A Halloween Test Run

I cannot sew.
I have only enough knowledge to get myself into trouble.
Yet, every year, I find myself thinking that I am invincible and I CAN make that pretty princess costume or (dear god) a fuzzy eyeball!
I just finished Julia's costume for this year, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.
Yes, I know I could have bought her a costume. There were tons of them at Walmart, Target and Party City, but NO!
They were not good enough. They were too shiny. They were too tacky.
So I bought a pattern, hunted down just the right gingham, dragged the sewing machine out of it's hiding place, read the Greek that they call a pattern, ignored some of it, and made my own.

It's not perfect. I faked the buttonholes. But, it is done!! and that is all that matters.

No Dorothy costume is complete without Toto and a pair of ruby slippers!

Hey! I decided to link this post up to Amylouwho's Sew and Tell Fridays, my first one!
Maybe I'll get those bathroom curtains done in time for next weeks entry.
Miracles have been known to happen.

Ghosts of costumes past

Sewing this years costumes made me think about the many costumes that we have put together over the years.
In 2003 our costumes were not for Halloween, but for the "State Dinner" that we attended at Fray's house.

Kevin the emperor of Kevtasia.
(That is juice in his glass!)

Julia, Princess of Pinkbiana
I amazed myself by doing an overlay of lace and putting in a zipper.
I still don't know how I did that!

Quincy, Empress of Palais du Rose
The strands of pearls were hand sewn by my very wonderful friend, K.

Grant, the Emperor of Grantland.
His costume was put together out of old ladies jackets, a table cloth and a sailor hat that K turned into an amazing work of art befitting an Emperor.


2004
Our church had a Halloween Halle-zoo-jah!
The kids were to dress like zoo animals, so we ventured into face painting and made a...

Giraffe
That poncho top got much wear after Halloween. I love a costume that is usable in real life.
I love the way we did her hair to make the little knobby things that giraffes have on their heads.
What are they anyway?

A lion... I love an easy costume!

A paint horse (although many people thought she was a cow.)

And, the Crocodile Hunter! Easy peasy!

2005

A cowgirl, a fairy, Darth Vader and a gentleman ghost.
The ghost was simply a window sheer with a fake mustache and hat. He saw fairly well through the sheer when he was inside, but it was more difficult in the dark. So the girls ended up escorting both, the ghost and darth vader up and down steps and over any tricky obstacles. I think they did pretty well, since no one got hurt.

2006

Julia recycled the princess dress for a party, but on Halloween night she was a hula girl.

We had a theme... A Hawaiian tourist, a monkey on vacation, a hula girl and...
Abraham Lincoln.
Little known fact... Abe Lincoln loved the tropics!

2007

A mime

A vampire
I love the spiders in her hair.

And.... the costume that truly threw me for a loop...

A fuzzy eyeball!
Kid's like Grant really know how to stretch mom's imagination and sewing skills. :)
We still have it in his room acting as a beanbag.

And finally,
2008

A monarch butterfly...
another easy costume, yay!

A leprechaun.
Grant planned this costume months in advance.
This one took a little searching for just the right things, but we found a ladies green suit jacket at the thrift shop. I cut the front panels so that it looked like he had tails and added some gold trim around the edges. The beard was a ZZtop beard that we trimmed down. We rolled up the brown pants and glued some gold medals to piece of cardboard to make his pot of gold.

Quincy made her own zombie costume. No work for mom!

Wow... that was a lot of words, but I had some fun going down memory lane and I hope you did too.

A Fall-ish weekend

We spent the last couple of days doing all sorts of fun Fall things.

Getting lost in a corn maze...

Going on a hayride...

Picking out great pumpkins...

Or not so great ones... (Grant sees the beauty in the ugly ones.)

Carving our pumpkins....

Playing in the pumpkin guts...

And being spooked by the creepy jack o lanterns.

I'm a good wife....

...and I have the pictures to prove it!

Homemade Laundry Soap

***Why didn't I post this? It looks done to me. Oh, well... better late than never.***

The laundry products that I've been using for the last ohhhhh... many years have been the more natural, phosphate free, more expensive types, but all that saving the earth has been a little rough on the wallet. So, when I was in Costco recently, I decided to try their "environmentally friendly" Kirkland brand detergent. It came in the usual Costco-sized, ginormous container, but the cost per load was far lower than what I had been spending. However, I didn't like the way it gummed up the measuring cups and wondered what it was doing to the inside of my high efficiency washing machine. So I finally decided to give making my own laundry detergent a try. It was fun, easy and (best of all ) CHEAP!

West Virginia 1

These split posts are the result of my messing around with blogging from picasa. I'm figuring it out.

Anyhow... here are a few pictures from our weekend in WV.

We took the kids hiking up Seneca Rocks and went to the church's chili cook-off.