Saturday, October 31, 2009

Friday, October 30, 2009

Scrumptous


Look what I bought yesterday . . .


Doesn't it all look so luscious?



Can you guess what all this yummy fabric is going to become?



Early Birthday Wishes



I wanted to send out some early birthday wishes to Son No. 2's girlfriend. Her birthday is tomorrow . . . 10/31 . . . Halloween! How cool is that?! Well, I think it's cool. I'd love to have my birthday fall on a cool holiday like Halloween, Christmas or New's Years Day (oh, I'm sure as a kid a C'mas birthday might stink, but I would think as a grown up it could be kinda neat). In fact, my birthday's April 1st . . . yes, I'm an April Fool's baby. Not as much fun as kid, as you might imagine.

Anyway, Son and Girlfriend have been together . . . well, not sure exactly - a while. Kids these days (don't you love that expression!? makes a person sound so incredibly old.) have a whole different time-line and lingo about their relationships than we did. Anyway, they're a sweet couple. We love when she visits. She just lights up the house with her silly giggle and her downright "cuteness". For me, especially, it's nice having another female in a house full of men!



Now, you think someone born on Halloween, who actually acknowledges the holiday, would have been totally into the whole Halloween experience growing up. This poor, deprived child had never carved a pumpkin. Ever! "How can that be?", I exclaimed. Well, I knew for sure I had to fix that. When I bought pumpkins a while back, I bought a few extra so she would have at least one to carve.


Isn't she a cutie-pie?!

Seems she enjoyed carving her pumpkin here so much, they got together at her house and carved some more. They turned out fabulous! Masterpieces!


Happy 19th Birthday, Shannon!!! Hope you have a great time celebrating your Special Day! XOXO

She and Son are going out dressed as Goldilocks and one of the bears - the big Papa Bear presumably. You see, Son is 6'-3" and she's 4'-11". How cute is that?! I'll definitely share pics!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Not Your Ordinary Pumpkins

I'm big on seasonal decorating. Tweaking my decor to reflect the seasons, holidays. Adding a few - okay A LOT! - seasonal accents that do nothing but make me happy when I pass by them daily.

I love how creative people can be, changing and altering seasonal items to better coordinate with their decor. Seems, for me anyway, Thanksgiving is almost totally forgotten. At least in terms of decorating. I go way out for Halloween, and totally all out for Christmas . . . not so much for Thanksgiving.

I love how a few of the ladies whose blogs I frequent have spruced up their ordinary, store-bought faux pumpkins, or created pumpkins using beautiful, rich fabrics and trims, paints, etc. Makes me want to run to the fabric store and purchase some decadent velvets or luscious silks and brocades to create my own luxurious pumpkin patch.

Below, Heather Bullard created these beautiful pumpkins from a purchased kit sold at Olive Juice & Co. Boutique (darn, no longer available!). Aren't they lovely!?

More gorgeous pumpkin creations over at House of Whimsy.


Sarah, at Thrifty Decor Chick, enlisted the help of her spray paint and glaze to give her pumpkins a metallic makeover. Adding some glitter really spruces up ordinary, inexpensive gourds as well.



Spray paint and glaze . . . sure, that's easy. How 'bout adding some twine for added dimension. Who wudda thunk it? Well, the girls at Shanty 2 Chic, that's who!

Even Martha shows her version of the fantabulous fabric pumpkin in the November Issue of Martha Stewart Living.


And lastly, my humble version of the fabric pumpkin. Now, mind you, I made these . . . oh, 10/12 years ago . . . when I was doing craft fairs. This was when I was in more of country/ primitive phase. I must of made a bushel of these to sell - and sold tons! As you can see, I have a few left.


Based on all the beauties I've been seeing all over the net and blogdom, I think my little pumpkins might need a makeover for a more elegant Thanksgiving display.

Monday, October 26, 2009

What!? No DWTS!



Sorry, I have to rant. My ABC affiliate out of Philadelphia has pre-empted Dancing with the Stars to broadcast the Eagles/Steelers game. What the heck!!!! The kicker is the game is also being broadcast on ESPN. So, if you're a football/Eagles fan living within the Philadelphia viewing area, you have a choice of two networks to watch your game. If you're a DWTS fan in the area . . . well, tough luck.

Mya is my favorite right now.

Can I tell you how incredibly angry and disappointed I am. This is one of my fave shows on TV. I made sure I got all my chores done today, got on the treadmill early, fixed dinner and cleaned up quickly just so I could actually sit and watch the entire show without interruption.

Was disappointed to see Natalie gone so soon. She had high potential.

AND tonight's show is a double elimination. Oh, no worries though, my ABC channel will air the show right after the game, the nightly news and the late-night talk show . . . AT 2:00 A.M. TOMORROW!!!

I really like Mark, too.

Or, I can wait and watch tonight's episode on ABC's website tomorrow. Guess I can use my originally planned television viewing time for something constructive . . . like . . . catching up on my ironing . . .

Donny's really good too, but he's just too much when he's not actually dancing. He needs to tone it down a bit when interacting with the judges and others on the show.

A Tribute


Okay . . . so, my plan for today's post was to share some pics of our super-fun, grown-up costume party this past Saturday night. Instead, I've had to switch gears and come up with something else.

Let me explain . . . When hosting any kind of event/party, what's one of your biggest fears - natural disaster, death, running out of wine . . . or . . . how 'bout a power outage? Yes. Literally minutes before our guests dressed in their most creative creations were to arrive, the lights began to flicker and dim, buzz, than gone. Nothing. Darkness. Well, almost darkness. Bad enough we were having a torrential downpour outside - but no power as well! Needless to say, I had quite a few candles burning, but nothing that would illuminate the house enough to host a soiree with 16 of our closest friends. I had to scramble, pulling out every candle and tea light that I owned. Than . . . blasted! My long lighter ran out of fluid. Thank goodness Mary, our neighbor and good friend who was on her way over, called to see if I had enough candles. She brought her lighter, which might have been a scary thing since she was coming as The Scarecrow! Luckily, I had the chafing dishes already going keeping the food warm, and we had the chargeable Ipod player with tunes. So, all the extra candle light really just added to the ambiance of the "spooky evening".

Unfortunately, it didn't work out so well for getting pictures. You see, I have a pretty decent camera (Sony Cyber-Shot), but I'm limited with it's capabilities. Not to mention I really . . . well, putting it bluntly . . . suck at snapping pics! So, with all the darkness and having to use the flash, most of the pictures turned out washed-out and pale.

After 2-1/2 hours, the power was restored along with cheers - mainly from the girls - and the festivities continued on without skipping a beat. By that time however, I was more focused on mingling and having a fun with my bestest friends and kind of forgot about the camera.

So, I have decided to do a little tribute to a member of our family we lost suddenly this past February. Coco, our sweet Boxer. Those of you that know dogs, know what wonderful, gentle, playful dogs Boxers can be. She was the best. You know how they say when you go to get a dog, let the dog "pick" you. Well, she truly did. When we went to the breeder to pick a pup, she was one of two left. She was tiny. Half the size of her last remaining sister. She came up to Son No. 3 and nuzzled right in. It was a quick choice.




She stayed small. Never any more than around 52 pounds. That was fine by me. I never wanted a monstrously big dog running around our not-so-big house. After her death, we wondered if she was always so small because of an unrealized medical condition. She always seemed healthy. Always received good reports at her regular vet visits. But, she was always so small, and would get winded when we'd let her run outside.



One afternoon this past February, exactly a week before her fifth birthday, Coco was outside playing in a newly fallen snow with Son No. 3. She was running around him playing "catch me if you can" like she always used to do. I was standing at the door watching them having so much fun. Suddenly she went down right in front of Son. I'd thought she'd slipped in the wet snow. She didn't get back up. A little quick convulsion told me something was not right. I yelled for Son to check her as I ran out the door. I scooped her up and carried her in the house. There was no breathing, and just a faint heart beat. Within minutes, she was gone. It was so surreal. She was fine not 10 minutes prior. Standing at the door, waiting for Son to walk home from the bus stop, eager to get out there and run around in the snow.

Without doing an autopsy, it was speculated she died from cardiomyopathy. We found out that heart condition claims the lives of Boxers more than any other breed. Maybe her small size was because of the this congenital heart ailment that was never detected. Needless to say, her death hit our family hard - espcially hubby. She was his "girl". Coco received greetings from him upon his return home from work before I would! It was just too soon to loose her. Thinking about her now, it seems way less than the five years she was with us.

She's still with us in spirit, though. We had her cremated, and her ashes are in a beautifully carved box on our family room bookshelf along with her favorite toy, a puppy snapshot and a clay model that Son No. 3 made of her after she passed.

The boys are ready for another dog, but Hubby can't get around the idea. He says no pup would be as good as Coco, and he just can't bear the inevitable heartbreak of loosing another beloved pet. Maybe he just needs more time.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Easy . . . And Quick! . . . Candle Makeover



Wanted to share this quickie candle project with you. I snagged these candles at the Dollar Tree - love the Dollar Tree!. They were . . . yes . . . a dollar a piece. They are like those tall, religious candles, only they're just 3 inches tall.

I printed out some scary, spooky words using my absolutely fave font for this time of year, "A Charming Font Expanded". Cut them to fit the height of the candle. Ran them through my Xyron, and slapped them on the candles.


Using this fun Martha Stewart "drippy" paper punch, I punched a line of drippiness out of black cardstock. Again, slapped that on the candle with glue. That's it! I plan to place these around all over the food table at our party Saturday night, and let each couple take one home at the end of the evening.




Oh, and I've totally ripped-off the framed 31 from Sarah, who ripped-it off from Chris. I printed out the 31 on some cute ghost paper using, again, my favorite font.


Funny . . . my husband saw it this morning and asked what the heck that meant. When I told him it was "you know . . . Halloween . . . it's on the 31st", he just rolled his eyes muttering something like "oh my gawd", and left for work! He doesn't exactly share my love of Halloween - not even a teeny tiny bit!


Thursday, October 22, 2009

Bizzzy, Bizzzy, Bizzzy . . .



That's what I'll be the next few days. We're hosting a small grown-up Halloween party Saturday night. Just a few close friends. We have the bestest group of friends. They're all sooo much fun! All the wives get along well and all the hubbies, too. Most of us all have boys close to the same ages that have played sports together for years. Also, Friday night is BUNCO!!! night for us ladies . . . pretty much the same gals that will be at the party Saturday.

I couldn't bear to rip my summer geraniums out of the boxes . . . they were still going. So, I just tucked little pots of mums in some of the spaces where less-fortunate flowers used to be.

A little vignette by the garage doors. Doesn't the electric meter make a nice addition to my fall display? Oye!!! Not much we can do to move or camouflage that thing. The meter man drives up and literally reads it from his car. I'm sure if I covered it all together, he'd get a little miffed to have to get out of the car, make the six foot walk to see it!

I hope to post some pics next week of the festivities. In the meantime here are some snaps of my outside scary - well, guess it's all not too scary - decor. I spent the better part of the day this past Monday out there. It was a gorgeous fall day.



Mmmm . . . note to self . . . stop talking about getting new door handles and DO IT!!!

My version of the Lowes black spider web. I think I might need some practice! LOL It looks better at night. Guess it was a decent effort.

One side of the porch . . .

. . . and the other. Thrifty Decor Chick, Sarah, would probably be cringing at this pic with the electric cords all hangin' about! I flatter myself . . . thinking that she even reads my blog! hehe


Some pics as night begins to fall.





Have great weekend, everyone! Hope you all have some kind of fun planned.

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