cookies, I vowed I would never do it again. They were a nightmare, but I've worked with the consistency of the dough and sometimes find that if I refrigerate the dough in between batches for 5 minutes or so that it helps hold it together and form the cookies better. If the dough is warm they turn to mush coming out of the press. Slightly chilled or almost room temp is best.  I make them a couple of times a year now and have had great results. So even if you have a less than perfect cookie press like me, you can still get some good cookies from it :)

Root Beer Sampler

 I always have the hardest time coming up with fun gifts for my husband. He doesn't "need" anything, he usually just buys what he wants, so when it comes to gifts, I usually try to go homemade if I can. I saw this idea a while ago on Homemade By Jill, she credited it to two other blogs. It was perfect! Not completely homemade, but different. He loves his soda. And root beer is a favorite.

 I purchaed 6 different types of root beer. 2 at Walmart, 2 at the Whole Foods Market, and 2 at Kroger's. I anticipated doing 8-12 different types, but at $3.50-$5.00/pack, that would have been too expensive for what I was going for. I wish you could just buy 1 bottle of each kind! But it's ok, I don't care for soda much except for rootbeer, so the extras will go in the mini fridge downstairs. I may even make another pack like this to give to my dad or brothers this year when we go out west in December. Who knows, but it won't go to waste :)

 I made a card that labeled each kind in order of where it was placed in the crate and gave a brief description of each brand. I found the small CD crate at Joanns.

 I think it turned out great and it was a lot of fun shopping for the bottles. Aaron helped me keep an eye out for bottled root beer in the stores, except he kept finding brown bottles with other bevereges in them...not what we were looking for. I wish there were as many varieties of root beer as there were of the other bottled brown stuff!

 

Chicken Avacado Soup: re-visited

I shared in this post about our favorite soup a few months ago. Well, I thought I would share our modifications that we have made over time. It is still our favorite soup, the whole family likes it and it is full of flavor, and void of fat! We've made it many times without the avocados and have liked it just as well. Kaylee and I love avocados and usually add it to our individual bowls, but it isn't necessary for full flavor. For the original recipe, click here. But if you'd like to try our version, check it out below! The rice makes it go farther and keeps it nice and low cal. Enjoy!

Chicken and Avocado Soup

*modified*

5 cups chicken broth

2. cups cooked white rice

2  cooked, shredded chicken breasts

1 tomato, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 c. onion chopped

1/2 cup cilantro, chopped fine

2 tsp olive oil

pinch cumin

2 avocados

In a large pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add onions and garlic. Saute about 2 minutes then add tomatoes and saute another minute, until soft. Add chicken stock, and cumin and bring to a boil. Stir in shredded chicken and rice. Simmer, covered on low for about 15. Add cilantro and chopped avocados. Ladle into bowls and add tortilla strips and any other toppings that you would like.

Tortilla Strips

(my kids LOVE these...I do too!)

6 corn tortillas

olive oil or cooking spray

sea salt

Lightly coat tortillas with olive oil or cooking spray, cut into small strips with a pizza cutter and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake @ 400 degrees for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Stir half way through.

Fall Leaves!

 Aaron was excited that in preschool they mixed red and yellow to make orange. He painted a cardstock leaf and brought it home. I thought Kaylee would have fun getting in on that so we cut out a bunch of leaves on the cricut, pulled out the tempera paint, and let them loose.

 Gobs and gobs of paint later...

 and we have a beautifully decorated front window. Nice and festive :)

Homemade decorations are so much fun....and homemade decorations made by the kids are even better!

My New Love

 My friend, Kira, and her mom made these for the women at church on Sunday. Those of us who work in primary even got some and believe me, they were heaven on earth! Sundays are super hectic and I don't always get breakfast. These made for a great breakfast on my way home from church at noon. My friend, Tiffany, and I both went home determined to make more, lol. She succeeded. I did not. I didn't have a cracker in the house, but I do now!

I'm sure these aren't new, but I hadn't ever made them before. We've done choco peanut butter pretzels before and they were yummy. I think I like the ritz better. I just spread pb between two ritz crackers, dipped them in melting chocolate and added sprinkles. They aren't near as pretty as Kira's (hers had white chocolate drizzled across the undipped side), but they taste awesome. Just like a Take-5 candy bar.