Halloween Garland

I saw these cute Garlands at Allsorts last year- well, I'm pretty sure that was the place. Anyways, I used my quickutz silhouette to cut out all the pieces and then glued them together. It was surprising how long it took to feed all that paper into the cutter... but much faster than hand cutting each piece!


I think I might try to find another place to hang it though... we'll see.

Vintage Halloween Jewelry

Somewhere in my searches on the internet I came upon some vintage Halloween charms or pendants. I decided to give them a try and this is what I came up with.


I haven't soldered in about 23 years(I was two...ha!)- yeah, I'm out of practice! I have a few ideas for some variations so, I think I'll try these again sometime.

Japanese Craft Books

I have been admiring and wishing for several wonderful Japanese Craft Books for over a year. They are so cute and artistic at the same time. Finally I broke down and bought two embroidery books at this etsy shop. Since the directions are in Japanese I decided to start with something where the directions should be self explanatory. Aren't they cute?!

Little Miss Muffet

I know it's not Halloween yet, but this is a creepy story:


I know it's not very clear in this picture- but can you tell what kind of spider this is? I was happily running some mail out to our box when I opened the front door and saw this swinging from our wreath. It was dead and I thought it would make a good blog (it's so big and ugly) so I took about ten pictures, putting my hand about four inches behind it so that I could show perspective, etc.


Finally, I decided I should get a shoe and knock it down. I found one (it was Mark's, you can't smash something this ugly with a girl's shoe). I went to swing at it and it started running up it's thread- "ahh, (loud scream)... it's alive!" I whacked it and it exploded all over the glass door- so disgusting! It still makes me shiver- At first I thought it was a brown recluse, but Mark found some pictures to compare it with where it looks like it was probably a harmless orb weaver spider. This is what a brown recluse looks like in a clear picture off the web (bad pun intended). Most brown recluses have skinny bodies though.


No matter what kind of spider it was I'm glad I didn't have to touch it! Life tip: Don't put your hand next to 'dead' spiders!

Bag Lady

I finished this bag this week. It's a late birthday gift for a daughter. It's supposed to be a heavy duty book bag. The snaps directions were a pain- and they really aren't difficult to put on.

We've been having LOTS of rain. It makes me want to curl up with a good book or an old movie and a bowl of popcorn or mug of steaming hot chocolate. We always had hot chocolate when it rained in Arizona. I think I'll do that later today.... have a happy day where you are.

Check These Out

Just a random photo of a beautiful girl and her friend Bree.

Picasa photo editor and organizer just came out with a new version- Picasa 3. It's a free download and makes photo editing very quick and simple. It's obviously not for you super cool photographers, but I use it to edit most of my pictures and it's great!

If I remember to log onto LDS Voices I don't mind folding laundry and that is almost unbelievable. It's a free site with hundreds of LDS talks- they even have Sherri Dew's 2008 Women's Conference talk. Enjoy!

Charm bracelet quilt

OK, so I said I'd make a quilt for her sixteenth birthday..mmm..., that was ten years ago. So embarrassing!! But I finally did it!!! In July, Ceptember picked out this fabric for a quilt from fatquarters. It's called charm bracelet and I think they are sold out of most of it. I've been looking at the quilts at pottery barn and other sites like urban outfitters. They use big random fabric blocks. So, I tried to recreate it- and this is what I ended up with.


I think next time I'll try not to have all the seams line up down the center... ugh! But I'm not a perfectionist enough to pick it all out and sew it up again. Oh, and please try to ignore the water spot where I washed out a water soluable blue marker... ;0)

Try Not to Hit the Car With the Blue and Red Flashing Lights On Top

Yeah, Saturday I was feeling kind of blue. The kids and I decided to see if we could find any treasures and went to a few yard sales. We were slowly driving through a beautiful neighborhood when we came upon a man out walking for his morning exercise. I very politely stopped at my yield sign and nodded for him to go ahead. No, no he shook his head and waved his hand motioning for me to go first. So, I did. I pulled forward and nearly creamed a POLICE CAR.

You know, they don't really like that. I pulled over and started looking for all the pertinent info. The officer turned on his lights and pulled up behind me. The officer was really kind and he would have let me off with just a verbal warning (probably because I had tears in my eyes) but somehow I had forgot to take my car in for it's annual inspection... so, he gave me a ticket for that. Yeah, well, it wasn't my happiest moment. But it could have been worse. So, life tip- Try not to hit the car with the flashing blue and red lights on top! (I did not take the above picture)