31 Days of Lessons Learned: People Want Free Sesame Street Elmo Pumpkin Stencils

31 Days of Lessons Learned:  Day Six

People Want Free Sesame Street Elmo Pumpkin Stencils

Based on the my site’s traffic and keyword searched, it’s clear most of my readers have one thing on their mind – carving pumpkins!  ‘Tis the season I suppose, and like Marie Antoinette before me, if my follower wants free stencils, then I say “Let them have stencils!”

First things first, last year I offered up several links for pumpkin stencils, so I’m just going to post them all here for ease.  You’ll find free Elmo stencils, free Batman stencils, free Detroit Tigers stencils, and a few more…

Free Elmo Pumpkin Stencil, plus free Batman, Joker, Spider-Man, The Hulk, Disney, and Jack Nicholson pumpkin stencils – Only Elmo is shown, but click on the picture and you’ll get access to 28 other stencils.

Free Detroit Tigers pumpkin stencils – Also, since the Tigers are playing Oakland right now, here’s the link to the Oakland A’s free pumpkin stencils.  Here’s a pro-tip – every major league baseball team is offering free pumpkin stencils on their respective websites – go check them out!

Free Batman:  The Animated Series pumpkin stencil – This link also includes other Batman – related pumpkin stencils.

Here are some new links for free pumpkin templates.

More Free Sesame Street-related pumpkin stencils.

Links to a wide variety of free pumpkin stencils of varying difficulty level.

100 Free pumpkin stencils ranging from Cookie Monster and Curious George to Harry Potter and Mickey Mouse. – Seriously, there are lots of awesome stencils here related to music, movies, cartoons, horror, and pop culture.  This is a MUST check out.

Let’s not end it here.  If you have a fun pumpkin stencil you want to share, link it in the comments below.  Let us all learn from each other.  Happy Halloween!

31 Days of Halloween Hijinks: DIY Ghosts

Day Twenty Six:  DIY Ghosts

After today, I’ll only have five more Halloween posts left.  I can’t believe how fast this has gone by.  I’ve had a lot of fun and I hope you’ve all enjoyed my posts.  I have so many more ideas to post, I just wish Halloween season was two months long.  Hopefully you all decide to stick around after Halloween when I get back to my regularly scheduled blogging.

Enough pandering, on to the Halloween blog.

Today, I want to share with you with a few cool ghost-related activities.

This first one, from the MAKE Zine blog, tells you how to make a pretty cool looking ghost with…chicken wire.

Here’s the final product.  Click on the picture for instructions and a few other ghost-related things…

ooooh....creepy!

But, if you want a ghost decoration that is a little more practical and fun, then check out this one.  My wife found it while checking her normal blogroll and I think it’s absolutely darling.

The particular blog she pointed me to is called Everyday is a Crafting Day!

Here’s a picture of the finished product.  Click on the ghost picture to learn how to make it (and you should…it’s awesome and super easy to make!)

Ghostly Good Times

And then, last but not least, here’s a picture of a craft my daughter made in daycare.  Here’s what the did:  They took white paint and black paper.  They then took my daughter’s shoes off and let her get paint all over them.  I think it’s best to use a mini paint roller and just roll them on your kid’s feet – but really, the choice is yours.  It’s Halloween – go crazy.

Then, my daughter stepped on the black paper with her painted feet, waited for it to dry, added a few lines and dots with a permanent marker, et voila!

These ghosts are stinkin' cute!

For a little variety, it would probably be a lot of fun to do this with either black light paint or glow-in-the-dark paint.  Either way, it’s a fun craft to do with your little ones.

 

Hopefully these crafts give you some last minute ideas.

Happy Haunting!

31 Days of Halloween Hijinks: Pumpkin Push Ins

Day Twenty Two: Pumpkin Push Ins

If you’re like me, now that we’re a little more than a week away from Halloween, you’re thinking about how to decorate the pumpkins on your porch before the squirrels get them.  This year, I have an added complication though – my daughter who isn’t quite two-years-old yet.  To be honest, I haven’t bought a pumpkin yet, but today at Target (while picking up a pair of fancy Missoni shoes for my wife), my daughter and I took a peek in the Halloween section…mostly because I think the way she says pumpkin is so damn cute.  We bought her a Jack-o-Lantern pail for her trick-or-treating, but we haven’t actually bought the pumpkin yet.

Well, while we were looking at pumpkins, my daughter also said “Elmo.”  Looking around, I saw this…

It was a Polyurethane pumpkin with Elmo pieces pushed into it.  Target also had a few other designs (Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Mr. Potato Head) as well.  I’m not quite sure what ones we’ll pick up, but I think the Polyurethane pumpkins and pumpkin push ins are perfect for families who aren’t ready to use carving tools with their little ones.

Example of one of the Target craft pumpkins

Also, here are some of the fun pumpkin push in sets I was able to find on the ‘net.  Some of these were also at Target.  Seriously though, just google “pumpkin push ins” and you’ll see lots of licensed and non-licensed ideas.

Mr. Potato Head Skeleton

Pirate Potato Head

Spider-Pumpkin

I also found this blog that talks about pumpkin push ins. It’s a year old, but still has some good ideas/designs.

 

Hopefully this blog helps out the families with young children as they prep for Halloween.

31 Days of Halloween Hijinks: My favorite new reference for all things Halloween and kids

Day Fourteen:  My favorite new reference for all things Halloween and kids

When my wife and I became parents, somehow we got a subscription for Parenting magazine.  I’m not sure who signed us up.  Does it just come with the territory as part of a welcoming kit?  Actually, I may have signed us up because I also get weekly (and sometimes daily) newsletters from Parenting.com.  Sadly, most of these go in my e-mail trash section.  That all stopped though when I became a stay-at-home dad.  Now I’m scouring everything they send me to help my goal of giving Lily a fun, educational, and inspirational day.

With it being October, the e-mails have shifted to Halloween tips.  Instead of hogging all of these tips to myself, I thought I should share two of my favorite idea posts Parenting has sent me recently.

Easy Halloween Crafts, Favors, and Games (Parenting.com)

 

35+ Easy Homemade Halloween Costumes for Kids (Parenting.com)

 

In fact, Parenting.com has an entire Halloween Central that all moms and dads should check out for tons of great Halloween ideas.

Halloween Central (Parenting.com)

Readers, what other resources are you using to make this the best Halloween ever?