DIY Astronaut Boots with Aluminor - Silver Moon Boots

Need some cool silver moon boots to go with your astronaut costume?  We've got you covered.  These are easy to make. Note: This post contains affiliate links.

Our boys have an outerspace themed room and my youngest says he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up...so when we saw astronaut costumes as Costco we couldn't resist.  (This is a similar astronaut costume on Amazon.) The costume didn't come with any kind of footwear though, so we thought we'd make our own Astronaut boots.

All you need is some Aluminor ™ cushioned material, some old snow boots, and a glue gun and in less than half an hour, you'll have your own cool silver moon boots.

You can get my full tutorial with step-by-step photos on the Fairfield World site here.

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I Love You to the Moon and Back Pillow Tutorial - Valentine's for Boys

Valentine's gifts and decorations can be tricky for boys.  Even  though I know several self-assured boys who LOVE pink and hearts, lots of boys shy away from them.

And honestly, my favorite Valentine's gifts are ones that can last all year.  (If you agree, you might want to check out some of these other off-beat Valentine's projects I've done through the years.)

It's important for our boys to feel loved too and be told we love them...And what better way than with an "I Love You to the Moon and Back" Pillow.

I-Spy Orion and the Start of School

The daughter of a friend of mine participated in one of the previous I-Spy swaps and she needed help finishing up her quilt.  She needed it done soon.  Of course it really doesn't take much convincing for me to spend the day sewing with a friend.  My Becca always loves seeing Big Becca...and was thrilled to get to help pull out the pins for her.  Several people have been asking about when the next I-Spy Swap will be...and it's coming in a week or two.  They fill up fast, so if you want to get an email when the swap opens, then leave a comment on this post or email me.   If you're interested in participating in an I-Spy Swap, I'm not planning on doing any soon, but you can sign up to get an email when/if we do another one here.  I also ended up with a couple extra sets from our last swap, and those are here in my Etsy shop.

I think it turned out great for her first quilt.

And I had plenty of time to help her today, because it was the first day of school or our older kiddos.  Gosh, I love them...but the house is so much calmer during the day when they're at school.  They both got great teachers who will take good care of them.

All-Boy Art Birthday Party

  Note: If you're looking for the You Keep Me in Stitches Giveaway click here.

I can't believe my boy turned 6 this week!

Seth is in LOVE with art lately.  He and Becca go in his room and "do art" for hours at a little table we have in there.  I can't remember who suggested it, but when an art party came up as a theme for his party, he jumped at it. 

And I was super happy to have a theme with so many creative possibilities and that it was something we want to encourage him in.   We've told our kids they just get parties on certain birthdays (6, 8, 12, etc).  They get a cake and little family celebration (as in dessert right after dinner) every year, but not a lot.  So it's fun to put some extra effort into the parties we do have.

Overall the kids loved it.  And despite the title of the post, we did have girls at the party and they enjoyed the projects too, we just especially found projects that would appeal to boys.  It took a little planning ahead to make sure we had the art supplies on hand, but other than buying the supplies we really did pretty much everything for the party the day before.  (And remember I have my husband home during the summers, so I had him to help out getting ready and helping during the party.)

I'm really not a fan of party favors...at least not the kind where you buy cheap toys so the guests go home with something.  I am a big fan of party favors that serve as entertainment and/or props to the party itself, so the kids got to take home some fun art projects.  I wanted to do some kinds of art projects that used materials and techniques they might not learn at school (where they pretty much stick to paper, crayons, and occasionally tempera paint).

Here's what we did:

One more unicorn...

I was just about ready to mail off the unicorn I-Spy Quilt to my brother's new baby, when Eric (my husband) pulled out his star chart to have a look at the night sky and casually mentioned there is a unicorn constellation named Monoceros.

Uhhhh...what?!?  You didn't mention this before?  I'd been thinking the back of the quilt looked a little blah.  (Now mind you, I usually make my quilt backs totally plain fabric, so using the night sky fabric was already a little fancy for me...but with the row of I-Spys and the moon there seemed to be a lot of empty space.

So I decided to add one last unicorn to the quilt in the form of stars.

Big Dipper/Little Dipper - Father/Son Constellation Costumes

A month or so ago, we were discussing what Halloween costumes would be.  Since Eric is the high school chemistry and physics teacher, we thought something science themed would be fun.  The older kids weren't interested in coordinating.  (For some reason Cinderella, a Vampire Bat, and the Spiderman sounded more attractive to them than Orion, Leo, and Pleaides...go figure.)  Anson was willing to coordinate with Daddy, though...and so we have the Big and Little Dippers

After seeing how theirs turned out, I think I may join them and be Cassiopeia.  We'll see.

DIY Easy Constellation Tie with Free Pattern

The days of coordinating family costumes are over for us now that the kids are old enough to have an opinion about what they want to be...or rather that more than one of them has a strong opinion about it.

But we decided for Daddy and Anson to coordinate...and who knows, I might too we'll see.  Since Eric is a science teacher and Halloween is on a school day, we thought a science themed costume would be fun.  The plan is for Eric to be the Big Dipper and Anson will be the Little Dipper.  I hope to have their costumes ready to show you soon...

But since Eric's costume is going to be made from a sweatshirt (It's always super cold here on Halloween), we figured he'd need something else for his "school" costume...so enter the Constellation Tie.

Constellation Necklace Giveaway from Boutique Academia

NOTE:  This giveaway is now CLOSED.

Maile from Boutique Academia has been a sponsor for a long time and a friend even longer.  If you haven't visited her shop in a while, she's constantly adding new pieces.

My husband, Eric has been especially into astronomy lately (seriously...a few months ago, the afternoon of the transit of Venus he went around the neighborhood rounding up people to come view it on the mirror/paper set-up he got working at our house.)  With him continually looking at the moon and stars this summer, it's been rubbing off on me and I've been learning a lot.  (Besides, what's more fun than hanging out with your husband star gazing?)

So I was especially excited to see Maile's new line of Constellation Necklaces.  She's got three designs:

Pleiades

The Big Dipper

And I think my personal favorite is The Southern Cross.

What a great way to show your love of faith and science at the same time!

All three designs come in either the black onyx or the steel pendant, and as with pretty much all of Maile's pieces, they're versatile enough to be worn with a T-shirt or a classy dress or anything in between.

Now here's the best part...Maile is hosting a giveaway.  The winner will get their choice of one constellation pendant necklace.  There are three easy ways to enter.

• Become a follower of Helping Little Hands via GFC or Facebook and leave a comment on this post.  (Or if you already are a follower just tell me in your comment.) 
• Head over to Boutique Academia and check out Maile's shop.  Then come back here and tell us what your favorite product is in a comment
• "Like" Boutique Academia on Facebook and come back here and leave a comment.

PLEASE be sure that your Blogger account is linked to your email, so I have a way to contact you OR leave your email in your comment.  It's always such a bummer when someone wins who can't be contacted.  This giveaway will close at midnight PST on October 20, 2012 is now CLOSED.

Maile also as lots of other fun astronomy inspired pieces to check out.  Have fun browsing.

Thanks so much for entering!  And be sure to stop by all next week for more some fun constellation themed and geek inspired projects.

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Please help me make blankets for kids in my community.  I have mini-quilts available in my shop.  All proceeds go to buy materials for local blankets for kids programs.

Hello, Harvest Moon - Children's book

This is our moon tonight.  I'm not sure how much it's been on the news in other places, but there have been forest fires in central Washington that have been burning for weeks and are likely to keep burning until the snow comes.  We're over an hour away from them, but it's still made for lots of smokey mornings and hazey afternoons...and some beautiful sunsets and moons.

I couldn't help but try to take some pictures of our harvest moon.  This is the best shot I got.  (I love my camera, but it does have a weak spot when it comes to zoom.)  It really doesn't do justice to the sky tonight.  It's a beautiful full, orange moon.

Katie and I had a fun time playing with some of the camera settings while I tried to get a decent picture.  That's her dancing...

Easy and Cheap Space Party Decorations

Bit-by-bit I've been sharing details from Firecracker's Outer Space Party, and I'm almost done.  We kept the decorations really simple, and they were mostly restricted to the table.

I started with a black plastic table cloth from the dollar store.  I'd planned to have everything laid out ahead of time with star stickers already stuck all over it.  Because an unexpected doctor visit ate up most of my prep time, I ended up giving the girls the star stickers and gave them directions to decorate the table cloth.  They had fun doing it, and it was a great way to keep them busy while I was finishing up a few other last minute details.

I also gave them each a brown paper sack and print-out of their name in Milky Way font (can be downloaded from here), so they'd have a place to keep their party favors separate from each other.

Birthday Signs Tradition

Hubby's family had a tradition growing up.  When you woke up on your birthday, there was a fun sign waiting for you announcing your birthday.

When we were first married, I thought it was silly and we didn't really do it.  Then we had kids, and I realized what an awesome idea it was...because it's a cheap and easy way to make the day feel extra special for your kids.

We've put in varied amounts of effort over the years.  Sometimes they're made out of scrap paper...

Shooting Star Bean Bags

This is one of those projects that evolved.  The plan started out that we were going to keep Firecracker's birthday party super duper simple...just cupcakes after school.  Then when she asked for an outer-space party, we figured we could throw a couple games in because Grandma had given Little Brother a set of Outer Space Bean Bags (inspired by these) and I figured we could throw together a bean bag toss game.

Space Party Snack Ideas

I looked around for some easy ideas for snacks for Firecracker's Outer Space Party and here are a few of the things I came up with.

Now as a disclaimer...I had visions of having all the snacks and everything layed out nicely on plates with cute labels before the girls walked in the door from school...and great pictures of the spread to share with you.  I was on track to have everything ready because most of it was done the night before...and then the doctor had to reschedule my routine prenatal appt for the morning before the party.  That's a guaranteed 2 1/2 hours out of my day since it takes an hour each way including dropping the kids off with a sitter.  Then the appt. itself ended up taking forever...so all day at home to get ready turned into less than an hour.  But you know what...the girls had fun and loved the party, so whatever...that's just how life is some days.

Easy Constellation Cupcakes - Space Party Treats

Last week, I shared the Star Cut-Out Cupcakes that I made for Firecracker's class for her birthday.  Normally I would have made the same ones for her birthday party (She asked for a Space theme.)...but I thought of these Constellation cupcakes first and loved the idea.  Firecracker had originally asked for a planets/solar system themed cake and the thought of trying to make all those colors of frosting and swirls made me feel tired.  (I pinned quite a few different solar system cakes/cupcakes on my Cakes and Parties Pinterest Board if you're interested, though.) Then when I thought of these constellation cupcakes, they'd be a perfect (and easy!) fit for her party.   (I'll be sharing the rest of the party snacks in a few days, so be sure to check back.)

When I thought of the Star Cut-Out Cupcakes later, I wanted to try both.  (You know I have a hard time turning down an easy cupcake idea.)

Anyway, since I was able to use the same frosting for both sets of cupcakes, it really wasn't any harder to decorate these a little differently.  In truth, these were actually faster per cupcake to frost...but there are several reasons why I think those Star Cut-Out Cupcakes are especially good for a group of school kids...you'll have to go to that post to see why.

Anyway...I didn't take process pictures of these because it was already sometime around 1 am...and I needed to get to bed.  It's super simple though, so I'll talk you through it.