Even though I knew I would be spending way too much time making our Pokémon themed pumpkins this week, I didn’t want my daughter to feel completely left out. When I saw a bag of tiny white pumpkins at the grocery store, I knew right away that they would make the perfect wheels for a quick and easy Cinderella Pumpkin Carriage.
We have carved our pumpkins a bit early this year thanks to a Pumpkin Carving contest at my son’s elementary school this week. Since I was tasked with running the contest, I knew I had to come up with something awesome for our submission.
What better place to go for ideas then your children? When I asked my 6 year old what kind of pumpkin he would like, he quickly suggested Pokémon as our theme. Since his favourite character is Eevee, it was no surprise when he asked that I recreate one in pumpkin. And you can’t have a Pokémon without a Pokeball so my husband also suggested we find some small pumpkins to transform into Pokeballs.
My Eevee was actually fairly simple to carve and create using 3 pumpkins. I found a great white pumpkin that I knew would work great as Eevee’s fur collar and found a smaller orange pumpkin to stack on top as his head. I then purchased an additional oval shaped pumpkin I could use to cut out his long pointy ears.
For the Pokeball’s, I found these great little round white pumpkins that I knew would work perfect with a bit of paint. I was intended to make the traditional red and white ball, but my son requested that I also make an Ultraball and a Masterball. Who knew there were so many different types?!
I made a template to carve out each of the pumpkins to look like the balls were opening up and a flash of light was coming out like in the show/game. I then painted their tops with acrylic paint and finished them off with a ring of black electrical tape and a black and white paper circle glued to the center. For the ultraball, I added yellow electrical tape for the stripes and used a pink sheet of foam and white duct tape for the finishing details on the Masterball. Since the pumpkins were already white, I was able to leave the bottom portions as is.
I think the finished pokeballs look awesome both on their own and lit up, and are the perfect complement to our Eevee.
I usually like to theme our Halloween pumpkins to the kids costumes, just like my Olaf and BB8 pumpkins from last year, but this year I really struggled to come up with anything to go with the kids Batman and Batgirl costumes. I was apprehensive when my son suggested Eevee and I was unable to find any inspiration online, but the actual carving of the face was pretty simple. I am happy with the final result and hopefully my pumpkin will help inspire the other Eevee fans out there!
I am not sure my carved pumpkins will survive until Halloween night, but we did end up winning the Halloween carving contest (I promise it wasn’t rigged). Watching my son race around the kitchen island in excitement after I tallied up the votes and told him we had won was enough to make it all worth spending my entire Wednesday evening carving and painting pumpkins!
Welcome to one of my latest crazy projects.
For our ice cream social this year, I decided to go with a Peanuts theme and wanted matching themed costumes to get a cute photo of my kids for the invitation. Since seeing the Peanuts Movie way back in the winter, I have had it in my mind that my son would make a great Charlie Brown and his blonde haired little sister would be the perfect Sally. Continue reading “Peanuts DIY Kids Costumes”
Bus Driver Appreciation day was celebrated in our school district in April and I came up with these quick little gifts to thank each of my son’s bus drivers for their hard work all year. Now that it is the end of the school year, I thought I would share in case anyone is looking for a last minute gift idea for the bus driver’s, teachers, or other school support staff in your child’s life. Continue reading “Hail to the Bus Driver”
I loved dying Easter Eggs as a kid, but I have not kept up the tradition with my own kids since no one in our house is particularly fond of hard boiled eggs. We have tried the plastic ones meant for dying and decorating, but they take an awfully long time to absorb the dye and don’t look near as good as a real egg. Continue reading “Easter Egg Decorating with Rice Krispie Treats”
Today I am excited to share this quick little paper craft courtesy of my mom, Christine Wolzl. These simple paper baskets would be a fun little craft to do with kids and are so easy to customize using your favourite color or patterned paper. They would be great at a kids party for favour baskets or filled with treats as part of the place settings at Easter dinner.
You might recall the Mario inspired make-over I gave our basement walls last year before my son’s 5th Birthday Party. His love of Mario is stronger then ever, but some of the paper images I had tacked up were coming down and looking worn so I decided to give the walls an update for his Minecraft themed party. Continue reading “From Mario to Minecraft Basement Makeover”
Between my two children, we have 6 different teachers to buy Christmas gifts for this Holiday season. My kids both love school and I think the teachers and aides play a big part in that so I wanted a small gift each to thank them for their efforts. Continue reading “Easy DIY Handprint Snowman Christmas Cards”
We are continuing to give back to our community this Holiday season thanks to some help from Kellogg’s cereal, Hasbro Toys and The Salvation Army.
Back in October, I stocked up on Kellogg’s cereal to take advantage of the Hasbro Game or Toy Offer they were running. By inputting a special code printed inside the box, I was able to order 5 coupons good for a free Hasbro toy valued at up to $15 or a coupon for $10 off a toy that cost $25 or more.
It took just over a month for the coupons to get shipped to me, but once I had them they were easy to use at Toys R Us and Walmart to “buy” toys. I let my kids pick out one toy each for themselves and we used the other 3 coupons to pick out toys to donate to the Christmas Bureau. It was fun shopping together, and I was happily surprised by my son’s response of “Oh, that’s a nice thing to do for other kids mom!”
There are lots of great organizations collecting new toys at this time of year, but I chose the Strathcona Christmas Bureau because of their connection with the wonderful Santa we always visit at Sherwood Park Mall. In the past we have made a monetary donation during our visit with Santa, but this year it was a lot more fun to toss toys into the large donation bin. I already had a few toys I had bought to donate, but thanks to the Kellogg’s coupons we were able to give more toys and make Christmas merrier for a few more kids.
I didn’t have high hopes for our Santa visit after my daughter insisted she wanted nothing to do with Santa, so I was pleasantly surprised when she climbed up on his knee and happily chatted to him. I can’t say enough good things about this Santa and we had a lovely afternoon creating Christmas memories.
Our boxes of Rice Krispies did not stop giving with the Free Hasbro Toy. With Kellogg’s Treats for Toys program, I was also able to plan a fun little activity for my kids that gives back to the Salvation Army.
By simply making a toy inspired Rice Krispie treat and uploading the picture to the Rice Krispies website, Kellogg’s will make a donation of $20 to the Salvation Army to buy a gift for a child this Christmas. I uploaded our picture this morning and it was incredibly quick and easy.
I had a teddy bear shaped silicone mould so I decided to use that for our toy inspired treats. With a bit of store bought icing and a selection of candies, we decorated our teddy’s and created a fun bedtime snack that gives back. It doesn’t get much sweeter then that!
Thank you to Kellogg’s, Hasbro and the Salvation Army for helping us give back this Holiday Season! I love both programs and it is amazing that we were able to give so much with little more then the cost of a few boxes of breakfast cereal.
Last Christmas I put together a fun Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer Holiday Party on Christmas day. It is my absolute favorite Christmas movie, so it was fun for me to design all the different printables and pull together this festive party. Today, I am sharing all the printables so you can host your own Rudolph themed party this upcoming Holiday season. Continue reading “Rudolph Party Printables”
dolledupdesign.net 