Susan is a freaking genius. And, if I have kids one day, I will definitely be taking her tips below on pumpkin decorating without the mess! Check out her great craft ideas below for some Fall activities with the kids.

Pumpkins, pumpkins, and more pumpkins!

It is that time of year…pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere!  The pumpkin can signify something different for each of us…some crazy Halloween night where you did something stupid (involving a pumpkin!), a favorite pumpkin dessert, or memories of carving pumpkins as a kid… but it is the one visual reminder we have of what time of year it is, and it will carry us through the fall and into the holidays.

Did you know…

1. Pumpkins originated in South America, but are now grown on 6 continents.
2. The US produces over 1,500,000,000 billion pounds of pumpkins per year.
3. World’s largest pumpkin on record is over 1700 pounds!
4. A serving of pumpkin only has 0.5 grams of fat!

Seriously, you can forget about #’s 1 – 3 now. But back to the post. It is hard not to get bombarded with the pumpkin right now.  All of our favorite coffee spots are serving up some kind of pumpkin spiced drink, and the thoughts of making pumpkin pie are just right around the corner.   I have a favorite food blog (www.skinnytaste.com) which has an entire category celebrating the pumpkin – Skinny Pumpkin Madness! You must check this out, everyone is sure to find something that suits their tastes!

With Halloween just days away, my kids are all about their pumpkin crafts and carving pumpkins.  We usually don’t carve our pumpkins until that last minute – I just don’t like the mess of a rotting pumpkin sitting on my doorstep!  So, this past weekend, we decided to get the craft bin out with the pumpkin as inspiration.

1)      My kids like to paint just about anything, so my daughter took one of her little pumpkins and painted a face on it.  Personally, I love this idea – goes along with the idea of not having a rotting pumpkin to clean up!  I just let the kids do what they want with this; it is always so much fun to see what they come up with.

2)      This year I decided to try using chalk board paint – this turned out to be a great idea!  We can draw new faces on the pumpkins every day!  I just got a can of chalk board spray paint, taped the stems, and sprayed the pumpkins.  A few minutes later, we got out the chalk and put some faces on our pumpkins.

3)      I am all for recycling items to use in our craft projects.  Today we used gallon milk jugs.  We cut out a “mouth” and painted the jugs orange, then decorated them.  We are going to use them to hold the trick-or-treat candy.  After Halloween, I am going to use it to store all the plastic grocery store bags under the sink in the kitchen!

Now I am ready for a drink!  There are plenty of Pumpkin spices beers out there, but I recently saw something advertising a Pumpkin wine!  All can be served in a pumpkin ice bucket!  Enjoy!

And if you’d like the perfect candle for Fall, Susan creates these insanely amazing soy candles right in her basement. You won’t want to go without her feature for this month: Pumpkin Souffle! Head to her website to order yours. Just select the container you’d like first, and then from the drop-down list of fragrances, choose Pumpkin Souffle. Or Apple Harvest. Or Banana Nut Bread. I WANT THEM ALL.