This sweet chili sauce recipe is easy to make and delicious. It is the perfect comfort food for cold, winter nights. Making a big batch in the summer while the garden is plentiful leads to quick, satisfying meals later!
Read MoreMake a felt deer mask with this free tutorial and printable template. It makes an easy Halloween costume for girls!
Read MoreI can't stress this enough... Halloween costumes around here are usually VERY LOW EFFORT. They are usually last-minute, too. Now, this is not entirely my fault. I have been asking my children for weeks what they would like to dress up as. I either get an "I don't knooooooow" answer or ever-changing, impossible answers. Some of them also think that they are "too old" for costumes, but I bet that some of them change their minds on October 30 around 9pm. I also refuse to spend a lot of money on costumes. Have you seen the price tags on some of them! Ouch! I can't do it. My youngest daughter LOVES unicorns. She saw a cute unicorn costume last year at Target for $30 and it was white. We also don't do white costumes. We live in the country and the kids sneak in their candy. It is just a bad idea. She had a gray shirt and leggings, so she was a gray unicorn. I just made a headband and tail to complete the costume. She was still thrilled!
If you want to be a cheap slacker mom like me, here is how I did it...
First, I made a headband for the ears and horn. I started with a wide, glittery headband from the dollar bins near the check-out at Joann. The horn is made of a pencil wrapped in scraps of felt I had leftover from other costumes. I sewed a triangle of fancy metallic fabric to slip over the top, stuffed more, folded the ends under, and hot glued it in place. (Minus the pencil, which might be dangerous even if we haven't had any problems, the closest tutorial and pattern I can find is HERE.) I also used elastic hair ties to divide the horn on angles.
The ears are made from felt. I cut pink ears a little smaller for the inside and the gray extends straight down for a few inches to wrap around. I also pinched the center of the ears and glued it together near the base to give them a little more dimension.
Next came the tail. I sewed some wide elastic together in a loop the same size as her waist. If you are a no-sew kinda gal you could hot glue it, too. Or, you could use ribbon and tie it on. Whatever works for you. I had some strips of tulle in various colors left over from the ninja turtle costumes. I added some pink and lilac, too. The strips are 6" wide and varying lengths. (Just double the length you want!) Then, all I did was hold them all together and loop them over the elastic. Just like latch hooking. 80s skills comin' in handy! Woohoo!
For one last detail, I used hair chalks from Five Below ($3) to make streaks in her hair/mane that coordinated with the tail colors.
She wears her unicorn headband pretty often, so that was another nice feature about going this route. One of her many ideas for Halloween is a gray cat. I wonder if I could get away with another headband and tail... Sweet!
You may also like these easy costume ideas:
Raising five girls, I am learning a lot about myself and about females in general. I guess that it is making me more aware, and I have to admit- I don't like what I see. My 6yo fancy girl who loved tutus and regularly wore THIS over-the-top ensemble to school now wears the same activewear outfit that I bought for gym days as soon as it is washed. She wore it Monday and she is wearing it again today (Wednesday). Gym class is tomorrow. If she was outgrowing the phase, it would be one thing, but I asked her about it and she said, "No one at school dresses fancy." She just wants to fit in.
It made me sad to think of her giving up her sense of style just to blend in with the crowd, but my response to her wearing the same outfit yet again was to worry about what people might think about my parenting. I am no better.
What I am realizing is that girls so often want to fit in, to be accepted by their peers. Their peers can be mean.
Some never outgrow it and adult women can get caught up in tearing others down to build themselves up or measuring themselves against others' social media displays of perfection.
I think maybe it is harder for mothers. The stakes are high and it can feel like you have no idea what you are doing. The stages, the challenges, the solutions are constantly changing. And we all make so many mistakes. It is hard to tell if you are doing it "right" and no one even agrees on that definition. We look around and compare, looking for validation in some way. This is where it can get ugly.
We all have different priorities when it comes to running our homes. We also have different challenges and different blessings. Yet, we never see the whole picture in anyone else's story...
Keeping up on the laundry in this house is H A R D. There are at least 10 socks in each load of laundry that don't have mates. I do at least 3 big loads of laundry every day, not including towels or bedding. If you come to my house and the sock basket is overflowing and the furniture is covered in folded and unfolded laundry, please don't judge me.
I like to sew but I hate to do mending. I messed up when I hemmed my bathroom curtains and have left them hanging lopsided for months. It just isn't a priority for me to fix them anytime soon, so please don't judge me.
My desk was clean a few days ago but it is the prime spot in the house for everyone to dump random things. It is clean again now because I couldn't find my media card reader to transfer these pictures. (I actually found that under the dining room table.) Lots of people live here and make messes, including myself, so please don't judge me.
Every now and then I try to get the kids to make their beds, but it I have learned to choose my battles. That one is not usually worth fighting before 7am. Things might have looked great when I took pics for the blog (HERE) but their beautiful bedroom is normally a mess. My children's training is still a work in progress, so please don't judge me.
I haven't finished my fall decorating yet. I was not feeling so great and I have been busy with other priorities. The kids stuffed some weeds in my milk can and there is a soccer ball where I plan on putting a pumpkin. Use your imagination. I am not a fabulous home decorator, even if I am crafty in some ways, so please don't judge me.
Please don't think that I am some crafty genius who does homemade everything and has an amazingly decorated house. Also, when you see my shortcomings, please don't judge me for having different priorities and struggles than you do.
Kindness and grace for myself and for others is something that I want to focus on more intentionally and try to instill in my daughters. I can tell you from experience that people at school barely notice what your kid is wearing. I am still going to hide that outfit because I am sick of seeing it and want her to get some wear out of her other clothes but I want to be mindful of reinforcing the concept of petty, social judgement.
MOPS printables and crafts for Creative Activities.
Read MoreMake an easy girls’ Captain America costume with a freezer paper stencil t-shirt and a simple tutu!
Read MoreEasy mermaid tail sewing tutorial made with stretch fabric and tulle or chiffon. Easily made in less than an hour! Girls can actually move around in these mermaid fins, too.
Read MoreSewing, crafts, tutorials, recipes, and a little look at our life in the country - raising half a dozen children.
Hi! Thanks so much for stopping by! My name is Lindsay and on this blog you will find sewing, crafts, decorating, recipes, and tutorials with a little bit of honesty and encouragement.
