Honest To Nod

Halloween Crafts Round-up

Some of our favorite Halloween ideas from last year:

{ Printable Spooky Banner }

{ Paper Spiders }

{ Pin the Heart on the Skeleton Game }

{ Poison Ivy Bath Salts }

{ Festive Homemade Oreos }

{ Mummy T-shirts }

Reposted with permission by Aimée Lowry & Bettijo B. Hirschi from PagingSupermom.com

Have yourself a Colorful Christmas video from Oh Joy!

Our friend Joy from Oh Joy! made us a video featuring tons of our new holiday décor. Enjoy $4.95 all-you-can-ship on holiday décor.

 

Joy Deangdeelert Cho is a graphic designer, blogger and food enthusiast who worked with numerous fashion clients in New York before launching her own business and blog Oh Joy! in 2005. She now designs textiles, packaging and branding for clients in the fashion and food industries, consults other creative businesses through her Rx program, and sells her licensed stationery, home office, baby clothing and wallpaper lines nationwide. She co-wrote Creative, Inc., a book about becoming a freelance creative talent, and recently authored Blog, Inc., about the business of blogging. 

 Like what you see? Find the décor from this video here.

Black Thumb Friendly Houseplants

I do not come from a family of gardeners, but I always had dreams of a tangled English garden gracing my front stoop or perhaps a collection of intricately manicured bonsai trees in my living room window (this may or may not have been inspired by Mr. Miyagi from Karate Kid). While my horticultural talents are still quite modest, I have discovered how to grow houseplants with some measure of success….and now I LOVE growing houseplants in my home! For me, houseplants inspire creativity, provide beautiful, natural decor and are a sight for sore eyes in the middle of a gray, slushy January afternoon. They also provide health benefits by absorbing formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds that compromise the indoor air quality in your home (here’s an interesting article about this topic).

Right now I have ten houseplants in my home that are flourishing, but I admit, more than a few have ended up in the compost pile in the backyard throughout the years. Here are a few tricks I’ve got for growing houseplants:

• Don’t buy a plant if you don’t have the right growing conditions. I killed a large, beautiful pot of English ivy because I didn’t have it in a sunny-enough window. Pay attention to the growing instructions…the first step to growing success!
• Underwatering is better than overwatering. I’m definitely more of a plant-neglector than a plant-micro-manager, but usually that’s good for easy care houseplants…..and make sure the pot has a drainage hole in the bottom so the extra water can drain out!
• Make sure your plants are non-toxic or placed in a safe spot if you have pets or small children. Some plants are downright poisonous, others have toxic qualities if they are ingested….it’s better to be extra careful!
• Start with an easy, impossible-to-kill plant. Once you get used to caring for one easy plant, buy another one, or get something that is more finicky if you want a challenge. All the plants in this post are easy to grow, and all but one are very safe for kids and pets.

I bought my very first plant, a Jade plant, during a paint-supply shopping trip to Lowe’s eight years ago. It was a nostalgic purchase as my grandmother always had a huge Jade plant in her front window….and I also think their succulent leaves are very beautiful. I placed Bob (yes, I named my plant Bob!) on top of our TV armoire and watched him grow from 3 inches to 2 feet tall in height. Jade plants need a lot of sunlight but keep growing even if you don’t water them for weeks….I know this from experience!

If you want an easy impossible-to-kill plant, go buy a Pothos right now! I actually have three Pothos plants (also called Devil’s Ivy); they can grow in almost any condition, including the dark corner in your TV room and can survive on bi/tri-weekly watering. You can grow them up a post like the one pictured or let their fast-growing tendrils trail over a hanging basket or along the top of your kitchen cabinets. Pothos are also on the list of plants that are especially good at cleaning the air. One caveat: The leaves can cause mild illness if ingested so keep them away from little hands and paws.

My African Violet plant is gorgeous and just keeps blooming! African Violets are one of the easiest flowering houseplants to grow if you follow a few simple steps. Most importantly, African Violets grow best if you water them from the bottom up and avoid getting water on the leaves (there are special “African Violet” pots you can get if you want). Here’s a very informative article on how to grow African Violets, but in my experience, they grow well with minimal care.

My husband salvaged this Ponytail Palm from his former office building before they were relocated and it has become a nice addition to my plant collection after a little TLC. Again, this plant requires a bright window but minimal watering. It’s non-toxic so I feel okay about it sitting on the floor vulnerable to curious toddler fingers (and they are curious as you can see in my photo).

My husband salvaged this Ponytail Palm from his former office building before they were relocated and it has become a nice addition to my plant collection after a little TLC. Again, this plant requires a bright window but minimal watering. It’s non-toxic so I feel okay about it sitting on the floor vulnerable to curious toddler fingers (and they are curious as you can see in my photo).

A few other plants I have grown:

• Spider plant – Excellent air-cleaning abilities, non-toxic, indestructible and will eventually reproduce and supply you with little spider plant babies to grow or give away.
• Peace Lily – Requires too much watering for my lifestyle but it has pretty green leaves and white flowers. Not safe for children or pets.
• Snake plant – Another one that will grow with almost NO sunlight or water! Somehow I still managed to kill mine because it was sitting in a rarely used room and I just forgot about it.
• Orchid – I actually have one growing in my bathroom right now but it’s not in bloom so I didn’t include  a photo. A beautiful and surprisingly easy plant to grow! It does need a special orchid potting mix and weekly watering.
• Umbrella tree – I loved this easy care plant but we just couldn’t fit another pot in our car when we moved across the country a few years ago!
• English Ivy – Once I learned how to care for English Ivy it grew beautifully, however, it is not safe for small children so I gave my plant away. It is also an excellent air cleaner.

I promise you can grow beautiful houseplants too, even if you claim to have a “black thumb”!  And, fellow gardeners, what do you grow in your house?  (if you grow bonsai trees please give me your insider information….I think I’m ready to take on Mr. Miyagi).

Post by Renae Wortz : Mom Colored Glasses

DIY Night Light Canvas (a grown up version of light bright!)

FINALLY. You don’t think I have *just* been caring for a newborn & toddler, do you? Well. Mostly I have, but I have been able to sneak in a few projects here & there. Finding the time to blog them is a whole different story… You’ll be seeing more instagram pictures on here than I’d like. Anything square is IG. :)

This project has been on my to-do list since I first saw it in Blueprint (RIP) in 2007. Yep. That’s my original copy, complete with red ink stain & all! This was going to be on the feature wall in my nursery if caroline was a boy…but…she wasn’t! & I decided to wait to use it should I get the chance to decorate another nursery. & hip, hip hooray. I DID! It’s now all over pinterest & my version was additionally inspired by Kelly’s ombre version. I cannot tell you how much I love it. I spend plenty of time staring at it in the middle of the night. & I could not be happier with how it turned out! Here’s how I did it:

SUPPLIES

• canvas (mine is 24×30″)
• white twinkle lights (found mine at target in the garden section, 100ct)
• acrylic paint in desired color/s. (You’ll need white & at least one colored shade if you want to do the ombre effect–ombre means “shaded or graduated in tone” just in case you aren’t familiar with the term)
• paintbrush
• water in a squirt bottle
• exacto knife

HOW-TO

• I wasnt sure what I was going to do with the colors, so I grabbed a few from my stash & started to play. I ended up squirting white on one end & orange on the other.
• I started on the orange side & worked the paint over towards the white, but not all the way. I washed the brush clean, then started on the white side working towards the orange. I did this over & over until I had the colors blend just the way I wanted to. I also squirted the canvas with water a bit to help the paint blend better.
• once the top was dry, I painted the edges of the canvas celedon green, just to cover up the runny orange.
• I then took it up to the nursery to decide which color I wanted on top. White it was!
• I marked the middle of my three “fireworks” and started poking holes with the exacto knife.
• After the holes were pierced, I punched the twinkle lights through & just kept going until I liked the pattern. I kept a rough count of the lites, knowing that I should split them into thirds for each firework, a little heavier on the top & bottom two.
• Once it was done, I used an extension cord to reach the lites on the back of the canvas & put them on a remote for an extra easy on/off during those never ending nighttime feedings.

I can’t tell you how much I love it! The best part of the whole thing is how affordable it is–the only new supplies I needed to buy were a canvas & lights. I got the canvas half off at JoAnns Fabrics ($25) and the twinkle lights were $5 at Target. The rest was stuff I had laying around the house.

& now on to decorating the last wall in the nursery! I’ve got three of four done…yea!!

Post by shawna of styleberryBLOG.com

Despite days full of washing diapers & messy fun, Shawna is determined to make mommyhood a stylish adventure. Married to the military & mother to one feisty girl & a snuggly little guy, she is a passionate DIYer & loves sharing how to make the complicated simple. Shawna talks creativity, style, food, decorating, green-chic living & mommyhood atstyleberryBLOG, a daily-ish dose of something fab.

 

How to Make Paper Pinwheels - The Easy Way

I have been meaning to do a tutorial on these paper pinwheels or medallions, however you prefer to call them, that served as the backdrop for Hazel's sunshine birthday party. When I was figuring out how to make these, I found there are already plenty of pinwheel tutorials out there, but I'm going to give you some shortcuts and tricks that you won't find elsewhere. So if you want to make a bunch of medallions relatively quickly, that are going to look great, actually stick to the wall, and not require precise measuring - read on!

Supplies for Paper Medallions 

• Colorful scrapbook or wrapping paper (the larger the sheets, the bigger the pinwheels you can make)
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Double sided tape
• Hot glue
• Stapler
• Cardboard scraps

How to Make Paper Medallions (the Easy Way!)

1. First cut a strip of your paper however wide you want it (this will determine the 'radius' of the pinwheel). Somewhere between 5-10 inches wide works well. Just eyeball it. Then use your ruler to start marking off a few folding guides. The wider the paper, the more space you want between the guides. So for a 10 inch wide strip of paper, the folding marks might be 1 inch apart, while a 5 inch wide strip of paper might have marks 1/2 inch apart. You can play around with it.

2. Here's a big shortcut - a lot of tutorials tell you to measure out folding marks along the entire length of the paper and then score them. That takes way too long, and there is no need to be that precise! I just made 4-5 marks and then started folding the paper accordion style (just like you used to do in grade school to make a fan). I used the marks as a guide to start folding and then kept folding the paper back and forth over each other until it looked like this:

You'll notice that the paper isn't lined up perfectly (like it would be if I scored each fold in advance), but that is totally ok!

3. Then snip off one end at an angle to make pretty points on the medallion:

It will look like this when you unfold it. Repeat the same process by making two more of these (be sure to cut the same width of paper and make the same sized folds on each of them). 

4. Once you have 3 pieces of accordion folded paper, attach them together using double sided tape. The pinwheel starts to take shape!

5. Another tricky step that the tutorials I read didn't do a great job explaining is how to get the pinwheel to hold together nice and tightly in the middle. I found that stapling a few of the folds together on the backside of the pinwheel did the trick. You'll be covering up the center of the medallion with a circle so the staples will never show:

6. Here's the best trick of all! I owe my husband for coming up with this genius idea for how to create a flat, sturdy surface for the pinwheel to adhere to the wall. As you can see the folds of the pinwheel don't make for a great surface. You could try putting a bunch of masking tape on the back and hope it sticks, but there's a good chance it will fall off the wall at some point during your party.

So what we did was first cut 3 small strips of cardboard and stapled them to the back side of the pinwheel and then folded them over:

We then put a piece of double-sided tape and hot glue on top of each, so we could adhere a bigger piece of cardboard to create a flat hanging surface:

From here you could just put a couple big loops of painters tape or masking tape and hang on the wall! Mine stayed up on the wall for several days before I finally brought myself to take them down. They are so pretty, I think they would make a neat permanent arrangement in a nursery, dining room, office, etc.  If you plan to do something more permanently, you might want to try something more like 3M Command Strips.

7. Finally, on the front of the medallion, I hot-glued a circle of card stock to form the middle:

And that's it!  You can see I purchased a few tissue paper fans to incorporate into the paper ones I made.  I just hot-glued a card stock circle in the middle of those as well:

Post by Haeley : Design Improvised

Monster Grocer

I was recently browsing Pinterest looking for party favor ideas for my annual Halloween dinner party, and I came across the very clever Hoxton Street Monster Supplies, East London’s premier purveyor of everyday goods for the living, dead and undead. According to their website, they stock a pharmacopoeia of different types of fear, a complete range of edible human preserves and everyday household essentials like Fang Floss and Zombie Mints. Sort of reminds me of this book, which is one of my favorite Halloween picture books.

I wish I could visit their store — but I’m afraid I don’t get to London much (or ever!) I fell quickly in love with the entire, clever concept of it, and if I ever have a monster supply store (you know, because there is such a big market for it), I would do it exactly like this.

Even cooler, the Monster Supply shop is really just a front for the Ministry of Stories, a volunteer organization (partially funded by sales from the Monster Supplies) that assists young people in writing stories and provides workshops and one-to-one mentoring from adult writers. Neat-o, right?!

Back to the Monster Supplies… the packaging is totally polished and so clever I could just die! You really have to read the labels; they are so well written and will crack you up. Everything is so completely thought out and perfectly executed. It makes me wish I was a monster and needed some Fang Floss!

And how cute is this?

Each year I have a tough time finding the perfect party favors for my Halloween party — I want something that is somehow spooky but still fitting for a more sophisticated event. Most of the traditional Halloween favor ideas are too cutesy or childish.

The first year that I did my now annual All Hallow’s Eve dinner party, we gave out these hard-backed Frankenstein and Dracula books — Barnes and Noble used to sell cloth-bound miniatures of the classics that were the perfect size and price to be a party favor. We have also given the Ghost playing cards, a metal candle snuffer and in more recent years I have opted for making something homemade like the poisonous lip balms from 2009.

So clearly I was giddy to see the Hoxton Street Monster Supplies, which are pretty much a gold mine of classy but frightful party favor ideas. Which Monster Supply is your favorite??

Reposted with permission by Aimée Lowry & Bettijo B. Hirschi from PagingSupermom.com

Meet Mimi Kirchner

Today is the target day for the Land Of Nod Holiday catalogs to arrive in peoples’ homes- So now I can shout out the news!

A target date means that some people already have them and others not quite yet. Luckily I received a special delivery catalog so I’ve seen my dolls on paper and also at the website.

As you can see, they are producing a fox couple, a kitty couple and a bunny couple. The dolls are being made in India. At the top of the page is a sweet elephant designed by Hilary and on the left are some fantastic Cotton Monster creatures. I will confess that when I was in Chicago in September, I visited the Land Of Nod offices and the Cotton Monster hedgehogs were the ones I wanted to sneak into my bag and take home!

It is hard to understand the scale from these photos, but they are smaller than the ones I make and sell. Here is a photo I took (a YEAR ago!) when I was working on the prototypes-

In the course of the project, various bits and pieces changed because of child safety or problems with getting the right materials. The finished foxes have not got scarves, shawls, purses… but, if you wanted to, you could make your own, right?

There are also 4 babies- what I call swaddled babies and they are calling Bundle Babies (Love that name!) The Land Of Nod version has an awake side and an asleep side and is also smaller than my art pieces. Here is a photo of the prototypes (asleep side) they sent me for approval last Spring.

Here is a link to the catalog pages- lime, yellow, orange, red

If you click over to Wee Wonderfuls, you can read how Hilary went to a Land Of Nod store and was able to see a few things in person. She sent me this photo of the doll and also the tag- how exciting is that!

It has been a long process- more than a year. This introduction is just one more step in a journey that has been all new to me. I am now going to watch with curiosity, excitement, anticipation, how these babies make their way into the world!

Mimi Kirchner is a Boston-based artist who creates original, one-of-a-kind, handmade dolls.

Four Ingredient Chicken Chili

In a nod to football season, crunchy leaves, and limited time for making dinner now that everyone’s back on a schedule this might be the tastiest and easiest “home-made” chicken chili this side of the canned soup aisle.  The highlights of this soup?  It requires four ingredients.  My three year old ate it.  It’s low-fat. My chicken chili loathing husband had three servings.  It takes about 20 minutes to make it and cook it.  It doubles easily. You can freeze it.  It’s delicious!

Here we go:

You need:

-1 jar of salsa (I like to use black bean salsa because it has more “stuff” in it, thus giving the soup more flavor and texture–but any you have in your pantry will do.)

-1 can of Great Northern Beans, drained and rinsed

-2 cups of cooked chicken (I use left-overs from those rotisserie chickens you get at the grocery story.)

-2 cups of chicken broth (Or more….depending on how thin or thick you like your chili.)

Serves about four people.

Step 1:

Smash 1/2 of your beans to create a paste.

Step 2:

 Throw everything in a pot together.

Step 3:

Let it all simmer together.  It will be ready in as little as fifteen minutes but you can absolutely let it simmer longer if you’d like it to really thicken up.

Step 4:

Top with sour cream, cheese, and avocado and eat, eat, eat.  I served mine with tortilla chips and corn bread and fall goodness was just oozing out of my kitchen.  I think throwing in some canned corn would be a fantastic addition to this chili as well!

Post by Maggie Terryn : Mom Colored Glasses

Try this: Miniature Enchanted Forest

Whattya need?

• Miniature animals
• Spray mount
• Glitter
• Glass jar
• Clear glue
• Fake moss
• Model tree (available at most hobby shops)

How do I make a Miniature Enchanted Forest?

Step 1: Grownups only. In a well ventilated area, lightly spray your tiny animal with spray mount.

Step 2: Toss the animal in a small bowl or baggie of glitter until completely coated.

Step 3: Squirt clear glue into the jar to coat the entire bottom portion.

Step 4: Add fake moss around the perimeter of the jar. It may be helpful to use a small dowel rod to position the moss in place.

Step 5: Place the tiny animal into the jar and position towards the middle. Press down to be sure it adheres well to the glass.

Step 6: Place the model tree next to the animal. Again, press down to be sure it adheres to the glass.

Step 7: Fill in any empty spots with more moss.

Step 8: Leave the jar open overnight to allow the glue to dry completely.

*To see a full size enchanted forest, visit our Pop Up Toy Shop in New York City at 136 Prince St. Opens November 2.

A Very Un-Scary Halloween

Oh Halloween. You’re back in my life again. My, how I have missed you.

Who doesn’t love Halloween? I prefer to think of it as the “gateway” holiday. A nice, easy way to enter the tunnel towards the biggies like Thanksgiving, Chanukah/X-mas and New Years Ever.

I love costumes. I adore candy. But I don’t really dig the scary stuff. Horror movies have never been my style {I’ve never even seen one, the commercials are enough to give me nightmares}. So you won’t find scary skulls, mummies and headstones in front of our house this year. Oh no. This year I’ll have the most “un-scary” Halloween house on the block. But it will still be awesome. Very very awesome.

Let’s start today with pumpkins three ways.

1. Ombre Pumpkins

2. Puffy Paint Pumpkins

I spotted this and had to try my own version. Again, a great kiddo project!

Step one: Paint the base of the pumpkin as you’d like. I used turquoise acrylic paint.

Step two: Cover with puffy paint in your colors/design of choice. I wanted bold neon colors in fun and quirky patterns.

3. Glitter Pumpkins

Obviously I couldn’t make it through a DIY post without adding a touch of glitter.

Step one: Use glue {I actually used puffy paint as my glue in this case because Elmers was running down the sides} or ddouble sided tape {or both} to come up with a pattern. I stuck with chevron.

Step two: After each adhesive is applied, sprinkle glitter on top. Let the glue/paint dry and dust excess glitter off. You can dust the excess off of the double sided tapeimmediately.

Happy Un-Scary Halloween!

xoxo,

Niki

images via Stephanie Soraya Photography {954}-579-7761

Post by Niki: Papery & Cakery