Hallowe'en

This year was the first Hallowe'en where we could start having some proper fun with Rowan.  The previous years, apart from putting him in some themed baby-grows, he's been too young to really do much with.  So this year I prepped a few activities to do, and decorated the house a bit.
Most of the shop bought decorating kits are all ceramic.  These are not overly suitable for a high octane two year old (or indeed any two year old) so I prepared some papier mache balloon frames instead.  I left it a bit late and ended up having some late nights layering up the paper.  I forgot how long this stuff takes to dry!  I also stayed up to carve the pumpkin the night before Hallowe'en. It didn't take very long as I usually use a scalpel instead of a heavy, unwieldly kitchen knife.

 

Ready for Hallowe'en fun

 We had a spooky breakfast of apple monsters.  These were so simple to make.  You cut out a wedge of apple, add a layer of peanut butter then stick half a strawberry on for a tongue.  Using a little more peanut butter, you add blueberries for eyes.  I just wish I could remember which website I found the idea from. 

 

 Apple monsters. I came across this idea online but now

can't find the website to give credit.

 

Rowan ate the berries and peanut butter

from the apple monster. The apple itself

was essentially abandoned. 

Every year I've taken a photo of Rowan in this 

pose with a pumpkin.  I'm hoping to do the same

over the next few years. I think it'll make a great

collage one day! 

 

Walking the line between spooky and friendly 

for a child's Hallowe'en can be tricky. 

This was my first attempt at creating depth with 

pumpkin carving. 

The house decorations were just a few cheapy ones from Hobbycraft.  If I'd had more time I would have liked to have made them myself, but I'm terrible for trying to take on too much then getting stressed about deadlines.  

 Hanging spider.

 

This is currently Rowan's 'say cheese' face

The papier mache balloons were a hit.  We painted them outside in the garden in the morning (hurrah for an unseasonably warm October!) and sprinkled them with glitter. A lot of glitter.  Seriously, the back garden now looks like a 70's disco floor. In the afternoon, when the balloons had dried, we stuck various bits and pieces on them. There are several bits of feral craft pieces roaming the garden now.

I got quite a lot of mileage out of this activity, which was a bit of a relief since I was prepping them for about 3 days.  

 

 Our papier mache creations. Rowan's is on the left.

I think he was going for an evil blood-streaked clown effect.

Mine is on the right. I dunno, it's a pumpkin pirate, or something.

Throughout the day I also toasted the pumpkin seeds from the carved pumpkin, made pumpkin pie, and pumpkin soup and Rowan and I made some biscuits and decorated them. It was a very busy day, and I actually managed to wear Rowan out!  I doubt I can maintain that level of energy indefinitely though.

 Tired Rowan

He was a bit fed up of being photographed at this point

and grumpily told me to stop.  

 Pumpkin pie. I'm not a fan of photos of food. It

never looks appetising to me.

Embellished babygrows

During my pregnancy, my Mum gave me some baby grows.  I decided to embellish them to make them a bit unique, and below are the resulting outfits:

Cross stitched bear.

The design was originally from a book

on cross stitch cards, but it translated

well for an item of clothing. 

Little Parasite - the nickname we

gave my bump.  It still seems apt! 

Dog paw print. I love Bondaweb! You
 can make unique clothes super quick and
with minimum effort! 

 Monogram Bondaweb design.  'P' is the
first letter of our surname.

I had some lace in my crafting stash, so I
hand stitched it onto a babygrow. Rowan
doesn't seem to like it since his nappies
always seem to leak when he wears it. 
Fair enough, it does look like a Victorian
girl's nightdress. 

 More Bondaweb!  Reminiscent of an
Olympic medal ribbon.

Birthday card

I tried something a little different with this birthday card.  I incorporated a super quick cross stitch tag and attached it to the card with some thread.  I like the overall effect, and I think I'll be making more of these.  Cross stitched cards can take a surprising amount of time, but using this method is a nice way of producing some speedy cards that still have that needlecraft look.

 The photo doesn't show it well, but 

the cross stitch tag has metallic thread

Upright image to try and show the 

tag dangling. Excuse the messy

background - I didn't plan the shots

that well

 I wish I knew how to take better photos of my craft projects.  The blurry, poor detailed shots (even when taken outdoors) I do manage put me off posting them.  If anyone has any tips on photographing crafts I'd be very grateful!  I have a 'point and snap' camera, so I'm a bit limited with regard to manually focusing etc., but there must be something I can do to improve the image quality!

Cards, bookmarks, and wine.

Here are the cards I said I would blog about a month ago (ahem...)

The first is an anniversary card. It was from one of those build-it-yourself card kits I wanted to try out. It came out ok, but I object a little to the limitations imposed by a kit!

The next card was also from a kit, but I lost the chart so had to wing it a bit. I'm not a huge fan of the design, but as this was for my sister who loves both roses and tea, it seemed an ideal birthday card!

Finally, a cross stitch bookmark I made to accompany my sister's birthday present (a book, funnily enough). Unfortunately, due to poor planning on my part, the border of the bookmark resulted in some last minute chart adjustments as the working area was too narrow for the chart design. I also cut it a little too short hence why the design looks a little bunched at the ends. For the backing, I used the liner of an old jacket I have, which is a velvet-like material. It's called horse skin, but it isn't actually from the hide of an equine!
I like the design on this one, I just wished I'd measured twice and cut once! I blame the wine in the background. Evil vino, leading my crafts astray...

Birthday card

Below is the birthday card I made for my niece's 5th birthday. I hadn't realised how little children orientated craft stuff I had until I came to make this one. Or pink things. The number 5 on the card was originally blue, but I dabbed it with a pink ink pad and went over it with pink glitter-glue to make it more feminine. The wording was meant to be a purple rub-on, but typically it didn't transfer properly so I went over it with a souffle pen. I don't know why I keep bothering with rub-ons; in my experience they just don't work!

I will be posting a couple more cards soon, just waiting for the recipients to receive them first!

Project in the pipeline

I have somewhat neglected this blog recently. I've been a bit caught up in my new blog and haven't really been up to much anyway! I decided to create a new blog as I realised I was taking life way too seriously. My sense of humour isn't always to everyone's taste, so I figured I would make a place for it.

I have a winter project I intend to start soon - dog booties! Not because I am some broody late twenty-something trying to make my dogs into surrogate babies, but because Willow's fur between her toes tend to get compacted with ice in this weather and I imagine that must hurt a lot!

The pattern for said project comes from an awesome book my sister bought me for my birthday:

Stuff

Thought I'd post a picture of one of the birthday cards I made this year. Unfortunately, the colours haven't come out too well in the photo

Creative block

The bedbugs are still here! After being isloated from my craft stuff for nearly three months, and deciding that that is more than enough time for any crafter, I went into the dining room to do some scrapbooking. I thought that after two doses of different pesticides and no bloodmeal for months, the chances of their being any bedbugs would be quite minimal. I started emptying the box I'd packed all the art stuff into and found one of the ruddy things at the bottom of the box. It had the audacity to be alive too. Gareth soon rectified it's mistake by dousing it in RIP, crushing it's head before manually homogenising it (not that we have personal issues with bedbugs or anything).
Instead of a relaxing afternoon crafting, I spent the next two hours emptying all the remaining boxes and found another live bedbug in a separate box. We have a lot of stuff to throw away in that room that we aren't prepared to take chances with (i.e. seat cushions etc.). I'm kinda gutted as I've being missing doing crafts and I still can't get my hands on any of it! The scrapbook/cardmaking things will have to stay in there until I can go through them one by one to make sure they are ok. I'm a bit annoyed by this as I wanted to make a wedding card for Gareth's cousin and his fiancee but we have had to buy one instead. I've also got to freeze all my cross stitich stuff for three weeks (when there's room in the freezer!) as the aida could harbour bedbug eggs.
I do have access to a sketchbook and pencils, so at least I can still be creative to some extent!