Craft Test: DIY Pinecone Chandelier

Many of you may have seen this wonderful "Pumpkin Celebration" by Katie Grace Designs that was making its way around the blogs. It was actually her entry into a "fall celebration" themed contest hosted by another blog, "The City Cradle." Her entry won! I have to say, it was my favorite, too! I thought she did an amazing job making her design rustic, but fun at the same time, while providing a tablescape that is truly unique. Plus, I loved that her design offered so many "takeaway" ideas--one of which were the pinecone chandeliers. They were certainly a "wow" factor in the overall look.

My parents are coming from New York to visit us for Thanksgiving. This is a big deal! They haven't been out here to Colorado in nearly a year and a half, so I want to make Thanksgiving really special. So, when I thought about dressing up our dining room, I immediately thought about Katie's pinecone chandelier. I basically did a smaller, modified version of her's. What do you think?! I only did the one, as a focal point for the room. I love the color of the flowers against the red walls, and best of all, it took maybe a 1/2 hour to do.

What I used:

Twine (that I had)

Glue gun

Pinecones ($5.99 minus 20% off at Joann's)

Faux mums (on sale for $1.49 minus 20% at Joann's)

Twine wreath ($3.99 minus 40% at Hobby Lobby)

Katie does provide a full tutorial for the chandelier, but here is basically what I did. First, I snipped off the flowers from their stems. Leave a little "nub" to glue to the twine. Then I cut four pieces of twine, each 12" long. I tied each one around a branch in the wreath. Then, I hot-glued the flowers and the pine cones to the twine. For added security, I wrapped the twine around the snipped bud, like this (sorry that it's a little blurry):

I had some orange ribbon left over from Halloween, so I used that to tie the wreath to our dining room chandelier–done! Thanks to Katie for her inspiration!

To see the rest of Katie Grace Designs' pumpkin celebration design, click here. To see Katie Grace Designs' tutorial for the DIY Pinecone Chandeliers, click here.

Sharing with

Someday Crafts Thanksgiving Link Party

A HOOT of a Play Date!

The talented ladies at The Savvy Mom's Guide recently hosted a "Whoot of Thanks" play date. From adorable decor to thoughtful activities to teach the kids about Thanksgiving--this is one remarkable play date! There is so much great inspiration and ideas in this fun take on a Thanksgiving theme!

First off, I love the way they were able to take rustic, natural elements and make them fun for the kids, by adding decor like the polka dotted pattern to the tree stumps. (Those polka dots are plastic tablecloths from Target's dollar bin!) There are ideas you can use for your own Thanksgiving table, like the moss box centerpieces, and the cute leaf placemat above. (The placemat was made just by laminating scrapbook paper and a leaf.) Plus, you can use most of the ideas, like the pine cone craft they did, for your kids table at Thanksgiving. So, hop on over to The Savvy Mom's Guide here to see the rest of the photos from this very well-planned play date!

Road Trip Activity Ideas

Now that Halloween is over, everyone is looking to make their Thanksgiving plans, which for many of you includes travel. (I'm hearing the moans and groans!) If your holiday travel plans include a long car trip or plane ride with young kids, just thinking about the trip can be daunting! Here is a collection of ideas to inspire you or make for your "travel bag."

Here are two great games for the little ones that don't know how to read yet.

Make a Scavenger Hunt/iSpy photo game to take in the car. Kids can mark off the items as they see them. This one is from Weelife here. And who is the little queen of getting from one place to another? None other than Dora. Your kids will love this Car Bingo game featuring Dora. Download the template here and play as you would any bingo game. Instead of calling out numbers, mark the items as you see them during your trip.

Encourage your kids to tell a story as they are prompted with illustrations from this adorable set of story dice from The Toby Show here. For the older kids, challenge them to finish a drawing that is started with a magazine image. This idea from Art Projects for Kids here.

How brilliant is this? A chalkboard place mat! Take this, some chalk and eraser, and your kids can draw many times over! You can buy this from PiperJensen right here. Once you've collected all your art supplies, your kids will be more excited to hit the road with their own personalized "art boxes." "The Real Housewife of Nowhere" shows you how to make one here.

Happy travels!!

Our Halloween Party: Part 2

Hope you enjoyed yesterday's post on our Halloween party, that featured the food and decor. Now here's the fun stuff!

I knew I wanted to do something the kids might get a kick out of. Plus, since the party was meant to remain "open" during the night, I wanted to do something fun for those visitors as well... so when I saw a candy-filled beaker in Target, I came up with the idea of a "Hot Chocolate Lab"! Who wouldn't love to have a cup of hot chocolate as they walk around in the cold, and what fun to do it with a self-serve Halloween lab?! So, using names like "Powdered Blood" for cinnamon and "Ghost Foam" for whipped cream, here is our "Hot Chocolate Lab." Everyone thought it was really fun.

Other fun stuff during the night included easy, quick games the kids could play: "eyeball toss" into the pumpkin, witch hat ring toss and the "witch's stew" game I originally featured here.

But the game the kids really reacted to was the ol' "put your hand in the box to touch something creepy" game! We posted this little story for everyone to read before they started. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

It's a little story about our house being haunted and the suspicious artifacts we found in the backyard, that included the items that were in the boxes.

There were four boxes. First of all, to make the boxes, I used the boxes that copy paper comes in at your office. I used acrylic craft paint to paint them freehand. Then I cut out a rectangle from the top of each one. Over the rectangle cut-out, I used double-sided tape to attach a big square of black felt. Then, I cut an "X" into the black felt, just big enough for a child's hand and arm to go in. The contents were underneath the box in a plastic bowl.

In the boxes were: "Defective Eyeballs" (canned mushrooms); "Cold Veins" (Ramen noodles); "Brain" (head of cauliflower with gelatin spread over it) and "Knobby Toes" (baby pickles). The kids faces as they reached in were priceless! I think I may actually save the boxes for next year!

Finally, we also had cookie decorating and a glow-stick craft. I wanted a craft the kids could use through the night and wouldn't be cumbersome to carry around. Each child got a glow-stick and they got to decorate it as a wand (with craft jewels) or a spider (with black pipe cleaners) or whatever else their imagination came up with.

Everyone had fun, parents and kids. It was a lot of work for just a couple of hours, but it was totally worth it! It really helped jump-start the night and get everyone excited about going out trick-or-treating.

Our Halloween Party: Part 1

I haven't hosted a party since my girls' Strawberry Shortcake birthday party in June, so I'm excited to share these photos of our Halloween party with you!

There is so much anticipation leading up to the big night of trick-or-treating, I thought it would be fun to start the night with a party, inviting a bunch of the neighborhood kids and their parents. Plus, it gives the adults a chance to talk, instead of running by one another as we catch up with our goblins running from house to house. There are quite a few photos, so I will be sharing the details in two separate posts. 

Here's the main table. I wanted to keep it light, since this was mainly for the kiddos. I stuck to the traditional orange and black and thought the polka dots provided a fun background. A few people asked me how I did the backdrop, so I will let you all know how I did it in a future post. There was a banner, but it looked kind of wimpy against the tall backdrop, so I took it down.

We took this photo before the food was put out. The menu for the kids included Anytizer popcorn chicken and homemade mac n' cheese (yummy recipe from "The Joy of Cooking."). The cones held sweet potato fries. The cones were made using this template here, found via hostessblog. I increased the size to about 125%. The base for the cones was made from cutting holes into foam core board (purchased at $1 store). I then covered it with black posterboard (cut holes to match foam core board), added the trim and placed it on top of a buffet tray holder. (Those frames that hold a disposable aluminum tray you can buy at any party supply store.)

For the adults, there was Butternut Squash soup and grilled veggie panini sandwiches--I think there were two left! The recipe is from here. Recognize those black cat circle toppers? Those were from the Sandra Lee Black Cat Bash post (here). And behind that, on the "picket fence," I used Love-the-Day's free Halloween printables she did for "Catch My Party" that I posted on Home Confetti's Facebook page. (All coming together now, right?!)

Of course, no Halloween party is complete without some treats! I made the pumpkin cupcakes and orange chocolate pops. Friends brought the "googly eye" deviled eggs and monster cookies.

The centerpiece was my big purchase for the table. I really loved the way it looked; knew if I had it, I wouldn't have to do too much else in terms of dressing up the table. Plus, I know I'll use it every year. With shipping, I purchased it from CostumeExpress.com for about $25. The little light-up pumpkin is from Target ($3).

The chandelier provided a great focal point for the room. I basically wrapped two large boas around the chandelier and hung mini pumpkins. Each little pumpkin had a battery-operated tealight to give it a little extra glow.

Finally I want to thank my friend and neighbor, Julie Kruse, of JulieArt Photography for taking these photos! She took all the photos, with the exception of the sandwiches and close-up of the tree centerpiece. (That's why those don't look as good as the others!)

Tomorrow I'll show you the games and "Hot Chocolate Lab"!