Sunshine Committee Pillow Box Treats

Recently one of the teachers from our awesome school asked for a crafty parent to assist with the Sunshine Committee.  I jumped at the chance to be creative!  I love to volunteer at my kids school but I must say, I am picky what I will do!  I believe we should work to our strengths and of course, I have some creativity to share!

The Sunshine Committee is a group of teachers who have come together to offer little gifts of sunshine to teachers, staff and students who for whatever reason may need a little boost of sunshine.  They offer encouragement, cheer, a pat on the back and more. I love the idea of this committee because I know how the simplest gesture of kindness can totally make a person's day.

Each month, the committee brings me a bag of goodies and I work my magic.  Since everyone loves a little sweet treat we always have some candy.  This month I was working with M&M's and candy corn.  I decided to make some little pillow box treat holders with my Silhouette.

I downloaded this adorable turkey pillow box from the Silhouette online store.  Perfect treat for the month of November.  I added googly eyes instead of the paper eyes because, well, googly eyes are just plain fun!  Inside, I put a small plastic bag filled with M&M's.  These would work great with the fun size candy bars too as they are the perfect size.

The Silhouette website has a number of other cute Pillow Box ideas including an owl.  Of course, even though the downloads are cheap, I knew I could make my own owl using the Turkey box since it had the same "ruffles" on the chest.  For the eyes, I used a scalloped circle punch that I have used in the past.  A simple yellow beak and some larger googly eyes and there you go.

I love these pillow box owls because they can be so many different colors to fit the seasons.  I will definitely get the use out of this pillow box download. 

A few months ago I had downloaded this fun owl treat holder from the Silhouette website as well.  Using some fall colors, I created a few cute treat packets using the candy corn as well. I just love how they came out.

I sure hope that these fun projects bring some sunshine to our most deserving students, teachers and staff!  I look forward to making more creations in the future.

Halloween Minion

It is that time of year again and the kids have so many ideas about what they want to be for Halloween.  I lucked out with my daughter and found an adorable Children's Place witch costume at a consignment sale for just $5!  My son chose to be a minion so I got to be a bit crafty.

My original hope was to find a pair of cute denim overalls.  However, that was more difficult than I anticipated.  Of course, my good friend Heather from No Business Like Sew Business came to the rescue with a pattern for overalls - she just so happened to create the pattern the week before for her own son, albeit for a different costume.  The boys happen to be the same size.  Woo hoo!  By the way, Heather rocked out 26 costumes this year!  Amazing!

So I headed to my favorite discount fabric store and picked up a couple yards of navy gabardine and whipped up the overalls.  Perfect.  The shirt is from Old Navy - yay, did not have to sew!  I painted the Gru symbol on and then, to make it stand out a bit, I used some glitter glue!  It is a costume after all.

I am not a huge seamstress, in fact, I am pretty bad. The details are not pretty but it works and my boy was ecstatic!  I will NOT be showing you the construction.  It is U-G-L-Y!!!  Speaking of which, it laid there for nearly 2 weeks unwearable because I was afraid to attempt to make button holes.  Confession, I have never done one.  Anyways, Heather came to the rescue again.  She reminded me, it is a costume, use a snap or Velcro and fake it (she did with hers).  So that is just what I did.  Perfect!

The hat and goggles were a ton of fun.  Confession, Heather made the hat!  (Have I mentioned, I LOVE Heather - you should too!)  The goggles were easy.  I used a pair of safety goggles that the kids got at the Lowes builder workshops.  I hot glued a couple of canning lids and added some "eye" circles to the inside.  Easy peasy.  The goggles sit up on my son's forehead on top of the hat.  I simply hot glued some black pipe cleaners on top for hair.

Oh, how we love our little Minion!