Easy Halloween Costumes You Can Make With Your Kids

When my children were younger and even as they entered their teen years I either couldn’t afford or couldn’t justify buying Halloween costumes. Most were so poorly made or extremely expensive. I am not saying that I haven’t purchased them from time to time because I have. There’s always that one that your child just has to have. Most of our Halloween costumes we’ve made and made together. The children enjoy watching and participating in creating and are always especially excited about Halloween costumes. It is so much fun coming up with ideas and listening to the ideas the children come up with. I’ve found that they are amazed that I have so many skills, even though the costumes ideas do not require much craftiness on my part! If I can do it, anyone can do it! Here are just a few costume ideas. 

Simple Feng Shui Inspired Environmental Considerations for Children’s Health in the Home. By Sherry Burton Ways

© Photographer: Colleen Coombe | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Simple Feng Shui Inspired Environmental Considerations for Children’s Health in the Home. By: Sherry Burton Ways

Feng Shui is a powerful tool to create a healthy, loving safe environment for children no matter what room they are in your home.  Emotional and physical support using Feng Shui can enhance all the stages in a child’s development.

So what is Feng Shui?  Feng Shui is pronounced ‘Fung Shvee’ and literally translated means ‘wind and water.’  It embodies the 7,000 year old ancient Chinese art of placement which balances and enhances the environment. 

I invite you to be a Feng Shui detective and analyze using your intuition and senses things about your home to ensure it is healthy and vibrant for continued growth and production for your child.

First, think about or observe whether or not your child is having trouble breathing or has asthma or other concerns.  If he or she does, ask:

What is the air quality like in your child’s room or the entire home as a whole?  Have you checked your home’s ventilation system?  Do your air ducts need to be cleaned out or replaced?  I was working with a client who informed me that her daughter was having a lot of allergies.  This concerned me.  As we began a total redesign of her home, we learned that the air ducts were never cleaned in her home and was in serious need for replacement.  In addition, one of the air ventilation system was located just outside her bedroom door!

Ways to combat indoor air pollution to protect your family:

• Do not smoke or allow smokers in your home
• Get your chimney cleaned regularly and your appliances serviced
• Open windows at different sides of the home to create cross ventilation
• Seal cracks in floor edges, pipes and walls especially basement
• Buy an air-filter.
• Use safe non toxic cleaning materials

We all live with electrical appliances.  However, do we really understand what the effects are of these appliances in our home and to our children?  The entire earth is permeated by magnetic lines of energy that criss-cross over its surface.  These lines are similar to our nervous system along which travels natural radiation or the electro-magnetic field otherwise known as EMFs.  Millions of adults and children may face an increased risk of cancer and other diseases because they are exposed to electro-magnetic radiation from power lines and household electrical appliances.  Even electrical disturbances from electronic equipment in your child’s bedroom can increase the risk of disease as well as sleep deprivation.  These include things like computers, televisions, radios, alarm clocks, CD players, bedside lights, etc.  You want to keep these items at a minimum or at least in a closed armoire or cabinet so these do not affect the health of your child.

There are several ways you can reduce the positive ions in your home that may be harmful to your child:

• Keep electrical equipment away from your child’s bed
• Get an ioniser
• Keep a comfortable indoor humidity by ventilating to the outside.
• Use less electrical equipment
• Burn cleansing and purifying aromatherapy oils.

Next  assess the clutter level of your home and your childs room.  It is generally a rule that children watch and emmulate adult behavior.  So let’s examine whether or not you are living a clutter free lifestyle.  You see, in the world of Feng Shui, clutter does not allow for the free circulation of good energy in the home.  When energy circulates, responses and moves about a space it will clog up or become depleted when too much clutter is in place.  This does not create a good situation for anyone including your child in the home.

Some things to do to create a clutter free environment for your child:

• Take time to clear any clutter in spaces outside the child’s room

• Create a clear system of organization to clear out your child’s clutter.  Toy boxes, shelving and other systems are great to implement and are not very expensive- check out resources and products at stores like Target or IKEA. 
• Teach your child a clear and simple organization system in a way that will  help them to stick to it.
•  Allow for patience and time to use whatever system you come up with so that your child get’s acclimated to it.  Reward your child in some healthy way when the system is used successfully.

The main feng shui goal in transforming living spaces into healthy ones for children is to create a healthy, loving and safe environment for all who enter. 

Sherry Burton Ways is the Principal Designer of Kreative Ways & Solutions, LLC a Washington, DC décor firm focused on creating spaces that inspire you through feng shui, color therapy and interior environment coaching.  She is the author of the forthcoming book, Feel Good Spaces:  Decorating Your Home for the Body, Mind and Spirit.  Wealth Sistas Publishing.  

Back To Nature: The Power of Timeless Wanders

            A connection to nature is one of the most precious gifts our children have. Not only does time close to the earth nourish their physical body, but also their mind and soul. We all have the ability to re-connect children with nature, regardless of our outdoors knowledge or experience.

            A powerful and simple tool available to us all is the timeless wander. This experience is usually overlooked because it runs counter to one of modern society’s strongest assumptions: Children are buckets that must be filled. Time where children are not amassing information, facts and knowledge is usually seen as wasted. 

Be The Cause Of Your Own Experience!

Take a break from the day-to-day routine!

Are you nurturing your youthful inner child?

Is your mind beautifully fit?

Are you the kind of parent who is ignoring your gifts?

Do you feel you might be stagnant, dull and lifeless?

An Interview with renowned author, speaker, healer, and business consultant Cyndi Dale.

We have a special treat for you. We recently interviewed intuitive author Cyndi Dale. We can't wait for you to read her inspirational answers. We want to send out a special thank you to Cyndi for sharing such deep answers. She truly walks an intuitive connected path. Enjoy! Please share your thoughts. If you have any follow up questions, share them. We'll make sure Cyndi sees your questions. ~ Carol and Stacy

Carol and Stacy:    At what age did you know your were intuitive or have your first intuitive experience?

Cyndi: I didn’t have a label for the phenomenon, but I was intuitive as a very small child. I actually remember being in my mother’s womb and watching sound waves pass through her skin and into me. They were huge and colorful and the ones that came from angry comments actually hurt.

Interesting…those spots that were hit by the harsh comments have been the same ones I’ve had afflictions, such as infections, palpitations, and more.

At about three or four, I recall seeing angels. I saw them as a child might: as big with wings. There was one I favored in particular since he would have tea parties with me. Imagine sitting with an angel at a child’s table, his wings dripping onto the floor, his gigantic hands picking up tiny teacups.

But I also saw beings that weren’t so delightful. I could hear and see ghosts, people who continued to stay around though dead. These weren’t particular scary, most of the time, except when I was three and a half, we moved to California and I saw the image of a woman hanging by a noose in our garage. My parents later told me that yes, in fact, someone had hung herself in the garage. I also saw figures I would call demonic—dark, grey, and shadowy, float around the room and sometimes, into and out of my parents when they were in bad moods.

Carol and Stacy:    What was your childhood like? Are your parents intuitive? 

Cyndi: I had a mixed childhood. I lived a lot in my dreams and intuitions, sometimes forcing my sisters to engage with me in that subtle world. Modeled after some of the ghosts I saw, especially those in long flowing gowns, and what seemed to be their life stories, I’d play dress up, write stories, put on plays.

I also loved nature. To me, it was alive. There was a sense about the grass that was different than the trees; rocks had personalities; stream beds, promises.

I believe that my parents were intuitive but didn’t know or like it. My dad would shake his head if I shared a perception and say,

A Conversation With Author Simon Paul Harrison

We recently had the opportunity to interview Simon Paul Harrison. Simon is the author of The Truly Alive Child ~ For Those Who Seek A Grander Vision For Our Children.

Stacy and Carol: First of all what was your childhood like?

Simon:Like everyone else, I always considered my childhood normal. It’s not till weget older and have some perspective, do we discover that none of us have a“normal” childhood. I was quite happy really, playing soccer, riding my bike.We had fields behind our house where we would build shelters and play games. Wewere always out and about. I had a lot of freedom that seems to havedisappeared for children very rapidly.

Stacy and Carol: What would you have liked to have asked your parents to change, stop or start todo with you while you were achild?

Simon: Great question! This one really made methink. There’s an awful lot of things I would have answered at the time of mychildhood, but now looking back on them, they were all wonderful experiences.For example, we lost part of our pocket money if we left lights on, which was areal drag at the time. But looking back on it now, it was a great lesson inenergy conservation! I’m very happy in my life, so it’s hard to say thatsomething held me back. I think I was allowed to watch too much television, butboth my parents worked really hard to pay the bills, so I can’t reallycriticize them. But, if I have to pick something,  it would have beennice, looking back, to have spent less time in front of a television.

Stacy and Carol: What made you choose the John Lennon quote at the start ofyour book? 

Simon: Because it’s wonderfully simple and tothe point! I appreciate simplicity.

Stacy and Carol:  At what age did yourmind think of this concept you write about? Being truly alive and conscious ofthe role you have as a parent?

Simon:  Itreally began to emerge when I was an elementary school teacher in England, somid-twenties. In many ways I was amazed how damaging huge parts of theeducation system were to children. Most of all, arbitrary destinations werechased after without ever questioning them, which I found to be very worrying.The ability to question everything we create is fundamental. Things are everchanging and the ability to move with the flow of life is crucial foreverybody’s peace and joy.