Ugly Sweater Parties and a Funny Story

Friday in my class we were doing turkeys for art. I was listening to the chit chat at one of the all-boy tables. It was quite hysterical. I just HAD to share the funny banter.  This is what it is like being a teacher. It will tickle your funny bone!

Downtown at Abravenal Hall to see the genius comic "Jim Gaffigan, Dad is FAT" show. 

"Hey Mrs. Moss did you know my mom is pregnant?" another child rebuts with "Hey MY dad is the President!!" another child "YOUR dad is American?" another child "My dad is the judge!" Another child, "Well, My dad works at McDonalds, I saw him there when I was a little kid!"

Funny Monkey stocking I saw yesterday at Hobby Lobby. It just cracked me up! 

I just HAD to stop and write it all down. 1 minute of kinder kid discussion. Unbelievable. These kids could be doing stand up comedy! They all stopped in awe of the lucky McDonald's kid. Tee Hee. Oh this made me chuckle today! And #McDonalds, take note.

I was browsing around Hobby Lobby yesterday and these ugly sweater party invitations and decorations caught my eye. I want to have an Ugly Sweater Par-tay! I have plenty of them to decide between, that's FOR SHORE! 

Ugly Sweaters are the BOMB! I Agree! 

Cute Snowman in his ugly sweater holding your cookies for your Ugly Sweater Party... tee hee. Gotta Love it! (And I could dress Mr. Moss up funny for the Par-tay!" Ha! 

Me and the hubs enjoyin' life and laughing our guts out. Happy Holidays!!  And Happy Ugly Sweater Parties one and all!

Turkey and Scarecrow Cupcakes and Candy Pilgrim Hats for Thanksgiving

How about making some Thanksgiving Cupcakes for the kids this year? If you want something different in addition to the pumpkin pies, how about Turkey or Scarecrow Cupcakes? Or a Pilgrim's Hat from a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup? Yum. 

These Scarecrow Cupcakes were made from Orange Slices (and other colored gumdrop flavors) and candy corn and Chocolate chips or M and Ms for eyes. The hair is Chinese crunchy noodles. I just used chocolate icing and a writing tip to do the Scarecrow stitched smile and the stripe on the hat. Then I added a leaf cupcake pick I got onsale in the cake decoration section. 

I also bought a Wilton Package of Cupcake toppers in leaves and pumpkins. I added the leaves to the Scarecrow heads for a hat decoration on the Thanksgiving Scarecrow Cupcakes. On the Turkey Cupcakes I added the pumpkins for an added decoration. Check them out below. They were on clearance at Joannes Crafts in the Wilton Cake Decorating section. You could use a 40% off coupon to get the deal too.  

Turkey cupcakes have a jawbreaker or lemonhead for a head and candy corn beak and feathers. I like how the cupcake picks add some dimension to the turkeys and scarecrows. That's always cool! 

These are really so easy to decorate a child aged 4 could do them. Just have an adult do the dab of icing for eyes. I just used a cake decorating tip and chocolate and vanilla icing. 

These turkey "heads" were leftover treats from Halloween. Giant Lemonheads or jaw breakers for a turkey face work great. You could also used Malt Balls, but they wouldn't be as colorful. 

Then I added candy corn for the feathers and some icing eyes. Here is a Thanksgiving Buffet we set up for a School Party and this was my contribution, as well as some cheesy, twice baked potatoes. I added some silk flowers and fall leaves with ribbons to my serving plates.  

These Peanut Butter Cookies I added Reese's Pieces to them for fall colors. They were gobbled right up on Thanksgiving Day!  

Easy Scarecrow Cupcakes. They were tasty and cute too! 

 And the Thanksgiving Cupcakes made a very cute dessert buffet table too! The kids in your family (big kids or little kids) will all love them. You could also use this as a fun activity after Thanksgiving dinner too. Kids would love to decorate their own cupcake with candy!

Last year we made gingerbread houses and these cute Cookie Pilgrim Hats from a Keebler striped cookie and a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. The "buckle" is a cut up gumdrop. 

I just added some Milk Chocolate chips to the Cupcake batter to make it a little bit richer and yummier. Sometimes I add a small chocolate pudding box to the dry mix and a cup of sour cream if I want them super rich and tasty. 

 Try adding some chocolate chips to your next batch of chocolate cupcakes. You will love it. If I use yellow cake mixes I might add butterscotch chips to the batter for cupcakes. And I'll add a vanilla pudding small box (dry) and a cup of sour cream to the mix too.

 I frosted the cupcakes and used chocolate sprinkles on them before decorating them further. 

Cute little Turkey Cupcakes would be super easy for even 4 year olds to put together You would just have to add the frosting eyeballs. I just used a writing tip and made dots with white and chocolate icing. You could also buy the premade eyeball candies. 

Have some fun this Thanksgiving for your kiddos and grandkids; make Turkey Cupcakes! Or Scarecrow Cupcakes.  Or make both kinds on Thanksgiving Day for a fun activity after everybody has enjoyed the turkey dinner!  We have made gingerbread men and houses too. It's a fun activity for kids and a sweet memory.

Then when you are all done eating. Play some Thanksgiving BINGO HERE FREE, or else play Pin the Hat on the Turkey. I got mine from the dollar store! :D Have more fun on Thanksgiving Day. 

Frozen Finger Puppets Made From Felt

I have 5 granddaughters who all LOVE FROZEN, the movie. So when I saw some patterns for some cute, little, finger puppets of all of the characters, I knew we had to make them!

I went out and bought about $7.00 worth of felt squares of every color. I looked at this picture I saw on Facebook From The Idea Room and then I freehanded the puppets. It was pretty easy to also embellish with glitter, sequins, buttons and gems. And we made little faces out of fine, Sharpie markers.

All the Frozen Characters; Anna, Elsa, Olaf, Hans, Kristoff and Sven. 

Sven the Moose? Oops. I guess he's a reindeer. My bad. 

We kept laughing at ourselves for putting what we called a "spork" on her head with felt. haha. Then we added glitter and a little earring and glittery button to her outfit. And Tiff got out her makeup and dabbed on some real blush. 

Elsa and Anna Finger Dolls from Frozen were the most fun to make of all the characters. We added eyelashes to the wiggly eyes. 

Olaf was super funny. Wendy came up with the design and made all the Olaf puppets for the girls. I crafted Hans and Kristoff adding a few little sequins for buttons. Tiff did all the hair and cut out just about all those clothes. Then we had an assembly line going with the glue gun. The girls picked out the buttons and beads and embellishments they wanted. 

I know we'll be playing with these for a long time. I think Dylan just tolerated all the "dolls". He would have rather had some Hot Wheels cars instead I think. lol. Tiff was nice enough to let us all come over and mess up her pretty house making crafts. Thanks Tiff. 

Frozen Finger Puppets made from Felt. Super Easy and so fun. I found these little Frozen tiny lunch box tins for the girls to keep the dolls in. They were at the Target Dollar section. I should have bought more of them. I found these cute playing cards there too. Only a buck! 

Frozen little Lunchpail tin mini with Frozen playing cards. We'll keep the dolls in the tins. I scored these at the Target Dollar section. The tin was $3 and the cards were $1. 

Frozen Fingerpuppet patterns. 

Our Frozen Felt Finger Puppet patterns. I'll make these into a PDF today after school. 

Here we all are after our FROZEN Finger puppets were all made! That was a fun crafting afternoon with almost all my granddaughters there.  

 Then one of the girls got out her mini boombox and they all started singing "Let It Go" together. It was pretty much like every other one you've seen on youtube. Funny only to us, probably. Lots of  pretty, off key singing while we were all laughing.

My granddaughters were two of millions who donned the Elsa and Anna costumes this Halloween. At my school there were dozens of them in every classroom! It was the MOST popular costume I'd seen in years! 

Frozen Trunk or Treating! Aren't they just super cute? 

Family Shopping.com had some cute Frozen banners I liked with Olaf in the middle, great for a FROZEN kiddie party! It would be fun to have one in the dead of Utah Winter wouldn't it? Maybe some little, powdered donut snowmen and hot chocolate in ice blue mugs with marshmallows?

For future crafts we will be making beaded bracelets in the Frozen colors of light and dark blue and pinkish purple and white. I got these cute charms to put in between the beads from Oriental Trading. The multicolor snowflake charms come in a package of 36 for $7.00. I think these will be awesome and sweet!

Fall Table and Mantle Decorating

I'm starting to decorate my house for Thanksgiving now that Halloween is over. ( sounds of sniffling). I have ALMOST as much junk to decorate with for Thanksgiving as I do for Halloween. But not quite as much.

Fall Table and Mantle Decorating has begun! 

I do love the FALL SEASON best of any other. I love the colored leaves, the pumpkins and turkeys everywhere, and I love fall linens and tablescapes. If you want to know my Top 10 Reasons Why Fall is My Favorite, see my rant HERE.  Here are a few tablescapes I snapped recently.


Here is my placemats and china I used last year. But I got some really pretty placemats with a lemon branch on them from William Sonoma a few weeks ago. I'm going with a green and yellow color scheme.

I just got these beautiful placemats at William Sonoma when I was down in Provo from the Chalk the Block Festival. 

Mr. and Mrs. Pilgrim and the little tiny Thanksgiving peeps.  My grandkids love to play with this little table and the indians and pilgrims. 

You will NOT believe it but this scarecrow is made from a white mop. Yup. It's a mopcrow.....or....a scaremop.....or.....a scrop! Yes, that's IT! Or maybe it's a mop-a-row. hmmm....

Kitchen counters with my leftover Halloween pumpkin and some glassware. 

Here is the coffee table decorated up with my cute scarecrow and those gross tasting but cute candy corns for Thanksgiving. They have some brown in them. 

This is the funniest looking turkey you ever saw. WE always laugh at it every stinkin year! 

Writing desk in the living room has some cute decor for fall now too! 

Here is the front entry table. I love the cute table runner I got a few years back. It has all the fall colors. The turkey is from Kohls. I got it on clearance last year. 

I made these little pilgrims out of a 2 x 4 and our bandsaw. The boy has a little wooden turkey on a piece of brown twine. The girl is holding a small basket of "apples" but they are kind of reddish orange so they could be pumpkins...who knows! The hair is twine and the bonnet and collars are felt. 

I printed up this Fall subway art and matted it in pumpkin colored paper with a cool mahogany colored wood frame. I got this printable from Simply Sweet Home. I love it. The free printable is so cute in a dark, 5 x 7 frame.

Kiddie table is cute and ready for Thanksgiving. I made this tablecloth from some clearance Thanksgiving fabric I scored. 

I added some butterscotch colored candles to the hurricane lamps on the piano and some silk florals to a ceramic watcr pitcher I found at Michaels. 

My daughter Tiffany had this pretty mantle made up for fall that I loved too. We both like decorating a little bit for each season. Happy Fall Ya'll!