happily random

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Halloween

Now that we no longer live in the boonies where no one but us could see if we decorated for the holidays or not, my kids have become very gung-ho about making sure that our house is all decked out. Halloween being our first holiday in our new neighborhood home, they have been planning for a month to deck the halls with spiderwebs and pumpkins. In the spirit of the season (ha-ha, spirit), I saw this black tulle wreath in the Pottery Barn catalogue for my front door. Not wanting to shell out the fortune for the one in the catalogue, I decided to make one myself. Heading to Hobby Lobby with list in hand, I grabbed a few simple items and literally threw this together in about 30 minutes.

• Roll of black tulle (25 yards about 7" wide) - $3.99 (Used 40% off coupon)
• 9" embroidery hoop - $1.29
• Wide orange Polka Dotted Ribbon - $3.99 (on sale for $2.00)
• Orange Cardstock
• Thin Ribbon for pennant

This craft was not exact in the least and so easy I had my 6-year-old helping me tie the tulle onto the hoop. I cut pieces off the roll of tulle about 12-16" in length and knotted them one at time around the hoop, using the entire roll (which I was very relieved that one roll was the perfect amount as I really didn't want to make a trip to buy more).

For a little added touch (which wasn't on the one in the Pottery Barn catalogue), I designed up little pennant banner, printed it out on orange cardstock, trimmed it out and strung it on some purple gingham ribbon I had in my stash, tying each end of the ribbon to each side of the wreath. You can download and print out one of your own below onto an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of cardstock.

To hang the wreath, I cut a 3' piece of the wide polka dotted ribbon and looped it around the top of the wreath and actually stapled it to together to hold it on. To hang it I just used some strong tape and taped it to the inside top of the door.

Easy Peasy. And I think it turned out very cute. Take that, Pottery Barn! ;)

BOO Pennant template download (pdf)

Ear Piercing?

"Mom, can I get my ear pierced?"

That's a question every parent hears one time or another... from her daughters. I was getting it from my 10-year-old and 8-year-old sons.

"Let's think on that for a bit and make sure this is something you really want to do, okay?" Honestly, I was completely caught off guard by the request and needed some time to regroup. Neither one of my sons are the type you would think of wanting an earring. I don't know why I found the request so shocking as I had my nose pierced five years ago. My sons each wanting an ear pierced was rather tame by comparison.

The requests kept coming in throughout the summer. They would not be detered despite my stalling and were still just as sure of their decision to get it done as they were when they first requested it three months ago. So shortly after school started, we took them to get it done. They each got one ear pierced.

When it came down to it, my sons having an ear pierced was not that big a deal. It's not like they ask for a tattoo (not till they are out on their own) or gauges in their ears (ick!). They both think it's cool and have handled the inevidible teasing from some boys at school with an amazing amount of confidence, which is always a good lesson to learn. I'm actually very proud of how they handled the situation all around.

Not only that, but my son's are now the coolest boys at their elementary school.