Pumpkin+Bear Etsy Shop Update: Christmas-Themed Blocks and LOTS of Play Dough

Check me out, actually working on what I said I'd work on! In my breaks from novel writing, syllabus building (oh, my, that AP European History syllabus is a bear to build! And Honors Biology is just barely better!), creating posts for Crafting a Green World (my first post for the new owners should be up later today), trying to my daily 10,000 steps even though my treadmill is broken AGAIN, planning Girl Scout meetings (Bridging and the Breathe TAP, even though everyone is going on vacation at different times in the next month), and, you know, living my best life by eating leftover carrot cake while reading Harry Potter fanfiction, I got some new and improved pretty things listed in my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop.

Here's my first holiday listing--decoupaged decorative building blocks!

I first saw little blocks decoupaged with pretty papers at a Renegade Fair in Chicago several years ago (I bought two of them), and I was really into making my own versions for a while:

• decoupaged comic book blocks
• alphabet blocks decoupaged with scrapbook paper

I really love how they're a way that you can upcycle the building blocks that your children loved to play with after the kids have grown up, but you CAN still play with them after they're decoupaged. Honestly, I think they're even more fun afterwards--at least, every time I do this project in a different way, it inspires a renewal of the kids' interest in playing with their blocks.

Another thing that my big kids still enjoy? Play dough, so I put some different varieties of our favorite homemade play dough in my shop. You can now buy one full pound of any single color--

--or you can buy my rainbow set, but now with a full pound of every single color, making it a seven-pound set:

That particular listing makes me particularly happy. 

I'm feeling more inspired to make things by hand this autumn, as I've made a personal goal to make most of my family's holiday gifts this year. I'll go more into that decision another time, but I'm pretty excited about it, and I've been having a lot of fun coming up with actual plans to make all of the actual things that I've always wanted to make my family someday, whenever I have the time. 

Turns out that time is now!