Thankful Tree

I am so excited to start this tradition with our family this year! The idea is that each day leading up to Thanksgiving you write down something that you're thankful for and slip it behind a leaf. It took quite a while to make, but I do love how it turned out!

Christmas Preview

I have so many projects I'm working on right now!  Here is one thing I've actually finished:

13 Days of Halloween

We have an absolute obsession with Mickey Mouse in our house and I'm always looking for things that will be fun and include some of J's favorite things. So I got this cute countdown calendar from Disney's Family Fun website. I wasn't fond of the suggested activities so I made up my own:





























1.  Go to a pumpkin patch
2. Carve Pumpkins
3. Make a pumpkin craft
4. Make apple face cider
5. Paint Leaf Ghosts
6. Make Mickey's Pumpkin Patch
7. Watch Nightmare Before Christmas
8. Go to the ward Trunk or Treat
9. Decorate car for Trunk or Treat
10. Make Pumpkin Cookies
11. Trick or Treat
12. Make Pumpkin Rice Krispy Treats
13. Batman Marathon

Halloween Costume

This year the little man has an obsession with Toy Story. Quite honestly, I'm sure he would have loved to be Buzz, but it was an expensive costume and I'm not quite crafty enough to come up with that costume on my own. So he gets to settle for Woody instead.
I knew early on what he was going to be for Halloween and made sure to get a yellow shirt when we were hitting the back to school sales in August. The fabric for the vest cost under a dollar and the Sheriff star cost $1.  No hat or boots for this little cowboy though. He refuses to wear hats...and boots. Hopefully people will get the gist.

Fall Leaves Garland

Like many ideas I get, I got this one from Pottery Barn Kids from last year.

First I googled "Fall Leaf Template" and found three different leaves that I liked. I printed them, cut them out and traced a bunch onto felt. I can cut about 2 sheets of felt at a time with my fabric scissors so I pinned them together.

Then I matched up the leaves with fronts and backs and did some stitch work on the front panel with embroidery floss.

Then I sewed the fronts and backs together.  I sort of like the messy look of not trimming them to match up exactly afterwards. You can choose to just do a single layer, but I think that they look more finished off if you sandwich them.

Then I pulled out the ribbon, decided how long I wanted it to be and marked where each leaf should reside.  Then I totally cheated and hot glued them on.

Ta da! I love it!