Patio Contest

We didn't win. After driving around the parking lot and seeing what other patios looked like, we were fine with it. Not only were we missing the requisite spider webbing, but we didn't create our own graveyard outside the fence or replicate our favorite haunted house. Nor did we have a giant inflatable witch-kitten cuddling a pumpkin. Really, how were we to compete?

But we did get a "Thanks for participating" bag with an already-activated glow stick, a pencil with candy corn printed on it, and some generic candy in it. So, you know, it all works out.

Things We've Been Up To Lately

As Halloween and The Boy's birth roll nearer, we're finding ourselves up to our necks in creativity around here. I'm allowing my nesting instinct nearly free reign and the kids have really enjoyed our Art Project Fridays--so much so that they cheer when I tell them it's Friday. Which reminds me--I need to get some prep work done for this Friday, which means cleaning up my "creativity corner", a.k.a. my overflowing sewing/crafting area. I have GOT to find a solution for that corner's organization. But that's another post for another day.


Anyway, I was whining in the Wishing for Beauty post that I didn't have any artwork on my walls. So I fixed it.

The brown poster is a quote from Enya's "Only Time"--made it last week--and the posters below it I made a few years ago. They actually coordinate pretty well and I like how they hang in my sewing area. Clutter Corner. Whatever I decide to call it.

This is a collage I put together a few months back. I had these fall tree prints that I liked, but didn't *love*, so I recombined them into something I liked, then added my favorite J. Kirk Richards print. Someday I'm going to have a large print of that painting to hang over my fireplace, but for now this will do. I love how the colors worked out. I know the flowers block it, but it says "eden" in the upper left corner.

Also, I've been growing a human. Here's a picture from a couple of weeks ago:

Here's a picture from last Sunday. My mother-in-law swears I look much bigger. Perhaps. I did pass the 36-week (9 month) mark on Monday:
All I know is that I'm getting continually pummeled from the inside and weigh about four more pounds. Mid-November needs to come a little more quickly. Maybe.




Back to Halloween fun! Our porch decorations are a combination of last night's family home evening efforts and my desire to get everything up in time for a contest today:
We did the fake jack o'lanterns last night, but it was too humid for the spray paint to be very effective, so I gave them a second coat this morning. There's Tinkerbell on the left--The Eldest's lantern--and Ariel on the right--Miss Bubbly's lantern. Mine are in the middle and spell BOO. We'll be putting fake candles in them tonight and hopefully the effect will be spooktacular. Ha ha ha. The kids were excited, though the adults decided that perhaps next year we'll carve artificial pumpkins for a better result.

Why no real pumpkins? They rot, they have slimy innards, and this year they cost more than the milk jugs and the spray paint put together. I think I'll call the theme of the porch "Simplify and Recycle." The only thing I purchased for the decor was one more leaf garland and the orange spray paint. Everything else I had on hand. Of course, that says more about how many fall/Halloween decorations I have than anything else.

The patio decorating contest should be judged today and the prizes are $300, $200, and $100 off rent. Otherwise, I don't think I would have gone to quite so much effort. I am nine months pregnant, you know!




Last Friday's art project was a cop-out--I let the girls color a lot of printed Halloween coloring pages with my colored pencils. They had fun anyway, of course. Two weeks ago, however, we made bat garlands with googly eyes. They thought the eyes were the best part. Here's Miss Bubbly hard at work, gluing eyes on or threading the yarn through her bat (I can't tell):

Here's Miss Bubbly's garland:
Notice how the bats and the grandparents are guarding the closet door:

And here's a section of The Eldest's bat garland:
They enjoyed the project and it was fairly simple to put together, so it was a win-win situation all around.




Finally, for your consideration, we have Miss Bubbly's favorite face to make:

I'll let you know how we did in the contest (I don't expect to win, really, since I don't have any spider webbing up and the other decorated patios seem to think that's a necessary element) and I'll post pictures of our trunk after Friday. Yep, there's a Trunk or Treat on Friday. Yay! I love Trunk or Treats. Halloween's just not the same without them.

Happy Halloween!

Miss Bubbly Says The Darnedest Things

I have other things to blog about, and I will get to them. Tomorrow. But I had to share an exchange with Miss Bubbly I just had.

Me: Hey Miss Bubbly! Did I tell you I got a shot at the doctor's office today?
(Miss Bubbly looks up from playing with The Eldest.)
Miss Bubbly: You did?
Me (pulling up my sleeve): Yep, a flu shot, just like you got.
Miss Bubbly: I want to see your bandaid!
Me: All I have is the boring grown up bandaid.
Miss Bubbly(touching my arm): Here's a fun grown up bandaid. It's NCIS!
Me: Thanks!

Sweet kid I've got there, huh? Also, I think they know I'm a fan of NCIS. Maybe.

Art Project Friday

Fridays have somehow evolved into an art project day. It works for me, as I usually have my own projects to pursue, and I often find inspiration at oneprettything.com (last week's project came from here--I should read this blog on a regular basis. I find her projects inspiring).

I spent Thursday evening cutting out some spooky silhouettes from black construction paper and putting off answers to the question "Momma, what are you doing?" I like making the project a surprise.

The next day, we painted our paper in sunset colors, then picked out the silhouettes we liked and put them on. Yes, the girls had some help with the arrangement of their silhouettes, but they did all the picking and the majority of the arranging. We'll be hanging our pictures on the back window as part of our patio decorating for Halloween.

The happy artists and their finished works. Mine is in the middle. Miss Bubbly's still wearing her giant painting shirt, also known as one of my old t-shirts.

The Eldest is rather pleased with how hers turned out. The lightning striking her "raven" was accidental, but it led to us shouting "Struck by lightning! Struck by lightning!" a few times that afternoon. For the quote's reference, you'll have to read The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Miss Bubbly insisted on giving me a goofy smile. Goofy kid. She's pretty pleased with her handiwork as well. I love that she chose to put the "raven" on the scarecrow's shoulder--that didn't occur to me.

My personal projects. I've been playing around with watered down acrylic paints and I wanted to see how things worked. I suppose I could just check a book out from the library, but experimenting is so much more fun! I also had some leftover polymer clay, so I decided to make some pendants. The unicorn ones are for the kids, the Celtic knots are for me, and the trees (they're supposed to be oaks--if you squint just right, they are) are for the sisters I visit teach. We really liked a quote from Elder Wirthlin in last month's visiting teaching message about being like oak trees, deeply rooted in the simple principles of the gospel.

This picture is for Abby. I wasn't able to open the boxes you sent right away. We picked them up from the post office right before the first session of Conference and they were immediately taken over by my industrious and insolent children.

I should also mention that I was reading some back entries dealing with Miss Bubbly's diabetes, etc., and realized that I never let on how my own glucose tests turned out. I passed the three-hour test--went pretty low, as a matter of fact--and they had me re-take the one-hour test at 28 weeks, which is when a pregnant woman is supposed to take it. Passed this time, no problem. So, no solidarity with Miss Bubbly, but also no gestational diabetes, which is good for me and The Boy.


I should be off now to actually pay attention to my children and ponder on the activities I have left for today, like folding and putting away the laundry. And practicing the piano for the hymns that I have to play in Relief Society. You can see why I decided to write a blog entry instead . . . .

Transforming a Plate--Halloween Decorating at My House Begins

So I love Halloween. I love fall in general, really, but I love Halloween. Anyway, the decorations at the top of our homeschooling/Church books/library bookshelves are all right, but the bamboo plate behind the bottle of potpourri was getting lost in the general wall color. So I decided to do something about it. I was inspired by the vintage pumpkin you can see here.

Here's the plate by itself:

We had too much brown paint left over from the fall tree paintings, so I painted a basketweave pattern on the plate, just to give it some color:

After deciding where the colors would go and tracing the image onto the plate and mixing colors and thinning them forEVer, I ended up with a reasonable replica of the cute vintage pumpkin:

Here's the inspiration piece that I printed out for comparison (and a section of my eight-month pregnant belly):

And here's the plate in its new home. I pulled the metal jack o'lantern forward from its hiding place to make the new vintage one feel a little less lonely.

And there you go.
Happy Halloween!

Getting Crafty with the Kids AKA Good Thing I'm Not All THAT Fond of My Dining Room Table

First off, thanks to you all for tolerating my braggy post. Sometimes I just have to share what I've done.

Also, Aunt L----- wanted to know what a crayon roll up looks like. Voila:

I found the pattern online--if you Google "crayon roll up" you'll get quite a few choices--and I was able to make it up in about an hour. Using felt for the front makes it pretty simple. I used a bandanna with that same pattern to make a crochet hook roll up.

Anyway, on to the painting with the children. I don't have enough brain cells at the moment to load the pictures in the correct order, but here's some we did just today--it's called Midnight Pictures and the idea can be found here.

These are Miss Bubbly's creations:

And The Eldest's (note the little girl and the cat--you may have to click to enlarge the picture):

What we did last week--fall paintings that involve blowing paint around. Idea here.
Miss Bubbly's creation:

The Eldest's fall trees:

Here's the whole row--I opted not to include myself in the picture because, well, it would have been difficult, to say the least. But mine's off to the left there.

The Eldest's tree before we pulled it off the table--the painter's tape made for a nice border around the picture:

Miss Bubbly's trees:

The kids LOVED painting, thus the two projects. We'll probably have to do it again next week too. It makes for a great reward for good behavior, though, and I guess I'd have to admit that I enjoy it too. We'll be doing Halloween silhouettes in the next couple of weeks--keep an eye out!