A little late

I guess I should have edited this picture before I posted it, so it didn't have so much blank space.  Oh well.

This craft only took me 13 months to make.  I print and cut out the letters the previous Halloween, like back when my son was 4 when everything was ghosts for Halloween, including the soap dispenser.  I got the letters from here. And this tutorial to make the rosettes. Rosettes are the accordion circle behind the letters. J loved it when I showed it to him, unfortunately he is going to have to wait 11 months before it stays hanging in our house.

Birthday Wreath

In honor of my mom's birthday today, I'm finally posting my birthday wreath. 

I'm absolutely in love with it.  These wreaths are surprisingly expensive on etsy, and after finishing this one I know why.  It took me three sessions of conference, two movies, plus some extra time to finish it all.
Although part of the reason it took so long is I made three bottlecap pincushions for the cupcakes.

The Robot Butterfly properly stuffed

Here is my almost three year old in her robot butterfly costume.  She is about the cutest thing ever, when she tries to copy her dad doing "the robot" (dance).  I decided her pumpkin needed some frills, and so we glued a tutu to him too.  

Finished

Pink Butterfly Robot is finished, 24 hours before my due date.  Hooray.  For some reason I hand sewed most of the robot part of the costume.  Instead of using a machine or a glue gun, so this robot took be the better part of two almost full days!   

Does it look like our pattern? 

I think I hand sewed it all because she wanted a soft front, not cardboard. She is about comfort.

I'm not sure if I like the black thread on the eye buttons.  I thought maybe it would look like pupils, I might pull it out and put pink in its place. As I worked on the hat, and looked at the robots I had pinned for inspiration.  I realized in sci-fi we love to humanize robots, eyes, and bolts or buttons for ears. When robots finally do take over, do think they will actually be as humanized as we make them in our imaginations?

Sneak Peak

Photography blogs always have sneak peaks, why not craft blogs? 

Here is a sneak peak of the robot addition to the butterfly.  I love it.  Nan-o-matic 3000, since this is her third year trick or treating.

Lego Rock Monster

Before we started working on the butterfly robot, this is what we were doing.

Making Sulfurix the Lego Rock Monster, from Power Miners.

I was so ready to buy Halloween costumes, I had no desire to make a costume for the 6th year in a row.  But then my son became dead set on Lego Rock Monsters.  He had complete faith that I could make this costume, because I had made all of previous costumes.  But I had no idea how to make this costume.  Here is what the internet offered:
http://relentlessfury.lefora.com/2011/03/18/monstrous-comic-relief/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Lego-Rock-Monster-Halloween-Costume/
They helped a bit but overall I was very lost on where to start. I have only ever sewed a halloween costume.

1. We ended up making sandwich board costume.
2. I cut the cardboard the size of my child. 
3. I painted the cardboard, with left over beige sample paint
4. Then I covered it in yellow cellophane, twice so it would be brighter.
5. Then I cut, and folded/molded cardboard rocks.
6. Spray painted them gray.
7. Glued them, lets hope they stay, fingers crossed.
8. For the helmet I used a left over ice cream bucket, and cut the front to resemble the teeth. 
9. My friend helped me paper mache it.  
10. Then Spray painted it gray
11. I cut the eyes from construction paper, and the red is crayon, then I mod podged them on the bucket.

My son thinks its perfect.  If I ever did it again, which I won't, I would make the front of the sandwhich board wider, so it I could make the rocks have the proper room.  I so wish the front board was 6 inches smaller, but J likes it that way.
By the way we didn't make lego hands, because how could he hold his candy if was holding lego hands.
I have to say, I ended up enjoying using the box cutter, and shaping the cardboard.

Butterflyrama Nanomatic 6000

What we are working on right now.  We drew our blueprint today.

Felt Pumpkins

I needed felt pumpkins!  

So I made them.  

My son keeps drawing these skeleton faces all over my drive way with chalk, and I love them.  So I put them on. 

I've been using felt a lot this fall.  I don't know why?  I use cheap craft felt, not wool felt.  I think I'm in to it, because Michaels is a lot closer than JoAnns and Michaels doesn't have material only felt.

My kids love them, and both claim the fat one as their own pumpkin.

Baking

I read this article the other day as I was ripping it up for paper mache, about Americans become better cooks.
It won't happen until we are willing to cook instead of follow directions.
It won't happen until we taste our food as we go, instead of eating it at the end.
It won't happen as long as we are stuck to measurements instead of weight amounts.

Well that pretty much sums up why my husband is a better cook than I am and why he cooks when we have dinner parties. When he makes his bread he weights it all with a food scale, and doesn't use measuring cups.    That being said, he can't keep up that stamina for dinner every night.  Sometimes dinner needs to be on the table, not feasted upon.  There is homework, and scouts, and baths, and books assignments, and shoes to learn to be tied.  I can't experiment with food every night.  Nor do I have a desire to change my cooking habits. I read that article and though oh well, I guess I won't be improving any time soon.  That being said, I could never make frosting, if I followed directions properly and never tasted it.  So I guess I occasionally I'm unAmerican in the kitchen, but rarely.
Not to mention I don't think I enjoy eating, or random food enough to be a serious cooker.  I don't like branching out, I'm picky, I'll be honest.

Brent's Bread

Look at this beautiful bread my husband made a few weeks ago.  

He has made bread off and on for years, but lately he does it weekly.

SNAKES!

A few years ago I bought my son a large stuff snake, and every kid loves it will.  Well my son is good at sharing but my daughter on the other hand....
So I decided I could easily make her own pink snake.  Partly, because you can never have too many snakes in your house.  She loves it.

 I don't know if it was easy, but it wasn't hard. I made it with pink fleece.

Its eyes are just normal buttons, so it reminds me of a Muppet from the 70s, something off the first few seasons of Sesame Street. You know back when they were clearly puppets.  Back when oscar only had one arm, because the puppeteers other hand was his head.  Decades before Sesame street used computer animation.

Shiny Framed Pumpkin

Turns out my husband is right, I like sparkly things. I saw this blog post and had to copy it. Except I got a shinny pumpkin. I was afraid my glued pumpkin would rip my paper, so I glued it on the glass, then I thought oh that way the paper could change if I got anything better. 

It matches perfectly with my shinny fall sign.  I love the 3-d art.

P.S. I'll be honest, I was really bad at cutting my pumpkin.

Trick or Treat Pillow

Here is this season's newest pillow.  I wanted a halloween pillow, but I wanted something I could pump out in an afternoon, so instead of embroidery I used fusible bonding, and my sizzix (think old school cricut).

 I bought this halloween material last year, and its about my favorite halloween material ever! I'm so glad I found a project to showcase the material with.

Actually I thought I needed a halloween pillow, because I have more couches that I had last year, considering I larger living quarters, so I wanted more than my pumpkin pillows, I wanted another pillow for the other couch. 

Not Birthday Wreath

My husband was gone the weekend before my birthday. So I decided to pass my sadness away I would make a birthday wreath. I told you yarn wreaths were so trendy, I couldn't pass up a Friday night by myself at home to break into the trend.  It ended up a Lesli wreath not a birthday, because I bought purple and green supplies instead of family birthday color supplies.  Purple, green and gray are my favorite colors.  Not to mention I love bunting-- the circle flag things.

 I followed some bad blog advice and bought a straw wreath covered in plastic instead of a foam wreath.  The blog said it is easier to cover the plastic than foam. Not to mention I found out cheaper.  Down fall, my wreath is all lumpy like its filled with straw.  Its the Eeyore of wreaths. I really have no need or place for the wreath, so it hangs on the outside of our powder room door, because the bathroom is pale purple and the kitchen is green.  The extra added bonus is a can't knit or crochet so I never get to use yarn, but I got to!  And I ended up with a cute little adorable yarn ball.  Its like the pet cat I can't have.

New and Improved Fall Wreath

A few weeks ago I figured out that the hot crafts this fall are yarn wreaths, felt flowers, and burlap.  Burlap is so vogue.
My fall wreath needed an update anyway, so I decided to make felt flowers to add to it.  I was quite nervous about cutting my flowers, because I spent 1.25 on felt from loose change in my purse and didn't want to waste my loose change.

I was thinking I needed to add more flowers around the top corner of the H, but my friends assured me it was great like this. As I was petrified to cut my felt, I stared at a multitude of websites:
eighteen25
everynothingwonderful
thediydish
icandyhandmade
mrspriss
creativejewishmom
and here is a great template, but I'm sorry I don't know where it came from :(

So I know you are disappointed that my whole wreath is not yarn.  I still like my fall wreath, it just needed and update.  I'm also planning a yarn wreath, just not for fall.

and these wreaths were inspiring
littlethingsbringsmiles
nestofposies-blog
apumpkinandaprincess

Just in case you were wondering, I love fall, purple, orange and green. I wish I had a fall wedding so my colors could have been purple and orange.  Oh October would have been a lovely time for a wedding, my husband felt it would be too soon, instead we had a blue and white snowflake post christmas wedding.  It was lovely too, but not purple and orange lovely.