Happy Halloween!

It's hard to believe summer has come and gone, now it's already Halloween. Time flies! We dressed up for Halloween and walked around our neighborhood tonight. Nature Girl decided to be a devil this year and thought Chunk should be a devil too. I thought I should be an angel to balance out all of this devilishness.

Here is a close up of Chunk during one of his costume wearing practice sessions. He keep doing a whole body shake trying to shake off the costume. He wasn't a fan of the costume at first but we had him practice wearing it a few times before Halloween. He still didn't love it tonight but didn't mind it too much. It certainly helped that I feed him a good amount of treats as we walked around the neighborhood.

This is a picture of one angel and a little devil. Really I might not be an angel but he certainly is a little devil. He will eat anything and has a wicked naughty streak in him. Good thing he's cute and I love him! Look at that little black face.

Nature Girl had a party and Halloween parade at school on Friday. I snapped this picture of her and a friend. She and the purple witch have been friends since they were babies. It's great to see them in the same class this year. They are both growing up so quickly!

Nature Girl got to march at the front of the Halloween parade with the paper mache' ghost puppet she made in art enrichment. Overall we had a great Halloween. I hope you did too. Happy Halloween!

Zombies

Val over at Yarnigras hosted a zombie swap. Of course I just had to participate. While I dislike scary things, one thing I do love is funny zombies! My love of zombies started when I first saw Shaun of the Dead. It's one of my favorite movies. I also love Zombieland. So creating a zombie doll was something I couldn't resist trying. I had so many ideas I wanted to try but didn't have time to create them all. So after creating a zombie for my partner, Val and Kerry invited me to join their Zombie Challenge. The challenge was to create a zombie doll for yourself and reveal it on Halloween. I decided I was up for the challenge, so here's the big reveal just in time for Halloween. Drum roll please . . . . . . .

Here she is. She still needs a name. All I've thought of so far is Gwendolyn or Raven, but nothing has stuck so far. Any ideas? Anyway, back to my zombie. I used gray duck cloth and black thread to make her. Then I used some great buttons that my YOE swan swap partner sent to me, to accessorize my new little zombie friend. Notice the zipper on her belly?

Well, when you unzip her middle you can see her little zombie heart and insides. Almost gross, right? But I think she's just too sweet to look gross and the guts just seem to finish her off. Her arms naturally fall into a zombie like position, so she looks like she's searching for some brains to eat or maybe a zombie partner to dance with.

This is Undead Fred. He's the zombie I created for my zombie swap partner Laura. He's part of a zombie work rehabilitation program that trains zombies to be productive workers. How do you motivate a zombie to be a productive worker? With brains of course! See Undead Fred has a stick with brains attached to him. The brains are just out of his reach. I loved Fred and hated to see him go, but he's happily chasing that brain at Laura's house now.

Here's the zombie Laura sent for me. I love the polka dot fabrics and the Day of the Dead fabric Laura used on the skirt. Thanks Laura for a bit of zombie fun. And thanks to Val and Kerry for including me in their Zombie Challenge. I can't wait to see what you've created! You should go check it out too.

The Dog Ate My Homework

Last night Nature Girl worked on her homework like usual. We sat on the couch together to do her reading fluency passage. Once she finished, she set her paper on the couch and walked out of the room. I left the room for 30 seconds to get my laptop. Now, here's where the trouble began. Chunk has learned how to jump on the couch (we're trying to break him of this.) When I came back in the room, what did I find? Yep, you guessed it, a cute little puppy eating Nature Girl's homework. I told him he was naughty while trying to keep a straight face. I have to admit that I found this very humorous! Maybe it's because I'm a teacher so I have heard a million excuses for why homework isn't turned in but a dog really eating homework is funny! Right?! After an almost straight faced scolding, I told him to stay put while I got the camera. He just looked at me like, "What did I do?" Seriously, look at that face, how could you stay mad at him?

Nature Girl did not see the humor in the situation and started to cry. I calmed her down, then e-mailed her teacher, so all is well. Tonight after reassurances from both her teacher and I, Nature Girl is able to see the humor of the situation. After all, how many times in your life can you truthfully say to your teacher "My dog ate my homework?" It's definitely once for us. Let's hope that's the last of the homework eating incidents, though I have a sneaky suspicion that it could happen again. He loves to eat paper!

half eaten homework

There's A New Swap in Town

We're hosting another swap. This time it's a pincushion swap. I'm very excited about it as I'm currently in love with pretty, unique, little pincushions. I hope other people are too and will want to join me for some pincushion fun. Head over to Crafty Bits Swap Spot for details and sign up.

Wonderful Friends!

Have you ever stopped to think about how lucky you are? Sometimes it's easy to forget how fortunate you really are. Have you you ever had a tough week then had a friend do something special for you? Did it make you feel better and make you realize how lucky you are to have such wonderful friends? That's happened to me. Going back to school after a wonderful summer at home is always hard for me. I love the kids I teach and wouldn't trade it, but it's a lot of work. I feel like I run around like a chicken without a head from September till June. This year is particularly crazy! At three weeks into the school year, I already felt like I was months behind in my work. One Friday a few weeks ago, I was feeling particularly tired and stressed when I left school. When I got home things started to look up.

I realized again that I'm so lucky to have the greatest friends! My friend Barb sent us a panda surprise in the mail! I came home to discover these Panda screen bags. Just look at them! There was one for my daughter and one for me! What a great surprise! We love them and feel completely spoiled!!! Thank you Barb! By the way Barb is an amazing seamstress (Yes, I'm going to brag and gush about my talented friend!) She has an ETSY shop if you're in the market for a screenbag, purse, wallet, travel pillow, etc. Check her ETSY shop here.

I've been super busy with school so I didn't get to post my random surprise mail package from Karen. I won a a giveaway over at Karen's blog a while back to receive a random package with a handcrafted Karen-made gift. It arrived totally unexpected(yes, I know that's why it's called random mail.) Karen sent an owlie zippered pouch made from her tutorial. You can see the tutorial here. I have my pouch filled with my Sharpie pens and markers so I can doodle when I get a few minutes.

Karen sent an Owlie purse for Nature Girl. Karen has some in her ETSY Shop (Yes, this is a plug for her shop. You should check it out.) Karen sells aprons, bags, pincushions and many other beautifully made items. We planned to buy an owlie purse from the shop, only she sent it in the random mail package. Thank you Karen! We love our goodies! Random mail really is great!

While we're on a roll doing shameless plugs for my amazingly talented and wonderful friends, I can't leave out Val. She has an ETSY shop here with mosaics, amazing crocheted goodies and aprons. She sent us some mermaid fabric unexpectedly this summer. I finally used it to make a car-bage bag to hold our trash when we travel in the car. I think it turned out great and should help keep the car a bit more tidy.

Thank you for being wonderful friends! I appreciate your friendship and generosity! It brightens my day and reminds me of how lucky I am! Thank you!

YOE Frogs

The August YOE theme was frogs. My partner Gin sent this froggy package to me. Nature Girl quickly scoffed up the puzzle and hung the appliqued froggy hand towel in the bathroom. The fabric has been set aside to wash/dry for a future project and my frog prince ornament, complete with a crown and royal cape, is hanging on my YOE tree. Thank you Gin!

I sent Gin this package. It included some gummy frog candy, a fat quarter in a frog print, a frog stapler, a frog prince ornament and a frog pincushion with magnets so it could sit on a sewing can. I had a blast making the pincushion. I am just loving pincushions these days!

Back to School

It's back to school time and nothing says back to school like school supplies. I have to admit that I love shopping for school supplies! One of my favorite school supplies is Fiskars scissors. This year I will have two teaching roommates. One of them is new to our school and I wanted to make her feel welcome. What says welcome to school better than school supplies, right? I tied a bit of scissor printed ribbon to a set of student scissors and a pair of big teacher scissors in the same color. Red is my favorite color so this red set so it's for me. My roommates are getting purple and pink scissors. I hope they like them.

Back to school time means spending lots of time setting up and organizing at school. Nature Girl has been a trooper. I've been dragging her into school everyday for the past week so I can work. She's been great about entertaining herself. Here's the cup tower she made one day. Today she used a Styrofoam cup, four forks, some pipe cleaners, duct tape, and markers to make a bobblehead. She certainly is creative!

Happy back to school time to you!