Mike has been great about helping me get out of my rut. He had the perfect solution for me. “Heather, you know Halloween is coming up…why don’t you start decorating?” Halloween is my favorite favorite favorite, and I am determined to make Annie love it, too. The kid already wears several princess dresses per day, so I think we’re off to a good start. I was especially happy when, after Mike brought in my decorations from the garage, Annie started shrieking, “The punkins are here! The punkins are here!”

Mike also told me to go buy a few new decorations. I didn’t have to be told twice, and went to the fabric store near our house (by myself!) because I know they always have good deals. I grabbed a couple things, and then just started wandering the store. It was so nice to walk around without worrying about Annie getting into anything. My gramma was a big quilter, and I loved going with her to the fabric store. I used to touch all the different materials and imagine them as pretty dresses.

While I was there, I decided I want to challenge myself to make a different Halloween decoration every week leading up to the 31st. I am hoping this will lead to money-saving on decor, and it will force me to be creative. And if they suck, I can just say I did it on purpose to make it look “creepy.”

The first thing I came up with was a no-sew felt jack o’lantern. I wanted to make something I knew Annie would like. I’d made her a felt Christmas tree and she loved it, so I figured a felt jack o’lantern would go over well, too. I got a three-foot square piece of orange felt, a few 8 1/2 x 11″ sheets of black felt, a sheet of green felt, some tacky glue, and command strips.

After an embarrassing amount of tries, I had my brother draw me an oval pumpkin shape on the orange felt.

Kyle drew the pumpkin shape

After I cut out the pumpkin, I asked Mike to draw some jack o’lantern faces on the black felt for me. I am clearly the worst at drawing anything if I can’t even draw an OVAL, so there was no way I could draw complicated things like mouths.

Mike drawing mouths

While Mike drew faces, I cut out a pumpkin stem from the green felt. I will not comment on how many stems I drew. I then glued the stem to the back of the pumpkin with some tacky glue.

Mike came up with some cute faces:

no-sew felt jack o'lantern faces

I used command adhesive strips to attach the pumpkin to the wall since they are safe for the paint. I had to use several for the body, and one for the stem. Once it was up on the wall, I called Annie over and she went to town:

no-sew felt jack o'lantern

no-sew felt jack o'lantern

no-sew felt jack o'lantern

The felt sticks to the felt like magic. Annie played with the jack o’latern for the hour leading up to bed time, so I’d say it was a hit. I am sort of tempted to quit while I’m ahead and coast on the success of this craft…except I did enjoy making it, even if I got my brother and Mike to do the hard parts. I felt good while I was putting it together, and I felt great when I saw how much Annie liked it.

So…I don’t know. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll become a crafter after all. For this month, at least.