Mr. Scarecrow

Want a quick, easy, FREE, kid-directed Halloween decoration?  

Meet Mr. Scarecrow

This guy seriously kept my 3 children entertained (happily!!) for well over an hour.

I simply took a pair of my hubby's old jeans and one of his flannel shirts; closed the pant legs off with rubber bands, did up all the buttons on the shirt, handed the littles a huge stack of newspaper and told them to get busy!  They had a blast crumpling all the newspaper and stuffing their dad's clothing with it.

They seriously had SO much fun and they love seeing him outside our front door every day.  At least one of them sits on his lap everyday, they tell him secrets on their way in the door and frequently rearrange his pumpkin head.  

(He may or may not have scared the dickens out of me a couple of times already.)

This was a Halloween tradition each year when I was little and I'm so glad I can pass it on to my children too.  What are some of your favorite Halloween traditions you are carrying on to your children?

Flash Halloween Giveaway

Tonight on Instagram, I am teaming with 11 other fabulous shops for a flash giveaway!  It starts at 6:00PM MST and runs until tomorrow evening at 6:00PM.  Don't miss it!!

You can find me on Instagram HERE.

Halloween Bags

You may have noticed that the blog has been kind of  quiet as of late; that would be because I was super busy trying to get last minute costume orders done and in the mail; not to mention getting my own children's costumes ready in time for a big party this weekend.  Throw in there an unexpected sick day (or two), and there goes any and all time for blogging.  But.  I'm back.  And today?  I'm sharing the Trick or Treat bags I made with my kids.

Let me first say how excited I was when my son came to me and asked me if we could please make bags this year.  Yes!  Of course!!  And I immediately started making mental checklists and plans for these adorable Halloween bags for them.  That was my first mistake.

My son already knew exactly what he wanted.  (Which, I might add, was nothing I had even thought of).

He wanted to draw his own pictures on his bag.  AND he wanted to pick out his own fabric for this bag.

So, that's what we did.

 We went to Joanns and bought a few plain canvas bags, a set of fabric markers and the boys each picked out a Halloween fabric that they really wanted.  When we got home, I set everything out for them and let them have at it.  It kept them busy for quite a long time!

The spent so much time figuring out what they wanted to draw, what colors to use and how to make their bags just perfect.

 In the end, I ended up with 3, hand designed Trick or Treat bags for less than $15.00.  They're not the prettiest bags, but I love them because they are my children's very own bags.  So cute.  And something that we will hang onto forever.

OH!!  Our winners of The Great Paci Clip Giveaway!!

Congrats to:

Holly Mitowski

Laura Bustillo

Vicki Lesage

Cookie Friday: Scarecrow Cookies

Confession:  I hate making sugar cookies.

I feel like they're a 3 day long process.  One day to make the dough, one to roll and cut out and another to frost and decorate.  I'm much more of a drop and bake kind of gal.

So, when my son saw these adorable cookies on Pinterest, my heart sunk a little bit.  But.  It is scarecrow season, and it is close enough to a holiday to merit making sugar cookies, so I agreed.

Technically, there is supposed to be "hair" on that scarecrow, but it was just one too many steps for me.  He would be a cute Frosty for Christmas too, don't you think?

And, they're fun for little hands to design exactly how they wish!

Anyway.  You really could use any sugar cookie recipe to make these, or even get store bought cookie dough.  However, here is our favorite sugar cookie recipe:

Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

6 c. flour (save 1 c. for the end)
1 t. basking soda
1 t. baking powder
1 c. butter (room temperature)
2 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 t. vanilla
1 1/2 c. sour cream

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes).  Add eggs, vanilla and sour cream at low speed until combined.

Add dry ingredients at low speed just until combined.  Add remaining cup of flour as needed for correct consistency.  Roll out and cut into shapes as desired.  Bake at 425 for 7-8 minutes.

Etsy Shop Spotlight: Arrows & Apricots

Happy Thursday!

This week, I want to introduce you to a brand new Etsy shop,

Arrow & Apricots.

 Their shop is all about fun things to hang on your wall, or decorative pieces for your home.

For starters.  How fun is this witch print?  

It would be a great addition to anybody's Halloween decor!

They also have several different glittered word banners.  

I love this banner for an outdoor, rustic wedding!

And I think these hand painted wood signs would be a perfect Christmas gift for a couple's 1st Christmas together.

Be sure to stop by their fun little store! 

 I already have my eye on an item (or two!) 

that I'm pretty sure I need for upcoming holiday decor!

Tutu Cute Costume Ideas

Have a few tutus hanging in your daughter's closet that you'd like to get more use out of? Or, are you dying to see your daughter in a tutu for Halloween this year? Here are a few ideas of costumes using tutus. Obviously, most of these you can buy in our shop, HERE. However, you can easily also put these together yourself if you already have all the pieces!

A couple of weeks ago, I shared a tutorial on how to do an adorable ghost costume.
Here are a few other ideas:

Below, you have a Pirate, Ballerina, Cheetah/Cat and Cinderella.

And here you have another kitty cat, Queen of Hearts, a ladybug, a doll 

(this particular girl is Lalaloopsy) and a witch.

I could keep going...there are SO many different ideas!  

How have you incorporated tutus in your child's holiday wardrobe?

Incredible Hulk Baby Costume

**UPDATE:  If you are looking to purchase this costume, please click HERE**

Last week, I showed you the {sweet little ghost costume} I had just finished up.

This week, I'm showing off a custom order request from one of my most loyal customers.

She wanted her almost 1 year old to be The Hulk for Halloween this year.

After mulling it around a bit, this is what I came up with.

(And luckily, my daughter is the same size, so I had a model to work with!)

For the top, I took a onesie (one size too small), cut a few holes in the chest and the arms. I then lined those holes from the inside with green fabric to make it look like green muscles were bulging out.  I also added some padding to the inner chest area to make it look like his chest is bulging.

I frayed the fabric a little bit in the front along the neckline, and jaggedly cut the sleeves off.  Once I cut those, I roughed them up a bit too.  Can't have The Hulk looking too nice and orderly!

I also slashed a piece in the back.

The waist, I think, is my favorite part.

All I did was very carefully, cut a few holes in the front side of the waistband, so I wouldn't ruin the elastic that was already in there.  I then took a piece of rope and shoved it in there with the elastic.  That way, the waistband wasn't compromised, but I still had a casing for the rope.

And then I repeated the same process I used on the shirt; lining holes with the same green fabric and slicing up the hemline.

There you go!  Another fun, unique and not too difficult Halloween costume for your little one this year!

Ghost Costume

So, Halloween is right around the corner.  How did that happen?  Needless to say, I've been pretty busy with Halloween costumes; both for my own littles as well as a few others.  This year, I wanted to share some of our special costumes and show you how I put them together!


This week, I'm starting off with this cutey.  I love it.  The sparkly tutu, the mischievous little ghost face; everything!

The tutu is from our shop.  You can find that HERE.  The onesie I did with a freezer paper stencil. If, by some small miracle, you have never tried freezer paper stenciling before; here's a quick run down (it's super easy, by the way!).  Want to buy the entire outfit?  You can do that HERE.

What I did first was find a template on-line for the face.  The one I used is actually a jack-o-lantern template, but I think she makes a pretty cute ghost, too.  Once you have your template, use an Exact-O Knife (or other blade of some sort) to cut out all the negative space (ie all the black parts).

Then, take your freezer paper and put it waxy side down.  Tape your cut out temple on the non-waxy side of your paper and cut it out.  It will look something like this:

Once your freezer paper is all cut out, you will place it (again, waxy side down!) where you want it on your fabric (or in my case, my onesie).  Gently iron it down, NO STEAM, and it will stick nicely to your fabric.

 When you are done ironing, it will look something like this:

Then, grab a foam sponge brush, a bit of craft paint and a light piece of cardboard to place under your fabric (so the paint doesn't bleed through).  You are going to lightly paint over your stencil.  Be sure you get all the edges really well, and be careful to paint evenly.  You don't want globs of paint anywhere; especially along the edges of the stencil! 

Once you're happy with your paint job, walk away.  Do not immediately pull up your stencil; let it set for a few minutes.  Some people like to wait until the paint is 100% dry.  I prefer to let it be mostly dry.  I feel like the stencil pulls up better (and easier) if the paint isn't completely set.

Once your stencil is off, let it finish drying completely and then you're done!  Super quick and super easy!  This little ghost took me less than an hour; with interruptions of 3 children.  And then you have a cute t-shirt or onesie or whatever else you want to make.

Happy Hauntings!!

Tutu Season

We are heading into tutu season for {Kadydid Designs}. 

 August through mid-October, we sell more tutus than the rest of the year combined. 

 It gets kind of crazy, but that's okay, because they are super fun to make. 

 And - they look super cute too!!

This photo below is of our newest one; all white with glitter and shimmer.

It would be perfect for a little Halloween ghost, fairy, princess, bunny rabbit, bride, fairy...the list goes on.

It will be in the shop soon; available in regular lengths and princess lengths too.

Looking for more tutu ideas?  Head on over to our shop!  There are plenty of ideas for Halloween: Queen of Hearts, Candy Corn, Cinderella,  Peacocks.  There are also many that could be transformed into different costumes.  We also love designing custom orders!  

Let us know what you're looking for and we can create it just for you!

Check out all of our tutus HERE

Customer Photos

We LOVE getting photos from our customers!  Here are just a few we've received recently...

An absolutely perfect Queen of Hearts

A sweet little ballerina, ready for her dance class!

And a happy customer who won a Kadydid Designs gift certificate in one of our giveaways!

If you have photos of yourself or your little one using any of our products, we'd love to see them!! You can email them to us at any time OR share them on our Facebook page!

Kadydid Halloween Round 2!

Before we go any further, we need to announce a winner!

I cannot believe the amazing response we got for our Fabric Scrap Tutu Giveaway!

You guys are awesome - thanks so much for playing!

Okay...down to business!

Thanks to random.org, our big winner is:

#91 - Penny Hyde

Please contact me at kadydiddesigns@gmail.com so we can work out the details of your fabulous skirt!  You have 48 hours to claim your prize.

BUT WAIT!!!

For those of you who didn't win, I have a little treat for you!

If you want to purchase one of these adorable little skirts,

you can do so AND get 20% off your purchase through the end of August.

Simply use coupon code TUTU12 when checking out to receive your discount!
**This code is only good for fabric tutus**

And now...
Just a few more items from our Halloween collection this year!

Fabric Scrap Tutus

Traditional Tutus

(this is our Peacock Tutu)

Halloween Themed Baby Bibs

Mummy Onesies

It's Peter Pan!

As promised, here are our Halloween costumes for this year. Peter Pan, Captain Hook, the crocodile and Wendy Darling. I originally posted about taking on such a huge project in making all the costumes here. It really wasn't so bad; I had quite a bit of fun making them AND I had the pleasure of realizing that I can do it!

My cute little family. We actually won a $30.00 prize for best costume Halloween night!

For Captain Hook, we bought a white dress shirt and some dress slacks at Goodwill for like $8.00 total. I ripped the collar and cuffs off of the shirt, and un-stitched the strip down the front with the button holes in it. I made ruffles from some left over white broadcloth I had, stuffed the edges in the button paneling down the front and sewed it back up. I then replaced the shift cuffs with ruffles. I cannot tell you how much I giggled over seeing so many ruffles on my husband's shirt! The pants I just cut off below the knee and put elastic in the new hem. The vest? My biggest accomplishment! I made my very own pattern from a fleece vest he has, and made the vest on my own. The sash was as easy as it gets, and his white socks? Some of my old white tights. I spent less than $20 on the entire costume - including the accessories we purchased.
And the cutest little crocodile? My biggest expense. I wasn't about to tackle that one on top of the other 3 costumes I was making. So, we purchased a crocodile costume and added a clock around his neck.
To make Peter Pan's costume, I followed this tutorial over at Make It and Love It. It was super easy, and all I paid for was the $5.00 pants at Target. I had everything else I needed!

My dress was the most labor intensive, and the photo above is the best photo we got of it all weekend (and, by the way? Cheap, shiny fabric is not conducive to flattering photographs. I swear it adds 20 extra pounds). I learned a ton of new sewing techniques making the dress, and am still quite shocked that I pulled it off. It fit perfectly the first time I tried it on and I didn't have too many problems getting it together. I'm debating whether or not I'll be brave enough to try something "real" to make now. We'll see.

So there you go! We had a weekend full of 3 different Halloween parties to attend, plus trick or treating last night, so the costumes definitely got their full use out of them! I'm already starting to plan for next year...

Hope you all had as wonderful a Halloween as we did!

Rockabilly Monster Mash

Last night, my sister asked for some help creating a "Rockabilly" hairstyle for her to wear to work this morning. One of her jobs is waitressing, and for Halloween, they were allowed to wear costumes rather than their normal work attire. The only stipulation was that hair had to be pulled back as usual.

So, this is what we came up with. She has a ridiculous amount of gorgeous, curly, red hair. So I piled the top half of her hair on her head, and wrapped the bottom half into two separate buns underneath. Tonight, she can let the buns out and have an amazing ponytail instead.

Of course, my boys wanted in on the action too. They wanted "monster hair". They got their monster hair and then had to practice their "monster hands".

They even got some "monster eyes". And the end result of playing in Mommy's vanity all night: 2 cute little monster boys and their favorite Rockabilly Lala.
Happy Halloween! Tomorrow I will have all the photos of this year's costumes! Have a safe and fun filled evening!!

Flavorful Popcorn Balls

These are one of my all time favorite Halloween treats.
Normally, I don't care for popcorn balls.
They are too hard, too stale...I just don't like them.
These, on the other hand, I LOVE.
They stay soft and chewy and have a little hint of a fruity flavor
that compliments the salt in the popcorn nicely.

Flavorful Popcorn Balls
1 bag popped popcorn
6 T. butter
3 c. mini marshmallows
3 T. flavored jello

Melt butter. Add marshmallows and stir until melted. Mix in jello. Pour over popcorn. Spray hands with Pam and form into balls.

Quick and easy. I get 9 good sized popcorn balls out of one bag of popcorn. And, I typically use orange and grape jello so I have good Halloween colors. Keep wrapped in plastic and they will stay soft for awhile. Enjoy!

Black Kitty Cookies

I told you I have lots of Halloween/Fall goodies that we make every year. This week is my "Halloween Kick Off" week. Yesterday for our Family Night, we did 90% of our Halloween shopping, watched Casper and made these cute little cookies.

Black Cat Cookies
1 c. butter
2 c. sugar
3 t. vanilla
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. baking powder
3 c. flour
1 c. cocoa
Candy Corn
Red Hots (or any other small red candy)

Roll (or scoop) dough into good size balls. Flatten with a glass dipped in sugar. Make whiskers with fork and free hand the shape of the ears. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes (in my oven, 10 minutes is perfect!). Remove from oven and immediately place candy on for eyes and nose.

Now, a lesson about these cookies I learned just this morning. By the time we got around to making these last night, it was pretty late. So, I just made one cookie sheet full and then put the dough in the fridge to finish off this morning. I had grand intentions of taking fabulous new photos of all my little kitties (the photo above is from last year and is a bit blurry). However. This cookie dough does not like to be refrigerated. It's all crumbly and not rolling into balls. Lesson learned! However, this dough is fantastic, and I actually like the dough better than the cookies, so I'm not too heartbroken!

A side note?
For any of you cub scout moms, I think these would be adorable for any Bobcat needs!