Thursday, October 4, 2012

Ideas for having an absolutely SPOOKTACULAR Halloween Party!!





Good afternoon everyone! Let me just first start off by saying that I LOVE Halloween!! In fact, I really love the Fall season!! Don't get me wrong, I am definitely a Summer person as I don't like being cold, and don't enjoy driving in the Winter months, but at the same time I don't enjoy being overly hot either (call me picky lol) and I LOVE the cool crisp air that comes with fall, the gorgeous colors of the leaves on the trees and 2 of my favorite holidays happen in the Fall months!

With that being said, back to Halloween! It is such a fun cooky holiday! I love carving pumpkins, especially now that we have a little girl of our own to help carve them and she gets such a kick out of things like that. I love all the creepy fun decorations and costumes, all in all it's just such a fun crazy holiday to get into! And a trip to target with my mom recently proved that stores are trying to get as many Halloween decorations out and make as big of a deal over this holiday as they do over Christmas!

That's one reason why when the Handmade Circle team of Etsy decided to have a SPOOKTACULAR Halloween sale I jumped all over it! That's right, through this Sunday,  October 7, the Handmade Circle Team is celebrating Halloween with our HMC Spooktacular Sale. Just use coupon code HMCSPOOKY for discounts from 5% to 30% in any of the participating shops!

Another part of celebrating Halloween for us other than carving pumpkins and taking our little girl out trick-or-treating is going to a Halloween party with a bunch of friends! It has always been a good time! We all bring tasty snacks to share, dress up and just act goofy. Of course there is a costume contest which can get quite competitive! This year however the couple that normally hosts the party are not, so I'm not entirely sure what the plan for Halloween party going will be. And if we weren't having a bonfire just a few weeks before I would consider hosting the party ourselves!! Even if we aren't hosting the party I love planning parties and all the great ideas, fun foods and such that go along with it so I went in search of some different fun ideas for Halloween party themes, activities, decorations and snacks and the following is what I found!

Such a cute creative idea for guests drinks!

Yum!! Halloween Themed Cake Pops!
No get together with our friends and family is complete without a game of beanbag toss, Halloween bags are prefect!
 I also checked in with the lovely ladies of the Handmade Circle team for ideas for parties and here are some of the ideas that they came up with!!


 
Holly Burke Westmoreland of Holly's Homemade Goodies had several great suggestions!
Where do I begin...
1. Purchase cheap candles from the dollar store (any color) and wrap decorative Halloween paper (found at Michael's or Hobby Lobby) around them securing with glue. You can dress up with ribbon, sequins, or prefabricated spider webs.
2. Decorate your food table with cheap orange, black or purple fabric purchased from a fabric store. Put you Christmas lights underneath to add ambiance to your table.
3. Instead of giving out candy, I purchase, through out the year, discounted stickers, pencils, small crafts, and what not from craft stores. I make up small bags with these goodies to give out. You can also use this same idea for goody bags to give the children at your Halloween party.
4.Take surgical gloves and fill with the Halloween punch you will be serving and freeze. Once frozen, peel off gloves and put your frozen hands in your punch bowl. Kids love them!
Sharon Morgan of ArtisticSoul Designs had a fun idea for little hands!
Something that's always a hit with kids is a mystery box. Put something gooey, slimy or just baffling inside and have everyone guess what it is. Cooked spaghetti noodles tossed with oil or peeled grapes are especially creepy!
Kate Brooks of Pieces of Home Mosaics also had several great ideas for little Halloween party guests!
I host a Preschool Halloween party every year because of my preschool! We all dress up in our custumes and head outside. Our games are so much fun! Pumpkin bowling, a feely tub filled with black and white rice with toy bugs & halloween rings. We get out the parachute. We have another feely tub with black beans, white beans, glitter and halloween toys. We bring the hippty hop balls, tunnel, jumping sacks, & balls. We also have a bean bag toss game & dancing streamers. The parents bring treats, I read a halloween book to the kids. And the grand end of our party is picking our own pumpkin from the pumpkin patch!
 Ashley Noelle Mabe of Brenny's Bibbies had a fun game idea that would be great for kids but could be just as fun for adults as well!
One game that kids seem to love is pumpkin bowling. Take six (or the full ten) empty two liter bottles and decorate them with monster/witch/ghosts faces. Place a few rocks or sand in the bottom of the bottles to give them a little bit of weight. Use a plastic pumpkin or even an orange ball with a jack o' lantern face drawn on to bowl over the pins. We've done this at fall festivals and craft fairs, the kids love it.
Jessica Grauert Croft of The Prismatic Peacock suggested adding some incentive to your costume parties!
Costume parties are so much fun, and there is more incentive to dress up when you offer prizes for different categories such as: best couple, scariest, funniest, most original, etc. We attend a Halloween party with the same group of friends every year, and it's always such a good time. People take the costume contest very seriously and we have had some very creative and hilarious winners! Make sure you have your camera charged before the party!
Shannon Rose of A Moment in Paradise had a unique Halloween party theme idea!
I thought this sounded like a fun themed Halloween party: Hellidays. This is such a fun adult Halloween party idea! If you can think of a holiday, you can spook it up. Dead Easter bunnies, evil Santas, cannibal Thanksgiving dinners.. it would be fun to see what your guests came up with

So I just wanted to say thanks to all of you HMC girls for the GREAT ideas for a SPOOKTACULAR Halloween Party!

Be sure to stop by and check out all the participating shops!! Use coupon code HMCSPOOKY for the sale discount!

Augie and Lola Baby Boutique www.etsy.com/shop/augieandlola
Monday's Child Primitaves www.etsy.com/shop/MondaysChildPrims


 

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

It's Been A While!





Hey everyone! Thought it was about time that I checked in with everyone again! It's been quite a while since my last blog post! Not only have I had sort of a blogger's block but we have had some busy weekends and happenings going on lately! Not to mention I have been working my little butt off starting to add some knitted items to my shop!

That's right! Mama Made Gifts is branching out in another direction to add more items to my shop! My mom had purchased me a knitting loom quite a while ago and I had started knitting a scarf on it, but knitting being more of a fall or winter hobby to me I had put it away and not thought about it for a while. Well as we all know, the cooler weather is fast approaching and one morning while I was sitting in the living room enjoying the crisp air filtering through our windows and sipping on an amazing cup of coffee I decided to get that loom out and finish the scarf that I had started earlier in the summer months! After I finished that, I decided to check out some other patterns that could be completed on the knitting looms and was quite surprised that you can create nearly anything!!

This led to me creating my 1st hat for my daughter!! I was bold and took on a pattern with earflaps and drawstrings it went really well! I was even feeling confident enough to add some ornamentation by adding a pom-pom on top and an I-cord bow! I absolutely adore how it turned out and our daughter has gotten quite a few compliments on it!

My success in this hat was enough encouragement to create a small ear flap hat with bear ears listed here in my shop
https://www.etsy.com/listing/110380313/hand-knitted-newborn-to-3-month-soft
also available in this listing for toddlers and in brighter colors
https://www.etsy.com/listing/111109064/hand-knitted-infant-toddler-bear-hat
My cousin is expecting in December and has choose not to find out the gender so I wanted to make a hat for her little one that would be fitting for a little boy or girl!

After that hat I went on to making myself a scarf cowl, I haven't yet decided if I actually like it yet, which is why I haven't listed one on etsy yet. I think it may need some perfecting before I list it.
After that it was gloves, I have created fingerless gloves with a covered thumb or fingerless gloves without a covered thumb, as well as infant mittens!

So as you can tell I am on a knitting kick!! I will be adding a listing for the infant mittens as well as the fingerless uncovered thumb gloves! Of course I still have all my graphic listings, just thought I would add more to my shop to have a variety of items!

I really enjoy knitting, A LOT to the point that it is actually really kind of relaxing for me! Plus as I stated before the cooler weather is coming quickly and who doesn't want to be prepared with a nice warm fuzzy hat, scarf, gloves or more!!

All my hats can be made in a range of sizes! From newborn to adult!

Check back later today for my Handmade Circle Spooktacular Halloween Sale Blog Post about ideas for hosting a SPOOKTACULAR Halloween Party!!

-Mama