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How to: B&W wood photo ornaments and keepsake gift tags!

star-ornament
I recently did a guest post on the FedEx Out of Office blog, with a tutorial on making personalized wooden ornaments and gift tags from photocopies of your photos and drawings. It’s pretty cool, go check it out: Personalized Black & White Wood Ornaments for all the step by steps. It’s a really neat technique that just uses acrylic gel medium from the art store– no toxic chemicals or anything like that.  The toner from the photocopy remains on the wood, so the white areas of your photo become wood colored,… Read on...

BRAAAAINS! Conehead Zombie… PvZ costume

kids conehead zombie costume from plants vs zombies
The Cutest Little Conehead Zombie: I promised you guys a second costume for The Boy’s halloween (you’ll remember he’s also doing Draco Malfoy, Death Eater), and here it is! He’s a big fan of the Plants Vs. Zombies video game, and insisted on being a Conehead Zombie. We also considered buckethead, but we had the cone, so that sealed the deal. This is easy to put together, and tons of fun. I think this would be a great group costume idea – everyone picking different zombies to play… Read on...

Halloween Costume: Draco Malfoy, The Littlest Death Eater!

Draco malfoy, death eater costume
So, The Boy is somehow getting 2 halloween costumes this year.  He’s a big Harry Potter fan, so his first costume is Draco Malfoy, Death Eater. He’s only on book 6, but he has some Legos that have Draco Malfoy in Death Eater garb, so he’s latched on to this idea. So, for his totally homemade/upcycled costume, we have:
  • A robe, made from several old t-shirts.
  • A Slytherin scarf, made from old sweatshirts.
  • A death eater mask, made from a dollar store skeleton mask.
  • A broomstick, made by Dad from an old broom with a custom handle
Read on...

Dragon*Con 2011 Costume Photos

Zombie Harry Potter and crew
Finally getting around to posting photos from dragoncon, and there were a ton of great costumes… Here are a few. I’m sure I will never top the popularity of my most famous flickr photo, the Cookie Monster Slayer, but I can dream, right? You can see more at flickr or on my google+ feed.

Awesome Retro Social Media posters

twitter2-aaronwood
My sweet friend Aaron (aka Skullx for the old Sluggite crowd) has been posting these on his google+, and they just keep getting better.  You can purchase them in his etsy shop! My favorite are the Twitter ones, but they are all a bunch of fun. While we are on the subject of social media, i might as well plug my own!:
  • I’m enjoying checking out Google+, though I’m not really sure I have the hang of it yet…  If you want to find me there you can find me at
Read on...

How to make a fun kids graduation hat

How to make a fun kids graduation hat
Here’s a quick and easy mortar board for those early graduations, like kindergarten and so forth… where they really want to be like the big kids! Hopefully this isn’t too late, I meant to repost this early but you parents know how the end of the school year goes… These mortar board caps are made from poster board and foam core… easy and fun to celebrate a graduation milestone.  I reverse engineered this from the Boy’s last year Kindergarten grad hat. Get all the instructions here: How to make a kid’s mortar board/graduation cap

Little Game Box for your Easter Basket

Little Game Box for your Easter Basket
The Little Game box downloadable/printable was such a hit at Christmas for stocking stuffers, I did a new cover for Easter! All the cards and instructions can be downloaded here.., then just print this for a new cover for an Easter/Spring look -Easter Cover PDF. This is a great little NON CANDY treat for the Easter basket, and it is great for taking with you on dinners out when you need kid amusement. I’ve included (almost) everything you need to make one for yourself as free downloads! Just grab the file, print, and add your… Read on...

Easter Idea Roundup

easterroundup
   
Click on the photo above for Cool Easter ideas from the past–these were some of our 2010 posts…
And here are some more resources:

Downloadable Gift Tags and Make an Altoids Tin Gamebox

Christmas Gift Label Downloadable Tags I was looking back at some old posts, and I thought these deserved some front page space!  Download these adorable (if I do say so myself) little gift tags for your Christmas gifts… Click here to download as a pdf or from flickr! Make a “Little Game Box”, with an Altoids Tin and these cute downloadable cards Here’s a great little stocking stuffer you can make yourself. A pocket sized game is a great little ‘handmade’ Holiday gift. I’ve included (almost) everything you need to make one for… Read on...

Mr. Freeze Costume (Halloween 2010 Video)

As I’ve been promising… Here is The Boy’s Mr. Freeze costume from Halloween. The video below shows the gun in action — it actually smokes and glows! (The helmet glows blue as well). As a typical 5 year old, he loves Star Wars, Batman, and Phineas & Ferb, and he wanted to be Mr. Freeze (the Batman villain) this year. (As you may remember last year I made Perry the Platypus).  Obviously this is a kid’s version of this costume, but no reason this couldn’t be adapted for an adult as well.  (SeeRead on...