Another year, another box

My children tried to convince me that we needed a Steve head to add to our 8 bit pumpkin and creeper, but something about that just seemed wrong, so I suggested Enderman instead. A normal person could paint a box black, cut 2 eye holes, throw a purple light and be done, but let's be real here, normal people don't make 8 bit jack-o-lanterns to start with. Although, this has been the easiest one to date.
My supplies:
Square box
Black craft paint
The darkest gray craft paint
Yard stick
Pencil
Paintbrush
And I'll explain that other thing later

I started this one by just painting the whole box black. I was able to use a foam craft brush and it went very quickly.

I did my usual grid layout from a template online, and added in the gray (more than I thought there would be)

In case you can't figure out my code, blank squares are gray, "B" squares are black.

Now for the weird part. His eyes are suppose to glow purple. What I recommend doing is finding purple lighting gels to cover the eye holes. What I actually did was buy a packet of plastic dividers from the school supply section and cut the purple one to size making it two layers thick. This is probably a horrible idea. It could melt or burst into flames maybe, but I decided to risk it and promise to keep a paranoid eye on it Halloween night.  

For extra glow eyes I found a string of all purple holiday lights. I cut a square out of the back to thread the lights through and taped them to hang inside the box for a bit of a three dimensional effect. 

Here is our full finished stack for the year.
The teal one on top is for The Teal Pumpkin Project. Basically, it means our house offers both candy and a "not candy" treat option for the kids with allergies. We participate because something as simple as a peanut should not steal all the fun from the night for a kid. 

Here is a link to the Creeper post

And a link to the original Pumpkin post

Too White

My son was just sent home from school for being too white. Well, actually he was sent home because he felt sick, but had he not been so white, I don't think they would have called. Today at school he got a little queasy, and was sent to the nurse. When the blood drains from an already pale face you get something close to the color of a dead body. It tends to freak people out. Even medical people. Normally, school nurses like to see actual proof of sickness. If you aren't having a fever and actively being sick, then usually you have to really sell it. Another kid was there who had blacked out and rolled down a hill, and the nurse was asking her if she wanted to try to go back to class. JD, on the other hand, walks in pale and without a question the nurse says to him, "You need to call your mom. You are going home." So, he is home with me, nibbling on crackers and cereal, feeling fine. His blood sugar was just low and he had too much orange juice and not enough real food in his system. 
While I am on the subject of JD, I need to brag on him a bit.
We are fans of the Pop! figures. They are adorable and fun. We love looking through the new ones at the store. It has gotten to be a running joke with us that we have seen all of the ones from the show Firefly except for Wash. We look for him every time. It isn't that they are sold out. It is because the store doesn't think his character is popular enough to stock (we asked). I started to feel bad for him.
It was recently my birthday. I was informed that Jack had picked out a present on his own, tracked it down online, and gotten his dad to get it for me. 100% his doing.

Look at the tiny dinosaur!