Crafty Tuesday

I know you all have great Crafty stuff to show today with all the Halloween costumes running around last night, so let’s get started here…

Before we trick-and-treated, we did have to pay a visit to our little new baby friend, who just isn’t so “little” or “new” anymore. But we finally got our baby gift over to the new baby Lacey.

A version of the pillowcase dress, but made out of one of my favorite fat quarters, not a pillowcase.

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And we got some new labels and tags.

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And then it was time for Halloween. Vic guessed Em’s costume correctly last week. After reading Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory while we were in North Carolina last month, and then seeing the (very trippy) movie, Em decided that she wanted to be an Oompa Loompa.

And I gave her what she wanted.

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I think it turned out really great – and she got tons of compliments, although some younger kids had no idea what she was…but with the green hair and orange face, they were a little frightened of her, I think.

This was actually taken before Halloween because we went to trick o’ treating at J’s office, so we made some adjustments to the costume because Em was studying the video and…Hey! They also have stripes on their arm cuffs. And pom-poms on her shoes! So we added all of these to last night’s attire. She is a bit of a perfectionist, I can’t imagine who she got that from.

And Addie wanted to be a Monarch butterfly. Not just a butterfly, specifically a MONARCH butterfly. And she was. And it was the easiest costume ever. But I figured I deserved an easy one.

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What Halloween goodness do you have to share today?

Crafty Tuesday ~ Halloween Edition

Here we go…all of the Halloween photos have been downloaded. And I am going to do costumes, pumpkins, and Halloween all-in-one today. Then tomorrow…on to the next season!

We didn’t get a chance to do our pumpkins until Friday afternoon. Nothing like cutting it close. Em was pretty excited about “gutting” them this year. Addie wanted nothing to do with them.

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Em also drew her face on the pumpkin and Daddy cut it out exactly the way she drew it. Hers is the 2nd one from the right. Addie wanted a heart nose (like hers!), so that one is hers. The surprised pumpkin was mine and Daddy got all artsy with the black cat on his!

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Then…FINALLY it was time to don the costumes on and get to trick-o-treatin’! We started pretty early, so we got to be home for the bulk of the kids. We just went around the block which is still more candy than they can (or will!) eat until well after Christmas.

There was one house, I guess the guy works on special-effects in the movies and his house is always terribly scary. When we walk past it to go to Ad’s school, Em always calls it the “haunted house” but it is also the home of one incredibly friendly little kitty who runs up to the girls to get love whenever he is out. It’s a tough dilemma…gory body parts….or cute cat? Most of the time the cute cat wins out. But on Halloween night they had the fog, the scary music, nothing but candlelight – the whole works. Em refused to go up to the door. Even with promises that we would go along.

Addie, on the other hand, had figured out that you had to make it to the door to get the goods! She marched up there (making sure I was at her side, of course) and the guy who lived there kept telling her that she was so brave so she should get extra. I think he put five handfuls of little candy bars in her bag.

Of course, when we were walking home from church on Sunday (and various other times over the past few days) she reminds us all, “I was so very brave at the haunted house, wasn’t I? Emma didn’t want to go up there, but I did and got LOTS of candy!” Stinker.

So, the girls liked getting the candy, but REALLY liked getting to hand it out, as you may have seen in my BSM yesterday. The loved to see the costumes and some of Em’s friends from school came to the door, too. That was really fun.

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And now for the costumes. I loved how Addie’s turned out. It looked really cute on her. She loved the wrist loop that allowed her to hold her tail and walk at the same time. But she ADORES the seashell “puwrse.” She used it as her candy bag. I should have shot better closeup photos so you could see the sequins, or “sparkles” as she calls them, on her top and on the seashell.

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I’m glad we just borrowed the Ariel wig from a friend, she had it on for maybe 10 seconds. Then it was tossed aside and I couldn’t get her to put it on for anything. So Ariel was blonde in our house for Halloween.

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I liked Em’s costume and everybody knew that she was Alice in Wonderland right away, but apparently I think my girl is about 2 sizes larger than she really is. The dress was pretty big, but the apron sort of “held” it on. Addie’s was a little big, too – but I was (in my infinite wisdom) really just making sure they could use them for dress-up for the next year. Yeah, that’s it!

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She had to carry that metal bucket as her candy collector. I think if we had been out for longer than once around the block it would have been too heavy, but she even offered to carry Addie’s bag at one point, so she did alright.

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(See how big the sleeves are on her little weenie arms?)

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Once we got all of the material and supplies, and got it all cut out – the sewing went fairly easy. Although slippery satin is definitely not my first choice for fabric, I might be talked into doing costumes again next year. We’ll see. Although if you ask them, they just want to be Alice and Ariel again next year. So maybe the costumes will still fit??

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The Waiting Game ~ Best Shot Monday

Seems like we are doing a lot of waiting lately.

The girls are always waiting for me to take them to the park – just let me throw in one more load of laundry or start the dishwasher.

I am always waiting for J. to get home and help takeover on “girly duty” – please, just get them through the baths and into bed?

And all of us are always waiting for the weekend – isn’t that when all the fun things happen?

So it is pretty fitting that my Best Shot Monday this week is Ad waiting around to give out a treat. (Or a trick, maybe?)

waiting for a trick-or-treat

I know some of you are waiting for real Halloween photos and the unveiling of the costumes(!), but while I try to get my stuff together over here, why don’t you go visit Tracey.  I’m sure there is a Halloween photo or two over there, and no waiting required.

Crafty Tuesday

I owe so much of my “craftiness” to my mom. I think I inherited some of her artistic genes and the rest I absorbed through osmosis by just growing up around her. Although the cake decorating does still allude me. I must have been doing too much of the tasting of the frosting – and not enough observing because I still cannot manage to decorate a decent cake.

But flowers, and putting together bouquets – that I do have “down.”  My mom and I did the flowers for my wedding, my sister’s wedding, my brother’s wedding…and a whole bunch of other ones. Plus, I love flowers, and a chance to play with them? Yeah, that is really fun for me. When I used to work in San Francisco we used to visit the flower mart every few weeks and I’ve always loved having fresh flowers in the house.

Last week I got to visit the LA flower mart. Holy flowers, Batman! It was overwhelming, to say the least. But we found a lot of roses for cheap and put together some simple, elegant bouquets for Debby and the girls and boutineers for the guys. (This is the last of the wedding photos, I promise!)

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For Debby’s bouquet we just used 2 dozen cream colored roses and wrapped them up with ribbon. The roses were (are!) stunning with just a touch of pink to them. They still look amazing on my dining room table!

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And for the guys and the girl’s bouquets we used yellow roses with a little bit of baby’s breath. Did I mention that I really loved doing the flowers? Hmmm…maybe if this gig I have going on doesn’t work out, I could adopt wedding florist as a new career.

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And for my next crafty endeavor…I will be attempting to make the girls’ Halloween costumes. We visited the fabric store today and it was so fun to watch Em and Ad – they were like kids in a candy store. Of course they picked out the most expensive, silkiest, glittery-est fabric for their costumes. Between the time I will be spending making these costumes, and the extravagant wishes of my “Project Runway wannabe” girls, these are going to be some seriously expensive costumes. So help me, they had just better turn out.

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Anyone else have some craftiness to share today?