A burp in the road.

Yes you read correctly. Burp, not bump.Though I suppose it could be classified as a bump in the Christmas present process. Our neighbors Daughter is having a baby today( one that in fact wasn't supposed to come til around Thanksgiving.) How do we know this. We got told so by the soon to be grandma yesterday. Confusing some what to say the least and made even us ask " how do we know this?" Which led to the info on inducement and possibly C-section. Needless to say Christmas was dropped and we hit the sewing room with much vigor to create new baby goods as we do with most littles that come into the world. Nothing overly fancy. Some good flannel blankies and burp clothes. but this time we created something new. Behold the Cuddle Wrap

 

Now personally speaking all I can see is Maggie Simpsons  snow suit any time I think about it but ours is definitely way cuter since their arms aren't stuck out sideways.

 

Ours was done with the pattern  called the cuddle wrap by Great Copy Patterns out of polar fleece. It was honestly cutting out 3 pieces and less than an hour on the serger :) and the fun part is you can also alter it and add holes to feed car seat straps through so a kiddo can be bundled up there as well as snuggly safe.

 

In addition like I said we did some burp cloths and we like to make them almost an hourglass figure so your shoulder front and shoulder back have a bit more surface area for when a burp becomes a waterfall and the flannel seems to keep it from just running down the material. Then the curve fits on your shoulder without bunching. We usually make several simple ones with the word burp or whatever on it, but last night we had the help of my boyfriend in the sewing room and he wanted to make one too (talk about a first)

 

Our simple ones

 

And behold the cuter one up by the boyfriend who's never been in a sewing room before....

 

 With these done it's onward and upward to we continue our less than 50 day trek to Christmas.... oh the joy.... Slaves to the machines....

 

Too Long

Holy goodness over a year since my last post. Sometimes I'm amazed that I even manage to remember passwords to different sites in all honesty. Chaos has been by far the biggest and best term for what this last year has been( break ups, start ups, phlebotomy school, starting jobs, quiting jobs, it's enough to give you a head ache)

Amidst the chaos Halloween was A-mazing. We went a little different and a little bigger and got the witches kitchen set up in it's own walk in tent but sadly there are no amazing walk through photos as there were kids showing up before it even got dark.

A quick photo of my friend as her character Hobbs the Witch in front of the kitchen

 

No super amazing photos but I did have a (mostly) Fresh Green Tail Mermaid in the kitchen this year.

And some fancy, crammed full, lit up shelves full of who knows what(and a short faced bear skull)

 

So needless to say this season wasn't a total bust by any means. We also had a "photo booth" Where my boyfriend oh so graciously was a monster and we got some fun shots. Personally my favorite is the last kid bailing on his friend who is frozen on the bench screaming

 

Things that make memories for sure. Plans are forging ahead with next seasons haunt which if all goes better than this year will be bigger and scarier and just as free but it's a bit hard to keep the umph up when it comes to the fact that Christmas is breathing down every ones neck and it's not even Thanksgiving yet >.<  The only thing that will keep my sanity will be the continuous crafting to be done to get gifts made. Thank god for small favors in some way.

Home Haunt

My apologies as I have once again fallen behind in the world of getting these blogs up. In addition to being slammed with a strange and busy schedule my mother passed away on the 15^th so it has been an adventure when it comes to dealing with all the family phone calls and such. She was an odd lady, my mother though she did enjoy my strangeness( most of the time) and wouldn’t have wanted me to mope around being depressed so I’ve tried to continue on in my crafting and being busy though I never realized how many times I thought things along the lines of “ oh mom would like that shirt” or something of the short until she was gone. Or am I doing it more now because she’s gone and I wish she wasn’t? Either way she is and there is no way of changing it but gone is not forgotten and I’m willing to bet that I will think about her from now on every fall.

 

So with all that said I thought I would share my yards photos with you.The thing to remember with this is lighting.Lighting,lighting,lighting! This year we used actual fire in tiki torch form to light the place and I must say I love it.

 

My most recent pumpkin.I've been wanting to do a gizmo for forever and so I thought this year was as good as any.I'm really Happy with how he came out but you would never know what it is when its not lit!

 

 

To Do's

I have been very busy around here making holiday gifts,costumes,corsets and crafts and while going over the many many things that I've done I realized there are some very specific things that I ALWAYS do EVERY year and it brought me to the conclusion that every one should have an October check list if they are a super fall enthusiast. Mine has a fairly good number of things on it and I hope to add more but I do believe it's a fairly good start.

 

October to do list

Carve a pumpkin

Watch nightmare before Christmas

Put up Halloween Decorations

Watch German expressionist horror movie

Watch Vincent Price movie

Watch Universal Classic Monster movie

Watch an Alfred Hitchcock movie

Drink Cider or Hot chocolate

Drink a Pumpkin Spice Latte

Eat a Halloween Oreo

Eat a Reese’s or Snickers pumpkin

Eat Frankenberry, Boo Berry or Count Chocula cereal

Drink spicy tea

Bake a pumpkin or apple pie

Make Halloween themed food

Bake Halloween Cookies

Mix spooky drinks

Roast pumpkin seeds

Collect different color leaves

Visit a pumpkin patch

Go on a Hay ride

Dress up

Go to a Haunted house

Attend a Halloween event

Have a scary movie marathon

Visit a cemetery and leave an offering

Wear orange

Wear a sweater

Scare some one

Watch Hoccus Poccus

Take Halloween pictures

Visit family graves

Make a Halloween Play list

Read a Classic Gothic novel

Collect interesting pumpkins

Aged paper

I am aware that I have once more been an absolute slacker. I guiltily self indulged and made two steel boned corsets since my birthday is in a few day. So I have to face the fact I need to post a new project. This time I’m sharing one of my favorite things. Aging paper! Like that which my missing  

 Now think about the number of things you could do involving aged paper. Invitations. Creepy old letter props. Old flyers. Treasure maps. Labels. It’s another one of those endless options sort of things.

Firstly you have to decide if you want to stain the paper with coffee or tea. I personally use both because they offer two different colors.You need a bowl for boiling water in the micro wave (or a stove and a tea kettle) because boiling water seems to help the color permeate through the paper best and a large flat pan to do the staining in so your paper doesn’t fold over.

 

 

I usually boil my water in the microwave with the instant coffee pack already in it.

Yay beloved microwave of doom!!!

Then pour it into the flat pan and toss in the tea bags

See the color difference between the tea and coffee

 

 When you put in the paper it will float so you need to push it under. Be mindful of this if you boiled water on the stove or are sensitive to heat

 

 I use the tea bags to hold it under for a couple minutes to get the primary stain going.

 

 One of the neat things is where you leave the tea bags leaves quite a dark stain

 

 Squeeze out one of the tea bags so it’s not dripping every where and dab puddles of it out onto the paper. I cheat and do this after I’ve already placed the paper into the microwave on a paper towel.

 

 

Close the microwave door and set the timer for 1 minute. I have my power level on the highest which is 10. This is the part where you want to watch what’s going on. Don’t want anything bursting into flames. The microwave seems to help dry the dark puddles into place and speed the drying process (a stroke of genius on my part during an over tired crafty night making labels.)

 

At this point it should be barely damp and you have some choices. A) If you like how it looks you can either take it out to dry the rest of the way on some paper towel. Or nuke it again for another min. Then there is B) if you want more aging dab it up again with your tea bag or try out the instant coffee dabs and nuke it again! Also remember to dab the back side for equal aging if it’s going to be seen. If the paper will be glued down don’t even worry about it!!

 WARNING: don’t over nuke your paper though as you scorch the tea ant it leaves rings on it which isn’t as pretty, but then  I guess it’s a personal preference thing Easy peasy.

Then run it through your printer. Draw on it. Write on it. Burn the edges (ß so guilty of that one) and you’ve got your very old paper that you made just last night

Tombstone Reinforcement phase one

Today was wonderfully lacking rain around here, which I was very much grateful for. I feel like I got a fairy amount done shopping wise to send Halloween gifts to important little people out of state. Once I was home I pulled out a bunch of tomb stones from the garage to asses over all damage from last years snows and winds. Some weren’t so bad, others were broken in half. One of the main projects in mind for this year was how to reinforce them and keep them from blowing away. Creatively we got it figured out and once the glue cures I really hope they hold up…

 We decided particle board would be sufficient enough reinforcement and cut it a little over half the height of each tombstone. We drilled 4 holes on each side of the particle board to add in zip ties. Heavy spray adhesive was added to smooth side to hold the particle board to the tomb stone, with the hopes that the textured side will take the textured spray paint well.

 

 

Stacking them on top of each other in opposing directions helped them set up and the board adhere well because of the weight but if your not doing multiples I’m sure simple clamps would help a lot.

 

Tomorrow the next 2 thirds of them will have to be done in the same manner.There are so many  more to  be done and we're looking at buying even more *Happy Face* But then we have two full cemeteries to add to. One can never have to many tombstones in a large haunt.

 

 

 

 

 

Unproductive... have pumpkins :D

Well today was once more sorely unproductive. This time being the rain and the fact that the boyfriend’s bed and snuggly blankets decided to eat my soul. I know, I know, I’m a terrible slacker who’s already lagging on my job as a blogger. But I will have it stated I did manage to get the little lighted fence put together in the rain, in the dark after I got home from dinner and feeling the lack of show for work I’ve done I put out the toxic barrel just because. The little fence had to be installed because last year obnoxious teenagers decided to tromp right through my cemetery. Made me so mad... Aside from almost killing themselves on all my power cords and such they mucked up a lot of my stuff. Nothing more terrifying than a pissy witch stomping her way through the grave yard yelling at you about mucking up things and at that moment I understood the old people and the get off my lawn sentiments.  So guess what guys not this year. The ropes and lights go from the trees clear down the side of the yard. Jerks. Anyway rant complete.

 The search for fun randomness among my friends and I with Halloween has yielded some great ideas and finds. Some I’m going to defiantly be using. Fanged pumpkins are among them

 

 Now the link a friend shared was Martha Stuarts version of this that used red thumb tacks for eyes. I was wondering about red light bright pegs and cutting out the bottom to put in a battery operated candle. Not sure how this would work out but one can only try.

 For those having the indoor party the bling spider would work out well.

 

I have similar ones that I did but instead of gems I used a good glue pen and micro glitter and they were funkins so they never go bad.A bat and spider.

                                   
                              

For cutesy little kid ones especially for an afternoon Halloween party this little caterpillar squirmed into my heart. I won't be doing this one any time soon but it's in my to do book.

And as always for pumpkins you have to have the vomiting pumpkin. I've never had one but this year is going to be the first and I think I will keep the extra guts from other pumpkins.

 

The Eater. I called mine Nom. The white pumpkin was 60 pounds. I plan on making another one this year.Not sure how big the pumpkin will be this time

 

 But this year I think my goal is going to do a baby eating pumpkin mwahahahahhaha. Who ever came up with this was brilliantly evil and I'm so envious.