Happy Halloween! Costume pics

As I mentioned previously, little man decided to be a matador this year for Halloween,  and now I finally have pictures of the final product!

And here he is (with full matador swagger too :))

I had soooo much fun making this costume,  so here are a few glamor shots:

Things started getting silly at this point:

I made a red bag for candy collecting to look like a matador's red cape,

I went through almost a whole bottle of glitter fabric paint on that jacket!  And I love the little tassles :)


Hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween!

Halloween pumpkin carve!

Hey guys,  never did make it back to the sweet 16th recipe this month :(  but I DID just finish carving my pumpkin for halloween and guess what?!  It turned out amazing!!!

Wanna see?

Check out my Ood pumpkin!  

This is by far the most complex pumpkin carve I've ever done, but I had a great time.  Here's the pumpkin in better light (and my messy carving table):

And extra spooky lighting!:

Just in case you are not a Dr. Who watcher,  this is what an Ood looks like in the show:

Image from here

Those spheres on their shirts light up when they talk.



This turned out far cooler than my pac-man pumpkins last year :)  

What did you carve on your pumpkins this year?

oops...

Well, I tried to have a sweet 16th post for you today.  Unfortunately it didn't turn out so well and I haven't had any re-try time yet. 

I attempted to make something along the lines of a gingersnap biscotti but either they burned or were much too soft.  Anyways,  I shall try to get another attempt and a recipe soon. 

In happier new...  it finally rained!!!  Also,  we got some pumpkins :D    More to come with those for sure.

Fall fun!

The other day we were at the park and we found an abundance of horse chestnuts or conkers.  We had a great time hunting for them in the grass and peeling open the spiky pods to find the beautiful nuts inside. 

These chestnuts are not good for eating but they sure look beautiful.  We collected a whole bag full so now we just need to figure out what to do with them all. 

My first project was to make a garland with some of them, so here we go!


First poke some holes through a few of the chestnuts using a strong pin or large needle.  I used a hat pin.

The nuts are pretty soft so it only requires a small amount of force to get through the nut.  Run the pin back through the hole from the opposite direction.

Then I went through my scrap fabrics and found some lovely fall colors:

 Then I cut out lots and lots of different sizes of leaves.   I picked fabrics that do not fray easily, but if you do have fraying fabrics you may want to fray check the edges or just embrace the texture of the edges.

Next I cut a ridiculously long bit of thread, threaded a needle (after checking to make sure that it would make it all the way through each of the chestnuts with enough room to pull it through the other side) and knotted the end so that I had a doubled thread the whole length. 

I threaded on groups of leaves and secured them in place with a single stitch, leaving a few inches of space in between:

I tied small knots on either side of the chestnuts to help keep them from sliding around too much:

Once one of the knots gets inside the chestnut it will hold fairly well. 

I kept on this way for the whole length of the tread and voila!  A cute little fall garland :)

I also added a jar full of the nuts to the top of the mantle and this little owl card seemed to fit in so well:

Happy fall friends! 

Halloween is coming!

And I've already gotten a head start on little man's costume.  

This year he is going to be a matador, which he wants to be because of Pixar's El Materdor starring Mater from Cars.

Anyways,  I got started on his little matador hat the last couple of days and wanted to share some progress shots!

I started with this hat from the thrift store, a whole whoppin $1!

I took off the trims and the ribbon band from the inside.

Got the whole thing soaking wet with really hot water and stretched it on a larger head form.

I sewed up the sides to give it that matador hat shape, trimmed the bottom and edged it with black grosgrain ribbon to avoid the edges fraying.

Then I painted it black with acrylic paint watered down a little.

And voila!  Little mini matador hat :)

More pictures of the completed costume coming just as soon as I actually get started on it!