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One of these best Nancy Drew books is available as a FREE audiobook on Penelope Heaven’s channel. She has read a bunch of other Nancy Drew books as well on her channel so please check out the link by clicking the photo!

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Listen to the audiobook of Nancy Drew Secret of Shadow Ranch via the link here! This story is beautifully read and videos are posted chapter by chapter so it’s easy to keep track of where you left off. 📚

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Penelope Heaven channel has started another fabulous audiobook of the Nancy Drew mystery stories called “The Mysterious Mannequin”

This story is very ‘mysterious’ and not your typical Nancy Drew story. It’s very intriguing and every chapter keeps you on edge!

Please subscribe to Penelope Heaven so you can keep up to date with each chapter she uploads.

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Another intriguing Nancy Drew mystery story read by the fine lady with a sweet voice “Nansi” she uploads Nancy Drew book readings regularly to her channel “Penelope Heaven” along with other curiosities occasionally.

🔍This Nancy Drew book is one of the more darker books in the series to me and has quite some heavy moments. But it’s a very good story!

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Another wonderful (and rare!) Nancy Drew audiobook reading! Please check it out!

The sweet lady with the perfect voice for this mystery series uploads chapter by chapter of each book from the Nancy Drew mystery stories series. 📚This makes it easy to keep track of where you left off in the book if you’re like me and only get to listen to audio books at short intervals while doing dishes, folding laundry etc. #momlife

The channel “Penelope Heaven” has several beautifully read Nancy Drew audiobooks you cannot find ANYWHERE else as well as other fine curiosities on her channel!

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This story is by far one of my most favorites read by YouTuber Penelope Heaven. She has a great reading voice and is uploading new chapters of impossible to find Nancy Drew audio books constantly! Read by herself and she had a wonderful reading voice!

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Nancy Drew Mystery book fans! I have long been searching for audiobooks of the classic Nancy Drew mystery stories and finally I found a wonderful channel called “Penelope Heaven” and she has uploaded several of the books personally read by her and I must say she has done a wonderful job and I’m excited for each chapter that’s uploaded. Listening to Nancy Drew is so relaxing and takes me away from the stress of the world with her vintage charm and clever wit. The stories never get old!

Please check out Penelope Heavens channel if you need a good book to listen to while you clean, sew, take a walk, relax or even sleep. These mystery stories always help me sleep when my mind is too busy.

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Treat the Mama Bear in your life (or yourself if you’re a mama bear!) with this Mama Bear coffee mug. Perfect for those chilly busy mornings for your dawn power up or as a relaxing cup of coffee, tea or cocoa while the little ones take their afternoon nap!

This cup is just the right size at 11 ounces. Study and dishwasher and microwave safe!

The artwork is entirely original and completely hand drawn/hand painted by me using ink, water color and gouache paint. It is professionally printed so it will last forever!

Better yet, the “EST.” Date can be customized to whichever year you desire.

• visit my shop link HERE -

http://www.zazzle.com/cobalt_presents

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Part 2

Rooster costume Diy

(Scroll down for part (1) )

Take a strip of stiff felt cut larger than your cardboard piece and hot glue it over the base of the exposed feather stems and fold it under as shown.

Next attach your elastic band on either side of the tail base as shown. Hot glue it very securely!

* glue a short tuft of feathers on the top and bottom of the tail base to disguise it even though it will be pretty much hidden in the main feather costume

Now for the feet, take your child’s shoes and place them on top of a sheet of stiffened yellow felt and trace the bottom shape out. Cut them out and make sure to leave some extra length on the toe end for cutting out chicken toes. Don’t make them too long or they’ll be a tripping hazard. Chickens have 3 toes on the front and 1 on the and I loosely emulated that.

* Next lay the feet cutouts over the top of your child’s shoe and start snipping out the openings to match that if the shoe openings. Don’t make it too large. Just enough that your littles foot will fit through it and rest comfortable around the ankle.

* I also hot glued the chicken toes to the toes of the shoe to help hold them in place. I was honestly in a hurry to finish the feet and if I had more time I’d secure them better. But they held up through the entire trick or treating adventure!

Now time for the last little project - THE BEAK!

Cut a triangle shape out of your yellow stiff felt sheet about 4 inches long. Honestly I just ‘winged’ it with cutting the beak and wattles out. Cut matching tear-drop shapes for the wattles and glue them to the outer bottom edge of the beak.

• Pinch your yellow triangle into more of a beak shape like shown, hot glue the fold and hold it into shape until it sets.

• Attach the elastic ends on the inside edge of the beak

• Attach only one end of the elastic on one side of the beak at first and then measure it around your child’s face to get the best fit. Mark it with your finger, take it off your babe still holding that point on the elastic and then a mark it with a marker/pen so you know where to cut and glue in place. Make sure your measurement is not too snug and not too loose either.

• Then to make the beak more comfy against a little one’s face cut a piece of your red soft felt to line the inside that would be resting against the face. Covering all the glue spots holding the beak shape and the elastic ends. I let the red felt peek out from the beak to add more detail.

• According to your child’s face shape, make curvy cutouts on the top of the beak to avoid it from bothering their eyes. Keep trying it on and adjusting it snip by snip until it’s comfortable for your babe.

DONE!!

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial!! My daughter is obsessed with her costume and even had to sleep in it! 😆 be prepared for feathers to drop every now and then. But the joy my girl got from this costume and the compliments on Halloween made the mess all worth it!

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Part 1

Inspired by the rooster character “Hei Hei” from the Disney movie Moana, this costume was created for my 3 year old who loves chickens and birds and pretends to be one on the daily! After countless requests from her to be a chicken for Halloween this year in 2019. I decided to dedicate my spare time to creating this costume from scratch (I never liked the chicken costumes online/in store and they didn’t even come in her size) I did my best to document each step so that if you have a chicken/bird lover you can make it for your little one too! 🐓

First gather your supplies, you’ll need -

• (1) long sleeve shirt in the main color of feathers you plan on using.

• (4) feather boas the main body color of your choice. I used a teal color I found at hobby lobby for $3.99 a piece (use their 40% coupon)

• (1) yellow feather boa - this is for the colorful collar of the costume

• (1) orange feather boa

• (1) feather hair clip in red. This is for the comb/crest of the chicken or adds extra flaire to a bird costume without your child having to wear an annoying hood they are just going to take off anyway. * I found mine right next to the feather boas at Hobby Lobby.

• (1) package of colorful turkey feathers or whatever feathers you’d like to use for your chicken/bird costumes tail. * I found mine at Hobby Lobby in the other feather section.

• (3) large sheets of stiffened yellow felt found at Hobby Lobby’s felt sheet section. Don’t use the normal soft felt, trust me it’s way easier to use this stiffer version when making the beak and feet.

• (1) sheet of normal soft red felt for a little red trim on the beak and wattles of the rooster.

• (1 ) roll of half inch or so elastic roll found in the sewing section of Walmart or Hobby Lobby. I ended up getting 3/4 inch wide roll of elastic and cut it down the middle with scissors and it was the perfect width and just enough length for the tail and beak elastic loops.

• (1) pair of yellow leggings for “chicken legs” I found my girl a pair of perfect comfy golden yellow leggings at Old Navy for only $4!

• hot glue gun

• large package of glue sticks

• broom/vacuum for the mess the feathers make as you work (but it’s so worth it!)

Let’s start!

step 1

Lay the shirt out flat on a roomy clean table and get your hot glue gun, plenty of glue sticks and your feather boas handy.

* Decide how you want the colors of feathers you selected to lay out on the shirt. Starting at the top of the shirt or the collar area - Measure a rough estimate length of feather boa to lay across the shirt following the curved collar shape of the shirt and cut it.

• lay a short zig-zag line of hot glue at the beginning of your start area and glue one end of the feather boa down. Basically press the little bunch of feather down firmly until you are sure it’s set. Be careful not to burn yourself.

Continue until the entire cut length of feather boa has been glued into place. Now it’s time to cut another strand for the next layer of feathers.

• Don’t just wrap the feather boa around the shirt in one piece as this can render the shirt with no give and make it very uncomfortable and difficult to put on your child. It’s better to section out of the pieces and it won’t be noticeable once you are all finished.

As you can see, this is the shirt with the orange and yellow feathers finished! Now time for the teal! It was actually really really fun making this whole costume!

Measuring out my teal feathers.

Keep glueing row upon row of feathers until you have finished the whole front of the shirt. Don’t worry about the arms just yet. Time to do the back side of the shirt now with the same routine.

This is the back of the shirt finished. I actually decided to add some orange and yellow feathers to the back to add some extra color since she wanted it to be a colorful rooster.

* Next measure and cut a strip of feather boa to add to the top of the sleeves. I didn’t feel a need to glue feathers underneath the sleeve. Use the seam of the sleeve as a general guide and stick your hand inside the shirt to support the sleeve while you start glueing they feather strip on.

Finished sleeve of the shirt

* Once both sleeves are feathered you should be done with the main part of the costume! Feel free to carefully check for loose parts of feathers that need glueing and any faults

Now it’s time for the rooster tail!

Take a strip of sturdy cardboard (from a random box flap) and cut it about 6 inches long and 4 inches wide depending how big your tail feathers are. Bend it and form it into a half circle then flatten it back out. Figure out the arrangement of feathers you like and start glueing them securely on. Be patient- this part can be tricky and you may have to hold feathers in place for a little while. Glue over the bottoms and tops of the feather “stems” to make it extra sturdy.

Check out part 2!

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“Helen” - our pretty Buff Orpington and my personal favorite of the flock, calmly observes her surroundings beside a chrysanthemum bursting with blooms on a pleasant Texas autumn afternoon.

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Happy 🎃 Halloween!

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DIY Super Soft Playdough with 2 ingredients!

Looking for a fun and quick craft to do with your toddlers or older kids? Make this playdough recipe! I found this originally on Pinterest where the recipe calls for only TWO kid-safe ingredients and is pretty instant to make!

All you need is:

Yep! This recipe uses baby lotion and while the original suggested using Johnson’s baby lotion - this hill country fare brand worked great!

If you don’t have cornstarch you can use flour but the dough won’t be as smooth/soft. It should still be fun to play with though.

* I made a small batch personally but you can double up this of course!

Get a nice big bowl like seen in the pics here to mix your ingredients. We used our hands to mix it together. You could try spoons if you like.

How to make -

• Measure 1-cup of cornstarch

And

• 1/2 cup of baby lotion

Put your 2 ingredients together in the bowl and mix well! It will get clumpy before it makes a dough ball. Keep working with it by squeezing it and mashing with your hands until mixed. My daughter loved this part even though she is usually touchy about her hands being messy.

*black kitten not necessary for this DIY 😆

Keep blending and squeezing!

Finally!!

You can put food dye in it but it could stain your fingers (do so at your own risk) so we just kept it simple and added GLITTER!

A cross of two holidays happened and we made a snowman and ghost with our sparkly dough!

Now go make some super soft dreamy play dough with your kid(s)!!!

Have fun!

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SOUND ON! I don’t know what it is but a cat purring is so relaxing and therapeutic to me.

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The chickens are resting after their breakfast this chilly autumn morning ☕️ 🍂

TOP PHOTO - from left to right: Helen, Daisy, Mabel, Bernadette and Edna. Only missing “Misty” the second Lavender Orpington since she was away laying an egg 😆

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Like most little toddlers, my daughter loves to read and here are some of my favorite books with some that also ‘fall’ into a Halloween theme and since my girl loves Halloween they are perfect for storytime during this October!

“Cuddle Bug” by Nicola Edwards

This cute rhyming book features various baby bugs with endearing little phrases you can direct at your little one for a darling little story time experience.

You can find this book at Amazon.

“Spooky Pookie” by Sandra Bounton

You can’t go wrong with Pookie or any of Sandra Bounton’s books. This one is about Pookie trying to decide on a Halloween costume.

“EEK Halloween” by Sandra Bounton

My daughter loves her pet chickens and Halloween so what better book than this one which features a mix of chickens getting spooked on Halloween!

“Five Black Cats”

This one is about five black cats who go on an adventure encountering spooky Halloween things along the way and eventually end up in a haunted house! A cute story and only drawback is the black text is printed on a dark background at times which makes it hard to read in a dim lit room.

“BOO!”

This one has been a favorite of my daughter’s for 2 years now. With repetitive rhymes and cute Halloween characters your little one will love to finally found out “who shouted BOO?!”

All these books can be found on Amazon with a quick title search.

Happy reading with your little one! 🎃