Are you my Mummy?

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Hope your Halloween was Spooky... but not too Spooky :)

ours was a little goofy.

Remembering Halloween

Hi There!

Just wanted to "pop in" and share with you guys a little Halloween mini book that I made earlier this month.

I can't take too much credit for the design, I got it as part of my Jenni Bowlin monthly kit, but I was able to put my little spin on it. Plus I love the fact that I ordered the kit and actually MADE IT! I hate how many little "unfinished" things I have sitting in my craft room right now.

It's our Halloween 2009 photos. I've said before that I love making mini scrapbooks. I think they get looked at more than the big ones, and I'm hunting for a fun bowl to display them all on my coffee table.  I think it would be fun to put them all in there for visitors and friends to peruse when they are over.

As for Halloween 2010, I am happy to announce that the "Mummy" and his twin the "Mummy Princess" have their costumes finished!! This is a first for me,-- if you know me I'm usually the one that is sewing right until trick or treating time on Halloween day!  The costumes were easy to make and I'll share with you guys how I did it next week. (I started with purchased t-shirts which save a TON of time!)... Right now though, I've got to wait until the "big day" to get some cute photos of the kids all dressed up and properly accessorized before I share it here!

Anyway, I'm rambling... sorry about that, back to Halloween 2009!  The was one of my favorite Halloweens we've ever had! We were lucky enough to be in Disneyworld the week before Halloween and go to the Mickey "not so scary" Halloween party... One of the BEST Halloween parties EVER!!! I have to tell you that October is my favorite time of year to visit Disneyworld! Good weather, Epcot Food Festival & the Halloween decorations are spectacular!! I was seriously trying to finagle a way into going back again this year!!

For Halloween day we had a family party and did a fun photo shoot with the kids before trick or treating at an Old (like civil war old) cemetery near my Sister in Law's house... Perfect backdrop for our little Harry Potter characters!

wow- rambling again... here's the photos of the book :-) If' I don't say "hi' again before the weekend, I hope you guys all have a SPOokTaCuLAR Halloween!!

Double Double Toil & Trouble!!!

Hi there!!!
I've got another great Guest Blogger for you guys today! Meet Calli of Make it Do!  I got to meet her when I was in Utah this summer and had the best time talking to and get to know her!  She's sharing this awesome Halloween tutorial for you guys today! Stop by her blog and say "hi" or "thanks" for me!!

Hi, I'm Calli from Make it Do. I am so happy to be a guest here on the Polka Dot Chair.

With Halloween right around the corner, I wanted share a quick and easy decoration idea. Make it Do is all about using what you have to make life sweet, and this cauldron is no exception. It is inexpensive to create. With a short scavenger hunt around my house, I happened to already have everything I needed already.

I started with an old twiggy wreath that used to hang on my front door long ago. It's seen better days... but that's all the better for my rustic woody layer for my witch's fire. You can make a twiggy wreath by wiring twigs from your yard to a metal wreath form available at most craft stores.

Next use a couple of pieces of colored tissue paper to make the flames. I love using both yellow and orange together.

Place heat proof bowl into the center of the wreath on top of the tissue paper. My
bowl is glass, but a metal bowl would work too. Place a strand of Christmas lights into the bowl, make sure all the lights are in the bowl and will not come in contact with the tissue. These lights get hot and you don't want a real fire! It works great to keep the lights bundled up. Plug an extension cord into the lights and run it out the back of the display to an outlet.

Next comes the cauldron. This is a copper colored plant container that I use for flowers. It makes a perfect cauldron. You can also use a large black canning pot or a cast iron dutch oven.

Every Halloween, many of my neighbors drop in for a bowl of chili and homemade bread sticks on their way to go trick or treating. I love to serve homemade root beer with dry ice served right out of the cauldron for all the kids. I use a food safe bowl hidden inside. Doesn't that look like a real fire?

"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble."

My daughter almost believes she's a real little witch. This is a wonderful, fast and easy decoration, just in time for setting a spooky mood this Halloween.

Guest Post from Amy of Diary of a Quilter!

Hi There!
I'm so excited today to have Amy from Diary of a Quilter as a guest poster here today! I got to meet Amy last summer in Utah and can say she is just as nice in real life as she seems on her blog!!
Go check out her blog and say "hi"! For me!

This project is a really quick and easy one creating the perfect little girl-bag. (Or maybe even a grown-up girl bag.) The possibilities are endless.  I’ll demo the basic assembly technique and then a couple of embellishing options and you can let your creativity go from there!

To start all you’ll need is a Fat Quarter.  If you want your bag to have a contrasting lining, get a second fat quarter and you’ll have enough for two cute bags!

First of all, what is a Fat Quarter? Craft stores and fabric stores often carry pre-cut pieces of yardage called Fat Quarters.  They are pieces of fabric measuring 18” x 22”. I chose to use two different FQ’s and make two bags.

Begin by cutting your FQ’s in half creating 2 pieces 11” x 18”.  Cut 2 16” pieces of ribbon for the handles. (I used  1 ½” wide grosgrain.)

Match-up your outer fabric and your lining fabric right sides together and pin at the two 11”ends.

 Pin the ribbon for the handles between the two pieces of fabric, 2” from the outside edges.   Sew ¼” seam.

Now take it to your ironing board. Bring the two seams to the center and match them up. Press seams open. You will now have your lining-piece folded in half on one side of the seam and your outside piece folded in half on the other.

Match up the two seams and pin in place. Pin open sides together, leaving a 3" opening on one side of the lining fabric for turning right side out. Sew ¼” seams on both sides. Turn bag right-side out and top-stitch opening closed. It will look like a flat, empty pillow.

Tuck lining fabric inside the outside bag fabric. Now it's starting to look like an actual bag!

Press the top edge of the bag and top stitch around the edge of the bag.  I also topstitch again 1/4” from the top. (This will help secure the handles a little as well.) This is easy, and it will give the bag a nice, finished edge.

For a decorative ribbon trim, cut the ribbon length you need (about 23”). Pin the ribbon in place, folding the end of the ribbon underneath itself.  Topstitch ribbon edges to the bag.

To make the bag have a squared-off bottom edge -or gusset - turn the bag inside out, tucking the bottom corners inside each other. Flatten the side seam lined up parallel with the bottom crease, creating a pointed/triangle.

Measure 1” down from the top of the point/triangle and make a mark.  Then draw a line at that point, perpendicular to the seam.  Sew a straight line right on top of the line that you marked, backstitching at the beginning and end. Clip threads. Repeat with other bottom corner.  This will give you two little, flappy triangles in each corner.

Pull the bag right-sides out and you have a nice little boxed bottom.  You can tack-down the little triangles inside if you want. (Depends who I’m giving the bag to – if it’s a 5-year-old, I won’t take the time to tailor the inside of the bag!)

Voila. A finished bag!

To make the second bag, I sewed the 11” edges right sides together without putting the ribbon handles in.

Repeat bag process. (Bring seams to the center, press, seams open, sew open ends, leaving 3” opening for turning bag right side out, sew ¼” seams, pull right-side out, topstitch opening, tuck lining inside, press top of bag.) To make a band of trim around the top of the bag, roll the lining fabric above the bag about 1/4". Pin to hold fabrics in place and press.

Top stitch around the edge of the bag at the top of the outer fabric AND at the top of the lining fabric. This is easy, and gives the bag a nice, decorative edge.

This time, sew the ribbon handles to the top of the bag itself using two 15” pieces of ribbon.

Once again, you could leave the bag as it is now or add the tucks at the bottom.  (It’s slightly trickier to put in a gusset at the bottom edge of the bag since the lining is shorter because you’ve used it as a decorative edge, but the process still works.)

The possibilities for embellishing the bag are endless: Trims, button closures, fabric handles instead of ribbon . . . Use your creativity.

And there you go – two really easy little bags – for the price of 2 Fat Quarters (about $2.50 each) and about 2 ½” yards of grosgrain ribbon.

Before & After

We finished our basement a couple of years ago. To help save on costs we tried to do a few things ourselves. My husband put the floor in my craft room, I ran the wire in our media room and we had always "planned" on doing the tile on the fireplace ourselves...

Well...
that was 2 years ago..

The fireplace sat for 2 years. I think we got so used to it looking "undone" that we didn't even notice it anymore.

Right after the room was finished it looked like this... Those are my cute nephews in the photo... it stayed like that for a few months.

Slowly, very slowly I've been putting this room togther. A couple of weeks ago we finally did the tile around the fireplace!

in progress

My husband did the tile, he had never done tile before, but it did not turn out to be too complicated.
I could not be happier with how it turned out!!

M from Anthropologie,  painting by me :)

I don't know why it is taking me so long to get this room put together. I'm usually a very "impatient" decorator, wanting everything done NOW!  But for some reason, I'm having a "brain block" about this room. It still needs drapes.. maybe in 2 more years..

Here's a few other photos of the room...

close up of the tile

my photo wall & my favorite lamp!

A wider view of the whole room

Week 4...

It's week 4 of the BlogHer LG TextEd Series... and I'm thrilled to have been one of their TextEd Ambassadors!

This weeks topic...
Week 4: The dangers of Texting & Driving

(Yes, I have used this photo before but now it's all fancy- so it's still entertaining!)

{Bright-ish} Fall Banner by Mique from 30days

Hi everyone! I'm Mique and I share my favorite craft tutorials and ideas at 30days. I was flattered when Melissa asked me to post here- she's my go to sewing and quilting friend. How I wish I had her talent!
I spend most of time chasing three rowdy kids but love to share ideas at 30days. My sister and I also started the Queen Bee Market- a handmade market in the San Diego area. If you live anywhere near, come by!
Today I wanted to share a simple little fall idea. My daughter has been begging me to put up Halloween decor around my house. But this year, much to her dismay, I am just not feeling the black and orange.
I decided to try a little something different- a paper banner with brightish fall colors.
I think it's the perfect simple doodad for the fall, right up until the Christmas decorations come out.
To make this banner I printed out my letters and then sewed a ribbon on the top. Couldn't get any easier than that, right?

I thought about punching holes and using some cute ribbon to weave in and out (which you could totally do). But it took me all of 1 minute to sew a straight light across the top. Easy peasy.

You can print and create your own {bright-ish} fall banner. Just right click, save and print.

And if you're in the mood for more fall, I just shared some recipe cards (with a yummy recipe for Cream Cheese Squares).

Happy Fall!

I get by with a little help from my friends....

Wow, the crazies have set in here for sure!! Last weekend I took over 600 photos of my kids "activities". I counted and we had 8 "events" in 5 days... crazy for sure!

I've spent lots of time the last 6 weeks cheering my kids on from the sidelines, and driving them all over creation! I have to admit but it's has taken a bite out of my "creative" time...

The next few weeks are going to be a bit crazy here, planning this its going to preoccupy most of my fall, along with a couple of other things.

Thankfully I have made some wonderful friends while blogging, truly talented ladies that are going to be guest posting here for the next few weeks.  I know that you will truly enjoy seeing the things that they come up with, theirs are always my favorite blogs to read!

I'll still be popping in, I've got some fun WIP's that I should be able to get turned into posts and tutorials in the next few weeks!

Including what I did with all of these vintage hankies :).....

Katie Jean Winner

Result:5

Congrats to comment #5 

 Bailey Jean said...

I also left a comment on her blog. So many precious, beautiful items. I am now certainly a fan.

October 3, 2010 9:27 PM

Congratulations! you win this adorable Halloween scarf from Katie Jean! Email me and I'll get you in touch with her!!

Thanks again to Katie Jean for sponsoring!

It's Fall Ya'll!!

I was starting to think it would never cool off here! Just 2 weeks ago we had all of our "sports" cancelled for the evening due to excessive HEAT!

Thankfully the last couple of weeks have brought some of that beautiful cool and crisp Autumn weather that I love.  We are in the midst of a drought here, so I think we will miss the beautiful fall colors (leaves are just falling off the trees all dried up.... before they can even change color!) but the wonderful weather is making up for it a bit.

I'm sure if you're like me and you've got a million things on your "list" for Fall and Holiday crafts and sewing.  I just wanted to "highlight" some of my favorite seasonal posts from the last couple of years. This blog has grown a bunch in the last 2 years, so I'm guessing that many of you are new and haven't seen this stuff before!!

Just click on the caption below the photo to take you to that post.

Got Candy? Banner

Gratitude Pillow

Thanksgiving Advent Calendar

DIY Robot Costumes... (they light up AND make noise!)

Superhero Costume... with cuff how to

Halloween Decor

Halloween Gift Bucket & Mini Album

Thanksgiving Decor

Ok... that's enough for now, I'll save the Christmas stuff for another day :)

Blog Categories:

As I make stuff, the things that I think will make good "gifts" I label as "easy gift ideas".. you can see it as a category on my blog over there  ------->

There's all kinds of stuff that would be great for handmade gifts this Holiday season, from Moms, to kids to teachers!

and on my Personal "to do" list...

Make one of these with Halloween Fabric (already bought it!)

A Mummy costume and a Mummy "Princess" costume for his twin sister :).... yes, there ARE Mummy princesses... they have lace on their costumes, lots of bling and a tiara!!

Gifts for my new niece (so I'm only 3 months late!!)

 Listing kits for this table runner in the shop! The letters are already cut out for you!!! Coming soon... like, this week *I hope*... depends on how long the Mummy princess takes :)

I've also got a few more fun NEW Halloween & Fall projects to share with you... stay tuned!