Newest crop....I almost put newest "CRAP"

Been harvesting more pumpkins and haven't got sick of making them yet...yes, hubby asked me that....bah.

Gettin creepy

I have noticed that Halloween decorations have definately taken a real turn towards

"CREEPY". Gone are the cutesy little decorations and out come the spider webs and ghoulish thingys.

So, I am hopping on the haywagon and got going with some black lace and pumpkins...turned out so fun. Pretty mad though when I couldn't find a SINGLE BLACK CROW in this town. So what does one crafter do when there are none?

MAKE YOUR OWN outta stuff that you have on hand....bah!

And I was able to finish my "creepy guy on a bike" this year....pretty happy about that-

Well, onto the creepiness of my dirty kitchen....

Spooky time

Here are a pair of needle-felted charachters that are headed to my entryway display tomorrow!

Just Getting started....

Here are a "few" of my pumpkins that are off-white and fit for my piano room. I made the far left one with a bit of spray paint and antiquing gel. The large middle one is covered with cheesecloth and spray paint and fimo hand carved leaves...the others are my velvet ones that are really sprouting up around here.

The fallish ones come later....

Pumpkin HARVESTING....

Okay,

This is a girl that loves to shop for fabric. Something about walking into a fabric store just gets my blood pumping. There is a special smell and aura of the fabric.....it calls to me. And the fact that I have been sewing for many years and I never get tired of it. (Of course, let's not go into the closet of "sewing projects" bought for and never finished.)

But when it is fall, I love to gather fabrics for my velvet pumpkins and well anything else I can gather and glue....love it. Here are a few of the lovelies I have been "gathering".

And Saturday night I found the coolest black fabric that is all nubby and wonderful....hmmm.

Sneaking a stroke here and there....

All summer I have had a painting working in my head.

After all the float stuff cleared out, there was finally room in the working space....

and the working space is in my head.

Has to all be worked out there before the pencil work even begins.

Especially when the medium is watercolor, there has to be a plan.

But it is addictive when I get it started. I don't want to do anything else...

I suspect that is what passion for something is all about?

(of course, who wouldn't want out of dishes, laundry and housework in general?)

Once I get going with the paint and water right on the paper, I LOVE LOVE LOVE it and then I HATE,HATE, it. Why? Because it is the excellence endeavor inside of me, that wants it to match up to the painting in my head....

This is the "So FAR" work....I will keep you posted....

BABY SHOWER FUN

It was a fabulous evening for celebrating...and it seems like the most wonderful reason to hold a party!!
Alicia is having a baby! But beings we didn't know what it was for another week...we did black and white with muted yellow for our colors....it was so fun.

I had seen some little onsies made from dinner napkins and so I fashioned my own. Yes, these are made from dinner napkins backed with card stock. Talk about fun...I ran out of time instead of ideas. Just napkins and a little hot glue....

Made it myself...

Anyone that knows me knows that I love feminine things...so the fashion ruffle movement is really a great thing. If I could get away with it, I would wear them everyday....just love em.

So, I saw this pretty red sweater in a catalog and logged onto get mine....ah, ALL SOLD OUT. So I went to their local store...NONE. Went to another...NONE...not one red one, plenty of green...

But I didn't want GREEN ONE....I wanted a RED ONE....ah. It is alot of work being a fashionista wannabee....

So I marched right into Target and got myself a P L A I N red sweater and strolled right over to the red matching t shirts and got one of them too. (I even bought a size SM which I have NEVER DONE). And the total price was still 10 bucks below the price of the phantom red sweater in the afore paragraph.

Then I came home and cut that t-shirt right up and stitched it on....

I sewed 3 different sized petals on with triangle stitch patterns. I wanted a rose look.

And I think it turned out pretty darn cute...take that catalog, take that stores all over with NO RED sweaters! I WIN.

Sneaky Time

Oh, how sick I am of foam and glitter and floats...
So, when I got a free minute I snuck down to my studio and made a real mess.
It was WAY FUN...
Made this.
Of course, after I finished, I could think of many ways to make different versions...
stay posted!!

70 and counting...No that's it.

Our Farming Corporation is holding their meetings this week in SLC. There are employees from all over the world coming. This year they invited their spouses to accompany them and I decided I wanted to make a small appreciation token for them. I thought there would be oh, 35-40. Last count...70! RIGHT!

So, I heated up my trusty glue gun and went to work. With TNT and PBS reruns, I got them done with time to spare.

THe real bummer in this project? Didn't EVEN dent my fabric stash.

Cow Bizness

I have had it with the foam stuff...here is the cow.

The before was really awesome...but I had to take matters into my own hands.....

See those "handles"? Uh, there are too many....this cowgirl couldn't do it...no sir. I had to perform a radial mastecomy..... I felt much better.

And take a look at that hip...the black markings have a special code.

If you know what year the "saints came marching in"....you will get it.

Now onto the "heads".

When in "ROME"

Okay, yeah so this was supposed to be the place for fun and frippery, wonderful and whimsical, creative and crafty-you get my drift. So I was recently called to be on the "float committee". For those of you in the west....you will know what THAT means. For others it will seem pretty uh, strange. I WISH rootbeer and ice-cream were involved but....fail.

SO, my moments of the above fun and frippery...etc. have been shelved for now. I am a "foam artist" and that is really stretching it. Basically it means that I get a call from"Dave" and I go over and pick up my assignment. It involves big blocks of styrofoam and plywood glued together in shapes and that's where I come in.Then I come home and shave with my electric knife and smooth and carve and swear a bit...

I went to the 3 dollar fabric store and found this velvety fabric for uh,,,,3 dollars a yard. And the snipping and hotgluing began...and MANY hours later...there they are...all ready for their infamous ride down STATE STREET....

I am afraid that they look at bit like they have been drinking "moonshine" or something...but there is no time for sobering up... I am carving the cow tomorrow!

Hanky t-shirt

I found this idea in my "Country Living" magazine so I sent away to

get some vintage hankies. Etsy is such a great source for supplies.

When I got my confirmation.....uh the seller told me it would take awhile

to get to me...since it was coming from

CHINA...

Yup, it was nearly 3 weeks of travel to make it my house.

And another 3 or 4 weeks until I could get to it....

anyway, it was super easy and fun to wear.

Between Dentist vists......

Can't seem to get flowers outta my head....here are a couple of new things that I've been working on....

fun little flowers on my bracelet...also saw these shoes at on Dillards site.... Such a fun, springy trend...for us flower lovers.

I also had a convo (that's etsy talk for conversation) with a new friend in Georgia, that bought one of my little red-haired girl prints and wanted another one with her own little dog included.

It has been really fun to do....

now onto the painting part. (Stupid dentist....)

CUTENESS

Here is a cute idea I came across while glogging at blogs....

Pretty simple and cute and makes me rethink ANY

little scraps of fabric I might think of tossing!!!

So here is my first tutorial....how to make these cute-easy, flowers.

Get out your scraps of cotton, silk or cotton poly prints.

and then tear them into 1 1/2" to 1 inch strips of varying lengths.

Cut out a few circles of your spare felt, in a neutral color. Do several different sizes no larger than 1 1/2" in diameter.

Heat up the ole glue gun and then take your first strip and tie a knot in the end. No fancy smancy...just a good old knot.

Pull it to the end of the strip and then glue it in the center of the felt circle. Smash it down. This is the center of the flower.

Now just roll the fabric into a tube and twist it as you glue around the center...

Continue this process, twisting and glueing all the way around trying to get the right side of the fabric to show.

When you have filled the whole felt, clip off the end and glue the tail behind on the back.

Aren't they just cute? I then just grabbed a spare dollar store headband and hot glued them right on molding them just a bit to curve over the band so they don't stick up.

Then I found my cutest girl to model them for me....cute huh???