Nursery Rhyme Day...and NO, I didn't forget about Halloween!!

Although, with all of the CRAZY going on around here...I could have!!  How was your Halloween?  I haven't even had time to check out all of your costumes...UGH!!  I promise to try to take some time this week!!  So thankfully, I have been meeting every deadline and getting things done ON TIME!!  I hope it holds up!!  Last week was The Middle Child's Nursery Rhyme Day for all of the Kindergartners.  Our teacher is new and had nothing for decorations and classroom set up!  Enter the most AWESOME Room Mom...EVER!!!

She let me do what I wanted...isn't she sweet?

My friend, Kathy's daughter was raggin' on my poor wonky cow!!  "Is that a dog?" she so innocently asked...the SASS!!  I said, "um, NO!!  Sorry but we can't all be talented arteest like your momma!!"  We'll get to her mad skillz later...we're still talking about ME!! ;)

 The dish running away with the spoon...

and the itsy bitsy spider...or Ms. Muffet's, whichever you prefer!!

Ok...now we can get to my friend Kathy...but I will say that I did all of the HARD work!!  She just came in and used all of her artsy skills to make the characters come ALIVE!!

Remember all of that cutting I was talking about?  The character cutouts are painted on one and a half inch cardboard!!  We went to International Paper and got LOADS of it.  But it is sooo thick that you have to use a jigsaw to cut it!!  So for our Nursery Rhyme Characters, I grabbed the ol' Mother Goose book and a transparency!  I have an old Overhead projector that my baby sister gave me a couple of years ago.  So I used that to "draw" the characters on the cardboard.  Then I took it outside and cut it, painted on some primer, and the first coat of tempera paint.  Enter the artist...although, she did let me do the bricks with her pastel crayon thingies!!  But she nixed the original face I had because the features were too small for Humpty's big head!!

 Here is The Middle Child's Classroom set up for the BIG DAY!!  I brought all of the characters in Wednesday after school, and hung the paper curtains.  Did I mention that our teacher is about 8 months pregnant??  No ladders for her!!  Thursday all of the children came dressed in the Nursery Rhyme Character that they were reciting that day.  The Middle Child was Little Bo Peep. Her costume was given to me by guess who??  :)  They all did so good!!  We were all proud parents...then we had cupcakes!!

Yep...I did them too!!  Of course, another mom brought some too...but we are still talking about ME!!  The toppers are what I'm showing off here...not the cupcakes!!  I promise they taste better than they LOOK!  And I did make toppers for all 48 cupcakes, not just mine! Us moms like to coordinate, ya know.  :)

So, I stayed until the festivities were over and took everything down...and brought them to different rooms for the other teachers to use for their Nursery Rhyme Day the next day!!  Share and share alike...that's how our teachers do it!!  I'll be collecting the character cut outs to store until Symposium on the 18th of November...yeah, like in TWO WEEKS!!!  We have four done....we have THIRTY more to go!!!!  Give us strength!!

See...I didn't forget about Halloween!!

For The Boy's orange day....

and for the girls' class treats....

toilet paper rolls, scrapbook paper, tissue paper, and alot of glue!!

We went to Yogi Bear campground for the weekend!!  It was very nice and the kiddos got LOTS of candy!!  Then we came home so I could prepare for The Middle Child's class party and Halloween Craft.

All ready...just need little hands...

or really, their fists!!  This idea is from my friend Kathy...again!!  Do ya'll get tired of me talking about her??  Sorry, but she's da BOMB!! ;)  She was one of the Room Mom's for Ms. Priss when she was in Kindergarten.  I LOVED this little poem and pumpkin so much when she brought it home, that I just had to do it for The Middle Child too!!  Thanks Kathy!!  Oh and did you notice the glue stick?  It works REALLY well!!

And finally, a costume!!  When I first saw this on Running with Scissors, I KNEW that I would one day make one of these for The Boy!!!

 And here is his whole costume...

And here he is IN his costume...well, some of it.  He actually wore a green long sleeved shirt and jeans for Trick or Treating...it got COLD!!

Don't you just love his "head and claws"??  I was racking my brain trying to think of how to do a dinosaur head!!  We were in JoAnn's and he saw the visor and said "dinosaur head"!!  He is SOOOO SMART!!  And EASY!!!  No hard costumes for this boy!  The teeth and claws are stiff white felt.  I just used some stretchy scraps and hot glued the claws on after sewing a tube to fit his wrist!  Can you see I used a red Sharpie to make his claws bloody...he loved that!!

Well, that is all for now!!  I had my GS Daisy meeting today and I am whipped!!  We made ornaments for an upcoming swap at the zoo!!  More on that later....much later!!  The next couple of weeks will be consumed with Symposium stuff.  But while I was at my folks, I found these...

They are acorns from a White Oak tree and are HUGE!!  I want to use them to make some of these....yeah Amy, I'm copying you!!  Until later....

Halloween Decorating Fun!!

 Halloween is almost upon us...are you ready??  I think I am just about done with the house decorating, now to get my kids costumes done!!!  I've been up to my eyeballs in finishing up the cardboard cutouts and banner for The Middle Child's Nursery Rhyme Day!!  All that is left to do is the actual character painting...and thankfully my friend Kathy, the artist will be here later to help me!!  More on those later...back to Halloween decorating!!

I have had little spurts of free time here and there, so I've been checking out what's happening around our crafty little blogosphere.  Have you seen the Literary Pumpkins?  LOVE them!!  I found an old book under my carport...must have fallen out of the Goodwill box!!

I chose not to put a jack-o-lantern face on it, just a couple of pretty little ribbons...

Over at Craftaholics Anonymous I found these little cuties...

Loved them so much I cut up TONS of paper strips and circles so our GS Junior Troop could do some at our last meeting!!



And thanks to my sweet and so TALENTED friend Melanie...I've become obsessed with these wire pumpkins...

The big one was purchased a couple of years ago...the smaller one is the one I made using some floral wire from JoAnns.  But, of course, I didn't stop there...

The bright orange one is using jewelry wire...

Then I tried wired ribbon!!!  See OBSESSED!!  Did ya see the little coppery one?

Fancy huh?  My obsession was really RESEARCH, see my friend Kathy and I were going to do this craft with Ms. Priss' fourth grade class, and we needed to find the cheapest alternative!!  So we went to Home Depot...

and found Copper Cerrowire!  $12 for this 250 ft roll!!  It is not just one big wire, it is several strands wrapped together...sorta like embroidery floss.  So once the pumpkin was coiled and spread, we just separated the individual strands to give it the full effect!!  Cool, huh?  So anyway, the teacher got lots of chenille stems and the students ended up using those instead...but we had fun at Home Depot anyway!!! :)


Do you know you can get Drywall Tape in a variety of COLORS??  It looks just like BURLAP....see??

Doesn't it look like BURLAP??  And it is sticky...so you don't have to use any glue to get it on the wreath form, which by the way is another pool noodle spray painted black!!!  I was so tired from all of the cutting I did this weekend that by the time I got to finishing my wreath I was literally picking up scraps from my sewing room FLOOR!!!  See the VERY scrappy burlap flowers and bow...from the floor!!  And my ghost??  An old dryer sheet that somehow ended up in my sewing room...not sure how or when since I've been using the Downy Dryer Bar for like 8 months now!!!  So I am happy with it...I wanted it to me minimal since I plan on taking everything off and making it into a Fall Wreath as soon as Halloween is over!!

Now the one I did for my Momma....NOT minimal...

Lots of tulle and some ribbons!!  I think it looks like a big ol' piece of candy!! HA!

Well, still lots to do, so I will leave you now!!  Back later with completed costumes...hopefully!! :)  And LOTS of Nursery Rhyme Day things to show you!!  Until later...

Happy Halloween!

October is always so busy!! This year has been no different, just adding in the Girl Scout stuff made it even MORE busy!! But the girls' had such a great time, what's a little running around? They were out of school Friday, the 15th, so we scheduled a "meet up" at our local pumpkin patch. We had a picnic lunch and the girls' ran through the Hay Maze and just all over the pumpkin patch in general. Unfortunately by the time we decided to do the Hay ride, the tractor driver had left for the day, but they didn't seem too upset! Soon it was time to grab the pumpkins we were borrowing and head over to the Festival of Virtues grounds to decorate. This was our service project for the month of October, and the girls' did a wonderful job. We were back Saturday to participate in the Festival and the girls' ran around some more and got some great lessons in virtues. This was an AWESOME event, put on by a local family. They started the foundation to honor families, morals, and to instill values in all generations! This was the 2nd year they put this Festival on and I am so honored that our Girl Scouts were able to help out and participate! Sunday we met my momma and siblings at the Baton Rouge Zoo for the annual Boo at the Zoo! The kids LOVE it so much, and we enjoy the day every year! But that meant I needed to have costumes DONE!! Thankfully, I didn't procrastinate, like I ALWAYS do and got it done!

The Boy is pretty easy...anything DINOSAUR makes him happy!! He won't even get DRESSED unless it is a dinosaur shirt!! Really, it took me 45 minutes one day. Finally he accepted that some stripes on a tee shirt were DINOSAUR STRIPES and put it on!! The next time I was in Wal-mart they had Garanimals brand tees WITH dinosaurs on them for $3!! You can BET I scooped up a week's worth of shirts!!

I was inspired by Stephanie over at MooBear with this cape...she made one for her Bear, and I KNEW it was going to be the Boy's costume!! Thanks Steph!!!
I had some Styrofoam laying around from something (YEAH, I NEVER throw anything away!), so I cut rounded triangles and stuffed them in some shiny fabric that came from the $5 grab bag! The cape was two halves that I sandwiched the "spikes" between and stitched together. Then just added some flannel for the backing! A little tricky, but not too difficult! He loves it and wears it all of the time! One down...

Next up, Ms. Priss. She picked out an Eskimo costume from Target, but I knew it would be too hot for her to wear and convinced her to let me make her one. (Sorry about the photo...I'm still not comfortable putting my children on the blog.)

Here is the problem...I could have SWORN the dress was red in the ad...but it turns out that it was BROWN!! "I look like SANTA CLAUS!!" Here comes the SASS!! And the funny part was, she LOVED it, until one of her friends TOLD her she looked like Santa Claus!! So, is that how it is now?? ALREADY?? She's EIGHT...can you give me a few more years of innocence BEFORE what-the-friends'-say-is-gospel period?? So I convinced her that she was Santa's daughter, and she was happy again! This past weekend, we were at Yogi Bear Campground all weekend. They have a really nice trick-or-treat and the kids love riding their bikes all over...anyway, my sister put some white hair paint in her hair and she T0rTed as Mrs. Claus!! I'm thinking of making something fast for her to wear Halloween night...not sure yet!! This was a dress I started for me, but didn't have time to finish how I wanted so it was in my sewing room already sewn, some what. I cut the neck and shoulder straps a little more defined, my pattern had a yoke attaching the front and back...never got around to making it!! Added the faux fur, so I didn't have to "finish" the neck, arms, or bottom hem. I did make a quick casing around the bottom and slid some boning in...just to see what it would do! I think the knit is too heavy for the FULL effect of the "hoop"..I'll try again with some other fabric!! TWO down...

Lastly(?) is the Middle Child! She wanted to be a princess...I talked her into Little Red Riding Hood.

I DEFINITELY have an ulterior motive! First...she is just too stinkin' CUTE in this!! :D AND, I've been needing to make her a cape, like, FOREVER...

So, as you can see, I didn't attach the hood all the way. I am going to remove it after Halloween, and stick a Super Hero emblem on it...VIOLA! Cape!

The tee is another of those $2 Hobby Lobby shirts that I "girled" up some! I had fun ruffling different fabrics! A good learning experience! Oh, and my other sneaky motive is to use the ruffled shorts for THIS outfit!!

This Friday is ORANGE day at her Pre-K, and I thought I picked up an orange tee at HL for her....NOPE!! So a quick pillowcase style top with some scrap fabric I literally picked up off the floor!! I had to add the "ruffle" (if that is what you want to call it) to the bottom to make sure it was long enough and covered her tummy!! Ok, here's the story...I was being lazy and decided to use my Serger to ruffle and sew the gingham strip at the same time! I had done it before, so I thought..no problem. Well, I think something is wrong with my feed dogs, because it didn't seem like it was ruffling the way it should. Oh well..good enough!! :D If you can think of a "quick fix" before Friday, please TELL ME!! So, that's all! I did finish two more pair of Minky pants, but I'll post them some other time! I still have four pair to make...waiting on some red Minky! I am sitting with Ms. Priss' class tomorrow from noon to 3pm...THIS SHOULD BE INTERESTING!!! And I know I need to get to bed...or I will be REALLY grouchy!! Sorry this is kinda short and sweet...and choppy...with LOTS of rambling....until later...

Halloween Costumes and a Treat Bag

When my SIL asked me to do a treat bag for my sweet little niece...it was a no-brainer!! OF COURSE I WILL!! For one thing, she is my niece and I love doing things for her, and the other is that I knew I would not have to THINK about it!! My SIL is excellent at knowing exactly what she wants!! She knew the color of the bag, the color and size of the bows, and which design she wanted on it!! She even sent me a link to the embroidery website she found the design on! Awesome. You know being creative all of the time is HARD WORK!! Sometimes it is nice to have someone tell you what to do because after that, your own creative juices are refilled!! I guess that is why I am addicted to so many other sewing blogs! I can just look and look and get the best ideas and inspiration. And if I am lucky, there is a tutorial that tells me what to do! :)

So this treat bag was made using another bag as a template. I just cut all of the pieces of felt, sewed them together, then did a good top stitch all the way around for extra reinforcement. I did two layers on the front and back panels and sandwiched the straps in between, and also added a second layer on the bottom, for extra support. Very easy, and such a cute outcome!

This is what Ms. Priss picked to be her costume this year. I said, "Sure! I can make that!"

So what do you think? No pattern, just a picture to look at! Not bad, eh? The flowers were made courtesy of the MANY blogs I read, and would never have thought of doing had it not been for the inspiration I receive from them! Thank you!

Here is the back, with a beautiful action shot!

For the flower in her hair, I threaded some embroidery floss and added some seed beads in the middle of the petals. Then ran the floss through the flower a couple of times, and tied it around a rubber band. She loves it!

The Middle Child chose to be a witch, so of course I thought....TuTu!!

I made a pair of pantaloons for her to wear under the Tutu, and used elastic thread around the leg holes for the easy "ruffled" effect. I wasn't going to do a top at first, just a black tee with embellishments on it, but decided at the last minute to "try my hand" at it! I loosely used a Simplicity pattern just to cut the pieces, and figure out how to add the "V". Once it was all together, I added a little sparkly around the "V" and pink ruffles at the bottom of the sleeves. I probably should have made it a little longer, but the Tutu does a good job keeping her shirt from rising up! For the hat, lots of embellishing on a $1 hat from Target!! I sewed the pink marabou boa around the rim, then hot glued the ribbon, pompoms and rhinestones! I guess that means I am friends with my glue gun again! :)

Here is another beautiful action shot!

For The Boy I was just going to buy him something, but again...at the last minute came up with the idea for him to be Ms. Priss' dance partner. The black pants were the ones I made for my cousin's wedding. His cummerbund is a satin ribbon joined in a circle with a 1/4" elastic piece. And his "ruffled" shirt is a long-sleeved white onesie with 6 strips of red satin ribbon with 1/4" elastic zigzagged down the center then joined to form a ring. Slip them up the arm and VIOLA! Instant Flamenco Dancer Shirt!! I SO love EASY!

Yes, his cummerbund is crooked...he was sleeping when I measured his waist!! :) We had so much fun at the Boo At The Zoo today! And everyone was very impressed with my costume making abilities! Sometimes I surprise myself!! :)

So, guess what? My next post will be my 100th!! Make sure you come back and leave a comment to enter to win my FABULOUS giveaway!! Until later...

Halloween Banners

Ok, so here are pictures of the rest of the decorations that I hinted at on my last post:

Ta-Da!! Burlap banners!! I have been having fun working with burlap. I read about it all of the time on Maya Made, but never really thought of incorporating it into any of my sewing projects until my sweet Bloggy friend, Chelle introduced me to The Polka Dot Pig!! Have you been to this blog? AMAZING!! She is so full of GOOD STUFF!! Ok, I have now used that on two posts...Martha has Good Things...I get STUFF!! :) Anyway...back to The Polka Dot Pig! She was having a giveaway for one of her Spooky banners, and sadly I did not win. So I thought about it....and wouldn't you know that JoAnn's was having a sale on burlap that week...AND felt. So the next thing you know, I'm there buying stuff!! I quickly made a couple of stencils and set out to make myself a banner!

And one for my Momma:

And a couple for my SIL's sister, whose baby Boy is turning 1 on November 2nd, so she is having a Halloween-inspired party the weekend before.

As you can see, the more I make, the more "creative" I get!! I can't wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas....maybe I'll do some for those Holidays as well!

But why wait??!! The fabulous aforementioned Katie is WAY ahead of me, she has already begun! She also makes awesome name photo albums and other Scrapbooky type things, AND she designs blog pages, so many things to choose from. She is truly inspirational. Thanks Katie!!

My banners are made with burlap and felt. For the first one I did, which is the purple SPOOKY one, I used a sticky-backed craft felt. I thought it would be easier to hold the letters while I sewed them on. It worked out ok, but I wanted to use different colors for the lettering, so I switched to just regular felt and pinned it on. Also on the first one, I noticed that the edges of the burlap unraveled a little, so on the next ones I decided to serge the pennants. I really liked the clean finish it gave. And because I use my serger ALOT...I have tons of scraps. So when I saw that Sew Mama Sew! was having a Scrapbuster's Month, I started thinking of something I could use my serger scraps for. That is how the idea of a little spider and ghost came about!! Don't you just love how creativity works??!! It is never ending!

Well, I am almost finished with the kids' Halloween costumes. I'll be back to show them off once I am done!! And don't forget to keep checking back for my 100th post giveaway...you are going to LOVE it!! Until later...

Serger Scrap Stuffies!!

Those of you with Sergers, THIS has got to be a familiar sight...



If not....then I guess I just keep showing my TRUE clutterbug self!! :)

So I am kinda bummed! I thought I would have this AWESOME idea and submit it to Sew Mama Sew! for the Scrapbuster Month Contest....little did I realize that the contest is for a TUTORIAL!!! UGH! I have none, sadly! :( I think I am the LAST sewing blog to NOT have a tutorial! I've got to get it together! So anyway.... I decided to at least SHOW you my idea!


So there you go....Serger Scrap Stuffies...softies...stuffed thingies....whatever you call them! Now, obviously these are NOT to be used in toys for children. I am making these into HALLOWEEN decorations! YAY!

I will be back later in the week to show you the rest of the decoration!!

But here is one...and it comes with an AWESOME pattern and TUTORIAL...just not from me!!


Isn't this the cutest little kitty?? This is from the most generous and talented mother/ daughter team on the WWW! Wee Folk Art! If you haven't been to check them out yet...WHY NOT??? Their blog is FULL of such good stuff!! And Kimara has even ventured into POWER TOOLS!! You've gotta go see....I'll wait!
Alright, now that you are back.... check out what's inside...

yep, more Serger scraps!! The Middle Child enjoyed diving into that big ole box and throwing scraps around! She even managed to get some in the kitty! This kitty, by the way, is actually a door stop! Pretty neat, huh? Well, I don't have any doors that need stopping, so it just sits on a shelf in my living room looking Halloweeny!! :) I did all of the stitching during the ride to Texas.

I didn't attach the tip of the tail so it would have a little "flared" effect!! Love it! Thanks ladies...I've got so much MORE to do from your blog...so keep the good stuff coming!! :)

Now, just for a little bit of inside information....I know of this one blog that is about to reach her 100th post, and she is thinking about having a FABULOUS giveaway to celebrate!!! Here's the link:

http://sewmylife.blogspot.com/

IT'S ME....sillies!! :) I have the greatest thing I am going to be starting-to-work-on-SOON-I-promise....and you are going to love it!!! So...if you are visiting me for the first time or tend to be more of a lurker....make sure you come back and SPEAK up!! All you will have to do is leave a comment, I promise! Well...I am off to bed, maybe....or maybe I'll be remembering to post my link over at SMS for my NON-contest entry!! :) Until later...