Life at a "Swell's" pace

Spooky night makes for great fright!

Skylar went as Max from Where the Wild Things are this year. And I am pleased to say that I made the entire costume by hand. My sewing skills are getting a bit better, and I had a blast making this costume. For Halloween day we hit some of the area merchants during the cities Merchant Trick-or-Treating. Thank goodness the rain let up long enough for us to stop by a few stores. After the downtown trick-or-treating, we went by to see a few cousins on Jeff's side of the family. They were all costumed out and ready to hit the streets.

We ran into Jeff handing out glow sticks for the Lebanon Fire District.

Some merchants gave out donuts and apple juice, others like Herschel's Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlour handed out Pumpkin Spice Ice cream in a mini waffle cone!

The business owners throughout the city were more than excited to see costume-wearing kids come into their shops, stores, and restaurants.

The cousins were all ready to go trick-or-treating and Skylar couldn't wait to dig into his stash of candy already.

I think he scored pretty good.

After the downtown walk of trick-or-treating, we headed over to the park to be a "Wild Thing."

Click here for a step-by-step how-to on making this costume

Once we got back from all the Halloween fun, we prepared our own house with some more spooky additions. Like our spiders!

To make spooky eyeballs click here.

How to make one Spooky Spider you will need:

8 glow necklaces

2 short glow sticks

1 large foam ball

1 small foam ball

Fishing line

*Similar to the ones below*

How to make spooky spider:

Snap the chemicals inside both short glow sticks and shove them into one side of the large ball. Hold the glow sticks together and stick into the large ball then into the small foam ball. These will allow the balls to stay together when the spider is hung. The glow sticks I bought came with a small rubber band attached to one of them so it made it easier to hang, but you can also just tie the fishing line around both of the glow sticks, between the two foam balls, as well.

Once the two short glow sticks are in place, stick the large ball with 4 of the necklace glow sticks on each side for the legs. Be sure and snap the sticks before pushing them into the ball. This way the glow sticks will already be glowing with you hang them.

Tie fishing line around the middle of your spider and hang. Be sure to snap the sticks before you place them into the foam balls, and make sure you make the spiders 30 minutes before you plan on using them. Glow sticks do get dimmer as the night goes on, so keep a few extras to replace them throughout the night.

SPOOKY SPIDERS!

Our house Halloween night!

Halloween Moon!

Hope your Halloween was just as fun and spooky as ours!

Eco-Tip: Replace one snack a day with an all-organic fruit or vegetable. Just one simple change could make all the difference in your diet. For this and other tips on going green visit, The Earth and Me Go Green.

Spark of Loves This Week: Queen, Windmill, Mud, Naked, Love, and Summer

This Video.

Because Bohemian Rhapsody is already pretty cool, but on an old school computer, even better! About 3:34 it really picks up, and it becomes almost comical.

This Windmill.

Because I love seeing a business using all wind energy to power their operations.

Our Muddy Feet.

Because we got them muddy while at the pumpkin patch this past week. It was a good time!

This Picture.

Because I just love it.

This Quote.

Because it's very true.

Random Photo of the Week:

Because I miss summer already!

Eco-Tip: Use a hand-crank pencil sharpener instead of an electric one to help reduce the need for electricity. For this and other tips on going green visit, The Earth and Me Go Green.

Jack-o-Lanterns and Eyeballs

After gathering up our scores of gourds at the local pumpkin patch, we carved away at them the night before Halloween. We apparently all have different personalities when it comes to carving the faces, as you can see. They are all unique in their own way!

(If you're here from Pinterest, welcome and thank you for the visit. Be sure to check out other posts on my blog)

Once Skylar picked his perfect pumpkin, the carving began.

Great compost for our garden.

For an added idea for Halloween, using eco friendly paints you can paint your house number on a pumpkin and display it with your other Halloween/Autumn décor. We used these paints.

We finished up Skylar's Max hat from Where the Wild Things are and made Halloween cupcakes and apple cider.

We also created these spooky eyeballs for the front window.

Here's how they are made:

1. One battery-operated push like such as, GE Battery Operated Push On/Off Round Closet Light 54807

2. Sharpie Marker Variety Pack, Sharpie Fine-Tip Permanent Marker, 24-Pack Assorted Colors

Design a scary eyeball on top of the light. We went with the vein-look of a regular eyeball, but it can be as scary or as fun as you want them to be.

Don't forget the batteries! I like the Duracell Coppertop

Now it looks like someone's watching you!

Skylar went as an Ewok last year. If you'd like the tutorial on how this costume was made, shoot me an email and I'll be happy to share. We always have so much fun making the yearly Halloween costumes.

Eco-Tip: Use food jars such as Ball® for food storage, or other reusables. Doing so will help cut down on the package waste and plastic usage. Keep in mind, plastic is not for the environment.

DIY: Cloud costume

One of my favorite things is making Halloween costumes for The Bean. This year he wanted to go as a cloud. All I could think was, "how am I going to make a cloud?" The Mr. and I spend weeks thinking of how we could make this come together and while searching on Pinterest I found a cotton candy costume where the batting was the "cotton candy." So with that I bought a sweat suit in The Bean's size and started hot gluing white batting to the suit.

It was a night-long process, but it was all coming together the way he wanted.

I took a beanie hat and created the top of the cloud.

The Bean was having a blast standing and letting me fix certain areas of the cloud.

The shit part of the costume was really a fun task and he wanted to wear the costume before we were finished gluing on the cloud parts.

When it was all finished I hot glued "CLOUD" across the front.

Even with the word "CLOUD" on the costume people still thought he was other things-"abominable snowman," "stay-puft marshmallow man," and one guy even thought he was a "cotton ball."