Happy Halloween!!!

Having just recovered from last night's Halloween bash, I thought I'd post a few shots of the party.

Trick or Treating

Presenting Zara the Autumn Fairy!

Okay, so I finally bit the bullet and let Zara try on her costume...and she loved it!!! She kept it on for hours!

Ta-Da!

I know an old lady...

...who swallowed a fly. Ever heard of it? I hadn't. Not until I bought Zara a set of books and that was one of them. I'll give you a minute to familiarize yourself with it:

Macabre, right? Well, it was the Frugal Homemaker's fave when she was five years old. Memorized the whole thing. When she told me that, I had to make something. It's just great timing that Halloween is nearly here.

Autumn Fairy Costume: The Finale (Finally!)

Halloween is scarily near and I have tons left to do for the party. The one thing I do have finished is Zara's fairy costume! Yay! It only took me a couple of hours to do, so I have no idea what I was procrastinating so much.

First thing I did was make the tutus. Yes, that's right. More than one tutu. Two tutus, truthfully. (I love alliteration.) I wanted a very layered look and that was the easiest way I could think of. If you want step-by-step directions on how to make your own, The Idea Room is the place to go. This is pretty much the technique I used and the model is darling.

Tulle, tulle, and more tulle.

Happy Birthday Two (of) You!

Two birthdays equal lots of yummy cakes! The Frugal Homemaker's oldest son, Victor, turned six, and my wonderful Aunt Lizetta turned...well, I'm not telling. I'm pretty sure she'd kill me and bury my body deep in the woods. And who'd blame her?

I was fully prepared to do a fully decorated layer cake for my aunt. She told me she'd prefer cupcakes. Chocolate cupcakes. What other flavor is there? So, she got chocolate cupcakes. I used Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake recipe, added a cup of chocolate chips, did a chocolate pudding filling, and topped the whole thing with chocolate buttercream. So much chocolate!

I love these cupcake liners. So beautiful!

Owl'll be seeing you...hanging around my neck.

From a very early age I had a fear of owls. If I'm to be completely honest, I have a fear of pretty much all birds except penguins. Penguins just look too cuddly to be scary. Owls, on the other hand, were creepy and terrifying to me. So imagine my surprise when, all of a sudden, I developed a fascination with them. Maybe it's because of all of the adorable illustrations and decorations I've been seeing. I dunno. Now they're adorable. Go figure.

I love my new necklace!

The Fabulous Diana Gabaldon

Yesterday I got the chance to do something that I've wanted to do for a long, loooooong time. I met the wonderful, luminous, gorgeous, funny, brilliant author of the Outlander series, Diana Gabaldon, at the WV Book Festival in Charleston, WV!

See, told you she was gorgeous!

 

 

 

She is one of my favorite authors and the only one that I insist that I have the hardcover editions of her books. I have to have them as soon as they come out. It killed me that I had to wait a week for The Exile because Borders sold out.

Autumn Fairy Costume: Headband

The one thing a fairy princess needs is a fabulous hair accessory. My little princess has a ton of headbands lying around, so it just made sense that one of her many, many purple ones could be used for this little project. I love not having to buy even more stuff for her costume. (Side note: Zara's in her room and is supposed to be napping. I just heard her shout "happy cake" over the baby monitor.)

The princess's finished headband.

Autumn Fairy Costume: Wand

Here are a few facts about my daughter, Zara. She has bright red hair, loves to play dress up, adores a tutu and wings, and loves to dance. Put all of that together and you get her Halloween costume: an Autumn fairy. And since Halloween is getting close, I have a lot of work ahead of me. After putting her to bed last night, I got a pretty good start. I finished up her wand and her headband and I'm really pleased with how they turned out.

A wand fit for a fairy princess.

Autumn Bliss

Not much makes my heart race more than autumn showing up. I get this weird sort of giddiness that kids get on their birthdays when I start seeing fall leaf garlands and Jack O'Lanterns show up in stores. Needless to say, Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday of all time. In light of my adoration of the whole season, this particular post is about the few things I've made in celebration of the most wonderful time of the year.

This is three strands of pumpkin lights, a leaf garland, and some florist's wire. Easy peasy!

Jack O'Lanterns make me happy.

A Super Simple Frame Transformation

After about two and a half years, we're finally getting around to decorating Zara's bedroom. I know! About time! We're doing a French provincial theme in pink, green, and white. Well, we have the pink and green paint...still in the cans. That's our next big project. Painting the walls. And the floor. *groan* In the meantime, I've been working on accessories and decor. One thing I wanted to do was frame Sprick Space's gorgeous ABC and 123 charts. She was so generous to provide the printables for free, and, on top of that, there are many colors to choose from.

Company Cupcakes

Sometime last week my husband sent me a text saying that his company was having a picnic on Saturday and asked if I would make cupcakes. Of course I went into an immediate panic. And, of course, I immediately started planning and designing the cupcakes. I had envisioned twenty-four white swirly cupcakes with his company's logo done in either chocolate or royal icing on top.

More Wilton Cakes

After much begging and pleading and whining (okay, so I just asked once and they were so sweet to say yes) Mom and the Frugal Homemaker have allowed me to show you their work in the Wilton cake decorating class. Yay!

Here's Mom's work:

Mom's cupcake cake. I love her color scheme.