Did you pack these yourself?

Happy Thanksgiving!

In my last post, I promised to Halloween-ify the Holidays this year.  What was I thinking?

Thanksgiving snuck up like a pick-pocket.

I went through several ideas that just didn't stick.  How in the world does one make Thanksgiving more gruesome than Giblets and salmonella laced stuffing?

You take some home with you for food poisoning at your convenience, that's how!

So to help the preservation of gastrointestinal distress,  I made a little take home box just for you!

Just print, cut & enjoy!  There is even space on the side for your victim/loved one's name...

Contingency Plan:

To be honest I'm more than disappointed with myself.

I bit off more than I could chew.  I had plans for quite a few Halloween projects but then I decided to spend all my free time working overtime...

My crafting has seriously suffered.

It is time to regroup.  So where to?

In an attempt to focus I am going to Halloween-ify the Holidays this year.
Um, yes I did just make up a word.
And for you super sleuths- I will be using some of those projects that didn't get worked out in time for Halloween.

So here goes nothing.  Yup, I'm putting it out there.
Since I have no choice but to deliver now that I clued you into what I'm up to...I had better get to work on the Thanksgiving project.

How does stuffing from leftover Halloween candy sound?
 

And Now Ladies & Gentlemen...

So while the decor sets the mood for Halloween in all honesty the main attraction is the costumes!

We made the costumes for the most part in my family.  Now, I am all too happy to supplement with store bought pieces but it just feels like cheating to buy the whole thing.

No, there is no soapbox sermon on the sanctity of the do-it-yourself spirit of Halloween...thats just the fun of Halloween for me.

This is one of the first Halloween costumes I made myself.  I was Lydia from the Beetle Juice cartoon.

To be honest most people don't trick or treat all that long, but I've never been able to quit!  My costumes have just gotten more involved, like a pearl studded ruff and a medieval double henin.

So please buy good candy this year...I'll be by.

The Porch

Halloween is the ultimate occasion for crafting.

The porch was my very own Macy's window to design for the month of October.  The walls were covered with black plastic.

Our blow-up skeleton was dressed as an old pirate and propped up on the porch swing.  He was granted an empty 2-liter that I labeled with the notorious Triple X poison insignia to swig on.  Mom handled the spider-webs due to my apparent height challenge.

My sister would be talked into blowing up a bulbous vinyl bat.  She does not share my affinity for Halloween....especially when it comes to skeletons...but even she gets into the spirit.

It wasn't professional and it wasn't perfect, but October has been ours to design.

Once I'm done...I'll find it...

I always seem to run into the obstacle during my projects that the very thing that I want or need to complete my idea seems impossible to find.

Take for instance the baby wreath I'm currently working on: I am trying to find a little cat stuffed animal.  Think Beenie-baby size.  I don't even care about the color.

How naive to think that was possible!  They do NOT exist.  Walmart, Target, Goodwill, ToysRUs.  Nope, nada, niet.

Sure there are stuffed cats but none of them are simple.  I found stuffed toys larger than myself, cats smaller than my pinkie, even some that sing and light up.  Not what I need.

But this is nothing new.  This has always been an element of my projects and, to be fair, sometimes my compromises create a better outcome.

Exhibit A:
My Dorothy costume

Waaaaaaaay back when this picture was taken, there weren't red sparkly shoes available.  So my Mom and I made some.   We took an old pair of dress shoes, sprayed them red and once that dried, dabbed on some white glue and covered that with red glitter.  I promise you, Dorothy Gale's shoes weren't as nice as mine!

Now I swear they show up every October...

But I really wouldn't have appreciated my costume as much if my Mom would have just bought the shoes.

So while I hope that I don't have to sew my own cat toy, I may think of something better by the time I'm done.

It starts young...Update...

Ha, Ha!  I found it!

There is the 'Horse Shoe Toss' booth complete with cardboard horse-shoes, billows & damaged wagon wheels.

'Well crafted' Mom!

P.S. -
My Mom thinks I'm crazy for posting this!

It starts young

Seeing as how today the temperature dropped a merciful 2 degrees I find myself daydreaming about one of my earliest craft memories.

Picture if you will an early October day.  My family is heading to school, on a Saturday.  The parents are busy on a committee.  They're planning the school Carnival and everyone is there to help, kids too.

On the way my sister and I score a happy meal.  The usual colorful box has been festively replaced with an orange pumpkin grinning at the chance to show off it's insides...which happened to be a blissfully greasy kids' meal.

In my third grade sized world the school Carnival was only third to Christmas and Summer vacation.  I was excited to be a part of the commotion.  The fun has always been being a part of the buzz of getting ready.  I still feel that way, I'm better at setting the party up than being a guest.  The fun is in figuring it all out and making things work with whatever you have on hand followed by the pride of making that last minute Hail-Mary pass the actual thing everyone liked the most.

Each class had to help with a booth and each booth was a certain game: the ping-pong ball toss, speed throw and face-painting.  The booths were simple wooden frames, the walls were made of heavy-duty paper and each was decorated colorfully.

That year my class had the horse shoe toss booth. I helped my Mom as she painted two horses looking back as if whomever was tossing the horse-shoes was in the stable.  The stable 'doors' created the toss line.  The whole Carnival was a massive creative effort.  

It was magical watching strings of bare-bulb lights and bunches of balloons transform our school parking lot.  The idea that you could make almost anything work with a screw gun, duct tape, acrylic paint and imagination became a part of my very being in those afternoons.

So as fall flirts with its real arrival I'm reminded I should keep that glue gun handy.