Easy Halloween Decorations: Pass the Popsicle Sticks Please!

Halloween is riiiiight around the corner. So what if I just barely got my Halloween decorations up this week? At least they are up! 

One little treasure I found in the bottom of my Halloween decoration box was these cute little ornaments the kids and I made last year. My children felt that my collection of Halloween decorations was sorely lacking and wanted to supplement with something homemade. I had a ton of Popsicle sticks sitting in my craft drawers. With the help of my trusty glue gun and some paint we had some new Halloween decorations in no time. Very easy, a little messy when the kids got involved, but loads of festive fun for everybody.

We made pumpkins and Frankensteins. The Frankies were my favorite so that's the one I'll show the tutorial for. You could probably figure out how to make these simply from looking at the finished result, but for those who are craft-challenged like me, here's the how-to:













Arrange about 6-8 Popsicle sticks *** in a row. Don't worry too much about everything being nice and neat and even. The fun of Halloween is that "messy accidents" look "spooky" and "intentional".

Hot glue one stick across the row of sticks to secure everything in place. Make sure to leave some of the stick out on both sides of the row of sticks. This will serve as Frankie's bolts.

Flip the whole thing over so that the one glued on stick is in back.

Paint and let dry.

When dry paint the bolts black and paint on hair. Let dry.

Go crazy decorating Frankie however you want. I used my paintbrush to flick black paint over the entire face.

I cut out yellow paper circles for the eyes and glued them on. I also glued on black pony beads. A black sharpie marker worked perfectly for the mouth. My kids used the marker and other beads to add facial features.

A layer of Modge Podge sealed the deal nicely. I also hot glued some string on the back so that Frankie could be easily displayed. Right now all our Frankies and pumpkins are hanging on our dining room curtain rods with the help of some fishing line.

The pumpkins are just as simple to make with a few variations. I used more sticks (11 to be exact) in the row of sticks and glued on two sticks in the back in different spots to make the decoration more secure.

We used black paper and wood triangles for the eyes, nose, and mouth. I had some spare fake greenery that we glued on for the pumpkin stems and leaves.

Simple and cute. Just the way I like all my crafts.

Happy Halloween everybody!

***Unless you happened to save all those sticky Popsicle sticks from summertime you can find Popsicle sticks for sale at any craft store or Walmart's craft area.

Three for Thursday: By Golly!

My apologies but I just can't seem to get myself back into blogging mode. Between busy Mommy schedules and just plain unadulterated apathy towards anything "extra" nary a post has made its way to the beautiful blue skies of my blog page. Even fun, friendly, and frankly pretty darn easy meme Three for Thursday has suffered.

But not today, folks! By golly if I accomplish one thing today it will be this: a real Three for Thursday blog post.

*deep breath*

Three objects to my left:

1. Elle's pillow pet that came unstitched Christmas morning 2010. I've been intending to restitch it ever since. Maybe today I'll shoot to accomplish two things I've been putting off for far too long...
2. A clean and organized office space that I have been meaning to tackle for...hmm...about 8 months now. Sheesh.
3. Procrastination. It used to be on my right, but I moved to the left hoping I could get to it later. *har har har*


Three songs I can’t get out of my head:
1. Love You Like a Love Song by Selena Gomez and The Scene (It's just so darn catchy and it doesn't help that my girls walk around singing it nonstop.)
2. Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5
3. With a Little Help from my Friends by The Beatles (We've been watching The Wonder Years on Netflix lately.)


Three favorite Halloween movies (or songs):
Let me make one thing clear...I hate Halloween. It totally freaks me out and in my opinion is just an excuse for most people to get crazy weird or crazy slutty. I have never really enjoyed it until I had kids and was able to celebrate Halloween with cute "scary" stuff. Therefore my answers for this one are pretty low key when it comes to scare factor. Whatever. At least I can sleep at night.
1. Hocus Pocus
2. Any of the Harry Potter movies
3. Dead Man's Party by Oingo Boingo


Three things I’ve learned to just let go of:
1. The $200 our very first landlord "forgot" to refund of our deposit.
2. The 50 pounds I lost this summer.
3. Youth. (Weeelll...I'm still hanging on to this one with a few white knuckles.)


Three reasons I could wear the Super Woman costume on Halloween:
1. I got the office area organized...Finally.
2. I can raise four kids on my own...That is, in week long increments of course.
3. Blue makes my eyes "pop".
 
Three pictures:


Me and Sami, my favorite ax murderer in Texas. More blog posts to come...



I can't help but think of Max from Where the Wild Things Are.


And for my final trick...I am cheating. Instead of a third picture here's a little video clip I snuck of my three year old Elle. After an endoscopy and biopsy we have discovered she has Celiac Disease. This is her on the drive home from the hospital procedure. The anesthesia is still wearing off, yet she just can't resist singing one of her favorite songs. Sad, but oh so cute. (It takes a while before she starts singing. She was singing before I pulled out the camera, but you know what happens once you pull the dang thing out.)

Blog Swap: Semi-Single Mom

Cannwin from The Great and Random Ramblings of Cannwin is back to guest post. The poor girl has been waiting on me for another blog swap. Life has been hectic as it always is and I think she gets that seeing as how she is also a mom with four kids and one perpetually absent husband. Thank you to Cannwin for her patience with me! Read on to see what she has to say about married single motherhood.

I guess this is supposed to be one of those whitty, funny blog posts that makes everyone laugh, but the truth is that no matter how hard I tried I couldn't come up with a funny way to say "I'm a Semi-Single Mom."



I have a husband, but he's gone a lot and I miss him.



I miss having someone around to help when the kids start screaming, or vomitting, or crying for no reason beyond pre-pubescence.


I miss having someone to pawn the fraction homework onto and to delegate cub scouts to.



I miss having a warm body to cuddle up to at night. A body who can lift my eight year old son and carry him back to bed at night, so that I don't have to endure a night with him in mine... because I can't carry him.



Having a husband whose not around is like smelling sweets but not being able to find them.



I think Adele puts it nicely when she says:




Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead.

Nothing compares
No worries or cares
Regrets and mistakes
They are memories made.
Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?




So that's me. Cannwin the sometimes semi-single mom of four. I'm tired 70% of the time lonely 80% of the time and humorous 99.9% of the time, just not today.