p.s.

yay youtube!

alone on halloween

Leila is asleep, Wes is at work, the trick-or-treaters have stopped ... I'm sitting here watching Game 3 of the World Series (mad I forgot to turn it on earlier because I heard the cast of Glee sang the National Anthem) with a mug of hot apple cider (let it simmer on my stove top all evening while I handed out candy) and some funfetti cookies debating what project to get started on with a whole night ahead of me!

Last night I started on an embroidery project that will be a Christmas gift, so I could continue that project, but it's a continuing repeat of the same pattern over and over. Yesterday I did six repeats and I'm feeling the need for a break before I finish it.

I need to make Leila a Christmas stocking to hang with the two I made for Wes and myself for our first Christmas together, but that would involve going into a room with no lights (on Halloween, eek!) to dig through lots of yarn before I can start.

For a new swap I need to create two Alice In Wonderland-themed ATCs. I have my design in mind, it's just a matter of putting it together.

My mom is on the board of a preschool and I promised to put something together for their silent auction next month. My plan is to create a dream craft kit (one of the projects from RVA Autumn class) but I need a carrying case to really get started on this, so I could troll etsy for something vintage.

But to be perfectly honest, all I want to do is read through this stack of cookbooks I got at the library this afternoon :) The baseball game's almost over ... I know what I'm going to do once the last out is made!

p.s. Happy Halloween!

ready for Halloween!

I haven't even started any of the projects mentioned in the last post, but Leila and I are ready for Halloween! Last Monday Wes and I took Leila to the pumpkin patch at Underwood Family Farms in her cute onesie (one of my art projects from the RVA class!):

and this afternoon, I finished mine!

planning for next week

It's Saturday afternoon and I am busy making a menu for next week's dinners (carne asada from TJ's on Monday, egg mcmuffins on Tuesday, tuna and white bean salad for lunches!) so I can go to the grocery store. Planning the meals also requires me to look at our activities for next week and it looks like if both the NLCS and ALCS go 7 games, we'll have baseball every night this week!! yay!
So I realized that with all this baseball watching, I might have some time to do some crafty goodness in the evenings too ... here is my current "to make" list:

Arm Warmers: I haven't knitted in a long long time, and this is a good new (fast!) project to reintroduce myself to my needles and also clear out some of my yarn stash ... (photo credit: holly at RVA)

Guest room pillow: I have decided to do an Alice in Wonderland themed guest room and I really want to make a cute throw pillow for the bed covered in felt flowers like this one. (photo credit from idotakeu on etsy) This project will be more challenging than the arm warmers because I don't have a pattern for it ... I'll have to eyeball the flowers and figure out some way to attach them to fabric before (or after?) sewing said fabric into a pocket for stuffing to make a pillow ... I don't know yet.

Embroidered Totes: I am also so so so far behind on all the cute projects from the RVA Autumn class, but one of the projects I am most excited about is to make cute (reusable) totes, embroidered with autumn-themed patterns ... I saw new totes at Michael's that would work just fine, but in keeping with the "reusable" theme, I really want to check out a few thrift stores to find some totes that I can clean up and add cuteness to. Haven't had time to do that kind of shopping yet ... but maybe soon! (photo credit: elsie flannigan)

So, it's unlikely that I'll get even one of those projects done in the next week, but it's always fun to dream! It's about time to start thinking about Christmas projects too ... maybe next week!

cookie monster

Wes has been hard at work the last few weekends fixing up the master bath shower so that we can actually use it ... while he's busy and Leila is sleeping, I have been making cookies! Last week I made your standard peanut butter and today I got a little crazy with some mini-peanut butter cups from Trader Joe's. I made the Nestle Tollhouse recipe, but subbed in these little cups of goodness. They taste delicious but look a little funky, so no picture to share :)

craft corner

when we moved into our new house, I was so excited for the extra room downstairs ... I immediately decided I wanted it to be the place to house all my craft supplies, extra yarn and sewing machine. This was a welcome suggestion to Wes because he's been living with my projects spread out over our apartment living room since we got married four years ago.
The room has a long way to go (it's still sharing space with boxes of stuff that I'm not going to unpack until we have our kitchen remodel next spring), but I especially love the work table I got super on sale at IKEA this summer.
Wes and I just got new dressers in our room to match our new bed so we moved Wes' old dresser down to the craft room to hold lots of supplies. It's also a good spot to rest my laptop while I'm working on projects from the RVA Autumn Craft Class. Once the boxes are unpacked I'll be able to spread out a little bit more, but for now this is great. I like being able to look out the window into our backyard too. I'll have to move the folded-up ping-pong table to expand my view!
This afternoon with Leila napping I took advantage of the quiet time to work on her Halloween costume. The pattern came from one of our class projects and I am excited to make it for her. I had to order the black onesie online (black isn't a common color for infants, I guess) but I found the fabric paint at Michael's. I need to do another coat of paint in a couple hours, then I'll stitch on a felt heart to make it extra cute. She's going to be the sweetest little skeleton ever :)

pumpkin deliciousness

It was my turn to bring snack to Bible study last night so I made these cute pumpkin pie bites from Bakerella. Mine didn't turn out quite as cute as hers ... I didn't have time to put the faces on to make them jack-o-lanterns, and I think next time I make these I won't have so much of the crust over the lip of the mini-muffin cup. But they were so delicious! There is cream cheese in the batter, so they were a little cheesecake-y too. yum yum. They were a big hit with the group and not too terribly hard to make. The hardest part was fitting the crust in the cups, I got frozen crust and even though I defrosted it thoroughly, it was still sort of brittle.
I had leftover crust scraps and some pie batter too, so I just layered the crust bits in an oven proof bowl and poured in the leftover batter and had a delicious bowl of pumpkin to snack on today.

More new favorite things: Poladroid!

oh my goodness, just found this web application that makes your photos look like polaroids! so cute!!! here is one of Leila and I at the beach last weekend and also a funny one of Luke and Kristen ... so easy to get this effect, just drag and drop and the photos slowly appear on the screen, just like a real Polaroid, but no shaking necessary!