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Showing posts with label Dress-up. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dress-up. Show all posts

Happy Halloween!

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Just thought I would share some pictures of Hazel in her costume. I made it from Simplicity pattern 2065. She will also wear the dress for her princess themed birthday party this year!
Needless to say, she loves it!

We also went to a small Halloween party at church the other day and she decorated some pumpkins with stickers.

For breakfast this morning we had pumpkin pancakes. We made them yesterday, but had plenty left over, so I arranged them on Hazel's plate and she recognized it right away as a jack 'o lantern.

Then she wanted to get started with her pumpkins. We had two relatively small ones to paint and a medium one to carve. I let her start painting while I finished up doing somethings around the house.
 For some reason I did not take pictures of the finished pumpkins. She also added stickers to them. Then we started carving the medium pumpkin. She helped scoop out all the gook. Then I found a Snow White pattern that I saved a few years ago from Disney Family and carved it. I have to admit this is the best carving job I have ever done. She loved it and that is all that mattered.

Then we had a quick lunch and got her costume on. We had a few errands to run and three of them were places where we know people so she wanted to show off her costume.

My mother-in-law bought her the ballerina basket that came with the pink crown. Then after our errands we did some trick-or-treating and friends houses that were too far to walk. Then we went to a few neighbors houses. We always go very early. The last two years Steve has been working crazy hours due to storms, so we have to get home to hand out the candy. Hazel loves handing out the candy. She was so over excited today. And for some reason this year we had probably a quarter of what we usually get. I guess it is because I went with cheap candy so less kids were out or perhaps it was because of the storm though last year we had an ice storm right before Halloween and the numbers were still high.

One small craft for you that I started in the dark the other night. I got the pattern for this felt bat from Super-Cute Felt by Laura Howard. I still have a bit of sewing to do on it, but it is almost done.

Before Hazel (and Steve) went to bed, Hazel sorted through her candy to leave some for the Pumpkin Fairy. This year the Pumpkin Fairy is bringing her a Rapunzel Barbie doll--not Waldorf, but she will love it and I bought it on clearance since I haven't had time to make much for her. 

What are you doing to celebrate Halloween?

Michaelmas

Hazel dressed at St. George ready to slay the dragon
September 29th is Michaelmas. If you haven't been following I posted some information about our preparations with dragons and harvest. Last year was the first time we celebrated this holiday, but it is a traditional holiday in the Waldorf education as well as the Catholic Church (though my Catholic husband didn't know about it).

To celebrate we dressed Hazel as St. George with her yellow cape, crown and sword. Traditionally it would be a wooden sword, but we have inflatable ones from a birthday party so we used one of those. I dressed up as the dragon using Hazel's dinosaur costume mask. It was definitely more dinosaur than dragon than I remembered so next year we will make a mask. I also held up the dragon I made her. Steve wanted nothing to do with our re-enactment, but I did get him to take a picture.

We also read the short story of St. George and the dragon from A Book of Dragons by Hosie and Leonard Baskin (Steve did listen to this). Then at bed time I read Sunflower Swords by Mark Sperring and Miriam Latimer and Dragon Tooth by Cathryn Falwell.


Our other big activity was making salt dough dragons and fall decorations. We made three colors of salt dough: green, red, and orange. Then we went outside to get some things to make texture on our ornaments. We used cookie cutters (leaves, acorn, Halloween, and dinosaurs--to be dragons and circle for the textured ornaments). Then in the circle ones we pressed leaves, branches, flowers, acorns, pine cones, etc. to leave texture. Hazel used her own rolling pin and really had a blast doing this. They are still in the oven or should I say the first two trays are, but will come out soon. Oh, and we poked holes in all of them with a straw.

Then we had a lovely dinner. We made huckabuck bread using the recipe from our Parent/Child Waldorf class last year. I shaped it into a dragon bread and sword rolls. This was our favorite part of dinner. We also had Harvest Apple Soup, but I changed the recipe slightly. Then for dessert we had a raspberry tarte from Trader Joe's. It should have been defrosted a bit more, but we enjoyed it. I will share more details about our family dinner on Tuesday for Happy Family Times!

As for today, I am thinking about what inner dragons I can slay. Enjoy!! Happy Michaelmas!

Teddy Bear Ears (Teddy Bear Picnic Preparation)

We had a wonderful family day today. I will share the details for Happy Family Times. As a result we have not done too many crafts, but we are preparing for Hazel's teddy bear picnic that we are hosting next week. So here is a simple craft I have been doing at night. I have been hand sewing them, though the machine would probably be faster, but I've been doing them in front of the television and like the quiet of hand sewing. We are making a pair for each person coming to the picnic. 

Materials:
4 felt/fabric ear shapes (I used a furry felt, but any fabric would work)
1 headband
thread
needle
pins and scissors





Take two of your fabric ears and put right sides together and pin to hold in place. Then stitch around the side (I did about 1/2 inch seam). 
Then clip the curves. (This means make small cuts up to the stitches where the object is curved. This will help it lay correctly when you turn it the right way. Be careful not to cut the stitches!) Note: I did not cut the thread until the end and just kept using it.
Turn the ear right side out.
Baste stitch the bottom shut. (Basting are long stitches that are used for gathering.)
Pull on your thread and gather the bottom of the ear. I actually put a few stitches in the bottom to keep it folded in half there.
Then decide on where the ear will be placed on the headband and stitch it securely on the band. I used fabric covered headbands so this was easy. If I hadn't bought fabric covered, I would have covered the head bands with brown ribbon or fabric.
Make another ear for the other side and sew it on! Now give to your teddy bear and get bear hugs!
Daddy was resting after our long day out while I finished up another one.  Then I got my teddy bear hugs from her!


How We Spent a Rainy Day

So this morning we looked outside and saw a bunny in our yard. Then the male mallard came for some food. Plus we always have grey squirrels and morning doves, robins, sparrows and some finches around. Hazel was so excited to show me each of them. I love leaving food out for them so we get lots of wildlife in our yard. Then it started to downpour. We decided not to go to our class at Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary even though it was not cancelled since it was on and off pouring. Plus we both felt a bit rundown from our overscheduled May, so we decided we needed a day at home.

Our Big Bad Wolf
We decided this was the perfect time to try out Lorie's (from Reading Confetti) idea on Retelling the 3 Little Pigs. When I saw this the other day, I knew we had to try it since Hazel LOVES the Three Little Pigs!! So first we went to our craft room and made the three pigs. We couldn't find our googly eyes, so we had eyeless pigs, but Hazel did not care.
Our 3 Pigs
Then Hazel wanted to paint while we downstairs so while she painted I hot glued the sticks for the stick house. Then when she finished painting we came upstairs and built the straw house and stick house and brick house.
Straw House (with some spots taped)
Stick House (with structure hot glued)
Brick House
Then Hazel put on the wolf nose I made from construction paper and we retold the story acting it out.
The straw house got blown/knocked down. Then onto the stick house.
Then onto the brick house...
Then we had to do the whole thing over. We changed the structure of the straw house to be more like a teepee.

Then we did it again with Mommy being the wolf.

After some lunch and stories, we worked on the favors for our friends (Hazel's godparents' daughter) first birthday party. Her mother asked me to make star shape crayons. I agreed and then found out she wants 100 of them. Needless to say we will be busy doing this for awhile. We spent a bit of time unwrapping and breaking the crayons. Luckily the ones our friend bought unwrap relatively easily!! I made a few trays of them. Unfortunately our star mold only does 6 at a time so we need to make it 17 times. The party theme is red, white and blue since her birthday is Memorial Day weekend, but they didn't want to buy that many boxes of crayons to do them in red, white and blue, so they are rainbow. For directions, I blogged about it here.
Then my little girl wanted to play fairy dance. She literally dressed as a fairy and danced around. I really should have pulled out the video camera for you to get the full effect, but it was fun to watch her show.
She kept asking me sit down to watch the show.
Then she wanted me to be a fairy with her. So she dressed me up as the butterfly fairy and we danced together.

Then she wanted to switch costumes. This of course gives you a better view of the butterfly fairy costume. The wings are a bit big for her.
Her pink wings were too small for me, so she decided I needed a feather boa instead.
Sorry all the pictures of me were taken with me holding the camera away from myself. So how do you spend a rainy day?

This is where I link up...

Check out the great giveaway at The Magic Onions. Armadillo Dreams is giving away a $50 gift card there.


Dress up/ Closet Organization

If your child is anything like mine she has many hats, bags, purses, etc. everywhere. My daughter has always been into purses (apparently so was I). For a changing table we had used a piece of furniture (almost a dresser but with a door to hang small items). When she out grew the changing table pad we moved it out of her room and started using it for dress up clothes. I like to buy costumes at the post-Halloween sales, plus she has my old hats and things. She is getting quite a collection, however when she does play with them it tends to be pulling everything out and leaving them in a pile. I wanted to find a better way to organize it all.

As I was looking at my disorganized closet I remembered the over the door purse hanger I have and wanted to replicate it for Hazel. I decided to tie ribbon along the door of the dresser and hang some of her hats and purses on them. I simply used clothespins to hang everything up. We are going to also add some ribbons at the side that isn't against a wall to spread this out and hang the rest up. That will require some nails and since I had my eyes dilated this morning at the doctor's and can barely see it will have to wait.
I'm also thinking of doing something similar over her closet door for all the bags, backpacks, etc. we have collected. She seems to have more bags than me and she still would rather use mine.

One last thing to share before I go rest my eyes. On Saturday we went to Lakeshore Learning Store for their free craft. It was decorate your own notebook. Here is Hazel's.
The notebooks themselves were paper with a colored piece slightly thicker on top. Two holes punched through and a rubber band stuck through from the back and strung onto a popsicle stick. Then they had foam stickers, markers, stamp markers and glitter glue to decorate them. Hazel of course globbed on the glitter glue and stuck all the stickers in one spot, but had fun. It is an easy craft and now she has a notebook or drawing book of her own.

Hope your Monday is going well.