wicked good halloween

 

I think the best halloween costumes are a mix of what you have, a few thrift store basics and some signature pieces, made, bought or borrowed that really sell the character.  It helps to have a dress up box, random fabric and cardboard around.

Franklin had his heart set on being Snow White and we were lucky to have a friend with a Disney dress just his size to borrow. I made the guys each one item: the cartoonishly proportioned dwarf belt and snow white's hair bow. For my wicked self I made a cardboard crown and modified a turtleneck. My cape is a wrap skirt from our dress up box and the flaming heart mirror usually hangs on our wall.

For the record, this was our first family costume. We put extra effort into it because we actually attended a wedding on Halloween. I have had costume fails through the years and Franklin flatly refused to wear the first costumes I made for us when he was younger. So don't get hung up on comparisons if you didn't coordinate fairytale magic with your crew this year. As Franklin reminded me, it's really just about the M&Ms.

easter craft video

greener grass from Libby Chenault on Vimeo.
Watch the video for simple easter craft inspiration. Then read the variations for extended play ideas with any easter grass or customized shredded paper. Think about how your own child likes to play and I'm sure you will find even more ways explore this simple idea together, adding texture to your existing toy collection. And when you tire of the grass around your home, you have my permission to just throw it away in the recycle bin.

for anyone who likes giving remarkable gifts

• use it as packing material

for the very young:

• take it in and out of a box, bag or bowl
• throw it in the air
• scrunch and crinkle to make noise see what it sound like inside an empty container

for imaginative play

• cut white paper to be snow drifts
• green paper for grassy hillsides where animals burrow
• blue paper can be water
• play cook with noodles nests 
• fill a box with the shredded paper and small treasures (bones?) for some archeological digging
  

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A toast to cardboard toys

Welcome to a new series on toys made from junk. Not the fancy stuff I make to sell, the stuff we can all make from something in the recycle bin. There are some very impressive upcycled kids toy makeovers on design blogs and Pinterest, but in some ways those are more for the parents sense of style and accomplishment. Just tiny versions of our obsession with Personality Expressed through Home Improvement. I like projects that are scrappy, not too precious, that the child can participate in making too.

First up is toast.

Easy thing to make when you are hungry, easy thing to make when you are pretending to be hungry. Pretend food is a pretty common gender neutral play item. From plastic reproductions of McDonald's happy meals to heirloom wooden cucumbers that slice apart with Velcro action, you can find this type of toy in every price range and dietary niche. We have a fun selection of fabric vegetables from Ikea that Franklin was using to whip up pretend breakfast for me. And although cabbage is a refreshing breakfast item, his favorite food is toast. As I pretended to chew a cabbage leaf wrapped around an entire leek, I thought about some amazing faux bread I have seen around. But knowing that no respectable toy store would be open at 7am on a Sunday morning, I headed to our stockade of corrugated.

We do have the advantage of Steeb bringing home an amazing selection of cardboard from the grocery store(see photo of watermelon box above) but almost every home has some cluttering up the recycle bins. I just cut a super basic toast shape free hand and then colored the edge to look more like crust. You could trace a piece of bread if you don't feel comfortable with intuitive loaf forming. Franklin "buttered" the toast and we were ready to play.

I found another random box that could be a toaster. I thought about cutting holes in the top or adding a knob or covering it in tinfoil to look like metal, but in the moment, this worked. And it is still a box that could find some other use this afternoon.

It doesn't take crazy craft skills or special tools to make simple toys. It's good for you, your kids' imagination and the earth. Now, what's for lunch?