DIY Halloween Card with Perler Beads

I posted about Perler Beads before and how great they are for kids.  Just wanted to show you another Halloween card that was made with the Perler or Hama beads.  This one I used the heart peg board and found an image of thePac Man ghosts on google images.  You could totally do any pixel image and make a pretty cool looking card with this.  I've seen lots of Mario Brothers, Pokemon, Zelda sprites made from Perler beads.


You can see my previous post here for some other card inspirations: http://www.thecheesethief.com/2013/09/some-toys-that-consistently-keeps-my.html

The perler beads come unsorted, I'm kinda OCD in that way and decided to sort all the colors.  

My letter stamps that I purchased off ebay.  Mine are similar to this Martha Stewart one, but mine are vintage from a different company.

I embossed the Happy Halloween on the bottom.  I'm still having problems getting my embossing perfect (still new to embossing) so it won't curl the paper.  I'll have to post updates on how to achieve this.  If you have any tips, I'm all ears!

Unicorn Pumpkin Tutorial

Halloween is around the corner!  I'm always looking for no carve pumpkin ideas that my kids would love.  This pumpkin did not disappoint them.

Check out my consumercrafts.com video tutorial on how a no carve unicorn pumpkin.

Healthy Halloween Treats For The Classroom

This post was originally written by me and published for CraftsUnleashed.com, but in case you missed it I am reposting on my blog.

I know Halloween is all about the candy, but there is only so much candy a kid can eat right?  I like giving out healthy Halloween treats (yes, I am the house that gives out pretzels, toys, and toothbrushes).  This year for my daughter’s school, she needs to bring in treats for Halloween.  I decided to use oranges and wrap them in tissue paper to make them look like pumpkins.  This was so fun and turned out so well.  Originally I wanted to use small “Cuties” but they are out of season, so I just used Valencia Oranges that I purchased from the farmers market.  The oranges are organic so they aren’t colored bright orange like the supermarket oranges, so the orange tissue paper really makes it look like a pumpkin.  Don’t be fooled by the color though, these are the sweetest, juiciest oranges I have ever had! Even sweeter than candy, in my opinion.

I love this take on Halloween treats, because it’s actually a fun craft to do with your kids and something that could help them eat more fruit.

Supplies needed to make your own healthy Halloween treats:

• Orange Tissue Paper (1 sheet will make 6 oranges)
• Scissors
• Green Pipe Cleaners (One for each orange)
• Black Vinyl

Cut the tissue paper into a square that will wrap around the entire orange.  Mine was cut 8×8 for an orange about 3 inches in diameter.

Wrap tissue paper up to the top of the orange, and twist around the top.

Using a pipe cleaner, cinch the base of the orange where the tissue paper is gathered, then twist around the tissue paper tail until you reach the top.  Then twist back down to the bottom of the stem of the “pumpkin”. Leave a little room on the pipe cleaner for the next step.

You should have about 2 inches left on the pipe cleaner.  Take those two inches and wrap around a pencil to create a spiral vine effect.

Once all of your oranges are wrapped, they are ready to be decorated to complete these fun Halloween treats.

Using black vinyl, cut out jack-o-lantern faces.  Get creative!  You could draw it out on the back of the vinyl and then cut it out, but I find that free handing is the easiest.

Now these adorable Halloween treats are ready to be handed out to trick-or-treaters or party guests! They won’t even know there’s fruit inside until they open them up. Sneaky!

I truly love the way these healthy Halloween treats turned out.  They would even make great centerpieces or decor for around the house.

Twins Halloween Costume DIY

I finally finished the twin's Halloween costume.  It was more work than I thought, maybe because I had to make two of everything.  The effort was well worth it after I got to see them in the costume.  It was so cute on them.

Here they are Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum from Alice in Wonderland.  I wanted to make a costume where most of the clothes could be reused and the accessories were cheap.  All in all these two costumes came out to less than 10 dollars each (not including shoes, those were a gift).  Here is how I made the costumes:

Started off with two yellow polo onesies and two pairs of red tights purchased at Kohls.  They were having a sale so both the yellow onesies and the red pants were 15 dollars (for all four!).


To make the white collar I cut an old shirt I had into a rectangle and glued the seams.  This is not the correct way to make a collar, but it was way too much work to a proper collar.  This worked out decently seeing as how they will wear this collar only once.


I fold the collar over and attach to onesie.  The collar measured about 14 inches across and was 3 inches wide.  You can glue or sew the collar onto the existing polo.  I slip stitched the collar onto the shirts because I still wanted to use the shirts later.


The hat was probably the part of the costume I pondered most about.  I didn't know what to make the hat out of and I didn't want to buy any hats as the boys do not like things on their heads.  At first I was going to make a paper mache hat, but that can be messy and a lot of work.  Then one night my daughter took a paper bowl and put it on her head.  I had a eureka moment.  Paper bowls painted red for the hat.

Paint the inside too because you will be able to see the underside.

Flag for top of hats are made of pipe cleaners and construction paper.  The yellow construction paper is reinforced with cardboard.  I did tie a black elastic (like for birthday hats) onto the bowls, but they were not happy when I put the elastic under their chins.  If you had two red beanies that would be a good option.

For the bows, I had and old blue pillowcase that I used for the bow ties.  Here is a video tutorial on how to make a bow tie in less than ten minutes.  In the tutorial I made a small bow tie. If you want to make a large bow tie like the one in this costume, use fabric that is 15 inches by 8 inches.  That will yield you a bow tie that is approximately 7 inches by 3 inches.


Here are my tweedles just dreaming of white rabbits and tea parties.

Part One of Twin Costumes Complete. Any Guesses?

I just finished making the bows and flags.  Just a couple more things to paint and cut and their costume will be complete.  Any guesses as to what they might be?

Stay tuned tomorrow for no sew bow tie tutorial as well as the completed costume.

Frozen Anna Inspired DIY Halloween Costume Tutorial

I can't believe it's almost Halloween.  Time sure flies.  Last year I made my daughter a sushi costume knowing that it would be the last time she would let me pick her costume for Halloween.  This year she has followed in her big sister's footsteps and insisted that she wanted to be a Disney princess for Halloween (Anna from Frozen to be exact).  I decided to try to make her costume instead of buying it. I have to admit it doesn't completely look like Anna, more of a resemblance but she's happy with it and that's all that matters.  Most of the materials I had at home.  The only thing I needed to buy was the blue tulle.

I'm pretty sure Anna wore pink converses around her castle also.

The best tulle to buy for no sew tutus are the ones cut in these spools.  If you are making a bigger tutu you will need two spools.

To cut the tulle fast wrap it around a piece of cardboard that is the length you want the tutu.  Be sure to add an extra inch allowance for the knotting of the tulle.  You will cut one side so the tulle will be twice the length.

Cut one side only, now you can double up the tulle for making the tutu.  

To knot the tulle I use this slip knot technique.  I posted a YouTube video on how to knot this to make a tutu.  Video here.

To make the dress embellishments I used poly satin ribbon (its the cheapie florist ribbon), This ribbon does not fray so it was perfect.  You could also use felt. 

Attach embellishments using fabric glue or a hot glue gun.  I attached embellishments on both sides to make it look a bit more finished.

Tutu is finished.  To make the shirt cut out same embellishments and glue.

I happened to have a maroon poncho that I cut down the center to make it a cape.  The black shirt was embellished with the same poly satin ribbon as the tutu.  Gold ribbon was placed around the waist of the tutu.

One costume down two more to go. I'm making the twins costumes this year too.  So many cute and funny twin costume options to choose from.  Stay tuned for their costume tutorial.

Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween.  I ended up borrowing a yukata (casual summer kimono) to match my daughters diy sushi Halloween costume.  It worked out pretty well, I tried to do the geisha makeup, but didn't have white face paint so it just looks like I bought the wrong foundation color.  It was fun dressing up matching my daughter, I loved your suggestions about being wasabi, soy sauce, chopsticks.  I'll have to start planning for next year.  Hopefully my daughter will still let me make her costume for her.

Pumpkin Patch! With Spooky Pictures Using Iphone's Panoramic Feature

If you live in Orange County, Tanaka farms has to be your stop during Halloween.  We go every year to check out the pettng zoo, ride the wagons and take pictures.  They have a petting zoo and a whole huge patch where you can pick your own pumpkin (although my kids never get to do that, it's too expensive ... they get to pick any pumpkin they want at Walmart).  The petting zoo is stocked with animals (if you go to early in the season they will not have as many animals).  You can see the animals from the outside of the fence (we brought Avery inside last year and she was too scared to even move.)  I think its only three dollars to get inside the petting zoo (comes with a small cup of food to feed the animals).  Wagon rides are 5 dollars per person and it takes you through a tour of the farm.  My kids really enjoy the wagon ride.

I love taking pictures at Tanaka Farms, the lighting is so good and all the bright orange pumpkins make the perfect backdrop.  My cousin took some awesome panoramic pictures with her Iphone at the beach, so I decided to try to do the same at the pumpkin patch.  She basically used the panoramic feature of her Iphone and ran to each new scene, creating a panoramic where she is in some of the frames.  Seems easy enough right?  See the picture below?  First and last frame look good, but the middle frame I'm just a floating head.  Kinda cool for Halloween I guess.

Bodyless me because I moved too soon when we were panning through the frame.

Two headed and a teleporting Avery.  These were all accidents from trying to do the iphone pan, not photoshopped.

This one turned out.  The trick is that when you are panning you need to have the person in the entire frame. They cannot move until they are out of the frame.  So you want to stop panning have them move and then start panning again.

The more people you have in your panoramic the harder it becomes, especially with kids!  If they keep moving, they can get distorted.

This last picture is a 'who wore it better?'  The left picture was just taken today, and the right picture is of Avery when she was one.  

Here are some steps and tips for how to take a panoramic picture with your Iphone IOS7 where the subject appears in mutiple frames/parts.
1.  Start with the person in frame to your far right
2.  The person/people must stay still for the entire time they are in the frame of your camera.
3.  Once they are out of the frame you hold your camera still and stop panning.  Have them run to the next spot and again stay still.
4.  Pan over to them again and have them stay still. The middle section is the hardest because you can't really tell when they have exited the frame so you will have to approximate.
5.  Repeat steps 3 and 4 for as many frames as you want.
6.  Just keep practicing!

Handwritten Bloody Halloween Font Tutorial

Here is a simple handwritten font that is great for Halloween.  I love to use this font for my Halloween banners because it is easy and you don't need any special drawing ability.  The messier your penmanship is the better.  I sometimes even write the words with my left (I'm a rightly) hand just to get the lines messier. There is a video tutorial below will show you how to create this font.  All you have to do is write the words with a broad marker (Crayola Markers, Highlighters, or even these cheapie Sponge Bob party favor markers work).

Draw out the word with marker.  The messier the better.

Outline the marker with a black ink pen (not ball point).

Video Tutorial:

This also looks pretty cool with yellow highlighter also.

Easy Halloween DIY Sushi Costume

Halloween is just around the corner. I love baby costumes and this year I decided to make my youngest daughter her costume.  I realized that you can really only pick their costume for your kids before the age of two.  After that they will have opinions and refuse to be raw fish for, and instead insist on being Disney Princess.

I had the pleasure of meeting another blogger this weekend, Jennifer from Transformations You Can See.  I love reading new blogs so I was super excited to read hers.  When I find a new blog that I like I read it from beginning to end.  While reading through her blog I saw this post for a sushi costume for a child. I knew I had to make this.  This project took less than an hour and I am so happy with the results.  Jennifer made a Salmon Sushi costume (be sure to check out her tutorial too, it is a bit different from mine). I was also going to go down that route but decided on turning it into shrimp sushi instead, because it looked more like shrimp when I was half way done.  I used all materials I found at my house.  The orange was an old pillow case, the black was old leggings,the white strips were from a while t-shirt and the stuffing was from an old pillow (yes I keep old pillows and use it to stuff projects, so much softer and cheaper than poly-fill).

There is a little sewing involved, you have to sew your orange fabric to be the size of the pillow.  If you make a shrimp instead of a fish you also need to sew the tail.  Other than that I just used glue to attach the strips of white fabric.

Another thing I love about this costume is that my daughter didn't even notice it was on her.  Most other costumes she would feel the bulk and want to pull it off, this one she wore it all day and was fine.

I do not have exact measurements, just eyeball it to the size of your child.  Cut 2 rectangle to the size of your childs back.  If you want to make a shirmp I would make the rectangle a little longer and just cut the tail right onto the first piece.  I made the mistake of attaching it afterwards (because I didn't think I was going to make a shrimp).

Cut white strips of fabric about half and inch wide and 3/4ths the width of your original rectangle.  Glue strips onto fabric.  I used Alene's tacky glue (which is not fabric glue, but works great on fabric).

If you already cut out the tail to be included then you do not need to do this step, if not then cut out the tail.

Sew top, left and right sides of the pillow (right sides facing) together.  Flip the pillow inside out and stuff with poly fill.  This is where it kind of gets tricky.  If you want to attach the, fold in the bottom of the pillow, and then put the tail in.  Gather the materials bottom fabric (kind of like you would to make ruffles) and sew in place.

This is much easier to do by hand sewing than on a sewing machine.

I used black leggings to attach the band onto the onesie.  Stretchy materials for the black "seaweed" works better because it will expand to your child's chest.  I also sewed the top corners of the sushi onto the shoulders for extra support.  

Now my only problem is what I should be for Halloween to match?  Maybe soy sauce?