Linky Party list

Do you know what a linky party is?

I must say I am so thankful to all the blogs out there hosting these linky parties each week.

When I first started my blog back in June, the only way I could think to get people back to my blog was linking things up on Pinterest.

Well, as you can imagine, that was a pretty slow start.

I started following some of the 'big blogs' and I noticed they had these linky parties.

After doing some research I realized this was perfect for someone like me.

Someone trying to share their stuff with the world, and connect with other bloggers.

So, the specified blog will host a party each week, and you just go and add a link to one of your posts from your blog. 

Easy enough!

So, I decided to make a list here of all the parties I link up to each week, just in case you are looking into doing this as well.

*Remember, there are A LOT of different parties out there. 

These are the ones I've found, and where I'll be linking up each week :)
If you've got a linky party you'd like me to include, let me know!

Sunday



Monday

 

Tuesday




Wednesday

Thursday





 

Friday

Saturday

Halloween cupcakes

I decided I had to do one last Halloween post. 

Get it right in there before the holiday ended :)

It seems like the weekend before Halloween has as much celebrating as the day itself.

I call it Halloween weekend.

Last night we attended a trunk-or-treat.

If you've never been to a trunk-or-treat before,

the adults will line up their cars, usually in some sort of large circle, with the trunks all facing inward, and the kids will go from trunk to trunk for candy.

It was a lot of fun, and my son got soooo much candy.

It's ok though, we will help him :)

About half-way through the trunk-or-treating my husband called dibs on the regular sized Kit-Kat bar,

I will mostly go for anything in there.

Not really Whoopers or candy corn, but other than that I'm in!

People went all out and decorated their trunks.

I was impressed, there was some very creative decor.

There was also a chili cook-off and desserts.

I volunteered to bring a dozen cupcakes, and this is what I came up with.

I saw the mummy idea on Pinterest forever ago, and I always wanted to give it a shot. 

The eyes are just M&M's!

What did you do this Halloween weekend?

What candies do you search for in your kids buckets? 

It's ok, we all do it :)

How to make a chalkboard

I had to do it, I had to jump on the 'make everything into a chalkboard' bandwagon.

It's so clever, I couldn't resist!

I've been seeing DIY chalkboards for like a year now, and my favorite use is the pregnancy tracker idea.

Well back in August, before we moved, my super cute friend/neighbor found out she was pregnant! Yay!! 

I am so happy for her!

I told her we HAD to make this.

It was soooo easy to make!

One thing I regret from when I was pregnant with my son was I didn't take that many pictures throughout the pregnancy, just more towards the end. So I don't really know when I started showing or when I started getting bigger.

We loved this idea because you can write down some info and then stand next to the board in the picture to show off the growing belly as well.

When I get pregnant again, (hopefully in the NEAR future), I am going to do this as well. 

But for now, we'll show off the one we made for my friend.

She ran to Home Depot and picked up a can of chalkboard paint and the board.

It was really long so we cut it in half to the size we wanted.

We then painted the board with the chalkboard paint.

My son loved this part!

We only did two coats, and it was plenty.

 She had her 8 week check-up the next day, and when she was done we were going to do first 'tracker'.

Yeah, I couldn't wait that long.  I wanted to see if it would really work.

It did :)

While she was at her appointment I drew this up to surprise her. 

Turns out she was the one with a surprise for me!! (see the tracker below)

Before we changed the wording for the new big news,

we decided it would be handy if it could just hang on the wall, so I drilled two holes in the top and tied through some ribbon.

Here's our final product

That's right, she's having twins!!!

Remember how I said we cut the board in half?

Well, we painted the other half for my son to have his own chalkboard.

He loves it! 

 When my husband started his new job here he had to go to Los Angeles for a whole week for training.

We missed him, A LOT. 

So, the day he came back my son made this for him.

I love all of the different uses for our chalkboard.

Have you used chalkboard paint yet?

What have you made?

This post was featured at:

DIY Iron Man costume: Part 2

My son's costume is done!!

(give me a moment while I victory dance around the family room)

Ok. If you missed the first part of this costume post, you can find it  here: DIY Iron Man costume

As you may recall, the only thing I had left to do on the costume was cover his 

hands and add the blasters.  

Well, today my son and I went grocery shopping, 

and I finally remembered to look for gloves to finish off his costume.

Well, I found them!

They came in a 2-pack for 97 cents!

It was so easy to whip them up, it only took about 15 minutes.

So here are the gloves before...

 Using white felt scraps I had laying around, I cut out two circles. 

My husband and son then told me the blasters had blue in them as well, so I drew a ring around the outside edge with a blue marker.

I was going to use a hot glue gun and just glue the circles on, but I figured this way was less 'permanent'.

So, using a needle and thread I just hand sewed around the circle.

Just big stitches, nothing fancy. 

 A nice close-up for you :)

 All complete!

 "Mom, this is how Iron Man blasts!"

 Ha ha I love the seriousness :)

Felt pumpkin activity

You might remember in my post the other day, my son and I made Halloween paper plate crafts to decorate our house, and my son came up with the creative idea to make the witch's hat out of felt...

well, if you don't remember, that's what happened :)

Anyways, I saw this felt pumpkin idea over at 

Learning to be a mom.

I decided, since we had the felt out, and the paper plates were drying,

that we should give this craft a try as well.

Supplies

orange felt

black felt

scissors

I first cut out two orange circles for the pumpkin body.  I wanted to do two so my son could mix and match faces.

I then cut out different shapes for the eyes, nose, and mouths.

 Let the fun begin!

 I had cut out that squiggly line for a mouth, but when I looked over I realized my son was using it for a mustache.  I hadn't even thought of that.  Cute huh?

 Another one of his creative moments, this one (below) is a super hero pumpkin.  You can't see it too well in the picture, but on top of that half circle are two small circles.  My son said that was the super hero mask :)  Again with the mustache...

 My son then asked me to cut out angry eyebrows, and sunglasses. 

It was so fun to see his little imagination and creativeness come to life!

I loved how quick and easy this was to put together for him.

This post was featured at:

Halloween paper plate craft

The first week of October I was mainly focusing on making my son's Iron Man costume, check it out here if you missed that one.

This last week I knew we needed to put up some Halloween decor around the house.

I was strolling around on where else?  Pinterest of course, and I saw a picture of a paper plate ghost over at  Clean & Scentsible. The lady had used the ghost as Halloween decor for a party.

I used the same idea for the ghost, but then we decided we needed a few more pieces to go along with it.

We currently have a big, blank, white wall behind our dining room table, and I thought it would be the perfect spot to display our art work.

Supplies

any type of paper plate (we used the foam ones)

paints (we use the acrylic ones, we usually get them from Michael's)

paint brushes

glue stick

construction paper

tissue paper

scissors

Originally we were just planning on just doing two plates,  

the ghost and the spider.

However, after hanging them up on the wall my son decided we should do a pumpkin and witch as well.

there was more room, so I thought that was an excellent idea :) more crafting for us!

For the ghost I just painted the eyes and mouth on a white plate.  

I cut the hands out of construction paper and glued them on, 

and then glued strips of white tissue paper underneath.

For the spider, my son painted his plate (the body of the spider) black.
While the body was drying. we cut the legs out of construction paper.

We didn't have black paper, so we had to paint it as well.

Once the legs dried we glued them to the body.

According to my son this needed to be a happy spider, so he painted a happy face.

I kind of forgot to take pictures of us making the pumkin and witch, sorry!

For the pumpkin my son painted it orange, and then I drew the eyes and mouth with pencil and my son painted them black.

For the witch I painted her green and then added her features with black paint.

I drew lines on purple construction paper for the hair, and let my son cut that out.  We then glued that 'hair' onto the witch.

My son came up with the idea for the hat.

We were out of black paint and black construction paper, so he went to our 'craft supply box' and pulled out some black felt.  Smart kid!  Using his imagination to solve a problem, I was so proud.

We cut out a hat shape and glued it on.

We loved the way they turned out.

How do you decorate for Halloween?