My son's 3rd birthday is coming up and he has a new room, so I thought it was time to update some things. After some thought, I decided to keep the jungle/animal theme that I had before, but to take it to the next level.

Here's the before and after:

I did the above with scrapbook paper, wooden squares and wooden letters--super simple.

The second time around, I decided to try my hand at painting. Mind you, I am not a painter by any means and I'm afraid it's painfully obvious; but I do like the way they turned out, especially considering I did it freehand.

So, I'm starting on my Halloween crafts for the year, or at least planning to. Thought I'd share my finds:

I saw these "Halloween Candy Cauldrons" last year on CTPubBlog last year but didn't get a chance to make them. I hope I have time this year though because I think they're neat and they don't look that hard to make.







Who doesn't have an old white tee to use for this simple ghost craft from BHG? Better home & Gardens has a lot of good kid crafts, including this pumpkin hat. I know I said no more paper plates, but this is a paper bowl. So cute.

It's been awhile I know. Turns out having a 2 1/2 year old is hectic. I've come out of hiding though and found this new auction site, Listia, where you exchange credits instead of money. Being that everything is free, it may not be the best auction site you'll ever go to, but it's worth checking out.

If you sign up using my link below, you'll get an extra 50 credits on top of the credits they already give you for joining. You don't even have to give your credit info to sign up.

I've done a lot of hats and probably some no sew fleece hats as well, but this might take the cake for easy and cute at the same time.

Lands' End has these cool kid boots but I'm thinking you could just take this idea and paint the faces on some regular boots. Mind you, they're on sale now for $15 and up so that's really not bad.

Maybe you've done breakfast in bed before, but A Bit O' Shine suggests presentation can go along way with these Rosy cups.

You can't go wrong with cookies or candy hearts in my book, so why not combine them? That's what Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories did.

-or-

Do like Muffin Tin Mom did and just put the love on anything, like with this Oreo.

My Coin Purse blog has a tutorial for a Bee Mine Bee Magnet that I thought was funny.


Make a valentine spinner as naughty or nice as you want to be. This tutorial shows you how.

I've been looking for ideas for men and can't really share any I plan to use just in case my husband were to see. Here's one I did find:

Custom Beer Labels. I know it doesn't scream romance, but hey it's their day too. Why not give em what they want...I mean the beer.

Check out great sites like Romantic-ideas.org for more ideas.

Shoot the Baddies certainly spices up target practice a bit.

I mentioned before the site Skull-A-Day, well The Ghoulish Gallery (right) is along the same "ghoulish" lines. You can actually buy these monsterpieces if you dare!

Awful Library Books -Pretty self-explanatory, it's real books with awful (and usually funny) titles

My husband sent me this link from one of his favorite blogs, Super Punch for unique business cards. From there I found another bunch like the ID card to the left at Paper Crave.

Check out these 3D sidewalk paintings by chalk artist Julian Beever over on Mighty Optical Illusions. The whole sight is very cool.

Ucreate shows you how to turn decorative grapevine balls into a festive snowman. I say festive, opposed to the other kind.




I saw this Hershey's Kissletoe over at Purple Trail and think it's pretty funny. I'd do different colors, but still...

Hey, if you're feeling really crafty, break out the plaster of Paris and make some of this Cast Catchalls. Just like with the baseball, you could make it suit the recipient's likes. Apples would be a great one for teachers gifts.

This isn't as big of a post as I'd like but I'm super busy this holiday season. I did want to share these little finds:


Fresh Picked Whimsy has a post on turning your family into artists as a collective project. I thought this idea could be done as a gift, having everyone work on a single project for one person (doesn't even have to be a painting)-OR- one person doing the family's portraits. I also have my own spin on the idea, but I can't say what just yet, because I'm not sure who I would do it for.

Blueprints has a tutorial on how to turn your kids art work into a cool fabric design for a tote or whatever else you could think of.

I know some Christmas lovers might fall dead from disbelief, but Halloween is officially my favorite holiday. For me, Christmas has just become some sort of commercial nightmare.

I'll just say it, just because you slap a Santa hat on something doesn’t mean it’s for Christmas.
Same goes for Harley ridin' Santas



Not to mention John Deere Santas.


It's ridiculous and it's got to stop. I saw a commercial today with the misfit toys, one of my favorite Christmas things and it was advertising some phone or something ridiculous and I just wanted to hurl. I don't want my childhood memories associated with these things; and I especially don't want my son to think Santa rides a Harley. Is nothing off limits?