Train Costume

I decided to let my son choose his costume this year instead of picking one for him.  We asked him over the period of a week about what he wanted to be and at first he said he wanted to be his daddy, but then he decided he wanted to be a blue train and he was stuck on that idea.  So we got to work!

I gathered a few diaper boxes and we started cutting and gluing parts together.

Then we went to Ben Franklin in search of something that we could use for the round part in the front.  In their craft section they had two empty spools which usually have ribbon wrapped around them.  I asked if I could have or purchase them and they gave them to me - YES!  So I glued the two spools together and then glued them to the front of the train.

Then I just got a piece of plain construction paper and covered the spools.

Next we were ready to paint!

After the paint was dry I got some paper plates and spray painted them silver as well as a few decals for the train which I then glued securely.

And I had one happy boy!

We ended up going to the hardware store and finding a metal funnel for the pipe.  I also inserted a small plastic bottle underneath it, because the plan was to get some dry ice and have a real looking steam engine, but apparently our town doesn't carry dry ice!  Darn!  Just imagine it looking even cooler.

We were able to stick a headlamp to the front of the train though, so at least he had a light.

And the little brother was a Railroad Crossing sign!  I just took a black onesie, and sewed a white "X" to the front and painted the letters on.  I then cut off one of the sleeves and replaced it with a white one and then wrapped that with some red fabric.  Over all these were pretty easy costumes to make and we got a lot of compliments!

The Collage Painting

A few weeks back I was doing my Saturday ritual of hitting up all the yard sales and came across a giant canvas picture of a mountain in a big frame.  The family selling it wanted $5 for it.  I stood and stared at it for a long time trying to figure out if it was something I really wanted to bring into my home.  I offered them $3 since I was unsure and they said, "Take it!"  So I miraculously got it into my car and took it home.

I took the canvas out of the frame and tried sanding the picture off since it had a lot of texture in it.  This did not work as I hoped it would.  Infact it barely got any of the paint off at all.

So I took some yellow interior house paint that I got at Lowes the week before for $1.50 in their "cheap paint bin" and gave it a few good coats. The texture obviously still showed through, but you couldn't see the picture.  I had planned on painting a picture of some lovebirds sitting in some branches on it, but with the texture showing through, I wasn't loving the idea.  Then one evening I was flipping through a Martha Stewart magazine and I kept thinking how all the pictures looked so pretty and it was too bad I couldn't just frame all the magazines pictures... and it hit me!  I was going to do a collage painting!

I started cutting away at the pictures that I really loved and started organizing them onto my canvas.  I already had an idea of what I wanted my picture to look like, so instead of covering the whole canvas I just modge podged (or half glue half water if you're cheap like me) the areas where I wanted my design to go.

Then I started making an outline of the design I wanted and covered the appropriate spots with paint.  If you don't already have a design in mind, it would be very easy to print off a picture and just trace it onto your canvas that way.

This is what I ended up with on my first coat.  I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to do the birds yet and I added a few extra squares of magazine clippings here and there to cover with paint later just to add some texture in areas where there wasn't much.

And here is the final product after the second coat of paint!

I then painted the frame that it came with because it looked really grungy.

I love it!  It is so pretty and was so easy to do!

Halloween Cupcakes

Here are some chocolate cupcakes, filled with orange, yellow and white buttercream frosting (I wanted it to look like candy corn when you bit into it).