excuse the crappy cell phone photos.....

what I've been up to:




1. Put together an angry birds' pig costume that Will requested then refused to wear. sigh.

2. Made some ghostie cake balls for halloween. so good. And orange on the inside ;)

3. Spent an entire afternoon with Will adding coat after coat of paint ( and then glitter!) to this beanbag toss game for Halloween night festivities. inspiration here. I guess I didn't get a shot of the bean bags, but they were three orange prints from my stash. The board is cut from a cardboard box. Yay for free!

4. Stitched up a softie for Mirabel. Really, it took less than an hour, less than an hour for a good cause. including running up and down the stairs to use my SIL's sewing machine since mine is still not fixed. still. And it was all from scrap. a little embroidery, a little cutting and pinning and tada! kitty for Mirabel.

5. Stretching left over squash into killer pancakes! I put some cream cheese and walnuts into mine and folded it over into a taco-type thing. mmmmmm!

To Do:

Stay tuned for a giveaway coming up for this book! Just in time to plan your holiday countdowns! And a surprise to go with it! Come see on Monday!

five and five (and five more)

(*)

five things giving me heartburn lately...

1. bedtime routine. No matter how many stories we read, baths, stretching and everything else that usually zens them right out, they're still calling mommy! for half an hour after.

2. The price of everything going up and up and then more up.

3. I don't care how many days are left until Christmas. I want to enjoy Halloween and Thanksgiving first.

4. I think I'm becoming the mom who hates video games.

5. If you do what I tell you to, the first time I tell you to, there will be no yelling/crying/time outs. ( I need a vacation, y'all. alone. )


five things making me happier...

1. Harry coming home from kindergarten with new songs and teaching them to Will.

2. Lower temperatures. finally!!

3. Running more again.

4. Planning Halloween costumes. The boys are going to be Captain Hook and Peter Pan. My tiny little niece will be Tinkerbell! Oh the cuteness! But what are Paul and I going to be for our party!?

5. All that dye and highlights and mess is growing out of my hair and my roots are so healthy now. Stop me if I mention highlights ever again, okay?


five things I need to make soon...

1. This scrumptious looking apple bread pudding from (of course) smitten kitchen.

2. These adorable candy corn cupcakes! how fun would it be to find one of these in your lunchbox?

3. Umm, everything in the latest Sweet Paul.

4. I bought a pretty angora sweater for three bucks ( three bucks!!) to try out this look with.

5. Some of these super cute, wicked easy seeming little ghosties. And these smiling bats. And who doesn't love prize balls?

What's been getting the star in your Google reader lately? On your must-make bookmark list?

Or something been driving you crazy? Tell me, I'm a good listener.

(* scary clown from a recent birthday party. scary clown is like saying round circle. all clowns are creepy, do you think so too?)

these are the days

we had some unseasonably beautiful weather the past few days.

perfect for lying in the leaves on a comfy blanket, even if there's a pillow thief.





perfect for loaders to clear leaves. and building garages for those loaders.





and for just soaking up the sun before the cold sets in.



hope your weekend was just as nice.

orange leaves and orange spoons

This is looking down our driveway at sunset. Aaah. I love it.

Okay, remember those yummy chocolate pops I had the other day?

These are what they made me think of:



dipped spoons!

Around here, trick-or-treating is a cold weather event, like caroling. So these will be perfect to put into hot chocolate when we get back in!

They're easy beans to make, like this:

Gather your supplies and line the counter with wax paper.



Melt your chocolate ( I just used dark chips) in your micro, thirty seconds at a time, until they're a nice dippy consistency.



If you just want to have sprinkles on one side, dip away, then sprinkle and lay on your wax sheet to cool and harden. If you want to sprinkle both sides, do the backs first and lay to dry, then fill up the bowl of the spoon and sprinkle that side.



I tied them up like little ghosties,



(I liked these two best, the left looks surprised and the right has a nose!)

They look awful nice just sitting in a jar too.



We had a Halloween party Saturday and gave the tied ones as favors for the kids and put the rest next to the coffee for the adults and they were a big hit!

And easy. Did I mention easy? Kids can help with this one for sure. Just sprinkling for the littler ones, but bigger kids can dip and even tie them into ghosts and draw faces!

And the winner of the Halloween Bunting is Amanda of Late Night Stamper! But I have something Halloween-y in mind to share with everyone, too. Hopefully tomorrow or the next day. (Last minute much, Elizabeth?)

phew.

The big visit was wonderful and I was just pooped yesterday. Sightseeing, museums, waterfront, tea drinking, yarn oggling, of and of course, tons of food.

So it's back to my regularly scheduled programming today. Laundry, dishes and all sorts of everyday-ish things. Except of course developing those cemetery photos for a swap, roasting some pumpkins to make the house smell wonderfull and fall-ish. Maybe a nice walk in this cool air?



Everyday-ish doesn't have to be boring-ish. And I have to make this my new computer wallpaper. This guy's smile-lines just get me right there in my Halloween bone. And he looks like he forgot to put his dentures in. Which is always funny...

Happy Halloween all!

autumn line

I took down the regular frame and hung an autumn line instead. Tada!

We can't really have a nature table yet, because my guys still like to identify by taste, but I thought this was a nice alternative. Until then, I can drool at flickr.

I always admire everyone's inspiration boards. So we have photos of last Halloween, fabric, berries, feathers. It's like someone emptied a little boy's pockets onto my walls. I love it.

The colours are sneaking into my crafting.

It is my favourite season after all.

And because everything is cuter in miniature:

What's inspiring you today?

quirky, like I said.

We only stopped at two antique shops. One was amazing and one was the damn Twilight Zone.

The Twilight Zone was first and I didn't bring in my camera but it was really something.

The odd man at the positively buried front desk and the music that I was sure was from a record player set the tone first. The rooms were piled so high with mostly junk, but some were set up like overcrowded rooms in a regular home. In the furthest room, that held two completely set dining tables, and was sporting some of the oldest curtains I had ever seen, I was sure a ratty old lady was about to hobble out of a darker corner and offer me tea. Forget about the falling to pieces stuffed turkey that was perched between two rooms posed like it was ready to peck your eyes. Yuck.

Some thing was just off about the whole place, which was okay in a spooky, fun to be scared kind of way. But the more we looked, the creepier it got. There was a distinct feeling of being watched and I convinced Paul to leave.

The Second was Tinker's Barn which has to be the nicest, cleanest, best organized shop I have ever been into. I wanted half of the place. The other half was things I realized I already had at home.

Okay, enough of my babble, here's the photos...

The beautiful porch.

Aprons.

Rolling pins!

Hankies and hotpads.

There was an entire table of pink.

Sparklies.

The Cow Chorus. (okay, creamers.)

I had seen the same highchair earlier at the Applefest.

Look at this adorable play kitchen! It as tiny, only about eighteen inches tall and had a matching refrigerator. My mean husband wouldn't let me have it, haha.

The babydoll cabinet. Too sweet.

Okay, I told you I wanted everything there. These are less than half of the shots I took. It was terrible to have to narrow them down to just a few. I think I'll have to make a flickr set for the whole she-bang.

***** UPDATE:

I made the flickr set to hold all the thrifty things

that I cannot have......haha!

here! *****

back to reality now

We're back from our much-deserved anniversary trip and my camera says I took two hundred and fifty four photos in less than three days. Can that possibly be normal?

Here's just a few of the gorgeous foliage we saw.

Off an exit we took by accident.

Stowe.

Quaker Cemetery in Grand Isle, I believe

Same cemetery.

We went to an AppleFest, visited some very, um, quirky antique stops, and indulged in some meals that are making my mouth water a second time just thinking about them.

Tons more photos this week.

Happy controversial holiday to you. (Hey, it's a day off.)

flowery

In the mess that is rearranging the house I decided that I needed some new autumn-y decorations. After walking around the craft store forever I couldn't find anything I liked except a spray of white-ish roses. SO I made a wreath. It took a ton more than I expected but it's nice and full. And I got some cute little green acorns too.

It's the closest to crafty I have for today.

I still have to make my tomato-zucchini soup for Jessica's SoupSwap. I love soup season. And SoupSwap is fun to say. Go check it out.