Halloween Decorations

At long last! I managed to take some semi decent photos of my Halloween decorations! Let's start with the living room...

While Ben watches the tube, I stare up at my much coveted ghouls, black cats and party favors.

Can you guess which ones are vintage and which ones were made by me?

(Answer: The party crackers are vintage, the surprise balls are made by me!)

My little onion girl (who I selfishly couldn't sell!) is frightened among the other crazed smiles and laughs!

I made these gourd men from my mom's dried gourds...I love how they turned out!

This is a giant bushel gourd, also grown by mom. And can you believe it! It came out of the ground like that!

Mini face gourds piled in an apothecary jar on the end table.

I didn't even realize I had collected so many vintage crepe witches! All fought over on eBay. :)

Grandma's China Hutch is decorated pretty much the same way I had it last year...it's nice because the pumpkins light up at night.

Even the quails get a little fall makeover. They were afraid of the leaves at first...but eventually they dragged a few into their little gourd house.

My crepe paper tree is still in good form.

Ornaments from all different artists...I love it!

Gourds from my cousin's pumpkin stand. Love that warty one!

I made a coven of these cardboard and crepe paper witches...inspired by vintage look-a-likes.

We'll be carving these pumpkins soon!
LOVE this jumping cat man...he's hinged at the waist is so cheery!

My little sister made this bat years ago...I still love it!

The hallway needs some gruesome decorations too! Scary masks dress up apothecary jars.

Air plants, acorns, and chestnuts add a natural touch.

Yay! I hope you've enjoyed the tour! :)

A tutorial and a mini sale!

I should have posted about this a few weeks ago, but better late than never! Kari from Artsy Mama has asked me if I was willing to create a tutorial for her Halloween fun filled blog, the Sweet and Sinister Blog. Of course I was honored by the invitation and came up with this cute little paper mache kitty sitting atop a top hat! It was inspired to create it by peeking at one of Mark Ledenbach's Halloween collectibles books. I love how it turned out!

You can see it, and many more fun tutorials my emailing Kari about getting an invitation to the blog!

Also, I just wanted to showcase these last couple of Halloween items that are currently in my Etsy shop now. I'm so proud to say that it's been a wonderful Halloween and fall season and all but just a couple of my spun cotton characters found new homes. Including this adorable little graveyard candy box with a trio of ghosts...the last of the two that were available. It opens up into a box so you can stash your favorite Halloween candy inside!

A pair of children dressed up as devils. One black, one red, but both bad!

And these four birdie children were actually a bit forgotten about until now! Last Halloween I made a whole bunch of these birdies, but had four left over. I was concentrating so much on all of my brand new items, that I forgot to offer them for sale again this year, until now. But since I'm so late and since they've been orphans for long enough (yes, I just watched Annie the other day)...I decided to pair them up and post them at a special discounted price. Each pair are completely one of a kind and are only $25! I probably won't be making any more of these for next year. They are freshly posted in my Etsy shop!

And later today I'll be working on photographing my Halloween decor (always an intimidating feat for me!)...stay tuned for the results tomorrow! Fingers crossed that the photos won't be too dark! :)

A peek into Christmas...

I'm taking a little step away from Halloween today (don't worry, the rest of the week will be filled with fun Halloween tricks and treats!) to introduce you to the first of my 2010 Christmas collection. There is a wonderful variety of colors and themes and configurations. Many of these are posted in my Etsy shop now and most are one of a kind...so get them while they're still here! Those that aren't, will be very soon. Keep your eye out! :)

Juggling confectionery girls, ball playing Santa's, and sweet angelic elves...

A trio of snowy cat girls...

I can't forget about the rowdy rocket girls...

The green two faced Santa (turn him around and he's still looking at you with a different face!) and of course regal white Santa...

Elf girl ornaments. Is this the same elf? ...before and after the big blizzard of 2010?

Traditional Christmas colored girl ornaments...careful...one is starting to make her get away!

Christmas parade girls...singing carols and they march through the streets!

And of course the random steel robot and matching octopus.

I hope you've enjoyed this sneak peek! :)

One more round of owls!

My last batch of Halloween owls sold so quickly (thank you to everyone who snatched one or two of them up!), but left many owl-less people saying "hey!" I try to please the masses, so here is my very last batch of Halloween owls!! Ok ok, baby blue eyes in the corner isn't exactly Halloweeny...but the others let him into the club. You can find them all in my Etsy shop now and they are ready to ship out immediately so you can hopefully have them before Sunday. :) And just for fun, here's a little Halloween owl poem I wrote/modified:

Five little owls sitting in a row,
The first one says "Oh my we're slow!"
The second one says "There's a full moon in the sky!"
The third one says "Let's fly and fly and fly!"
The fourth one says "The sitting here is done."
The fifth one says "Let's have some fun!"
Ooooh ohhhh went the wind,
and out went the lights,

and the five little owls flew out of sight.

Ollie and Owl

Aren't they so sweet together? The collaboration between Jennifer Murphy and I was a big success! The sweet as pie duo was in high demand during Jen's big update yesterday. And I can see why...that bear is ADORABLE! I love his little felt-y eyes and his hand sewn owl jacket and pointy feet. :)

And due to high demand...I'll be whipping up a bunch more Halloween owls tonight and tomorrow and hope to have them all listed to Etsy on Monday or Tuesday. Sadly, they won't come with a bear...

Until then...here's Jen's closeup of the smitten pair:

Ten more days 'til Halloween!!

The ghouls and goblins are preparing their Halloween night antics! What are you doing to get ready? I've gotten all of my Halloween goodies out on display, including these great finds from earlier this year! I'll show you photos of the rest real soon. :)

Fantastic Furnishings

It's been a while since I've done some serious treasure hunting, but when my buddy Lisa sent me an email the night before this amazing estate sale, I knew I couldn't resist...and why should I? I've been really good lately and my house is nicely organized with nothing spilling out of the seams. :)

Well thank you Lisa for telling me about this sale...I found some real beauties on the furniture front!

I can do some real good front porch sittin' in this teal rocker covered with chippy paint. I just need to sew a pretty cushion for it.

This elegantly cut little cabinet was the first thing I spotted when I walked into the shed. I'm shocked that no one had bought it yet. But....this lady picked it up before I could get to it and asked the guy how much it was. He said $25. I watched her in suspense as she looked it over...unsure. "It's a fixer upper" she said as she put it down. I didn't waste a second before I picked it up and said "for $25? I'll take it!" It is missing a little side piece on the top...but it's a simple cutout that I could probably manage to duplicate on my scroll saw with little trouble. Whether I ever get around to doing it is beside the point...it still looks great without it!

This large, simple cabinet with glass knob was good cheap find too. I lugged it out of the basement along with 5 other things I was carrying. It was well worth the effort! And the 10 bucks.

This was the most expensive piece I bought at 40 smackeroos. It's larger than it looks in the photo and has really neat carvings and is in really nice shape, minus the dirt. It will look great when we move into our house in NY. I love it!

This heavy iron thing was sitting on the basement work bench amid all the rusty tools and nails. I'm not sure what it's purpose is...but I had to have it.

I'm so glad I snatched this up on the second round through the house...how did I miss it the first time? It's the perfect color, and despite the fact that I'm not huge into floral print...this delicate metal watering can works great when watering my tiny plants.

I'm always on the look out for mini muffin and tart tins for cake toppers. I'll add these to my pile!

I hit the jackpot on old millinery fruit and leaves. I'm sure these goodies will inspire some neat creation in the near future.

As soon as I entered the house my goal was to find the Christmas room that was photographed in the listing. Well...I wasn't the only one. This woman was in there scooping up all the best stuff! I was crushed...but still managed to find some great things.

I found this neat autumn-y ribbon in the shed of all places. It was there by it's lonesome among the shovels and old furniture. The guy told me to just take it. Yay! A little victory that helped me recover from the Christmas room let down.

And finally I scooped up these little vintage trowels. They helped me dig my way out the crowd!

Phew! I feel pretty good about the goodies I got at the estate sale...but what a thing it is to battle the hungry vultures (me being one of them) who are all after the same awesome old things! I'll hang up my estate sale bags for a little while and relish in all the previous flea market and estate goodies I've already acquired. :)