Wednesday 25 August 2010

August 25 - Rudy Day - Month of the elves

Starting today it's a whole month of Elf Magic at these 2 sites:

Our elves have been coming to our house the past few years. Jujubes & Mr. M. (see post of december 2009 for a pic of our elves).
My children are now 17 and 19 and they do enjoy them ... even if they roll their eyes and say 'ah mom' and shake their heads.
I've started collecting some ideas for when the elves will be here in December.

Joke
Who is the most famous singing elf? Elf Vis.
lol! I just might print this out and have them bring it for the teens :), I'm sure they'd enjoy that!
Craft


Pasta Christmas Elf

What you'll need:
1 jumbo shell (head)
1 manicotti pasta (body)
6 ziti pasta (arms and legs)
4 elbow macaroni (hands and feet)
Acrylic paint: flesh, green, red, white, pink, black
2 small wiggle eyes
1 mini pink pompom
1 small glittery white pompom
2 small glittery green pompoms
1 sheet white felt
8” green yarn
Hot glue gun
Paintbrush
Toothpick
White craft glue (step 9 only)
How to make it:
Paint the manicotti, four pieces of the ziti, and two elbow macaroni with green paint.
Paint the jumbo shell and the other two elbow macaroni with flesh colored paint.
Paint the remaining two pieces of ziti white (see image).
When the white ziti pieces are dry, paint red stripes on them and let them dry--these are the socks (see image).
Paint the top 1/3 of the jumbo shell with green paint to make the hat (see image).
Hot glue the head into one end of the manicotti body.
Cut a thin strip of white felt and glue it around the border of the hat line, where flesh paint meets green.
Glue the white glitter pom-pom to the top of the hat.
Glue on two wiggle eyes (use white craft glue for this step) and the mini pink pom-pom for the nose.
Dip a small paintbrush into pink paint and dab off most of the excess, your paintbrush should be fairly dry. Dab the dry pink paint on as cheeks (see image).
Cut two strips of white felt and glue around the top and bottom of the manicotti shell.
Glue two green pompoms onto the front of the manicotti shell.
Glue two of the green ziti just inside the bottom of the manicotti shell for the legs.
Glue the striped ziti socks onto the green legs (see image).
Glue green elbow macaroni to the striped socks.
Glue the two remaining green ziti to the sides of the manicotti body and then glue the flesh colored elbow macaroni on as hands.
Use a toothpick dipped in black paint to add a smile and eyebrows.
Glue a looped and knotted piece of yarn inside the back of the jumbo shell head.
Tips:
This is a very delicate project and could prove frustrating for smaller children. To include them, use felt for the arms and legs instead of the smaller pieces of pasta.
Always supervise children with hot glue. If hot glue gets on skin, remove it as quickly as possible to avoid burns.
If you prefer to use white glue, assemble the limbs separately where they can lay flat to dry. Attach them to the body afterward.

Monday 23 August 2010

Weird Halloween Trivia

Halloween stirs up all kinds of phobias, and if you are feeling creeped out by the festivities this year, you may suffer from one of the following:
• Fear of cats = ailurophobia
• Fear of cemeteries = coimetrophobia
• Fear of ghosts = phasmophobia
• Fear of Halloween = samhainophobia
• Fear of spiders = arachnophobia
• Fear of the dark = nyctophobia
• Fear of witches = wiccaphobia

It was believed that black cats were witches’ familiars and protected them.

Vampire bats do exist, but not in Transylvania. They are typically found in Central and South America where they feed on horses, cattle or birds.

If you stare into a mirror at midnight on Halloween, legend says you will see the face of your future spouse.

It is also believed that if you see a spider on Halloween, it is the spirit of a loved one watching over you.

Finally, if you have tattoos, a unibrow or unusually long middle fingers, then you just might be a werewolf, otherwise known as a lycanthrope. Creepy!

Sunday 8 August 2010

Menu Plan

I decided to try and menu plan, to save time, money and most importantly to have something to eat when we get home from work\school at night.
I used Hockey card plastic sheets (fits nine cards), cut off & kept 6 pockets. Then I cut up index cards to fit the pockets - wrote down our most used recipes & pasted pictures on the front. On the back either the recipe or ingredients needed to make it.
Here's what it looks like:
I put magnets on the back of my plastic sheets (4 corners) and it is now posted on the fridge.
There is still place to add new ideas but this should simplify things! At least it helps to make the grocery list.


Klipboard winner!


I won a fantastic clipboard from Terri at:


Isn't it lovely?? Thanks Terri!



Monday 2 August 2010

2010-08-01 - Month of the elf!

Over at MHH August is month of the elves.
Here's my latest creations... Christmas pillowcases with a little pocket to put $$ and a poem. Who knows maybe the elves will bring this for Christmas!


One side of this one is a nightshirt.

Sunday 1 August 2010

Christmas elves

If you want to know about the magic of elves, go to this website and everything will be explained. It's so much fun.. no matter at what age!

http://magicalholidayhome.com/elves/