Halloween Costumes for '09

I've written about our Halloween adventures on our family blog, but for the sake of showing my sewing projects I'll put up our costumes here. :)


This was by far the most simple year for costumes....

My oldest was wrapped all up in cloth- super easy!




My middle child wanted to be a "beautiful witch- not a mean ugly one." So I cut up a princess dress and inserted orange spider material and sewed on a spider! 15 minutes- easy shmeasy!

I didn't need to sew a new costume for my baby- she looked great in one we already had- woo hoo! And as for me- I had a witch hat and a skirt from a previous year as well. I also grabbed stuff from my closet that I like to wear anyway (striped tights and cool boots).

I made my hubby that Neil Diamond costume a few weeks ago for the roadshow that my ward put on that I was in charge of. He sang a Neil Diamond song for the finale. I'm so glad that's done. It was so fun, but also a lot of work! I've never been in a play before let alone written or directed anything. So it was an interesting and crazy and fun and stressful experience and took up about 6 months of my life. :) The theme was "God Bless America". If you'd like to see the video that our friends Scott and Nancy made of our performance you can find it here...

http://www.jexdigital.com/video/KiowaValley1st_RoadShow.mp4

Anyway, for Halloween Seth decided he would just be a "dead" Neil Diamond and use that same costume. :) Here my daughter is showing me how to pose more scary.

52Q: What's your favorite holiday?

I suppose this one's a no brainer. Actually my friend, Emily asked me to make this prompt for her art journal challenge for this week. She's had her adorable little baby boy, Banjo and has had a few guests fill in while she spends mommy time with him and her girlies. I feel very honored! She's a sweet friend and an amazingly talented and creative individual. So here's my question going out to all her 52Q friends....

What's Your Favorite Holiday?


and here's my painting...

Seth sketched out a witch like this in the summer time when I was designing my Halloween advent calendars and I asked him for some inspiration. We have very different styles so his sketches didn't quite fit into my calendar, but I thought it would be fun to resurrect his witchy sketch and make it more my own.

My reason for picking Halloween...

"I've always loved Halloween!
My birthday is in the month of October (born on Friday the 13th!)- so as a kid I was pretty sure that made me spookier than others. Each year I get the "Halloween itch" around July. It starts with little sketches that become paintings or other projects like the Halloween calendars that I made with my sister this year.
I love sewing elaborate costumes. We have an entire closet of costumes in our guest room. My husband loves Halloween too so it makes it even more fun. I love seeing the creepy little drawings or books that my kids make up this time of year.

It's definitely a family affair in this house."



For fun here are some past Halloweeny stuff around here.

Seth enormous Halloween family portrait (3 feet by 4 feet)


A vampire family (probably my favorite costumes I've sewn)

Only mom's happy in this one I guess. :)












The two that like to ham it up the most...









Here's Seth famous pirate costume I sewed for him back in '05. This year Penelope is going to be that same kitty that Kendyl was. I can't believe how quickly time flies...


fun with decorating...

...and a silly spider that finds his way around our house to scare unsuspecting victims.
(This is our little on-going family prank. We move him around the house and try to freak each other out- Seth was awakened by him hanging above him one birthday breakfast day.







And just so you can see we are pretty normal the other 11 months of the year- here's a regular looking family photo. :)

ALL SOLD!

Hooray! My calendars are all sold! I wish I could have made 100 more because it's so fun to send them off and picture all the little happy fingers playing with them. I'm so happy to have pieces of my heart sent all over and to have it connect with people's childhood memories the way my mom's Christmas advent calendar did with mine. I feel so lucky. :)

Today I am sending off the last 3 I had for sale to Hawaii, Canada, and California.

Guess I better get crackin' on that Christmas design. I'll work on it throughout the year instead of making a month of intensity and sleep deprivation. :)

Thank you for all the emails telling me how much you like them!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Advent Calendar

I'm so excited about this! Starting in July I began sketching out ideas for a Halloween advent calendar. My sister and I had so much fun making Christmas calendars last year that I knew we'd love making Halloween ones as well. It's been a wonderful experience to see it come to life and be even more beautiful than I had anticipated!


I designed the calendar and sent Kristie the sketches while she digitized each drawing and put them to life by picking the color pallet. We spent a lot of late nights "skyping" and working together on this. She ordered the fabric and embroidered the numbers and the "trick or treat" banner while I cut out the houses for the street at the top of the calendar. We split up the work of the pockets and split up the calendars for sewing! There's been a lot of sending back and forth between here and Seattle where she is. I always think we make such a great team. We are both anal about different details and have our own areas of expertise and creativity. We're sisters so we can hit a rough patch and then call each other dorks and move on. I'm so lucky!

Below are the pictures of our calendar. They are 30 inches wide and 38 inches long (including tabs). They are made from high quality wool felt for color vibrancy and durability. Each pocket is 3 inches wide and 4 inches long.

It has been my hope of how I can help our family. I haven't written about it, but 6 months ago the company Seth work for went under. We have been okay living on our savings and are so lucky to live by such generous people. Seth has interviewed everywhere under the sun from China to Canada, but nothing permanent has come. He has had a few freelance projects that have been great blessings as well- but with our little Pip not weened I couldn't take off for full time work to help out. My goal in creating these was to find a way that I could be home and help pay expenses. I created an etsy shop (it's called THE LOST BUTTON- how cute is that?) :) and I am selling them there. Each calendar has taken us about 30+ hours. It would break my heart if someone copied this design I have come up with. I want to remind all that I own the rights to this. I hope you enjoy the pictures. I wish you could see the detail in person like the embroidering and beads sewn on the different pockets. They are one of the most beautiful things I have ever made and I'm so excited they are done! If you'd like to order one come on by or go to my etsy shop here...

http://thelostbutton.etsy.com


Here's my cute girls counting down the days to Halloween by discovering candy, treats, and presents along the way. :)
I've also made a little trick-or-treating ghosty attached to a string (so he wont get lost) that can be used to count down the days till Halloween if you don't have a sweet tooth.

A Few New Paintings and Penelope's Smile

I've been working on these paintings, but was only part way through on all of them and then I just finished these three around the same time so here's a few at once. I have a couple more that are part way as well that I will post in a few days when I finish. These are for Emily's Art Challenge this year of 52 Questions...

52Q- Week 6: If I could do it all again, would I change anything?

I took a photo of the miniature grandfather clock that the the clock store owner gave me when I was a little girl. I still have it and love looking at it. It's one of my favorite things.

52Q- Week 8: What was the last thing that made you laugh?

Here's a photo of our little Penelope laughing and I threw an extra one in of the look she always gives us when we are holding her. She's just so darn cute!

52Q- Week 11: What keeps me awake at night?

This is now found on Kristen's blog. :)

Krisser's and My Latest Adventures

Winter time, sitting around a lot, and all the major holidays are done for a while make prime ingredients for two bored sisters who itch to do projects together. So what do we do?.... start a new project? No- start WAY TOO MANY PROJECTS- and yes we are in over our heads and so excited. :) We like to do cross stitches together from time to time. Here's a link of the last one we did together here. Kristie just finished one for my mom you can check out here. The way we work it is that each of us will take on a cross stitch, work on it for a while, and then switch for a few weeks at a time. It's fun to send something off and get something new and fresh to work on and then a few weeks later get yours back with a bunch more done on it. The cross stitches we've chosen this time are Scott Gustafson designs and SO SO wonderful. Kristie is starting the "Frog Prince" one and I'm making "Pat-a-Cake" nursery rhyme one. They will probably take us at least a year, but when we are done with those I have 3 more patterns waiting right in my craft cupboard. :) I guess it'll be a Scott Gustafson gallery when it's all done.




















Here's the other 3 that are waiting for us when we are done with these. Probably what will end up happening is that we will be sick of this style for a while, get into a different sort of hobby like sewing to exchange and then come back to start these other ones in a year or two. Below are the paintings of "Snow White", nursery rhyme of "Owl and the Pussy Cat", and "Golilocks".


Must admit that even though I haven't purchased the pattern for this one yet, it's so sweet. I'm tempted to get it because I think it would make such a great present for someone sometime.

52Q- Week 5: "How Do I Feel Today?"

52Q- Week 4: "When I look into my eyes, I see...."

To view all the other people's entries you can click on this link to the flickr group here.

52Q- Week 3: Do I Believe in Fairies?

This painting is described in my journaling on the back, but it basically says that I believe in fairies with all my heart. :) The painting is of Christmas Eve 2007 when Makenzie lost her tooth and we had two visitors to our home that night. We wish we could have been there to see Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy sit down to a quaint tete-a-tete over hot cocoa and sugar cookies. I'm sure the Tooth Fairy decided on drinking herbal peach tea while Santa enjoyed his hot chocolate. In the journaling I mention video footage that we caught that night of Santa Clause. If you'd like to see that you can follow this link to it here.

Makenzie and Kendyl's 52Q Art Challenge Tags

Makenzie and Kendyl have joined in with me in Emily's art challenge this year. They are doing them on little tags and linking them with a ring. Here's what they've done so far. It's so fun to do it with them at the table and see what they come up with and how their little minds and hearts work. I know they will cherish this little journal when they are older. It will be a little chunk of themselves to remember and giggle at.

Makenzie's first tag: Wishes for 2009?
I love her spelling- adorable. Looks like we'll need to get her a pony this year to make her wish come true. :) Anyway, here's a translation of the back of her tag:
Ponies have been my favorite animal since I was a baby. I guess you could say I'm pony crazy.

Makenzie's second tag: Are you Afraid of Change?
On the front of her card she drew a picture of Daxton (one of her best friends) scoring a goal in soccer in the snow. She's on the edge by the chain link fence building a snowman all by herself. On the back of the card she says that yes, she is scared of change because she hates that now Daxton plays soccer during recess instead of playing with her.
(Don't worry too much though- they've worked out a deal that he will play with her 2 days in the week and she has 3 other boys that she plays with everyday so she's not alone- just missing one of her favorite buddies.

Kendyl's first tag: Wishes for 2009?
She of course wishes for a unicorn and for her birthday to be everday. What a wonderful idea. :) On the front is a drawing of her and her sister holding balloons and wearing their pink flower dresses- how lucky. I like how she made the horse stickers turn into unicorns by drawing them on.

Kendyl's second tag: Am I Afraid of Change?
The front of the tag is of her thinking about that question and then on the back she did her best to spell out that no she wasn't afraid of change. Her reasoning she told me was that she wasn't afraid of butterflies changing to have wings or for princesses to turn into other princesses that were their friends. hmmmm I'm sure it makes perfect sense to other 5 year olds. :) Too cute.

From here on out, I'll just post their cards on the posts that have mine. I'm so happy they want to join in with this. We're having a lot of fun together.