greetingarts

dress up

Rebecca's school wasn't having a costume parade this year, and the kids were told not to dress up.  Well, gee, what's the Halloween equivalent of "Bah, humbug!"?  So as a minor rebellion, I made her (and Jessie) matching Halloween-y twirly skirts, with the same Pink Fig pattern as the cupcake skirt.

Can't get too much more Halloween-ish than that, can you?  I stayed up until way too late last night finishing these skirts and scrambling to do Box Tops stuff since they had to be postmarked by today in order to receive a check by the end of the year.

But now the Box Tops are in the mail, the class party was a huge hit, and the girls got compliments on the skirts all day.  Here they are, racing leaves in the gutter stream in between twirls.  It was only in the mid-80s today, we're getting downright autumn-y.

My little cheeseballs.  I'd love to show you what I did for the class party, but... the camera sat in my pocket the. entire. time.  We feasted on party platters with cheese, crackers, and mini salami slices, juice, cookies, and fruit.  Every kid got a goodie bag filled with bubbles, a 6-colored pencil, a really cute notepad, a plastic bat/spider/Boo! ring, stickers, and PlayDoh.  And they each made a foam magnet in the shape of a ghost, haunted house, or spiderweb.  I really think everyone had a nice time.

Then it was home for a quick change into costumes (yay! finally!) and the anticipation of much candy.

And can you believe it?  This was before we even started all the trick-or-treating.

I'm with Jessie.  I'll definitely be sleeping well tonight.  Happy Halloween!

this is fall?

Yesterday we hit 94 degrees.  The day before that it was 95.  Today was 89.  What's going on, shouldn't it be crisp autumn days and hot spiced cider and sweater weather here in the U.S.?  I know I'm in So Cal, but this is a bit ridiculous...

Despite the heat, I'm still feeling very Halloween-y.  I unearthed this card I made ages ago, one of my favorites.  You take a blank card, fold the bottom corners of the top flap up so they meet in the middle (I lined the underside with purple gingham so it would show when the corners were flipped up), punch two holes in the corners, add ribbon, tie a bow, and fill with whatever fits your theme.  Here I cut out some rubber stamped images, stuck one on a toothpick for dimension, added fake cobwebs and a teeny plastic spider.  But I've also done these for birth announcements or shower invites, too, with rubber duckies, baby bottles and teddy bear images.  You can still write a message on the inside of the card, just stay kind of in the middle if you don't want your writing to be visible when the card is closed.

I started decorating the house on September 30th, at the girls' request, and I'm so glad I did.  Otherwise, I think I'd be feeling like the holiday kind of came and went.  As it is, I think I'm going to be sad come Saturday, when the jack-o-lanterns are moldy, the pumpkin seeds roasted, and the candy pawed through. 

Oooh, but then there are the sales... I can get my Halloween-colored dark chocolate M&Ms.  And a Frankenstein dish scrubber.  And glow-in-the-dark foaming soap dispensers.  Maybe I won't be sad at all. 

milestones

There are some things about today I need to remember.  Jessie spent the whole day in big girl princess underwear, and at bedtime Rebecca took her first real shower by herself.  I nearly shed a tear when I realized how un-babyish my two babies were, but Rebecca saw my emotion and said, "but Mommy, I'll never be too old for you to love."  Sweet thing.  And when we went to bed we started a new tradition.  The three of us taking turns saying three things that were good or made us happy about today.

Things worth celebrating.  Here's to you, my babies.

it fits

Look, mom!  I sewed my first article of clothing!

She can wear it, it fits very well, and she absolutely loves it.

I plan on making another one for Rebecca this weekend, out of Halloween fabrics.  It's not even remotely close to a Grosgrain original, but I'm excited to have sort of broken past the clothing barrier.  I say "sort of" because I still have to conquer pattern pieces, which is my *real* phobia.  But I feel like I'm ready to take that on, soon. 

But first, another skirt.  Stay tuned...

i think i forgot to breathe

Grosgrain has come across my radar before.  And I've seen some of her amazing creations and contemplated entering a drawing or two.  But for some reason or other, I haven't.  That is, until now.  Until I saw this unbelievable, fantastic, utterly amazing dress she created and is giving away to one lucky girl. 

This is what dreams are made of...

box tops bonanza

I so appreciate all the Box Tops that have been sent to me.  With the downturn in the economy (ha, how's that for understatement), budget cuts for the district, and our fall fundraiser falling way, way short of expectations (only about a quarter of what we needed!), every little bit helps and matters a great deal. 

I wanted specifically to mention to Leta that I did receive your envelope quite some time ago, but there was no email address so I wasn't able to let you know!  I  should have sent a snail mail note, but I didn't have a stamp, and then the days kept passing by and... I'm lame, I know.  But seriously, thank you.  All of you.  I had almost 100 entries for my little giveaway this month.

But I only had one other sock, so Beatty's unnamed twin goes to mushroommeadows!  I have  your address, it will be in the mail to you soon.  Thanks so much, and don't forget, I will be doing this again.  How about December 1?  Email me when you've got a bunch of Box Tops clipped, and I'll give you my address and enter you once for each Box Top you send me.  I've already got ideas as to what to make for the next drawing...

Hey, maybe I should put up a new Box Tops category, huh?  Since I seem to be posting about them so often... ha!

foofa is finished

One of Rebecca's friends celebrated her sixth birthday today, and requested that I make her a Foofa doll, from the show Yo Gabba Gabba.  I modified a pattern I bought from CraftyisCool on Etsy.com.  So much easier than trying to figure it out on my own.  Now I'm supposed to make another one for Rebecca, and work on Plex after that...

back to the bom

I can't believe this is the third block of the month program I'm sharing with you and I still don't have a single one made into a quilt, or even a top!  But anyway, who cares, right?  It's therapy, and all about the process, and so on and so forth.  I enjoy it.  So in that light, it makes perfect sense that I'm doing two at once this time around.

The quilt is called Star Struck, by Terri Staats, and all the blocks are pretty simple, with squares, half-square triangles, flying geese, or quarter-square triangles.  This one is in the peachy-pinky/cream colorway, one that I thought Rebecca would really like.

And for Jessica, the blue batiks.  I'm going to try to put together the background (the lightest fabric in the corners) from my stash, for a scrappy look.  I love the setting, and how it has the secondary stars forming in the sashing, and the blocks set on point.  I'll try to be better about posting pictures of my progress on these BOMs.  I'm hand-piecing again, so we'll see how it compares to when I was using the machine.

Wouldn't it be nice if I could make a couple of the sashing strips as I went along each month so I'd have them all done when the BOM was finished?  And so these blocks would have a halfway decent chance of actually being made into honest-to-goodness, on-the-bed quilts?  Yeah.  That sure would be nice.

four eyes and proud of it

I've worn glasses since I was in the 7th or 8th grade, and only briefly (due to peer pressure) wore contacts for a couple of years at the end of high school and as a freshman in college.  Then I got allergic to the contacts, and I never really liked them anyway, so back on went the glasses and now I don't think they'll ever leave me.  I'm used to them, and I think I actually look better with them on.  My only waking moments without them are when I'm in the shower, I even wear them during water aerobics class.  No Lasik for me, no thank you.

A few weeks ago I saw one of my daughter's classmates sporting a shiny new pair of silver glasses, and I gushed quite enthusiastically, "Oh, look!  You got glasses!"  And was immediately met with a face that was less than pleased.  Oops.  Totally put my foot in my mouth that time, didn't I?  His mom quietly said over his head, "Yes, and he's not too happy about it."  Oh.  Yeah.  Like I said, oops.  He's a nice, sweet boy, and I felt so stupid and mad at myself for not thinking before speaking.

So I just had to make him this little guy as a peace offering.  The basic pattern can be found here, but you can do so many things to make him (or her) unique and personalized.  Why doesn't he have a body, you ask?  Because it's not a doll, it's a fully functional nightstand accessory.

The morning after I gave this to his mother, I got a huge smile from him and a "thanks for making me the little head."  He laughed and said he thought it looked like himself.  So we're friends again.  Whew.