Happy Halloween! Halloween Activities for the Family

Happy Halloween everyone!

This is one of my favorite holidays! I go all out. There's something amazing about the new Fall weather and spending time doing things just to make your kids happy. It just makes Halloween one-of-a-kind. Yesterday my family did all our Halloween activities in one night because we have been so busy this month! This is what we did.

Halloween Bingo!

This game has been a family tradition since I was a kid. My family played this every single year, and every single year I looked forward to it. In our married life, we have usually lived close enough to home that we could go to my Mom's house to play every year, but this year we are on our own, so I made our own Halloween Bingo cards! I think they turned out pretty cute. I got the pattern from Artsy Fartsy Mama. She actually has printables for it, and they are ADORABLE. Unfortunately for me, printables are for when your printer is actually working. I would have just printed mine off since they are so cute, but since I couldn't I made my own based on her pictures and bingo cards. It's ok though, it was hard work but I feel like it gave a more personal touch to it and I will treasure it a little more with each passing year.

So, bingo is a pretty simple game and the rules are basic. The only thing you do differently with Halloween Bingo is that you use candy for your markers. Then, when someone calls BINGO! you forfeit all the candy on your card to the player that won. Then after each round, you rotate your cards clockwise.

Vincent enjoyed himself immensely. As you can see by his huge candy pile, he won most of the rounds.

And as you can see by Max's lack-of-candy-pile, he didn't win at all. Haha, don't worry he's only pretending to be upset for the camera. It's actually funny, because he usually won almost every round in previous years. This bingo set must be enhanced with magical kid-advantage powers. =)

Another tradition we have is making Ghost Suckers!

All you need is lollipop sticks, aluminum foil, and chocolate. It is so much fun and tasty too!

This is something else I grew up with. My Mom had us make ghost suckers every year around Halloween. Once again, loved it and always looked forward to it. The picture above is Vincent's "Big Smile Ghost" and also his "Boo from Ruby Gloom" ghost. This is what we normally had when I did it with my Mom growing up - just melted white chocolate and milk chocolate chips. But now I am an adult. And like I said, I go all out for Halloween.

This is my ghost. She's dressed up for Halloween. This year she is going as Little Red Riding Hood. Unfortunately for her, in this version she gets eaten by the Big Bad Gela. =)

Here we have just a couple of the ones Max made. He made a Deadpool sucker for himself (left) and a Spidey sucker for Vincent (right). Turned out great right? He's so talented.

Here's another one Max made - The Grim Reaper! He looks so happy to be here for our Halloween party, doesn't he?

We just happened to have the red and black melting chocolate leftover from Eva's and my birthday party over the weekend. (More on that in the next post! Stay tuned!) But if you are feeling as ambitious as we were, melting chocolate in virtually all colors can be bought at most local crafting stores. I got mine at Jo~Ann. 

And of course, we also carved pumpkins!

Well, I have a long day full of trying to keep my kids' Halloween anxiety down before the fun stuff tonight. Wish me luck!

Happy Halloween!!

101 in 1001 Update

Hi everyone!

I promised you all an update on all the fun stuff I've been doing this month. So here it goes!

I haven't officially crossed anything off of my 101 in 1001 since my past post, but I have been working on it. For starters, I worked on #90: Donate blood twice. I actually made an appointment and went to the donation center last week, and they ended up turning me away because apparently my iron levels were too low. So I got home, made another appointment, and took my iron pill every day until that appointment came around. When I went back, I was able to donate. And you know what? My husband came with me and donated too. It was such a good experience. They really take care of you there, and the feeling you get from doing something good for someone else is just amazing.

I have also been experimenting with #74: Try a juice detox for 10 days straight. I haven't actually started the detox yet, but I started experimenting with making the juice/smoothie. Here's some pictures of the drink that came out of it:

It looks nasty, right?? But you know what? IT WAS DELICIOUS! I couldn't put it down after I made it. Here's what I put into it:

Approx. 1 cup frozen spinach leaves

1/2 cup frozen cucumbers

1/4 cup frozen sliced strawberries

1/2 cup banana slices

1/4 cup frozen cantaloupe

1/4 cup frozen green grapes

1/4 cup frozen honeydew

Filled to the top with water & blended well.

The fruit really does a great job hiding the veggies behind yummy flavors. I can't wait to start incorporating other fruits and veggies like kale, carrots, mangoes, pineapple, etc. I have to admit that I am actually excited to start the detox after trying this, and am planning on starting it near the beginning of November! Wish me luck!

I also started on #8: Try 10 of the amazing tutorials I always see online. Technically this wasn't one for my business even though it's under the "For the biz" category. I dunno what I was thinking putting it under that! But now it's there, and moving it would mess up my numbering, so there it will stay. Anyways, the tutorial I did was this. A Time-Out Bottle. When your kid gets in trouble, you shake up the time-out bottle and give it to them, then send them to go sit somewhere. Tell them that when all the glitter is down at the bottom, they can come out. Meanwhile, your child calms down while watching the glitter settle, and if they don't calm down and throw a fit, it shakes up the bottle and makes their time-out longer. Good idea, right?

Found this idea on Pinterest, and since Vincent seems to be going through a defiant stage, I thought I would give it a try.  Basically all you do is take an empty bottle, fill it up about half-way with water, then dump in some extra-fine glitter and a matching color bottle of glitter glue. Then glue the lid, of course. Don't want your kids trying to drink this stuff.
So, I tried it out when Vincent was being a stinker the other day.....
He refused to hold it.
I tried just setting it in his lap, and he would just take it and put it on the floor. I tried to explain to him that this is how we do time-out now, and he wouldn't budge. I will give it a few more tries, but I'm thinking maybe it's not going to work for him. Too bad, I was so excited about it.

Oh, don't worry. I have lots of other news, but my time is a little pressed right now because I have a HUGE birthday party to throw tomorrow! My life is crazy right now! But as always, thanks for stopping by and be on the lookout for my other fun October Adventures!

~*~Gela~*~

First Sale, Treasuries, & Revamping!

Hello, hello, hello!! I have some fantastic news!! I got my very first sale on Saturday night! Whoo!! It was the cheapest item I had in stock haha. But it was also my newest item, and was only on the virtual shelf for a few days before it got snatched up! I took this as a sign and got busy making more of them. I shipped it out today! I am so excited. Somewhere in Michigan my bows are going to adorn some cute little girl's hair. Such an awesome thought. I also sent one of my newly received business card with it =) Hopefully she will pass it along to someone who compliments her daughter's bow? We shall see.

In other news, I have discovered (or rather had shoved in my face by other Etsy members..... in the politest of ways of course) that the zebra print I had been using as a background for my products was waaaaay too busy and was drowning out the product. After looking around on Etsy, I stumbled upon someone else that was using a busy background like me. It was black with white polkadots. And suddenly, I agreed. I could not see their product for the life of me. SO! I have spent the last few days REVAMPING all of my photos. And, can I just say. They look fantastic. I am super proud of my work. I feel like some kind of fantastic photographer. And all I had to do was buy some white fabric, lay it out in front of a window during high noon, change my camera setting to "natural light" with the macro setting active, and take some super close ups. Then on my computer I hightened the brightness & contrast a little bit, and voila. Masterpieces began pouring into my shop!! It really gave me a new found appreciation for treasuries and how beautiful they are. (I have to admit, I didn't really understand the whole concept before.) Which brings me to my next subject.... Treasuries!!

I created my very first treasury today. It can be found here. Because let's face it.
The world would be a better place if everything was pink.
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/MTY4MjUwMzR8MjQzMjAxMTU2Mg/my-perfectly-pink-world

Beautiful, no? I love it!! There will definitely be more treasuries in my future. I enjoy it a lot. And I hope to give some nice exposure to my fellow Etsians this way. I am looking forward to the day when I am featured in someone's treasury.

Oh, one more thing before I wrap up. I got my very first sale from something I discovered called a link up party!! You link your new listings onto someone's blog so all their readers can see it. SUCH a good idea. I tell you, the Etsy community is brilliant!! So, in honor of getting my very first sale from that, I think I will link my blog to THAT blog, and also host my own link up party!! ......Some day. Not yet, lol. But I am looking forward to it, hope you are too!!

'Til next time my fellow entrepreneurs!!

~*~Gela~*~