Our Trunk - Your Treat... Flintstone's Style

For years, when the eldest girls were younger, our family was known for it's wacky creativity. We had so much fun with dressing up in a theme for the whole family. It wasn't until a couple weeks ago our youngest, Nate, brought to our attention our desperately low rating on the dress up fun factor. Instantly I was humbled by a few factors: 1) I am getting old  2) I am getting tired, and  3) I am not as fun as I used to be.

Well we simply could NOT have our Nate Boy
missing out on the richly dressed Ryan Family Heritage.  Our Natester deserved to have some fun fanatical family memories. So we signed up to be a trunk at our churches annual community TRUNK or TREAT. A Halloween event in a BIG Ole parking lot FULL of decked out cars, where adults in costumes dole out candy to the thousands lined up for the event.

Okay now that we had signed up for the festivities it was time to get to work.... Let the creativity begin. After a family meeting we all voted in the FLINTSTONES theme. So being limited on time we ordered the costumes on Ebay and another discount costume site. We found some fabulous deals on our outfits that could not have possibly been created for the same low cost. Now for the trunk....

We gathered some BIG boxes of cardboard. Next was time to surf the net for Flintstone Images. We took the images and enlarged them in a design program - then printed them out in panels. Super simple, super cheap.

A lot of cardboard, some printed computer images, tape...we were on our way to a GREAT beginning. After getting our cave walls created we needed another boost of creative juice. Next we needed signage (I grew up in a family sign business so you know we HAD to have a sign) and so I found a piece of old styrofoam and some spray paint - painted it up like a rock.  I printed out the "Flintstone" logo surrounded it with some battery operated Christmas lights - VOILA. Check that off...hmmm....what next....We had a white fur rug in our girls room. Took a battery camping lantern and made a mock shade for it with animal print fabric. A large artificial tree... we were getting close to completion. Pulling this together was ending up pretty simple, inexpensive and fun for our whole CLAN!

Look past our goofy selves and see if you can spot barney in the back - he is watching a tv which is attached to the back of a box and placed about 2 or 3 ft in front of him in the cave. We put a standing flashlight on the back side of the tv so it would appear to be lit up as if he was really watching it. See the glow? It also provided light for people to see inside the cave.

For a very low budget project I am SUPER proud of how our cozy litttle CAVE turned out. The response from the crowd was heartwarming. The parents who are usually in a moping state of mind as they walk their kids around in the windy, rainy weather would arrive at out Trunk and hear the Flinstones Theme song playing... they would start bouncing to the beat and smiling. Next thing we knew many wanted their pictures taken in BEDROCK with their Flinstone friends. So precious.

You know what was the VERY BEST about it? Our family had so much fun TOGETHER! AND... we have the photos to prove it! So Nate won't be looking back anytime soon and saying... "Why don't we ever...."

• We have
• We did and... 
• We will continue to make FUN a family priority

YABA DABA DOOOOOOOO

-Simply SUBLIME