Pumpkins & Playing Dress-up

Here is the pumpkin I carved and painted this year. I got the idea from a photo in a magazine, but I'm not sure which one (glanced at it in the grocery store). I'm also not sure how close it is to the pumpkin in the magazine, but when I saw those colors together I knew what I wanted to do.



It was a troublesome project though, as the rain kept the first coat of (acrylic) paint from drying until I finally had to bring it inside. Then I could not find a small saw, so those rounded corners were a pain to do, and a pain for my wrist. But I think it was worth it in the end!

Chelsea quickly carved an old-school pumpkin so that we could have something to set out on the porch before the trick-or-treaters came. She is so photogenic!



There really were pumpkins and gourds all over the house. Out on the porch a little pepper plant tried to blend in with all of the orange.



But this was my favorite, the prettiest pumpkin of all!



A few people dressed up in costumes, though most were thrown together from things around the house.





Even the lamp got into the action! (Or else someone is wearing a very convincing lamp costume?)



Justin's dad dressed up as a birthday-boy. Oh wait, .... no, that wasn't a costume!

Spooky Snacks

We spent the weekend at Justin's parents', celebrating Halloween and his dad's birthday. The girls were all excited about making themed foods, and we ended up *way* overcooking. Here are few of my favorites...

These little bat & skull croutons were make with sliced bread and cookie cutters. The bread was brushed with oil & sprinkled with spices, and toasted in the oven.



This is what I was in charge of - making a skeleton out of vegetables. I added in some flames, bats and stars around him. (I'm not taking credit for the hair, which was added later by Justin when he found out that his mom had bought the sprouts specifically for that)



I had no idea what his sister was up to with this until it was cut into slices after baking. Candy corn cheese bread! I'd love to re-do this idea next year as a pizza with shredded cheeses.



And of course there were the traditional mummy dogs, with little sesame seed eyes. (Justin and I also put these together. Everything else was made by his sisters or mother)



Bloody tomato soup with floating eyeballs made of olives and... feta? I'm not sure what kind of cheese it was. Justin stirred the soup thinking the eyes would float up to the top again. They had to be fished back out, rinsed, and set on the top again.



Pretzel rods dipped in white chocolate with almond sliced for finger nails. Justin's dad donated the sleeve of an old dress-shirt to cover the jar they sat in.



This one isn't food, but a little mood lighting...



They only ended up getting three trick-or-treaters this year, after making up about 15-20 treat bags full of candy. It was a very rainy night, though, and I think the city started a downtown event the year before, so I'm sure those two things did not help. All of the siblings gladly took home a few treat bags for themselves.

I have one more set of Halloween pictures, ready to share tomorrow!

Early Halloween

We had a little Halloween get-together last night ~ So much fun! I just could not get motivated this year, though, so I skipped out on themed food and creating decorations. We hung up a few things from last year and made brats and cheese fondue. Mmmm...

We also threw together some costumes at the last minute. I was able to find a black & purple wig for about $5, so I tossed on a purple cape (that I have from an after-Halloween sales years ago) over a black dress and played around with make-up. Not sure what I was supposed to 'be', but we added a few purple & black spiders from last year in my hair and I think I became a 'Spider Queen'.



I never got a good shot of Justin, but he was going for something like 'Redneck Slob'. He had these horrible fake teeth and wiped BBQ sauce and mustard all over an undershirt. I think I might have thrown up on him if he tried to give me a hug wearing that! I drew on a mustache and he finished off the look with jeans, work-boots, a leather-work belt, and a Dodge hat with camo on the front, mesh on the back, and a turkey & turkey prints thrown in for good measure.



We can't convince most of our friends to dress up, but these two don't mind at all. This pose is so awesome ~



Here is most of the non-costume crew. Three of them were party-poopers this year, leaving at 6:30! (We started at 2) Granted, most of the reasons were good ones, but we had no idea half of the guests would be leaving so early. Suddenly we had an insane amount of food, without even making the two desserts we'd planned for later, but I suppose Justin and I don't mind having leftovers. ;)



Indy often leaves for another room when big groups are around, but he was quite social this time. He sprawled himself across two of the three remaining laps for some belly rubs.



Next weekend the Halloween festivities continue, along with Justin's dad's birthday, at his parents' house. I can't wait!

Owl Parliament in Cherry

The red and black inks have arrived, and printing is going well!



I remembered a few more printing techniques since the dark brown attempts, and the test prints with the red came out nicely. At that point I realized any of the flubs left were actually problems on the screen, and so I sat with a pin in hand, finding the faults in the printed pattern and pricking out the mistakes on the screen. Possibly for hours. But better to fix it on the screen than do touch-ups with a brush on the fabric every single time I print!



That was not the first time I pricked out a mistakes from this screen, and will probably not be the last. I realized that the screen printing shop is not going to be a perfectionist when creating my screen, which is some what understandable, but I expect a little more for $50. And I'd probably end up spending as much time burning my own screen, and making sure every detail is perfectly washed out to begin with, as I do fixing all of these little mistakes. I'm tempted to get some more emulsion.

Ambigram Drop

"Silvan" & "Vasilda" Ambigram	"Nolan" & "Hudson" Ambigram
"Ruby" Ambigram	"Ruby" Ambigram
"Kieran" Ambigram	"Zach" Ambigram
"Rhian", "Jordyn", & "Jaxon" Diamond Ambigram	"Elaine" & "Jerry" Ambigram

Scrumptious Shrimp Shumai

We tried out this Shrimp Shumai recipe from Martha, and I have to say, I think this was probably the best shumai I have ever eaten! Normally I like a little soy sauce for dipping, but in this case it just covered up that delicious flavor.



I did leave out the peanut oil, because that's not something we really keep on hand, and I think they were just perfect (and plenty moist). Why not cut out a few calories?



The shumai flatted out, as you can see, so I'll have to figure out how to make them stand a little taller next time. The recipe made 22 shumai, which would be perfect for appetizers for a group, but we added a little rice and miso soup and just made a meal out of it! Mmmmm.....

Mail Call!

I've been getting all sorts of goodies in the mail lately!

First, I picked out a free magazine subscription from the Coke website. I wanted something with recipes and chose Bon Appetit. I waited a bit... and then three issues arrived all at once! I've only found a few recipes that I'm interested in trying, but that's the case with any cookbook or magazine, isn't it?



Then I received this Cute Yummy Time book from a blog give-away on While She Naps! I'm always so surprised to win these things. I always seem to win when I actually wanted to leave a comment more than I wanted to enter. But it is a very cute book, and I'll be sure to use some of the ideas in the future.



"While She Naps" is one of the first crafting blogs I started reading outside of Live Journal, and I've been keeping up with it for a few years now. Abby is so sweet and also included a few postcards with images of her beautiful bird sculptures and a cute drawing on the envelope.



I also got a copy of Harry Potter in Japanese (eBay), which I have been drooling over for a while now. I had been translating my way through Death Note (an awesome series, if you haven't read it), and I actually got to the point where I could understand what was going on pretty well without having to look anything up because words are repeated *so* frequently in them. But, I wanted a 'real' book...



I definitely wouldn't mind an actual Japanese book, but I believe this was a good choice to start with. It's a story I've read before, but long ago enough that I don't remember all of the details, and it is a book I own in English. Also, I won't have to worry about confusing the Japanese names with each other, or with other words ("Why can't I find this in the dictionary?!?"). And let's face it, it's just fun to own as well!



Another recent arrive, which I don't have a photo of, was the MySims Agents game. I loved MySims and MySims Kingdom, which are almost like lego versions of the normal Sims games, minus all of that daily-life-chore stuff. I was so excited to see a new game coming out, and this time with a crime-solving, puzzle twist. It was an enjoyable game, but very, *very* short (15 hrs for a $50 game?!?), so I've already sold that one and put the money towards screen printing ink.

And I've already got a growing list of DS and Wii games for my birthday/Christmas list. One more month! Any fun games I need to know about? What are you playing? Or have you gotten something fun through the mail too?