Halloween

Gotta Carve ‘Em All

October 29, 2016October 29, 2016 chantelledoll

Pokemon Halloween Pumpkins_Eevee and Pokeballs

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.

Pokemon Halloween Pumpkins_Eevee and 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.

Pokemon Halloween Pumpkins_Pumpkins for Eevee
Pokemon Halloween Pumpkins_Eevee and Pokeballs Lit

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?!

Pokemon Halloween Pumpkins_Pokeball Ultraball Masterball

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.

Pokemon Halloween Pumpkins_Pokeball Carving Template
Pokemon Halloween Pumpkins_Painting Masterball

I think the finished pokeballs look awesome both on their own and lit up, and are the perfect complement to our Eevee.

Pokemon Halloween Pumpkins_Pokeballs

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!

Pokemon Halloween Pumpkins_Eevee and Pokeballs

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!

Everyday Life, Recipes, Sweet, Two Legged Fun

A Year of School Treats

June 20, 2016June 20, 2016 chantelledoll

10 Simple Treats to Bring & Share At School

With the school year rapidly drawing to a close, I thought I would compile a list of all the fun treats I came up with to send in for special holidays and birthday treats over the past 10 months. I love the chance to get creative in the kitchen, so when the opportunity comes up to bring in a themed treat I am more then happy to sign up and bake up something new. Continue reading “A Year of School Treats” →

Big Hands, Celebrations

Happy Halloween 2015

November 2, 2015November 2, 2015 chantelledoll

Halloween has come and gone again for another year, but I wanted to share some pictures of my costumed cuties and my pumpkin creations. Continue reading “Happy Halloween 2015” →

Big Hands, Celebrations, Crafts

5 Little Pumpkins Printable Treat Topper

October 22, 2015October 26, 2015 chantelledoll

I love holidays because it gives me an excuse to get creative and come up with fun treats for my kids to share with their classmates and friends.

For Halloween this year, I wanted to do something special for my daughter’s preschool class. I came across this Five Little Pumpkins Sitting On a Gate Halloween Printable from Balancing Home and loved the idea so much I decided to take a shot at designing my own topper featuring the 5 Little Pumpkins poem. Continue reading “5 Little Pumpkins Printable Treat Topper” →

Everyday Life, Two Legged Fun

It’s-a Halloween, Mario!

November 1, 2014 chantelledoll

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

As you can guess from the title and pictures, our Halloween had a bit of a Super Mario twist. My 4 year old has been really into Mario lately and spends his iPad time watching all kinds of silly youtube video game reviews. When he decided in early September that he wanted to go as Mario for Halloween, I was a bit worried it might be a phase and he might change his mind. Lucky for me, the Mario love is still going strong and my little guy was more then happy to dress up as his favorite video game character.

For my little girl, I had picked up an adorable owl costume on clearance from Old Navy last year, but she was none too fond of it and big brother insisted she should be Princess Peach. There is only so long he is going to want to coordinate with his little sister, so I had a hard time saying no to the request. I do love themed costumes and it ended up working well with the princess obsession Keira has developed over the past month.

I wasn’t going to buy the dogs new costumes, but them ended up being 75% off when we went to the petstore so I let Camden pick one out for each of them. He chose a bat for Rumbull and a bumble bee for Nova since there are bats and bees in some of the Mario lands. The dogs and kids were not as coordinated as I have done in the past, but it worked!

I wanted to do some special treats for my Mario to hand out at his preschool Halloween party so I ended up coming up with these cute candy filled mushrooms. They were a bit time consuming, but it was an easy craft and all the kids seemed pretty excited to receive them. I will try to get a tutorial up for them in the next couple weeks for anyone planning a Mario party.

And, of course, we had to have a Mario themed pumpkin! Using a big round pumpkin with a nice long stem, and 3 mini pumpkins I was able to put together this cute bomb pumpkin.

It did require a bit of time for spray painting and assembly, but this is one of the easy pumpkins I have ever carved – just two oval eyes! After I was finished, Camden made a point to tell me I did a really good job, so that’s all the validation I needed.

On Halloween we ended up going to the mall again for a little bit. At the mall, Keira was excited to see the animals and bounce in the bouncy castles, while Camden was very excited to have the balloon guy make him a hammer! He has been insisting all week that his Mario costume needed a hammer but I never got around to getting him one. This couldn’t have worked out more perfect and he proudly carried it the whole evening out trick-or-treating.

The bouncy castle at the mall even fit our Mario theme with it’s big toadstool, bouncing turtle and giant plants!

After a quick dinner, we met with some of the neighbours and went out trick-or-treating for a bit. The weather was fairly decent for this time of year and my little Princess did really well for her first time out. The kids all had a lot of fun and it was so nice for Camden to actual have other kids to go out with this year instead of just boring old me!

I just love seeing all the little guys in costume!

Big Hands, Crafts

Ninja Turtle Pumpkin – Foam Edition

October 29, 2014 chantelledoll

Last Halloween my son was heavily into Ninja Turtles so he wore a Michelangelo costume and I spray painted and carved our pumpkin to match. My husband’s co-worker saw the pumpkin and thought it was pretty great so he asked me to re-create one for him this year.

I decided to go with a foam pumpkin instead of a real pumpkin just to allow me more carving time before the pumpkin started to go bad, and to give him something he could reuse in future Halloween’s. This posed a slight challenge because I no longer had the layers of pumpkin to shave down like I did in Michelangelo’s mask last Halloween but I managed to find a way to make it all work.

After a few coats of green paint and some finishing details in black and white, I think the final result looks pretty good. Hopefully he is happy with his pumpkin!

And the best part? He can change up his turtle just by changing the color of glowstick in his pumpkin.

And I can’t wait to show you what I have planned for our own pumpkin this year.

Hint: It is Super Mario themed!

Celebrations, Throwback Thursday, Uncategorized

Around the Year in 100 Posts!

August 7, 2014 chantelledoll

Today marks one year since I decided to start sharing my ideas with the world through Dolled Up Design and what better way to share then in my 100th post!

I started this blog as an outlet for my creative ideas. I love reading other blogs and seeing their great parties, interior decorating and creative food ideas. I waste way too much time on Pinterest and decided I needed to start sharing back some of my own ideas rather then just creating board upon board of other people’s ideas.

This is a creative outlet for me. I enjoyed my previous job as a graphic designer, but when I made the switch to being at home with the kids I felt my skills starting to fall to the wayside. I began this blog as a way to try and establish myself as more then just “Camden and Keira’s mom” and am hoping in the process I might inspire other people to bring out their creative side.

I am surprised to see my post count as high as it is because it honestly doesn’t feel like I am able to spend as much time on my blog as I would like. Between keeping up with the kids and moving this past year, this is definitely an accomplishment for me. I am also proud and excited to have been chosen to join Moms & Munchkins as a Party Tip contributor so hopefully that gives me the push to come up with even more great ideas in the year ahead. I have tons of projects floating around in my head, but it is always a matter of finding the time to execute and document these great ideas!

Like a lot of my projects, my blog is a work in progress. The overall look of the blog still leaves something to be desired and the linking up to all the different avenues of social media makes my head spin! There is definite room for improvement and I hope as I move forward and my blog continues to grow that it only continues to become better.

So, in celebration of One year and 100 posts, here are my top 10 favorite Dolled Up projects from the past year. Click on the links to view the full posts!

And, because it is Thursday, it only seems fitting that I throwback and link to my very first blog post – my Love is Sweet personal candy buffet.

I would like to finish this post with a big thank you to all my readers old and new!

You are the main motivation for this blog and I can’t wait to share more projects and ideas with you in the year ahead.

Celebrations, Gift Ideas

Treat Filled Pumpkin Balloons

October 31, 2013April 11, 2014 chantelledoll

I wanted to bring something special for the kids at playgroup this week and found this cute DIY Pumpkin Patch from one of my favorite party blogs Hostess with the Mostess. After gathering up some orange balloons, green ribbon and small treats, I set to work following the great tutorial on Hostess with the Mostess.

To help get the treats in the balloons, I cut off a chocolate milk bottle and put each balloon on the end. Suckers may not have been the best treat choice because I did end up with a few deflated balloons, but luckily I still had enough pumpkins for all the kids. Other treats I included inside were chocolate foil pumpkins, a piece of candy corn saltwater toffee, a small glowstick and Halloween stickers.

Once filled and inflated, the toughest job was drawing on all the faces in permanent marker. To finish off my pumpkins I used some ribbon and tied on a leaf shaped tag that read “From Camden and Keira”.

We also had to bring a treat to playgroup that day so I made this delicious Pumpkin Fluff Dip I found on the Kraft Canada website. I served it with some sliced apples, cinnamon sugar pita’s and ginger snaps. I am not sure too many of the kids ate it, but us mommy’s sure liked it!

Crafts, Little Hands

Halloween Wall Hanging Kids Craft

October 31, 2013October 13, 2015 chantelledoll

Tuesday morning we celebrated Halloween at playgroup with snacks, costumes and a Halloween themed craft. Leading craft time has been my duty for the last couple months and I have spent a lot of time on pinterest trying to find toddler appropriate crafts. When I saw these Halloween Paper Plate Crafts through Tip Junkie, I knew right away they were what I wanted to make for our Halloween craft. I love the cute, simple shapes and thought they were something nice enough for the mom’s to actually hang in their homes as a Halloween decoration. Continue reading “Halloween Wall Hanging Kids Craft” →

Celebrations, Everyday Life, Two Legged Fun

Our Hectic, Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2013November 1, 2013 chantelledoll

It has been an incredibly busy week for me with Halloween preparation and festivities. We had a Halloween party at playgroup on Tuesday for that I prepared treat-filled pumpkins and a Halloween wall hanging craft for. On Wednesday I carved our pumpkin and we were out and about almost all day on actual Halloween.

Camden was a Ninja Turtle for Halloween. I looked everywhere to buy a costume, but the toddler sized one seemed to be out of stock everywhere I found it in-store or online. Luckily, I had ordered this awesome Michelangelo hoodie from Mamabargains.com earlier in the summer and it ended up being his costume. To complete the look, I found a pair of green pants I safety pinned orange bands to (cut from a dollarstore tea towel!) and I repurposed the shell from a 6-12m sized turtle costume into his ninja shell by pinning it to one of his old mini backpacks and adding on toy nunchuks. The turtle treat bucket and turtle socks were Target find’s.

My original plan for Keira was to make my little Doll into a cabbage patch, but that was quickly abandoned after several tantrums just attempting to try the yarn wig on her. I had some returns to make to Old Navy late last week and just happened to notice their costumes were marked 50% off so I decided it was probably easier to pick up a costume for her. The leopard wasn’t my original plan, but it still turned out pretty cute!

Last year I carved a Spiderman pumpkin to match Camden’s Spiderman costume so it only made sense to make a Ninja Turtle this year. I started with a pumpkin from my mom’s garden and spray painted it green. I then carved out the turtle mask, eyes and mouth. It was a lot of scraping and cutting but the final result was worth it.

And the treats we handed out? Ninja Turtle candy, of course!

Camden’s weekly preschool class fell on Halloween so he got to wear his costume and spend the morning playing Halloween games, trick or treating around the recreation centre and creating a Halloween craft. The morning started off very well when we got to class and Camden discovered one of his little buddies was Raphael – I think the two of them ended up being inseparable for the morning because of their shared love of Ninja Turtles.

While Camden was in class, Keira and I made a quick run to Walmart to get her a treat bucket and then went back to the rec centre to play at the indoor playground. We also stopped for mom to enjoy a treat – a pumpkin spice latte.

After lunch and an unsuccessful attempt at a nap, the kids and I headed out to enjoy the Halloween festivities at one of the local malls – Bonnie Doon Centre. It was a little out of the way for us, but I am so glad I chose this mall over the closer one we went to last year. It was far less crowded and they had trick-or-treating as well as all kinds of kids friendly activities including crafts. bouncy castles, face painting, balloon animals and a petting zoo. We will definitely be going back next year if they offer the same event.

After the mall, we came home to have dinner with daddy (pizza for our little turtle) and then Camden and I headed out trick-or-treating around the neighbourhood. We didn’t go far, but his turtle pail filled up quickly and we now have more then enough candy and chips for the next several months!

And not to be left out of the fun, our hockey hound wore her Edmonton Oiler’s Jersey and Rumbull dressed up as the Rufferee. I know some people find it ridiculous to dress up dogs, but I have always done it and enjoy it. There is also something about a dog in costume that makes them look far less intimidating to the trick-or-treaters coming to our door!

So there you have Halloween 2013 with the Doll’s. It was a busy day, but well worth it to see the smiles on my kids faces. As we were walking home from trick-or-treating, my little guy kissed my hand and told me what a nice mom I was. I am so lucky I get to make these memories with them!