Handmade Princess Costume

Happy Halloween! Or, as we called it at school, Book Character Day! Here I am posing silly for my sister (seriously, she had taken like 5 pictures at this point) with my fairytale costume at the end of the day. She made the main dress, and I made the undershirt and added all of the embellishments. It was SO cute. I did wear a pair of 5" heels off and on throughout the day (I switched into my comfy shoes in the classroom and after the kids left) so I wouldn't trip going down the hall. 

Happy Fall!

Wow, life has been so freakin' busy around here I haven't crafted in ages. Well, I take that back. I haven't made anything worth sharing in ages! Happy Fall, though! Here is a beautiful view standing on my front porch. I'm not much of a photographer, but I couldn't pass up this shot. Absolutely breathtaking.

On this beautiful weekend before Halloween I finally used my Pumpkin Carvings cart to actually do what it was intended for- to carve a pumpkin. I cut out the pattern with vinyl, then transferred it to my victim, eh, pumpkin, then cut-cut-cut. Peeled off the vinyl and oh-snap! How awesome! I'm loving owls these days and thought this would look super cute on my porch. And it does!

Tomorrow is Book Character Day at school (ha! What a great way to get buy with wearing a costume on Halloween!) and my sister made me a beautiful dress for Christmas last year. I embellished it a bit and I'll be going as an unheard-of Queen from a Classic Fairytale story. If you're lucky you might get to see pictures!

Lots to see today!

First off, my bff Kymberlee (aka BEST CIRCLE PAL EVER) sent me these amazing cozies custom made by Kathy's Cozies. In addition to the pieces you see (Imagine, E2, and Gypsy covers) I also received an E cover, cuttlebug cover, a cord bag, and a small scrap trash bag for my desk. The fabric she picked out is just absolutely perfect! Thank you so much!! 

Here is something that's not creative, just random... one of the teachers asked me to make her some apples for her behavior chart, and I just happened to have laminated cardstock at home in all main colors. She was shocked when I gave them to her laminated the next day. How weird am I to have laminated paper laying around, "just in case"??? lol... glad I had it, since the laminator was broken.

Here is a box of goodies my dear Kymberlee sent me. How amazing is she?!!? I got another package the next day of about a gazillion sheets of scrapbook paper. It was the most wonderful surprise! I've sorted it by color and used some already.

In each of our boxes, we include an "ultimate challenge bag" with random things the person must use to create a project. First, she had to make something green, I had to make something out of trash, she had to make a girly card, and I had to make something using a red journal and a kit of random knick knacks. I was able to use everything in the kit except two blue gems (that didn't match anything) and an empty vial, which was too big. I think my journal turned out pretty well. The paper on the front (under the tags that came in the kit) is from the box she sent full of paper. It was my favorite so I just had to incorporate it.

And the view inside... every 10th page is decorated

And here is my imagine with her new endcaps Kymberlee sent me.

And here is a picture of Mabry Mill, one of my all-time favorite places in the world. I took this with my camera phone on Sunday evening. We got there at 7:05, and they quit serving dinner at 7, but we were able to find a neat, rural place called the Mountain House down the road in Meadows of Dan. If anyone travels along the Blue Ridge Parkway, you've got to check this place out.

And a final project... if you remember last year I created a bulldog house for "caught being good" tickets... which is a great program for elementary schools... anyway, it went so well that this year we are having two "bulldogs of the week"- a K-2 student and a 3-5 student. This means they needed another box for the K-2 names. This is what I created... using a piece of 12x12 chipboard cut into 6x6 blocks.

Completed the roof so that the kids can slip their forms in easily, and the roof comes off for the drawing each week easily.

 I hand-cut the bush, and the other flowers are from Freshly Picked. I hand cut everything else, including the 1-inch red siding. I used a brad for the door handle. I love it!

Here is a thinking of you card I made, which I think turned out nice. 

I have been super busy preparing for the new year in my 2^nd grade classroom. I made curtains for the windows (partially blocking the playground view- yay!), an alphabet banner to match the nature theme I have got going on, and several other pieces throughout the room. My dear husband assembled and hung my compasses for each wall. I also made paper dolls for each child (they picked out their skin tone, hair, and clothes on Business Day) but haven’t taken pictures of those yet. *Adds that to the ever-growing list of things to do.*

Other than that, I haven’t sat down in weeks, I don’t think. Oh yes, one more thing. My miniature schnauzer, Sophie Grace, had her second litter of pups on Aug 10. We were expecting 3-4, since she was just a little bigger than she was last time with 2, but we ended up with 7 precious babies! 5 girls, 2 boys. 3 of the girls are solid black, the other 4 pups look like they’ll be salt and pepper. I call them the "Martial Arts Puppies" because my DH named them all themed names... except two, which you will get if you've seen the move Talladega Nights. Their names: Blackie Chan, Bruce Flea, and Jet Flea are the black females, the two males are Walker and Texas Ranger, then the other two females are Dr. Quinn and Medicine Woman. *sigh*

"Hi" Beach card and Cobbler

 I FINALLY got a sew easy (just the main straight stitch and mat) so I have been playing around with it a bit. I made a really cute thank-you card for one of my students who had given me a jar of canned strawberry jam, but forgot to take a picture before I mailed it. Another card I made is this one, with an island and sea turtle swimming in the ocean. I thought it was cute, but DH didn't like it. :-/ Oh well. I LOVE the sew easy and cant wait to get more heads for it! I also used Simply Sweet for the "H" and "I" since they're cute and I just got that cart off rewards. I'm lovin' it.

And on a non-crafty note, I've been trying to bake (ha) so I tried out two recipes a couple of days ago. The first one, a chocolate-cherry cobber made with cake and brownie mixes turned out delicious...
(yes, that's a funfetti topping, since I didn't have yellow cake mix)

And a strawberry muffin recipe ended up trashing the whole stove, so I've spent 4 and a half hours today with the smell of the self-clean oven self-cleaning! Ugh... what a mess! It took 30 minutes to scrub enough dough off the pans to soak in hot water overnight, then another 20 minutes to scrape the rest before putting them in the dishwasher. Fair warning- the mess got worse after I took this picture!

And suddenly I remembered why I don't cook...

Bash's Baby Album... Rawr! Picture HEAVY

Here is the book I've been working on F-O-R-E-V-E-R!!! Actually, the babe just had his first birthday, so it couldn't have been that long, but it sure felt like it. I would work for a bit, then get tired of seeing Safari papers and not touch it for a month... over and over and over! I finally finished it and gave it to Whitney when she and Sebastian were visiting from out west. I left lots of space so she can journal, and several envelopes so she can put random stuff she keeps (yep... she's one of those moms, haha) Anyway,  here it is: 

page 1

Up close... from New Arrival

pages 2-3

I cut the monkey and lion from the paper stack, the banner is from Dinosaur Tracks

pages 4-5

I love this page, where Whitney can write all of Bash's "Firsts." And the giraffe is too cute! He and the elephant came from New Arrival

pages 6-7

pages 8-9

pages 10-11

page 12

 page 13

pages 14-15

pages 16-17

page 18

page 19

page 20, where all the extra stuff goes

Whew! I should've posted the pages as I finished them, instead of waiting until the end. I can't remember all of the Cricut cartridges I used. All paper was DCWV.