My New Normal: Halloween Fun

With Halloween approaching, we've started to get out some decorations and have fun with some Halloween crafts! Here are some of the ways we're celebrating the season.

A Seasonal Photo

One of my favorite seasonal decorations is a 20"x30" photo of Will sitting in a pumpkin patch that we had printed to put in the frame over our family room fireplace. We used mpix.com, and it was $25.00 for the extra large print, which isn't bad for a decoration that will be fun to use in future seasons. We left the previous print right in the frame behind the seasonal one, where it can be switched back later. We loved this photo so much that we also used it to print some Halloween cards from Shutterfly to send to our family.

Goodnight Goon

As Halloween approaches we've also really enjoyed switching up Will's bedtime story. Our favorite: Goodnight Goon: A Petrifying Parody by Michael Rex. My mom gave it to him for his birthday, and I'm not sure who loves it more, Will, or us. Greg does the best reading, with a spooky voice and plenty of suspense leading up to "the hairy old werewolf who was hollering... boo!" which gets an inevitable laugh out of Will. It's available on Amazon or maybe even at your local bookstore so you too can say goodnight to pots full of goo and screechy bats for a fun little change to the bedtime routine!

The Witch Hug Scarf by Morehouse Farms

I knit this as a gift for my mom, who loves witches, Wicked, and all things Elphaba. She's made Will's Halloween Costume two years running, and I wanted to thank her with a little hand knit fun to wear this October.

I used knitpicks Swish DK yarn, a superwash merino, in peapod and eggplant. While I love the Morehouse Farms wool, I wanted brighter colors and something that could be washed now that Mom is starting to have grandchildren. The pattern was fun to knit, super easy, and pretty quick since it's garter stitch.

Jack O' Lantern Squishies

For a fun little project I knit up some Squishies from Itty Bitty Toys by Susan B. Anthony in a bright orange, then duplicate stitched them with jack o' lantern faces. Will loves picking them up, looking at the faces, and throwing them. Who knows, maybe I'll knit more next year and we can place them around the house as a fun Halloween tradition! Right now their place seems to be on the floor, where they can be thrown, chased, and thrown again.

I knit them in knitpicks machine washable swish worsted in orange, and then duplicate stitched them with the same yarn in black. I stuffed them with poly fil which is also machine washable, so the whole squishie toy can go right in a garment bag and through the washer and dryer if it gets chewed on or dirty.

I didn't use a pattern for the faces, just made up the duplicate stitching as I went along! That's why some of the mouths are a little crooked. I wanted them to look like I had carved them, and if anyone has seen the way I carve pumpkins, they'll understand.