Trunk or Treat: Pandemic-Style

I think we all agree that 2020 came with challenges.  Most activities for the year were cancelled due to the pandemic.  By the time October came, our church decided it was important to have an activity for the children so we decided to proceed with our annual Trunk or Treat.  We looked for creative ways to be safe and socially distance.  I think most actually enjoyed the challenge.  There were a lot of fun ideas.  I'm not sure what made me think of this, but I decided to hand out the candy using a "vending machine".  

When the children approached the vending machine, my husband instructed them to put their bag at the end of the chute and speak into the machine their choice of candy.  

This is a close-up I took after the event was over and it was partially disassembled.  You can see here that as we ran out of a particular candy I would put an out of stock sticker over that selection.  It wasn't easy to access the candy that was actually inside the "machine", so this was the best I could do.  

This photo is bad, but I wanted to show the set up behind the scenes.  We arranged the candy on a shelf behind the vending machine with each candy labeled with its corresponding vending number.  I was standing behind the machine listening to the selection each child chose, and I would quickly drop it down the chute (seen to the right of this picture).  Occasionally the machine would "malfunction" and send extra candy, especially toward the end when I still had a lot of candy left.  It was fun, and the children (and adults) really got a kick out of it!

***********

I had nothing to do with this one (other than letting them borrow a few items), but I wanted to post it because I loved it.  My niece and nephew set up this lumberjack theme and handed out the candy using a remote control Jeep (that matched their own Jeep).  I thought it was so clever and cute!

 

Falling Leaves

Just a quick post.  I ran across these pictures from several years ago.  I cut a bunch of leaves (and a few pumpkins) from black contact paper and applied them to my bathroom wall for a fun little addition to my skeleton shower curtain. 

Mr. Bones Celebrates Valentine's Day

Well, I told you Mr. Bones would be making appearances from time to time.  As I mentioned previously, when I created Mr. Bones I had no idea how much fun he would be.  This post is about the Valentine's Day following his creation.  This was where the real fun began because the whole family got involved.

I had decorated him for Valentine's Day (most likely in the middle of the night while the family was asleep) and apparently my family thought they would add to the fun.  On Valentine's Day my husband (not much of a romantic, but sometimes he at least tries) left his Valentine wishes for me on a large heart placed on the skeleton.  (I was impressed he had cut the heart out by himself!  He just got lucky he didn't use some of my treasured paper!)

At some other time (I can't remember if it was before or after my husband's addition) my daughter added the moustache and monocle.  (Or maybe it was the hat and monocle.  Or maybe all three.)  I got a big kick out of both of them joining in on the fun!

This was four years ago, so I don't remember the details all that well.  (I barely remember yesterday).  Most of the accessories I made were from Cricut cartridges.  The Valentine card (Bee Mine) was from the Spring Holiday Cards cartridge.  The teddy bear and accessories were from the Teddy Bear Parade cartridge.  The dog is from Create a Critter.  The hearts (other than the one my hubby cut out) were probably various punches.  I can't remember where the teacup was from, possibly cut using my Slice machine. 

This was one of the best Valentine's Day surprises for me.  I loved it!

If you missed my other posts about Mr. Bones, you can read about him HERE and HERE

Mr. Bones - My Crazy Skeleton

We like to have fun at our house and tend to get a bit silly at times.  A few years ago Cricut had a Halloween contest using images from A Frightful Affair/Movable Monsters.  For my contest entry I made the shower curtain featured HERE.  Before cutting the vinyl skeleton for the shower curtain, I made a practice skeleton out of poster board to plan sizing and posing.  Not wanting it to go to waste, I dressed it up a bit and hung it on a wall (which just happened to suit my need as a backdrop).  Little did I know how much fun we would later have with Mr. Bones.  I hope to post more about that in the near future.

 

Skeleton Shower Curtain

Since I'm getting back to blog posting and Halloween is quickly approaching, I thought I'd post this project from last year.  (Yes, I am really, really behind.)  I made this skeleton shower curtain for a Cricut contest using images from A Frightful Affair/Movable Monsters cartridge.   I don't really get into the scary part of Halloween, but I have had a blast with this skeleton!  (I hope to post the other projects eventually.)

The skeleton cut is from Movable Monsters, but it is also available as an individual cut which is what I bought.  Cricut had some of the cuts (including the skeleton) for free use during the contest, but when I saw how much fun I was having with the skeleton I had to buy it.

The bats, spiders and spider webs are from the Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge.  The shower brush is from Everyday Paper Dolls.  The paper doll cartridges are among my favorites.  They have a little bit of everything.  The rubber ducky and the bubbles are from A Child's Year.