Halloween fun!

I really love Halloween.

It’s sort of an odd fit, given that I’m a Christian and the holiday is a little, um, less-than-Christian.  But who really thinks about the meaning of Halloween?  (If you do, now would be an excellent time to not point that out to me.)

For me it’s all about the costumes.  And the candy. And yes, even the decor, though I do abstain from witches and devils and the like.

I revel in the creative, fantastical nature of the day.  In years past we have always done family themed costumes – last year we were all Superheroes, for example.  But I started to feel that this was stifling the girls’ creativity.  When they asked to do Toy Story this year I had to put my foot down.  It’s such a cop-out!  Grab some commercial movie and store-bought costumes?  Please!  We can do better than that!

Longing for the Halloweens of my youth, I wanted the girls to be more unique.  I took them to the fabric store individually and let them choose their costume.  They pored through the pattern books until they found that perfect, just-right costume idea, and then we chose the fabric to make their choices come to life.

Many dollars and many hours later, here is what we ended up with.

Annie chose Laura Ingalls (Little House on the Prairie):

(I realize now that I didn’t take any pictures of her by her herself. Whoops! So here she is with her friend Tramell – ie, the boy she plans to marry.)

Catie opted for Little Red Riding Hood – a pattern that (sadly) I had to modify quite a bit to remove the slutty factor.  It’s bad enough that teenage girls dress this way – do we really have to encourage Kindergartners to do it as well? Prostitots.

Sorry – got sidetracked. The picture:

And Lilly picked a period dress – very Martha Washington.  I was at a loss to explain why she might want to be Martha Washington, but I was happy to oblige.

It wasn’t until the dress was done and she was slipping on her fourth pettiskirt (to make it extra full) that I realized my mistake.  “I Lificity!” she exclaimed.  ‘A-ha!’ I thought.

For the rest of you that are still lost, that’s Lilly-speak for Felicity, the American Girl doll.

And the whole crew, heading out to Trunk-and-Treat.

And now we need a new home for the 15 pounds of candy they collected.  They never eat it all!  I’m sure we’re not the only ones who throw away Halloween candy a year later.

Oh – and the boo! Can’t forget the boo!  Our neighborhood was late going this year, but the week before Halloween we were all out in full force.  I love Booing!

And finally, I have to brag on my girls.  Their school did a storybook pumpkin contest and Annie got Honorable Mention for her Magic School Bus:

And Catie won the ‘Most Original’ category!

And now I am thankful that this is all past us and I can relax start working on Christmas presents.

The fun never ends.

A very Disney halloween

For the first time ever we used these really cute Disney jack-o-lantern patterns. They are cute, and surprisingly easy. Nest year I’ll buy a battery powered cutter rather than doing it all by hand though.

The last one was after trunk-or-treating. Yes, I know, I still haven’t posted pictures. Behind as usual!

Boo to you!

My friend Darcie from Such The Spot told me about a fun neighborhood game a few months ago. After our conversation I googled it and learned that apparently it’s all over the country, but our little Kentucky town seems to be behind the times (shocking, I know!) So we decided to jump-start the tradition locally, and thus the Bardstown Boo began.

Now if I was a really good blogger like Darcie, this is where I’d show you a picture of the baskets we assembled. But since I’m just me, this is where I will tell you what was in the baskets that I forgot to take a picture of.

The girls and I hit the dollar store for ours, figuring that we needed to do several baskets to ensure the game took off. We bought black wire spider baskets and filled them with little battery-powered pumpkin lanterns, Halloween paper plates and cups, a little resin home decor piece, Halloween pencils and erasers, candles, I made applique hand towels, and of course the obligatory candy corn. I think that’s about it.

Then we cut out large ghosts and put “We’ve been BOO’d” on them, and included this poem:

At the second boo we decided to pass it on to another neighborhood or two, so we went to some people who live on the road near our house which isn’t part of any subdivision, and we went over to my parents’ neighborhood as well. The kids were delighted to suprise Pappap and Grama, who of course had no clue who Boo’d them. Even after Grama called to tell Annie that she got Boo’d and Annie said, “I know! I wonder who did that?” LOL Gosh, we sure fooled them!

But I’m pleased to report that it caught on in both places, and ghosts are popping up all over our end of town! If I had unlimited resources I’d be popping a basket or two into every neighborhood in town, but maybe this will get the word out, at least, and a few others will take the initiative next year. All because of Darcie, a thousand miles away. Thank you my friend, for the fun you brought into our lives. The girls (and I!) have had a blast with this!

Yes, I am alive!

To commemorate the one-month anniversary of my bloggy absence, I’m making a comeback. Or rather a return, since I’m not sure this is exciting enough to call it a comeback.

We were on vacation for two weeks, and since we’ve been back everyone has been sick (most of us more than once), and I’ve been busy! I promise to do a proper catch up and trip report soon – maybe starting tomorrow.

For now though I wanted to show off something that Annie and I have been working on. Halloween customs! We’ve done several different ones and had a lot of fun. Annie loves to run the embroidery machine for me. My little helper – I’d be lost without that girl.

Here are the complete sets:

And some close-ups of the appliques on the tees:

Pumpkin Polly

Cat and pumpkin

Hocus Pocus girl

Haunted House

I have a tendency to make girly things since I have built-in models here, but I’ve got some really adorable boy designs too – mummies, vampires, frankenstein…the cute kind, not the creepy-icky kind. (Is it just me or is Halloween over-the-top gore these days?)

I’ve posted them for sale on my ebay and design forums, and will be listing on ebay shortly, if anyone is interested! There is an upscale children’s boutique here that I would love to sell them in, but I can’t get up the nerve to go in. I have zero self-confidence, and I might actually cry if they rejected me. (Yes, I am that much of a dip) I think they’d go well there, but I haven’t been able to work up the nerve – or a sales pitch. I have been contemplating this since we’ve lived here – almost 2 years. I’m such a goob.