Autumn and Halloween crafts and plans

I love Autumn, it's my favourite time of the year. Apple Crumble.The colour of the leaves on the trees and the sound of the leaves underfoot. The golden hue of the sky in the evenings and the mornings and the glimpses of blue skies. The crisp misty mornings and the randomness of the weather on walks.

It's my favourite time for clothing also, jumper, jeans and boots and fingerless gloves. No need to drag out the heavy winter coats just yet, stick an umbrella in my bag for the odd bit of rain, the blankets come out for the evenings, the curtains get drawn and life just gets cosy.

I don't enjoy what follows though, the clocks going back, the darkness and the wet and the cold, but I do look forward to Christmas.

I love seasons, planning the gardening, rotating the contents of my wardrobe. It's something I missed when we lived abroad, just endless summers in Dubai, which whilst they sound appealing, it gets boring and half the year just too hot to enjoy. South Africa'w weather was perfect, with only two seasons, Summer and Winter and the opposite of the UK, and the days being almost of equal day to night. 

I've always enjoyed Halloween and decorating the house and taking the kids trick or treating, it wasn't something that was done in South Africa, but in Dubai, like every other festival, it was celebrated in style. 

Since we've been back in the UK we've been to Northern Ireland for Halloween with our grandson and taken Bob to the pumpkin patch with our granddaughter.

I've still got my decorations I made from a sponsored post during covid and quite a few that are over 20 years old. I've made a few new ones this year and now the grandchildren are older we've booked a trip to Streamvale Open Farm in Northern Ireland and a visit to West Midlands Safari Park.

This years halloween decorations:

Pool noodle, cut into four lengths, wire added with cable ties to form the legs, wrapped in black plastic and tied together in the middle.

Old cushion covered in black plastic and attached to legs.

Add googly eyes and tan dah!

I've added the hedgehog and squirrel and the mushrooms to the wreath this year. I need to find a better way to attach it to the front door. It's currently attached with a ribbon threaded over the top and through the letter box.

I've decorated the dining room ready for our granddaughters visit on the weekend and I've a few more decorations to out on Friday morning and in the hallway for when I open the door for trick or treat.

I saw these decorations at a National Trust property and decided to have a go at making them myself. they were easy to make but time consuming, around an hour for each one.

I've also got some fabric and china pumpkins in the lounge that will stay out, along with the door wreath until the Christmas decorations go up, then will come back out until the beginning of March when they will be replaced with the decorations for Spring time.

We're currently in Northern Ireland for half term visiting son 4, his wife and our two grandsons. We're camping on Lough Neagh. We're off to the Pumpkin Patch at Streamvale Farm. We've got dressing up costumes to wear. We're baking halloween cakes. It's also our grandsons 4th birthday next week, so we're celebrating that while we're here also.

I often feel winter kicks in and starts once the clocks go back and bonfire night is over even though it doesn't begin until the 21st December, it's made harder by the fact Christmas has been in the shops since September just as we got into Autumn.

Do you have an Easter Tree?

Are Easter trees a thing?

I've seen lots of sticks and twigs decorated with Easter eggs.

But I decided to bring down the small Christmas tree out of the attic and hang the Easter decorations on it instead of buying something new or spray painting branches and making something myself.

My husband thinks I'm mad. I probably am.

We'll be spending Easter in Northern Ireland. There are eggs for the adults and our grandson as well as some Easter activity crafts and the same for our other grandchild who we'll see before we go. There's an egg for the house sitter and one for her to share with the cat and the dog egg is coming with us to Northern Ireland for child 4's dogs.

There will be a trail for the neighbours kids when they come to visit to collect their eggs and I delivered eggs to my friend's kids over the weekend.

It's not just Christmas and Easter time that I decorate, I did Valentines last month and I love Halloween also. 

I took some decorations and cakes into school for my students for Valentines.

I did the same for Easter.

Do you decorate for Easter and other occasions? 

What I'm celebrating in 2022.

I like to mark the seasons with decorations and gifts. It doesn't cost a lot other than time and some of the decorations I have are years old, others are hand made or I've picked up cheaply.

There are also birthdays to celebrate throughout the year, with the dog turning 12 this month and the cat 13 next month. We're combining their parties in March as travel and then covid with others scuppered our plans. But the dog doesn't know or care and neither does the cat, if the truth be told. I'll be baking some dog and cat treats.

So far we've only acknowledged Valentines Day. I made bunting and stuffed hearts and posted a box of love to one grandchild, our eldest child and visited our grandson for a long weekend. The bedroom window was decorated.

I did travel to Birmingham to purchase the material but I picked up other things I needed at the same time.

Next up is St David's Day, because I'm Welsh and pancake day.

I'm sure I'll end up getting involved in Red Nose Day as I'll be working in a school.

We'll acknowledge Ramadan in March and Eid as we lived in Dubai for 7 years.

Then there is Easter. My neighbour gave me the grey fleece and I bought bright yellow duster for £2 which I'm going to turn into bunnies and chicks that will be sewn into bunting.

There are chocolate eggs bought, plus named bunting to be made for 2 more family members. I'll also be making easter chocolates.

Mothers Day will be a table set with a tea pot, cup and cakes. Then there's the Jubilee, which will involve at least the front of the house being covered in bunting. Then Father's Day, a Sunday roast with as many of the kids and grandkids as we can gather. We'll also be celebrating 20 years of marriage in October.

I love Halloween and Bonfire night, we'll acknowledge Remembrance Day and finally Christmas.

I enjoy making decorations from items around the house and in the garden. Collecting the pebbles is the hardest part.

How we celebrate Christmas

We don't do Christmas. Well we do decorations, cards and presents and like to eat well, but we've not done Christmas in the traditional way for a very long time.

We met 21 years ago. We are a blended family, with kids spending Christmas with their extended families. We would have a party with family and friends over the New Year, the kids would still get their gifts, all together and we'd do a roast of sorts, pull crackers and tell silly jokes. We'd eat beans on toast on Christmas day, stay with friends or visit my Gran for the day. Then we moved abroad, with only 2 kids still at home. 

In 2010 we gate crashed a friends on Christmas Eve and slept on their sofa and went to the pub for a few drinks. Then stayed in a hotel one of our kids worked at, had Steak and chips for dinner and ate breakfast with Bristol City FC on Boxing Day.

The kids spent their Christmas when we lived in South Africa with their UK family, we spent it with different friends over the next 4 years, then we moved to Dubai and spent our first Christmas in a hotel and for the next 6 years we booked a Christmas Brunch and one or two of the kids joined us each year.

For Christmas 2020, we spent Christmas on our own. Peter was in Saudi and I was in a hotel on the beach in Dubai. With that in mind you'll understand the blog post I've linked up with last week.

We do however have some Christmas things/activities we do regardless of where we've been living.

Visit Santa - even if it is with the dog.

Explore the neighbourhood to look at the decorations. Not as glam as Dubai, but our friends house and just as much fun to see.

Dress the cat up.

Visit a winter glow. This one is in Malvern.

Persuade Peter to wear an item of festive clothing.

Christmas bedding.

Dress the dog up.

Borrow a neighbours child for crafting activities.

Our last UK Christmas was 2009. I can't remember what we did, but I found a picture of the tree piled with presents.

I've bought a new tree this year and decorated it with all the ornaments we've collected since we've been abroad. A combination of flags, camels, cactus, palm trees and beaded ornaments and a wide selection of safari animals.

The fireplace.

Decorations from South Africa and Dubai.

Decorations bought from our travels.

A rather wonky new Christmas tree.

Presents received and presents to give out.

Anyone else make such a mess? It's not like the movies is it with just one box held by your partner while the family put baubles on the tree and sing carols.

New Traditions.

Cake decorating, Christmas outfits and Christmas day with the next generation.

Halloween Door Decorations

This post is in partnership with Design Bundles. I was also gifted art supplies and used their free fonts. Contents, photographs and design is all my own work.

I decorate for Halloween despite the fact the last child left home in 2013. The past 9 Halloweens have been spent abroad, it wasn't celebrated in South Africa, however in Dubai it was much bigger than it is in the UK.

This year I'm in the UK for Halloween and all my decorations are in the container which won't arrive until mid November, I still wanted to decorate the house, even though with Covid there will be no trick or treaters.

Design Bundles challenged me to decorate my front door by making signs and decorations using freebies fonts.

Here's what I came up with.

As my husband pointed out 'who is going to see it at the back door?' Well ... the decorations will be moved to the front door for Halloween and won't be put up the 31st. We live next door to a Primary School and I don't want to encourage children coming up the drive to the door as this will be the first year I've done Halloween and not camped out with the dog, dressed up and handing out home made cakes and sweets.

I'm also planning to laminate everything once my craft supplies arrive so I can reuse the decorations next year, whilst there's no rain forecast, it is pretty windy and it's getting damp out in the mornings.

To access the free fonts I used for this design, after creating a free account, I clicked on Script and selected Midnight Show to install on my laptop. I chose to save on printing ink, by creating an outline, then selecting white for my font colour. I lined the door with brown parcel paper and used masking tape to secure everything.

Using the art supplies, I used neon paint for the lettering.

Each letter was cut out and glued to black card and outlined with glow in the dark paint.

Everything had to be left to dry properly and flattened out. I worked too quickly, using glue before the paint was dry. I need to replace a couple of letters

I used a hole punch on the black card and threaded ribbon through the holes to hang like bunting. We just happen to have a sythe in the garden.

I then added a white sheet over a chair, with eyes and a mask, sadly the trick or treat bucket won't be filled this year.

Here's the UK in 2010

and Dubai 2019.

I had fun but it was a very time consuming job and the last time I made a display involving cutting, sticking and painting I was working as a Teacher in FS. Once everything is laminated and my container arrives I'll be able to use the props I have and have a bigger and better display for next year, when our grandchild is big enough to come trick or treating.