Jack - O - Lanterns

Saturday night was spent elbow deep in guts. It was a blast. Here's the pictures.

4 big Pumpkins, and two pumpkin carving kits

Buggy pumpkin climbing

I was attempting to roll out the plastic table cloth on the floor but she kept grabbing it and rolling up, so we had to tape it to the floor.... Boo Tape marks on the hardwood :'-(

"Nothing like the smell of Mutant Pumpkin guts in the morning" - General W. R. Monger, Monsters VS Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins From Outer Space

Watching Igor and scooping guts.

I was almost positive we would be taking a little finger to the hospital in a ziploc baggy.

I'm working on Annalilia's pumpkin

Dan was Really Ambitious! Can you tell he's a Fallout geek?

Sophia's pumpkin

Mine too, can you see my owl design?

Add caption

Daniel is cutting outlines

and chiseling away at his pumpkin

Thank Goodness for dollar store table cloths

hours later and Daniel is still at it.

Ey oh!

Sophia's Mustache Boy 2.0

Thanks for Checking out our pumpkins, we had lots of fun, and it looks pretty Darn good if I say so Myself.

****EDIT, My cousin Asked for the picture Daniel used to make his Fallout 'Vault boy' with. He used this picture, the Black lines were left skin, and the rest was dug down in the pumpkin, 1/8" for the darker parts, pants, sweater and face. 1/4" for the lighter parts. He went right through for the mouth. It looks fantastic, but took 3-4 hours to do. We suggest using an exacto knife, the kitchen knife just didn't cut it ;-D. Melissa and Cameron, we want to see pictures of how it turns out!****

Paper Pumpkins

I'm not "all about Halloween" but I want it to be fun for the girls so I decided that Sophia and I would decorate a bit. The goal was to spend $0 and have Sophia fully involved. We traced the lid from our animal Crackers bin and Sophia and I cut out Orange circles for our pumpkins, Next we cut little stems and faces out of Green and black, and start sticking them on. we used double sided tape because I couldn't find the glue stick. Sophia got pretty inventive with some of her pumpkin faces, and named them all.

Princess Larvie:    I cut most of the features since Sophia cut her black paper into long thin strips

Ava

Ifem, but I call him Emo

Fraoma, she has a mustache

Ima, the Girlfriend and Mustache boy, the boyfriend. They have legs so they can walk, and go on a date.
Sophia made Mustache boy all by herself, he's my favourite!.

Fazha - he must be dutch, das is veird yah?

Aisha

Aiia

We rolled out a ribbon and stapled the pumpkin on, hiding  them behind Eyes.

All strung up.
If you make some paper crafts send me pictures and let me know how it goes, I love Ideas.

Pumpkin Cookies

  I got the recipe for these here,   I took Allison's recipe and tweaked it a bit to suit my tastes. If you have a stand mixer than go ahead and follow her instructions, since I only have a hand mixer (Christmas Wish List! but what colour? Blue? Boysenberry? Cornflower blue? Ice blue? Blue Willow?) I had to change the instructions. Here's my revised version



Pumpkin Cookies:
1 Cup Shortening
3 Cups Sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 large can pumpkin
5 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Instructions:

Cream the shortening and sugar, beat in eggs and Vanilla. Add the can of pumpkin.
In a separate bowl sift together the dry ingredients making sure they're well mixed.
Mix in Flour, stirring until just incorporated. Scoop Tablespoon sized portions onto cookie sheet and Bake @350 for 10-14 (14min on my Pampered chef stoneware and 11min on non stick pan) This makes about 4 dozen cookies

Cream Cheese frosting:
8oz Cream cheese (I used the low fat and it tasted perfect!)
2Tbsp Butter
1 1/2 C icing sugar
1tsp Vanilla extract

1/4tsp Almond extract


 After the cookies cooled we smeared on the frosting and sprinkled with Halloween coloured decorators sugar. The girls adore them, and I took a tub to work and they got inhaled

Table cloth to princess gown

Sneak peak; Well I have to save something for a Halloween post!

What does Sophia want to be for Halloween? Why a princess of course! So We looked at several stores, I really didn't want to spend $30 or $40 on a Disney princess dress. Oh brother, Disney princesses. You'll see 100 Belles, and Cinderellas, and Auroras, and... well I could keep going and name them all since I have a 3 year old girlie girl. I'll be nice and spare you ;-).I had made Sophia this Tutu a little while ago and put it away for Halloween, But a tutu? For a princess it just didn't seem right, I need a gown, a big twirly dress. Sophia said she wanted a white dress (weird right? I 100% expected Pink!)

 So instead of buying fabric I ran down into my dungeon and found this.... Ahhh My clearance table cloth. I had snagged the last three of these at Extra Foods before my wedding thinking I'd use them. But I didn't. Did you see the price? How could I resist. And believe it or not, I paid 50% of the clearance price, You got it I paid $1.42 for this beaut. Two of them made their way home with my Mom since I don't have a 90" long table. The other one has sat around for 2 1/2 years waiting to be used for something. The game plan, to make a dress and use the tutu as a crinolin. Completed with some cheap princess accesories and voila!

I used a dress of Sophia's to roughly estimate the top. Remember to leave room for seams, and for growth. Plus there's a good posibility that Sophia will have to wear a winter jacket under this dress.

I cut them out and for the front piece I added an interesting neckline, and the back I cut down the middle, so I can add velcro and have an adjustable opening

Then I folded in the neckline and sewed it in. I should have used bias tape, but I didn't want to go to the store, and Hey, it's just a halloween costume!

I sewed the straps together, and the two back pieces (Remeber I cut it in half) to the armpit of the front piece

For the skirt I wanted a good 'twirl' so I decided to make a circle skirt. I cut a large circle by folding the table cloth into triangles and rounding the edges. I made the waist opening about 2x bigger than needed so I could gather it and make it poufy.

Then I folded in the edges and sewed, I found it easiest to just fold as I went. Since this is just a costume I didn't worry too much about the finish of it. If I were making a 'real' dress I would iron and pin. But I prefer to wing it.

I sewed a bast stitch (largest stitch on the machine) and pulled the back thread carefully to gather it up and make the waist on the skirt the same size as the waist on the top.

Pin and sew the top to the gathered skirt










try it on for size. Not too bad, It's big enough to layer underneath!

I cut two strips that were about 4" wide and long enough to attach to the armhole plus 2"








Pin the arm to the armhole (make sure right sides are facing!) I did two pleats on the top of the arm (hence the extra 2" that I added)







try on model to check out fit. Looks great!

I sewed some velcro to the back, If this was a 'for real' dress It would be great to have snaps or buttons back here.







Check it out. It's cute but still a bit plain looking, Time for some toule accents on the arms to match the crinolin/ tutu, and accessories















There, Long white gloves, pearl necklace, also a tiara and Wand. Stay tuned for the Halloween pictures.

Thanks for checking it out. I adore comments and if you try a dress like this please send me pictures!