Halloween plans are starting already

People who know me know that I’m renowned for my halloween costumes – after experiences of sewing formals, I find my daughter a MUCH easier client to sew fancy smancy outfits for. I use patterns from the store as a base, but most every costume has custom drafted parts to it, due to her fitting challenge of being skinny and tall.  Here are a few of our past entries:

Well, this year is the year of the “MAD SCIENTIST” – a lab coat with hair that looks like an explosion, and test tubes to carry.  I’ve found that it isn’t as easy as I thought to find a child sized lab coat.  *sniff* I think this will be the first year she will wear something that isn’t homemade for the halloween parade at school.

In addition to this lovely ensemble, I’m making her and me costumes to wear to the Gandalf Murphy Halloween Ball, in Ann Arbor. (YES!  We’ve talked her into going!  YAY!)  Soooo, I’m making her a pirate costume to wear to that.  Hopefully, if I make the waist large enough, she could wear it next year. She has selected red bandanna skull fabrics with red and black to accessorize.

My costume is in the formulation stage right now, but so far, it will involve LED lights – hehehe – I’m going to freak everyone out .  Here is my first draft in my pattern drafting software.  I’ll leave it to you to figure out what I’m going to be:

More on this later as we get more formulated plans.

Some hula hooping links for those who want to try…

For those I’ve discussed hooping with via personal email, I’m posting these for all to use – maybe, just maybe, someone else will be inspired to “get out there” and hoop too!

Jason Unbound – the easiest instructions that showed up again and again when looking for directions.

The Potrero Hill Hoop Factory – off Hooping.org – a great resource…

How to make a hoop at Squidoo….  ‘Nuff said…

Psihoops instructions…

Hooping.org magazine – they have links on where to buy tubing, as well as links to tutes on making hoops.

The bag that tested my geometry skills…SQUARED!

Do you remember this fabric I dyed last month?

Glitter Glue Princess requested that this fabric be made into her school bag.  She wanted a messenger bag, but from the fabric design and the constraint of size, I was limited in what I could make – I preferred to have the tiedye completely wrap around the entire bag, rather than piece the tiedye and end up with excess busy activity on the bag – I *really* do think the fabric is busy enough, don’t you?    All of the patterns I had were pieced, so I went questing over the web for an appropriate design.  Looking through Craftster, I found this.  It was perfect.

I found a purse zipper (2 zips on a single closed tape), and Glitter Glue Princess had a cute! zip pull that we added.  I made a pocket that is darted at the bottom to hold her MP3 player, as well as a secret pocket inside the pocket to hold money and items she didn’t want the world to see.  We used a quick release snap for the strap, as adjustable fittings were only available in 1″ size.

Here is the finished result…

The bag that tested my geometry skills…

I found this lovely piece of Alexander Henry “maxfield” and knew it was just dying to be made into a round knitting bag.

Firstly, look at the repeat in this pattern:

The repeat is HUGE!!!!! Of course I didn’t buy enough either, and was left with barely enough scraps.

Here is my finished project – a bucket bag of my own design, after I saw a womans bag of similar design at a restaurant one day, and drew it out in my palm pilot:

And this is the best part of the bag, which will most likely get seen by noone but me:

Some Etsy Love at the Fulton Street Artisans Market

Glitter Glue Princess and I trekked to Grand Rapids for the Fulton Street Artisans Market – many, many Etsy-ans were there.  It was sweltering hot, and if you didn’t have a tarp or umbrella, you basically cooked.

There was a tiedye guy there, and we had a long discussion about supply and tying technique – very nice.  You can see from the following pics that we had ours on yesterday.

She and I met Boogerelli - her stuff is totally adorable.  She gave the Glitter Glue Princess a pin and a sticker – aren’t these the cutest (sorry for the fuzzy pic – camera is acting up-or bad operator, I don’t know):

We bought a couple of lovely necklaces from a lady whose name I didn’t get.  If you are she, please comment and I will fix this grievous error…  Perhaps you will recognize the shirts, since we did discuss them…

The red flowers in this exactly match a skirt we bought from Macy’s the day before at the half off sale.

We also bought a couple of lovelies from The Empty Nest:

We’ll definitely go again…

Taking hoops to a community outing was…

A little daunting for me…

Everyone I knew in town was at the community picnic, but I did it anyway!  I worried about taking them for days and publicly humiliating myself, but I still did it!  Guess I’m getting the guts I never had a kid.

But you know, there is something about hula hooping, that is just… magnetic.  It makes me feel good about myself, it gets people smiling (and not laughing at me)…

All of Glitter Glue Princess’s friends who were there came over and tried them.  They ended up smiling too.  No other adults came over, but that’s o.k.  I bet they were daunted by them too, and had the same feelings of potential embarrassment that I felt.

I’d do it again…

Coming up-a little etsy love from the Fulton Street Artisan’s Market…

I live with Mary Mary Quite Contrary

Sigh….  They grow up too soon.  Nothing I like in terms of style is acceptable anymore. Here are the newest clothing rules for school as of today:

All the euro stuff in ottobre is unacceptable – it’s not “normal” enough to fit into 5th grade.  In fact, just about every pattern I have in my arsenal is unacceptable, except maybe for the Jalies.

No more khaki colored pants.  Only blue jeans (no whiskering) and dark brown pants. Black pants *might* be o.k., but brown is better.

No dresses.  Long sweaters and tee shirts are o.k., but they can’t be embroidered by Mom.  Tie dye is still o.k, at least for today.  Shirts need to be LONG – like tunics – no belly baring stuff (well, at least we agree on one thing…)

Of course, all the rules will change again tomorrow…

I just have to not give up and keep offering options.

Zipper pouches now at Etsy.

Oops – forgot to mention that I put those pencil cases/zipper pouches up at Etsy.

Pouch with Pink Zip

Pouch with Black Zip

Now, off to either hula hoop, or sew Glitter Glue Princess’s messenger bag for school…

The newest exercise fad at my house…

Over the past few weeks, the female members of my household (myself and the Glitter Glue Princess) have taken up hula hooping.  Not just any old wimpy hula hoop from the store will do, mind you, but heavy duty, hand designed hoops are needed for this new craze.  Somehow, we found something to combine crafting and exercise – who would have figured, huh?  We’ve been hooping for at least a half hour daily since we started this, getting better and better at it…

There are many websites out there that tell you how to make the hoops.  We made the hoops out of tubing from Lowe’s and ordered a plethora of tapes online.

Glitter glue princess could not wait for the funky tapes to arrive in the mail, and created one of her hoops using electrical tape only.  After the tapes did arrive, she was a wee bit afraid of working with the glitter tapes, due to them being metal (she was afraid of cutting herself).  We found that fabric gaffer tape is great as it makes the hoop “cling” to you more – it provides a bit of drag to help keep the hoop up longer.

Here are a few shots of the hoops thus far, no action shots just yet….  One with the multicolor sections was Glitter Glue Princess’s first tape job.

My only worry about this new craze is where we will do this when the weather gets cold – I don’t think Michigan winters are conducive to this exercise trend. 

If there’s interest, let me know and I’ll post a mountain of links on this…

Blissfest organizers – you guys are the absolute best!!!!!!

So S and I went to Blissfest last month, as was pictured in the earlier posts.

What I didn’t tell you was that I lost my drivers license on that trip.  I went and spent a few hours at the Secretary of State getting a replacement, never expecting to see it again.

Fast forward to three weeks later….  Guess what shows up in the mail today????  A letter from Blissfest, containing my license!  I honestly had written it off as gone.  My entire family is in awe of your power!

If this post gets to Blissfest organizers, I want to offer my sincere thanks in their efforts.  They really do give “happy bliss”, even AFTER the festivities are over.  Quite frankly, no other michigan music festival can compete!  You guys really are THE best.