2016 will be the third year this has been promoted and it's really simple!
So many children (and adults) have mild to life threatening allergies ...food sensitivities...or just flat out don't want to have a house full of sugary temptation on November 1st. As a health & fitness coach, I promote BALANCE! I'm all about having a treat here & there....but NOBODY needs 10 lbs of chocolate in their house haha
If you or your child does have an allergy (peanuts, soy, dairy, gluten, eggs, etc...), October 31st can be a serious buzzkill.
The Teal Pumpkin Project is a campaign encouraging families to paint a pumpkin TEAL and hand out non-food items (instead of just traditional candy) so that everyone can safely enjoy the fun!
A Teal pumpkin on your porch lets families know that you have some allergy free options.
Honestly, I think this is brilliant. There are plenty of houses handing out traditional candy that will be devoured.... but when they get something fun like bubbles, stamps, snap bracelets, etc... the fun can last a little longer. (And children who can't eat candy get to participate in the festivities!)
Sometimes the prizes are more coveted than the candy!
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| I snagged a blank chalkboard pumpkin at Michaels & added my Allergy Safe message with chalk markers |
DECORATING:
This is the fun part! There are endless ideas on Pinterest that you can simply convert to a teal color scheme.
Everything from adding faux flowers, stamping it with cool doodles or designs, modge podging it with fun paper, keeping it simple...or even buying an already painted pumpkin at Micheals.
I'm all about creating something I can use again and again. I deciding to go with three simple designs
-- Mummy Pumpkin (using a prepainted Teal pumpkin, gauze & googly eyes)
-- Yarn (wrapping a white pumpkin with teal yarn)
-- Paint & Glitter (creating an "ombre" effect with different shades & glitter)
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| White Pumpkin: Wrapped in yarn & used a dab of hot glue on the bottom to hold it in place. |
How to Make Teal Paint:
- Two parts Blue
- One Part Green
- Dab of Yellow
- Dab of White
I went with more mint/aqua colors...just cuz.
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| Paint away! You can add glitter to wait paint or use modge podge/glue to hold it on! |
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| Mummy Pumpkin: Wrap in gauze. Secure with hot glue. Add googly eyes with hot glue |
Non-Food Ideas:
- Mini Bottled Water (Florida gets HOT even on Hallow's Eve)*
- Glow sticks*
- Spooky Toys (Vampire teeth, spider rings, etc)
- Mini notebooks*
- Slap Bracelets
- Sticky hands *
- Kazoos, whistles, bells
- Beaded Neclaces, halloween jewelry
- Crowns
- Sidewalk Chalk
- Bouncy Balls
- Coins! Real or fake
- Temporary Tattoos & Stickers
- Pencils, Pencil Toppers, Erasers
- Glow-in-the-dark ANYTHING
- Play-doh*
- Halloween Mini Kaleidoscope*
- Poppers
- Mini Slinky
- Novelty Stampers* (I loved these as a kid!)
- Bubbles!* I got Halloween themed ones but you can get mini white wedding ones and draw a ghost on them!
* = What we are handing out! I added some links to make shopping easy!
You can find all of these at Target, Michaels, Amazon, dollar store, party store, etc... And if you shop now, you can usually find a great deal! I always Google Michael's or Joann Fabric's Coupons before popping into the store.
Winston is healing from eye surgery. More on that in another post!
I absolutely love this idea and you can get as creative as you want. It's a great way to get people talking and raise some awareness.
