Wednesday, September 30, 2015

halloween fun: kiddo style

I won't lie or try to hide it. We've had our Halloween books out since August. Kensi was so excited and wanted to decorate early. Luckily, we managed to hold her off by getting the books out instead and then went into full decorating mode in September. Sometimes our days can become long, but one of the reasons I love fall so much is the change of weather and array of activities we do each week. Check out some our fall and Halloween fun!

1. Last year I made a felt covered pumpkin for Kensi. She decorated it with cut out shapes and would create different faces for her Jack-o-latern. This pumpkin is turning into a big hit for our almost 10 month old Finn as well. But now that Kensi is a year older and she is all about drawing and making her own art I had to come up with something different. Kensi loves to draw on our chalkboard so I painted a regular craft pumpkin with chalk board paint and let her draw her own designs on her pumpkins. She absolutely loves it and it makes for an easy art project that can be done over and over again!

2. Yesterday we made our first batch of Halloween sugar cookies using our favorite recipe. Kensi sat and painted her cookies for over an hour! I thin our powdered sugar frosting with milk and give her a small paint brush which makes it perfect for painting.

3. Apple Pie play dough. This smells utterly amazing! We use our tools to cut, squish and build. Finn loves it too and like the next activity, all the ingredients are safe in case eaten. We tried two different recipes {Apple Cider: more dense and crumby} and {Apple Pie: super silky and soft}.

4. This one is awesome for the little babes. Make jello pumpkins (cups) and let the kidlits squish and feel them in a bin. They love anything with jello because of the funny way it feels and I don't have to worry about them eating it because it's all edible!

5. This is my favorite this year, I saved the best for last! For the days it isn't raining and we can be outside we love to play Tic Tac Toe on the patio with sidewalk chalk. Recently I taught her how to play and it's been a non stop game whenever we can sneak it in.

Using some small craft pumpkins (I found these heavier ones at Hobby Lobby that are perfect for outside on a blanket in the grass) and some outdoor paint, BOOM...Fall Tic Tac Toe! Love it!

Share some of your favorite ideas for kiddo fall fun in the comments below, we would love to hear from you!

inspiring design: entryway

We finally started painting the house this summer and it is making a big difference. All our little changes are adding up and paying off! We've been making all our changes and updates in stages due to our budget and it can be exhausting and so hard. There is so much we want to do in so little time, but now that we've been pacing ourselves we're finally starting to see some progress.

We originally had the house painted Sherwin Williams Functional Gray, but it was just too dark and drabby. We've begun painting a lighter shade, HGTV Sherwin Williams Stone Isle. It's lighter and bringing in so much more light! We're first starting with the entry way and creating more character, but also keeping it minimalistic. We're going for a simple modern farmhouse feel. I'm constantly diving into Pinterest and enthralled by design. Our taste is not traditional at all so it's really fun to find some risky design ideas that most people we know would never go for. We've already had a lot of eyes pop out of heads when we told family and friends we're painting our master bathroom black! Oh I can't wait! Here are some of our favorite design ideas for our small entryway.