Reverse Trick or Treat: Mid-Term Survival Kit

It didn’t take long to learn that college kids are different from high school kids in that silly fun things are not embarrassing ( within reason!) and are appreciated.  Away from home, they  love to receive packages!  I always had fun making stuff for either class parties or as he got older, friend parties,  but what to do this year with him not home?
Thus “Reverse Trick or Treat” was conceived! And, since October is mid-term time for him and a few of his best friends, I combined the two.
You might remember the altered candles I did for graduation party favors. I had some supplies left over and found the cutest self adhesive metal “Monster Head” stickers by Jolee’s Boutique.

The instructions on how to make these are in the graduation post. I printed “Trick or Treat” on the candle wrappers and adhered the stickers. Then wrapped each one in a clear cello bag:

Then when I was at the grocery store one day I saw a pack of kids bubbles. I thought this would be a good way to represent “blowing off steam”. But these bottles just screamed to be altered!

Wrapped each bottle with Canvas Corp’s black and white harlequin paper and went over it with “Smash” tape. Then used “Poison” labels  from Recollections at Michaels. These definitely needed to be wrapped in case of leakage.

Of course college kids need sugar! I found this cute idea on Pinterest which is from The Idea Room: Mummy Candy Bars!

Super easy ! Giant candy bars ( they were 2 for $3 @ Target); googly eyes and white crepe paper streamer from Dollar Tree. Go to The Idea Room for the full tute! Also included a bag of Halloween mini-candies ( chocolate of course!)
Still with me?

These are some of the miscellaneous things I included in the kits. Stretchy skeletons and pumpkin noise makers ( Michaels). Halloween Pez dispenser. And see those cute Whisker Graphics bags?! I actually did one set of full “kits” for son and 4 friends, but his school has this thing called sponsor groups where they put kids together in a dorm like a built in family in groups of 10-12, so I did a box of goodies (minus the bubbles, and candles) for them.
Used the Whisker Graphics bags for those , sealed with these:

One bag / tag for each of the 12 “spiblings” (yes that’s what they really call each other!) and their two sponsors ( upper classmen who show them the ropes).
The final individual kits:

And here’s the cheesy sign I included in each of the 5 kit boxes:

“Zombie Apocalypse and Mid Term Survival Kit”

Several college campuses have recently been playing a campus wide game of Zombies vs Humans so I thought I’d play on that. Plus, after mid terms, they may feel like zombies!

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I Think I’m Finished Decorating!

For Halloween. At least I think so. I mean people keep coming up with such inspiring ideas and there are some great link parties like this one at A Fish Who likes Flowers

Or this one at Midwestern Sewing Girl:

So Mr. Chocolate, if you read this….NO PROMISES! But for now, I’ve got my halls decked…er haunted. Last year I started muting my color palette which I continued this year:

Mantel:

Mr. Chocolate knows me well and got me the the WIcked Witch ornament from The Wizard of Oz collection early enough for Halloween  

Powder Room:

My Spider Web Glass block now lit up!

An eerily realistic looking skull (sun made for a bad pic) I picked up at Big Lots for $2, He’s wearing the hat that yes, thank you very much, I did wear all around Disneyland!

Where else do you keep glow in the dark skulls if not in an apothecary jar?

Coffee Table

“I’m dreaming of a White…..Halloween” Mr. C. strikes again surprising me after Christmas last year with these cute ceramic luminaries he found at a store that was closing.

Blown glass pumpkins we found out of season on a trip somewhere. A wooden pumpkin cut out that I painted and lettered years ago.

Bears

My husband’s dad gave us this antique piece which came from my late mother-in-law’s family. My mother in law loved Starbucks, and these are some of the Harvest / Halloween bears they’ve had over the years. Thought it was the perfect place for them !

Thanks for coming on my little tour! Off to check off some other things I might have to add!

BFF Link Party #22 Wrap Up and Features

Another fun party and so nice to see new “faces” as well as of course old friends. Fantastic ideas shared! Here are just a few:
From Janet of All Trades, this fantastic piece of framed Halloween art that is so “Ballardy” (that’s a word right?!)

Jocelyn from Inside Bru Crew Life provides some fuel to keep us going as we craft all of our Fall and Halloween goodies. How great would these be to include in a neighbor treat?

Evie, from Brown Paper Packages shared her “Blingety Bling” pumpkins; I love the tone on tone look of these:

And what Fall outfit wouldn’t ben enhanced by this gorgeous clutch from Charlie at Attempting Aloha?

Charlie has a great tutorial on how to print on fabric. I hope you enjoy these features and thanks so much for linking up and supporting each other!

Happy World Card Making Day

This is the sixth celebration of this event which you can read more about here.
No doubt there will be make and takes or other events at any place that sells card making materials. I thought I’d share a few of my Halloween cards to mark the day!

White cardstock, Me and My Big Ideas and Mambly Prints  background papers, K and Co self adhesive scrapbook borders, DCWV Ghosts and Goblins collection (focal) and of course rhinestones!

White cardstock, DCWV Ghosts and Goblins background paper, silver glitter paper for spider web, stamped and colored pencil focal.

DCWV background paper, stamped and colored pencil focal image, Recollections self adhesive glitter spider.
If you’re already a card maker, have fun! If you’re not, it’s easier than you think with all of the great papers and embellishments…no time like the present!

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BFF Open House Link Party #22. This Week’s BFF: The Barefoot Seamstress!

Happy Friday Eve all! Can you believe that tomorrow is the last day of September? Weren’t we just getting ready for Labor Day and back to school?

I’m so excited that I have several wonderful new blogs to feature over the coming weeks. This week, let me introduce you to Becky from The Barefoot Seamstress.

Becky describes her blog as:

One barefoot girl's adventures amidst wifehood, motherhood and everything in between

and as you might guess from her blog name, she’s quite the seamstress. For example, look at this gorgeous pillow she did for a recent challenge:

I love the mix of patterns and colors. So perfect and crisp for Fall. Or this cute scrunchy headband ( she originally made one for her little one and then decided she needed one too):

You all may know I’m a little banner happy so it should be no surprise that I adore this Fall banner Becky made:

And look how she transformed an ordinary mason jar into something you would easily see at PB:

For these cute projects and more ( did I mention she also bakes and is a photography buff?) and something I should probably consider entering:

YUP…a link party devoted to shall we say less than everything in its place craft spaces…head on over and visity Becky at The Barefoot Seamstress!

Now time to party. Anything goes as long as it was made by you. Please link to your specific page and not your main blog page and make some new BFFs…go visit at least two links and leave some comment love!

More Easy Halloween Decorating

No sooner had I put up my post featuring “Skelly” from The Graphics Fairy, than she waived her magic fairy wand again and POOF , shared an awesome Halloween printable that was screaming to be framed and part of my Halloween décor!

Karin has it in two versions, downloadable ready for framing.

I recently picked up this great black and white harlequin patterned paper by Canvas Corp and I knew it would be perfect for this. I darkened the edges of the graphic in my graphics program and printed it 5x7 on white cardstock.  Cut the Canvas Corp paper to 8.5x11 to fit a frame I keep on my mantel all year, and mounted the print onto it.

I haven’t decided if it’s bugging me enough that it’s slightly off center. I’ll brood over that some more before I undo the whole thing and scooch it over. But I LOVE the effect of the color of the print against the black and white. Thank you AGAIN Karin!

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