Halloween!

One of the fun things about living in the U.S. is the way they celebrate holidays. My kids talk about Halloween all year long! FINALLY tonight was the night! We have a zombie, a peacock, and a graduate. What a crazy mix!

Sofia made her own mask and headband, and I had fun doing some peacock eyeshadow...

Last night at church we had a trunk or treat and looked who showed up...

Since it's an LDS church and Mitt Romney is LDS I must say it was a popular costume! (It was my neighbor's son who came with us!) By the way, since I became an American citizen this year, I went to City Hall last Thursday and I am now an official registered voter. But who am I voting for?! Hmmmm I'm not saying! I registered as an independent. I'm not even going to tell my hubby who I vote for!

Fiestaware

All is well at our house - Sandy came and went and we are damage-free! The power went out a couple of times but for no more than 30 mins, which is far better than the 5 days this time last year! We are off to a trunk-or-treat at our church now, and I'll save Halloween pics for tomorrow, so today's post is something completely Halloween and Hurricane free! My hubby isn't that into gift giving for holidays like Valentines, Mother's Day, Father's Day etc. Christmas and birthdays yes, but card-company-money-making-holidays, no. BUT he does thoroughly enjoy surprising me with random presents and last week he did just that. He knows I love Fiestaware - I have a nice little collection going, so he ordered me a whole set of one of their new colors, Lemongrass, which I have realllllly been wanting. Here are some of my dinner plates...

It may be my favorite color of Fiestaware! You can see the Lemongrass plates sitting on top. It also came with bowls, smaller plates, saucers and cups. He knows me so well!

Sneak Peek

I am scheduling a couple of posts ahead of time to publish just in case we don't have any power because of the hurricane! So if you see this, you can pretty much assume we lost power :( Sunday night Sofia and I worked on her Halloween costume. I showed you the base/dress for it a couple of days back, and now we have another component...

I bet you can all guess what she's going to be now! This is the back of it. Talk about a fun thing to make!

Pumpkins Galore

It's pumpkin time again! I have all my pumpkin 'stuff' put out and this is what I see from where I'm sitting as I type this...

Does anyone remember these little fabric pumpkins I made last year?

I'm guessing you don't, but the good news is you can make your own. I did a tutorial last year on how to make them. Just click HERE to see. I'd LOVE to see pics if you make any! Wish us luck - Hurricane Sandy hits here tomorrow. I'm hoping our power stays on as long as possible! Hmmm maybe I shouldn't have promised to blog every day until AFTER the hurricane!

Costume Time

Halloween is fast approaching and with that, comes costumes of course! My almost 12 year old girl had very definite ideas on what she wanted to be, so we off to the fabric store and came home with the following...

Any ideas? If you need a hint, here is a picture of her trying on the base of the costume...

It will look much different when all done, but you'll have to wait a few more days to see!

Ironing Board

Wow oh wow I can't believe it's been over 2 months since I last posted. What a bad blogger I have become! Nothing is wrong on my end - I'm still here alive and kicking. I just seem to have lost my blogging mojo this year. I decided today to make a goal to blog every day for the rest of the year. I figure if I did it for 365 days last year, I can surely do it for just 2 months, right?! So here we go... I've been wanting a tabletop ironing board for a while now. It's always such a pain to be sewing something, then have to get up and walk across the room to iron. My set-up is such that my regular ironing board won't fit anywhere near my sewing desk, so a smaller tabletop version was in order. (There's a whole big story about me changing to a different space in the house to quilt in but I'll save that for another post!) I was in the Salvation Army a few days ago looking for drawers for my son's new room, when what did I see but the perfect sized ironing board! Sure, it was butt-ugly, but I had a vision for it! Here is the wonderfully ugly ironing board before...

And here it is, all prettied up with a new cover...

It only had one thin layer of batting on it, so I added two more layers...

...repurposed the string it came with, and Bob's yer uncle - a gorgeous and very non-ugly tabletop ironing board! And what did this thing of beauty cost me? The sticker says $2.99, a bargain in itself...

...but it was half price day, so it was $1.50. I used 1/2 yard of designer fabric I bought on clearance for $3/yard, so that's another $1.50. The batting I used was just a scrap leftover from another project, so pretty much free. All up that comes to a whopping $3! Oh how I love being frugal. Old top and new top, side by side...

And here it is in use, ironing a block I'm turning into a candle mat, and some scraps of fabric to be used for applique.

I can't explain how great it is to have an ironing board right next to where you sew. What a time saver! I'm using the above scraps to make an "Applique Today" quilt to use as a new banner. Fun things are in store, so you can now keep checking in for FAR more regular updates! Yes I know I've said that before (as in every post I've done this year) so I have a lot to prove. Thanks for hanging in there folks!