Halloween Plaques

I want to start this post by mentioning Pick Your Plum.  It's a website that features fantastic one day deals on crafty items.  They feature one item per day with a steep discount.  They have limited stock each day and often sell out before the day is done.  They announce it at 9 am EST.  I'm fortunate to be up by that time every day.   It's a very dangerous website.  When you can get a crafting supply at a killer price it's very tempting, even if you have no current plans for it.  I'm not going to get into how much stuff I've gotten, but it's been quite a bit.

So, back to the craft at hand.  A few weeks ago Pick Your Plum featured a freebie!  They had a choice between a pair of decals.  You could get either "Eek!" and a spider or "Boo!" and a witches hat.  I quickly opted for the witches hat.  After a lot of tries, I finally got through and made my order!  I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but they were free!

So, a few days after I got my decals I started brainstorming.  I finally decided to make some Halloween signs for outside.  I went to Joanns my local fabric store (mine is one of the big ones) and got 2 wooden plaques.  This is what I did: (is the suspense killing you yet? Don't scroll down!!)

1) painted the edges of the plaques black. It took 2 coats
2) picked out my scrap booking paper pieces and cut them to size
3) modge podged them onto the top
4) glued on the wire to the back with hot glue
5) put the decal on
6) sprayed it to death with sealer

One of the perks to buying a big pack of fall scrap booking paper is that you end up with years worth of fall scrap booking paper.  This is going on year 4 and I still haven't used all of it!

Ok, enough suspense (It is almost Halloween, afterall).  Here are the pics of my Halloween Plaques!

Here they are next to the front door!  I'd like to add a wreath to the front of the door, but I haven't gotten there yet.  Hopefully in the next couple days I'll get that done.

Here's the Boo! sign

And the witches hat!

So, this is one of those times where hindsight is 20/20.  The decals where backed with a larger white piece of paper.  When picking out the background papers and placement of them I didn't think about the black on black part.  I think the Boo sign looks worse than the witches hat.  I think the witches hat turned out better.  Also, when cutting the paper I need to make sure they don't overlap.  The overlap is  especially apparent behind the witches hat.   Either way, I learned something new and I think overall they're pretty cool.  

Car Mat Briefcase

I finally finished it!  It's very typical for me to set a project aside for days, weeks, months, and sometimes indefinitely when I hit a block in the process.  This was one of those times where I needed to step back and contemplate for a while.  My main goal with this was to provide a "town" for Peanut to drive her cars on and also provide a way of storing the cars and tracks.  We don't have a good place for them now and it's been driving me crazy. I find cars and tracks all over the place.  This way they all have their place!  I'm really happy with how it turned out.  I think Peanut is going to love it and I can't wait to see her face on Christmas morning!

  

The one side of the briefcase with and without the cars

The other side of the briefcase with and without the tracks

Inside of the briefcase

This is a picture of the camel we rode at the zoo.  Her name is Angel.

This is our house.  The street sign has our street name on it and our house number is on the house.  I blurred this out for privacy reasons, but you can still see where they were.

This is Bun Bun and Mouse's houses.  Bun Bun is Peanut's favorite rabbit and mouse is her other rabbit.  (and Yes, she is fully aware mouse is a bunny. She'll tell you if you ask)  Since Bun Bun is pink and mouse is brown, I used that to distinguish the two houses.

Kroger and Target.  2 of our weekly stops

Costco is also an almost weekly stop.

A parking lot.  I used zig zag stitches to make the lines.

This is the lake we used to live near and we go to in the summer to swim.

And finally, school.  Noe's new favorite place to go!

The words and logos are all done using fusible printer paper.  My mom got me a piece from a yard sale sometime ago.  You just put it through the printer and then iron it onto your fabric.  I'm a little sad to not have more of it.  I looked for more but was having trouble locating some.  On the other hand, I had that for about a year before I came up with a use for it.  Hopefully I wont have another need for it!  

Few notes in case you want to make one too.  

• Almost everything is felt.  Yes, I am a felt junky.  I'm proud of it too!  
• The lines on the road is a piece of ribbon threaded in and out of the felt.  I just cut little slits and then sewn on the felt on either side of the yellow lines to keep it steady. 
•  The hard middle is actually the bottom of a drawer.  My friend had a dresser fall apart right when I was looking for something to put in the middle.  She offered me the bottom of a drawer made out of press board.  I cut it in half and then turned them so it was more wide and less long.  
• The loops on the outside are elastic.

I'm sorry I can't do a tutorial on this.  It was really a figure it out as you go kind of project. If you want to make your own and have questions feel free to ask!  Also, if you make your own please let me know!  I'd love to post pics on here!

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Sick and tired

Hey everyone,

Sorry to report, but I am quite literally sick and tired.  Munchkin is getting molars in and so has not slept (originally typed as sleeped) through the night in over a week.  And to add to my fun, I've got some nasty coughing cold thing.  My voice is now a squeak.  

In other news, I've been busy making stuff for Halloween.  I've got both costumes done and I've been making a bunch of decorations.  Hopefully one of these days I'll get to taking pictures and finally get them posted.  Also, I've gotten requests to show a tutorial of the fur vest, and you all know what that means!  I get to make a second one!  I really want to make a bright green one for munchkin, but i'll probably end up making her a gray one like Peanuts since I already have all of those materials.

Ok, now that I've found the missing keys (in the kids' play car, of course!) I'm off to bed.  I can't wait until Papa B gets home from hockey and I can share the good news.  He's been freaking out over the missing keys for the past week since he was the last one to have them.

Fur Vest

One day last week I went to the consignment shops in search of a variety of things including shirts and shoes for the girls, and some dishes.  One thing I wasn't looking for was a piece of fur.  However, I found this great piece of gray fur for $1.50.  I was too good of a deal to pass up and all I could picture was a little gray vest for Peanut.

A couple days later I was trying to describe what it looked like to my friend and started a google search for a gray fur vest for children.  This is what I found.  And only $62!

So, the next time I went to Joann's I found some lining to use as a lining (I know I totally just blew your mind there) and also to make the ribbon out of.  The polka dots really spoke to me. They just seemed like they popped.  I spent a lot of time debating whether to make the ribbon out of the polka dots or the plain gray.

Of course looking at the picture now I notice that my vest is certainly shorter on the body than the other one.  Oh well.  I'm just happy I was able to draft a pattern and make the vest to fit Peanut really well.  I've just got to keep practicing and I'll get better at it.  Also, this vest cost me about $5 instead of $62.  That always makes me feel good.

Mouse Tail

Peanut was so excited about her mouse tail she had to put it on right away.  This is during breakfast.  She also makes sure to tuck her tail into the crack in the seat.  I can't wait to finish the rest of the costumes!

Jack O' Lantern Shirts

Here are the girls at a local orchard.  I made them matching Jack O' Lantern shirts using the same method as the Flower Cut Out Shirt.  I've gotten some great comments on them and the girls really like them.  I'll try to take pictures of just the shirts soon.  I love fall!