Happy Halloween

*photo I took in an old cemetery in Charleston

Hope your day is fun and spooky!!!! Take some time and enjoy it with your favorite peeps!

Booo haaaaaaaa haaaaaaaa bawwwwwwwwwww BOoooooooooooooo (*insert spooky Halloween music here *)

Be-ribboned Skirt & T-shirt tutorial

Hey there!
I'm guest blogging over at U-create today!!!

Go check it out!

Wow! Thank you...

I woke up this morning and checked my reader on my phone and had such a pleasant surprise waiting for me...

I've been featured on Today's Creative Blog!  Thank you Kim, I'm so excited! I've been such a fan for a long time!!!!

Now I'm a bit embarrassed.... thanks for the nice comments but I must share with you a few "true confessions"... I mean we've got to keep it "real" here...

-Sometimes if I don't go "out" that day I wear the same outfit 2 days in a row.

-I'm TERRIBLE at keeping up with the laundry- we are feast or famine in that department.

-I waste waaay too much time in any given day.

-Last Christmas I got the bright idea to make sock monkeys for all my kids (my daughter wanted one). I bought the socks, got one half way sewn.. then tried to stuff it.. It was all lumpy and wonky looking... I threw it back in the "bin" and there it sits to this day.

-I can't see the surface of my scrapbook table right now.

-I made a girl at church a matching blanket/burp cloths/receiving blanket, with her daughters name on it. I finished it when her baby was 1 month old... she just got it last week.. her baby is now 8 months old! Yes embarrassing.

-I like to eat Ramen Noodles, dry right from the package... (gross & unhealthy I know! but super crunchy!!)

-My last OB Dr. checkup I told her I exercised 3 times a week... I lied, it's more like 1-2...

-90% of the time when I craft I sit and think to myself "I have NO IDEA what I'm doing!!!"

-I drink too much Diet Coke.

So there you go... a few confessions... 

And a big THANK YOU again, to Today's Creative Blog!

Vote for Amy!!!

One of my friends here in Louisville, Amy S. entered  the Dancing with the Stars costume contest.. She made the top 5!!!!!!!!! (she entered before and made the top 5 that time to!)
She needs your votes!  If you had ever met her you would know that she is seriously the MOST talented and creative person... not only that but she is generous with her time and talents and kind to everyone she meets. She totally deserves to win this one! (she's like my sewing hero :-))

Wow! Isn't this the coolest design! Plus she drew it, double wow!

Hurry tho- voting closes at 10 pm tomorrow night (Thurs)


Click here to vote!

(you can sign in using your facebook or twitter account- much easier than registering with ABC)

Pillow using Digital Scrapbook Files

I saw this awesome digital scrapbook kit on House of 3 and thought to myself:
"self, I wish I could put that on a pillow"

Then I realized I could! I just used printable fabric, some trim from my remnant box and some leftover fabric. I backed it in black velvet fabric.

Voila!  A little gratitude pillow just in time for Thanksgiving.

I'm happy with how it turned out and now have LOTS of other ideas, all those digital files hmmmmmmm..........

Leave a comment if you have questions.. if there is enough interest I might be talked into doing a tutorial.

I'm linking this to Today's Creative blog,  Get your craft on Tuesdays, and A Soft place to Land... check them out lots of great ideas each Tuesday!

The end of a totally awesome week !

You probably have noticed that this blog has been a bit quiet this week... that's because we were away visiting the most Magical Place on earth!  We got back tonight and had a wonderful time!!

The other reason my blog has been "quiet" is those costumes in the photo above.... they have been totally consuming my time for the last 2 weeks.. if you ever get the idea to make 5 Harry Potter costumes... don't! (or start earlier, like I should have).....

In case you were wondering (as many people at disneyworld did)...yes, he does look a bit old for Harry, but we went as  "epilogue" *he he he*... my oldest daughter wanted to be "unique" and went as  a Hufflepuff student (traitor *grin*) and my son is dressed as a quidditch player ... And yes, I dressed up too... first time in a long time!

We had such an incredible time at the Mickey not so scary Halloween Party, definitely one of our Disney "highlights"...

I've got a busy week ahead, I'll share some more photos of the costumes and have a few fun projects planned hits week ... I can hardly think of a more creatively inspiring place than Disneyworld, I was  blown away, soooo many creative people in this world, talk about a dream job... Took lots and lots of photos and got lots and lots of great ideas for craft and sewing projects.


Now to tackle the laundry... ughhhhh.....

Frame & Photograph Arrangement Ideas

I love a good blank wall, in that I can not leave it that way.  I get ideas for them and sometimes get a little "nervous" when I start running out of blank walls at my house, because then if I get an idea, where am I going to put it?

One of my very favorite things to put up on a blank wall is photographs. I'm a scrapbooker and an avid photographer (but very amateur) so I have a deep love of photographs. I love to do little "displays" of them around the house. I'm always looking for new ways to display them.

This is in my house now.  I got this idea from a magazine. I don't usually hang things lined up or in straight lines.   I think it would have been cool also to do 9 frames instead of 6, to play off the height of the ceiling.

You can't tell from here, but the b&w photos are printed on metallic paper. It really really really makes them POP!

a shot of the whole living room, just to give you a perspective of where they sit in the room. See what I mean about the tall ceiling? I decided not to go with the 3rd row of frames because then they would be the same higher than  the clock and I wanted the fireplace to be the largest feature in the room.

Another thing I like to do is anchor the photo area with a shelf. It helps to break up the space and gives you a "center" to start working out from. This is a picture of an arrangement at my old house. I like the combo of some photos on the wall and some resting on the shelf.

I already posted this before, but this is in my house now.. It's a big blank wall between two windows. Again, I used the shelves to anchor the photos- it's still a bit of a "work" in progress as you can see. The photo are all in the "clips" brand frames from IKEA and they are CHEAP! You can see more about this on the original post here.

These photos are NOT of my house but taken at various home shows that I've been to.

  How COOL is this? Forget the photos and just use the frames.

Love the & in the middle.

From the Southern Living idea house in Florida. If i didn't think my kids would knock down the frames each time they walked by I would totally do this now.

Superhero Costume

Pin It

So Halloween is in 2 weeks, and I thought I'd share a costume from last year incase anyone is still looking for ideas.
My daughter wanted to be a superhero... The first version of this costume was not very cute. It was lacking in details and just didn't have any "pop".

One of the ideas I had were the "wonder woman" cuffs on her arms. (the other was the sequin belt)They were really simple to make.
-Measure the forearm width and length. (or just wrap a piece of fabric around it to get an idea of how big you want them to be)
-Cut this size out of your main fabric.
-Cut a 1/2" strip of fabric accent 1 and a 1" strip of fabric accent 2- In this case they were the white shimmer and silver shimmer used in her cape.
-Sew the strips onto the main fabric. You will have a big rectangle.
-Iron a heavy weight fusible interfacing to the back.
-cut another piece of fabric the same size.  Put right sides together and sew around leaving a hole to turn right side out.

-Attach velcro to full length of the cuffs (you can see it in the photo, this is because her arms are very tiny and I cut the cuffs a little too large, if you measure more carefully the velcro on yours won't stick out- you could use little "tabs" of velcro if you want but I wanted them to lie flat)
-Embellish with gold stars (fabric store bought ones).

Okay, so that's not the clearest tutorial, but gives you a good idea of how to do it. Here are a few other photos of the costume...

As you can imagine, the wig was a bit "over the top" (her idea, she insisted)... it got too hot and she ditched it quickly.
Oh- we also bought the cheapest boots I could find anywhere and spray painted them silver. Much to my chagrin, the silver stuck VERY well and she still tries to wear them out - oh!

Winner! & a couple of tips for a fireplace mantle...

Okay, so I figured out that blogger doesn't number comments.. so I printed them all out and cut them into strips and drew one out...
The winner is..........

Nicki!!!! http://bellsandbugbites.blogspot.com/
who said (since I know you can't read that!)

I have put a little something out there on my little blog. I had high hopes that it was going to be one of those awesome blogs, but then my computer burned up at home so I am reduced to sneaking some blogging in at work, lol.


Check er out!!

Nicki I'll email you to get your address and I'll get this out to you this week.

Like I said before I was totally overwhelmed at the response. I've decided I'll do a giveaway frequently (hopefully once a month, we'll see how it goes), of something I've made.. that only seems fair to me, since you guys are all so nice to come and look at my blog. (and I really really tired to make another banner this week so I could giveaway two, but it just didn't happen--- my kids have the flu & we are going on fall break next week!)

I thought I'd answer a few questions from the comments too... 

The cricut font I used was Storybook.
Most of the embellishments are punched out pieces of cardstock that are glittered.. along with a little bit of ribbon, I REALLY did not take very many supplies.  The vintage image I downloaded from www.thevintageworkshop.com, printed it on cardstock, applied glue to the edges and dipped it in orange glitter.
The "googley" eyes just came in a package at the craft store.

I also, got lots of comments about how the mantle was arranged...

Nothing on that mantle cost more than $10 (except the clock, but it doesn't count it stays up there all year)... Last year I knew I wanted tombstones on my mantle this year,  so I went to Target the day after Halloween (sometimes they mark them down before too)... and got 2 headstones, the skull snowglobe & the gargoyle... The big headstone was the most at $10.. the rest were $5-$8... I picked up the glittered Trick or Treat sign when I was in Utah last year at one of my favorite stores, Rodworks... And the candelabra...well, my Aunt works for Hallmark corporate and they have this really cool half price half price store, and she is super nice and sends me lots of holiday stuff.. I think it was $2... The "spells" book is also from Hallmark.

To "tie" all the elements together, I strung cobweb all over it...  It's the one time of year that all the cobwebs (the REAL ones) in my house don't look too bad!!

I thought I'd tell you my "mental" steps I go through when I put stuff up on my mantle (man I WISH I had photos of other times of the year... I'll have to get on that this year)...

- Vary the heights of the things on your mantle. This is the biggest tip I can give someone.   - You don't want things all at the same level.. use books, and other objects to get a staggered look.  If you don't have any "old" books, just take the paper sleeves off some books you have.

- Don't line things up.. it doesn't usually look "natural".. keep things in clusters, at odd angles.. in odd numbers.

- go for a little "drama" or something unexpected... for Christmas this year I'm putting a tree up there.

- Circles love straight lines... (a photo of my mantle at my old house)... Put something round next to something with a straight line.. (like a clock, a plate, a wreath etc)... 

- Add,  and vary the texture... at Christmas put up greenery, leaves in the Autumn, shiny things next to "old" things...
There are a few tips, I am by NO means an expert! I have struggled with arranging my fireplace mantles since I've had one. I had my sister in law come over once and do it for me several years ago because I just could not " get it"... which is another good tip... get a second opinion if you are stuck.

Umm.. yeah that's me...

If you're perusing a magazine this month and see this ad, look closely... YEP that's me, 4th circle down on the left... my name in print.  Trying to inhale deeply and not freak out. (seriously there are AMAZING people on that ad, I don't know how I ended up on the same page).  Kind of been an overwhelming week, (in a good way) had to have my bff talk me down tonight...now I'm cool again... (we'll not that I was ever "cool" before...... but you get my drift)

Got some fun things planned for November, went to the quilt store today to get 1 yard of fabric to finish something and walked out with a giant bag full of fabric.. how does this happen?!?

Got a few more ideas... I'll be sharing them with you soon, right now I'm sidetracked making 5 Harry Potter costumes (dear husband complained I never make him a costume too, so he gets one too this year, and his resemblance to Harry is a little spooky!)...

Watch tomorrow for the winner of the Halloween Banner giveaway!

Oh, alot of you asked about having a quilt machine quilted. Angela,  has a website. Quilted Joy... she has pricing & lots of info on it...

A new quilt, turkey follow up & projects

First of all for those of you who wanted the Turkey pattern for the Thanksgiving Advent, I have added a link to a pdf of it to the original post you can find it here.. just know,  applique patterns aren't really my strong suit.... I think he turned out cute, but I'm sure there are much cuter Turkeys out there.

Second... I have received several emails from people this week that have made stuff from my tutorials here or on Moda bake shop, if you have and have photos,  or put them up on your blog can you email me or post a comment? I'd love to do a post soon featuring your photos or link to your blog posts...

Third... Don't forget to enter the giveaway for the "Got Candy?" banner... honestly, I am totally overwhelmed by the response to this, I didn't think anyone would want it... I SO wish I had time to make 20 more this week, especially for all of "moved away" friends who left kind comments, oh how I miss all of you!!! and everyone,  THANK you for all the nice comments, I was just expecting "me to please"... you guys are seriously waaaay to nice! (or resorting to total bribery *wink*) Random drawing will be Wed. morning, giveaway closes Tues. at midnight.

Fourth... I finally got a quilt finished and ready to send to a quilter this week. I got the idea for  this quilt when I was on vacation in Utah this summer. Then sewed a little bit all summer I even took it to Charleston with me and worked on it during a thunderstorm.

My daughter needed something "jazzier" on the bed in her room. (photos here)  I picked up a few fabrics at the quilt shop in SLC, then ordered some online when I got home.  They are just 9" blocks... I decided to do a row of each color theme, starting with pink in the middle and mirroring out each way, row of black, row of blue.. I just wish I could have found more fabric prints in that blue color.. I'm excited to get it back from the quilter... I'm thinking just a stipple in white thread but open to suggestions....

photo from her room

It's a Queen size quilt---- I need to get going on the pillow shams while it's at the quilter...

So what do you think about the quilting???  Tight stipple in white thread? Like I said, I'm open to suggestions!

I know it's not 100% done, but I'm linking it up to Park City girls quilt festival.. over 300 quilts linked so far... if you want some good eye candy today go check it out..

Halloween Banner Giveaway, and a little how- to.

*giveaway is closed*

Remember how I told you my fireplace mantle was still missing "something"? Well I decided to take a sewing break this week and make a banner for it. (I have to take a sewing break every once and a while or I burn out, I learned this the hard way a couple of years ago).

Oh, my it has not stopped raining around here! I was waiting for a sunny day to take photos of the banner, but it is not going to happen! So I did my best with the light I had. I wanted to get the giveaway up today... if the light improves, I'll change out the photos, just know there is LOTS of glitter that is not very sparkly in the photos.

I'm really happy with how it turned out and even more happy that I used stuff that I already had in my stash.

Guess what?....
I made more than ONE!!!

So I thought I'd do a giveaway here! If you'd like to win this Halloween banner you can enter 2 ways.

1- Leave a comment on this post. It can be anything you want, a comment, a question for me, an observation- but if it's not nice.. it might not stay there :-)

2- Mention &; link back to this giveaway on your blog. - it' okay to post a photo-  If you do this, leave a SEPERATE comment on this post and let me know that you did (plus I'd love to see your blog!). This will give you a second entry.

I'm closing the contest next Tuesday, October 13th at Midnight Eastern time.  I'm headed out of town week after next and want to get this baby mailed off before I leave!

I'll draw a winner via random integer generator next week, from the comments.



Now, if you are thinking you'd like to make your own Halloween banner, it's pretty simple. Just gather a bunch of black and white paper, ink the edges with walnut ink to give them an "old" look, use LOTS of black and orange glitter, and raid your scrapbook stash for any Halloween themed embellishment you have. Most of my supplies came from Jenni Bowlin, Martha Stewart & Making Memories. The letters were cut with my cricut, but if you don't have one, don't fret, you can buy pre made chip board letters that would be perfect.

The hardest part is getting the triangles that make up the banner.  So here's a little "how to" (not quite detailed enough for a tutorial, so I'll call it a how-to)...

For the Black bases you will want to cut your cardstock to 6x9 (using white for demonstration purposes, since the black is too hard to photograph)

*sorry, need a better lens for close up work it's a bit out of focus*

find the center of the short side (the 6" side)

cut from the outside corner to the center.

repeat for the other side.

 You have your triangle.

For the pattern paper pieces you want a slightly smaller triangle, cut those pieces 5 1/2" x 8 1/4 ".  Repeat the above steps.  On the pattern paper pieces I made 1 template then traced it on my pattern paper. That way I made sure I got the section of the pattern paper that I wanted to use on each banner piece.

One last tip. I used eyelets in the corners of my banner, that way when I strung my ribbon though it would not tear the paper.

Have fun and enter away! (oh, if Halloween isn't your thing, I'll be doing another giveaway next month, watch for that one)

Give kids their very own mailbox!

*forgive the so so pictures.. I have been waiting for a sunny day since there is not much light in the hall but we have been living in a rainforest this month and it's just not going to happen!

This idea started out with me looking for baskets to put on the wall outside my kids doors. When we are cleaning up,  for some reason they refuse to put things away inside each others rooms. They leave the stuff on the floor outside their siblings room, making the hall a mess. Right now my kids are in the "little" phase. As in lots of "little" toys i.e. legos, polly pockets, American Girl clothes, hot wheels (lots of little things all over the place!) ...One day I went looking for baskets to hang on the wall and came up empty.  Then I went to Lowes for something else and I walked down the mailbox aisle and had a light bulb moment! Why not a mailbox? They would hold all the little stuff, and be more unique than a basket! They come in all shapes and sizes, in the end,  I elected to go with the cheapest ones there. (wouldn't it be cool to search out antique ones?) I did not want basic black, so I got the mail boxes and 3 cans of spray paint.

*handy hooks on the bottom for jackets, baseball caps or light sabers

I was ready to spray paint the mail boxes and my husband INSISTED that he take over, I guess the last project I spray painted left some paint marks on the driveway. I did not see a problem with this but he did, and walked away frustrated murmuring something about resale value...

He painstakingly spray painted the mailboxes. He spray painted them lightly sanding between each coat. I think it took 3-4 coats total.

*my oldest daughters box, full of all her junk she left in the kitchen

We hung them up and I put on some vinyl letters with the kids names that I had been saving for just such an occasion.

So far they work like a charm!  Plus a side benefit is that the kids have been sending each other "mail" constantly... They are writing letters and reading them.  It's nice,  especially since my son has been struggling a bit with reading and writing in school this year.

I love the look it gives the hallway upstairs. (which as you can see still needs ALOT of help!)  Now wait until you see what I do to the doors!

A little bit o' Halloween Decor...

Well I finally got my Halloween decor up ... somehow it seems like I should have more photos of stuff.. since it seems like it was more work than what actually came out of it... I thought I'd go ahead and share some of my decorations with you....

This is above the island in our kitchen. At Christmas I hung giant candy canes between our pendants, when I was at a craft store I got the idea to hang spiders up there... I still had the nails in the ceiling from Christmas.. so up they went!  (it's a terrible photo I know... there is a lot of light in that room, but hard to photograph for some reason)

Here's my fireplace mantle... This year I decided to change things up a bit.. I went for a spooky theme instead of the pumpkins (I'll pull them out at Thanksgiving)... The bird is  still a little wonky looking... I need to figure out the best way to hang him up there... The mantle was still missing "something" tho... So I got to work this weekend and remedied it! The good news is I made two.. so watch this week for a giveaway!

I think my kids come up with the best ideas. 3 years ago my daughter was a witch and hung her broom on this mirror that was in the hallway at our old house (she did this out of laziness not decorating) ... it looked so cute there I thought I'd just "go" with it... So each year I hang my brooms on our mirror in the hallway... This year I ordered a vinyl sign that says "Leave your brooms at the door"... Just need to get it hung up above the mirror. At Christmas I hang Santa hats on the hooks...

My dining room table... This is a bowl my Mom got me... I filled it with paper mache pumpkins, and apples...

My apothecary jars. I love to decorate these out for the Holidays... A little bit of fake cobweb makes anything spooky... In the bottom of the glass jar are light up eyeballs... a fun addition this year... Along with my Martha glittered skulls and bones.. I keep the middle jar full of candy.. It's quickly being depleted..

 

Now off to take photos of the porch!

Linked on Tip Junkie's Teach me Thursday
and
Today's Creative Blog, get your craft on.