Witches Night Out – Happy Halloween!

 

 

Happy Halloween friends!

Hope this post finds you getting ready to go out a-spookin’ tonight with your kids or friends! Tonight Brent and I will be chillin at home with some movies, caramel apples and cider and answering the door for trick or treaters… when we run out of candy we will hide out in the basement. :)

A couple of weeks ago I went out “witching” with some girlfriends in Salt Lake City.  There’s a shopping center called Gardner’s Village that holds an annual “Witch Fest” &“Witches Night Out” for the public.  I’ve always wanted to go, so I was thrilled when Angie invited me to go with her.  Angie had the day prior to WF off work so she came over to do some crafting… we ended up spending most of the day shopping for and working on our costume stuff.

{Note – all pics taken with my cell phone, sorry for the poor quality of photos.}

Snacks, glitter, tulle, glue, all kinds of fun goodies for crafting! Even my lovely Sadie got in on the action… She made herself right at home amongst my huge pile of hot pink tulle!

 

Sadie just LOVES her Auntie Angie and wouldn’t leave her alone… I think it had something to do with the purple tulle bow that Angie tied around Sadie’s neck…

  
Angie made a “grown up” purple and black tutu to wear over a fabulous thrift skirt she found and made into a ragged edge skirt and I worked on my hat and a pile of flowers for it and the tulle ruffle for my skirt.

Tulle ruffle in progress.  I gathered the tulle in sections by hand, then  stitched it to some pink satin and then stitched it to the bottom of an existing skirt using long basting stitches so I could remove it for later. I love how the pink just puffs out from under my skirt :)

To make my flower piles I cut strips of pink satin and hot glued it while rolling and scrunching to create flowers.  I made tulle flowers by gathering small strips and then using my heat gun to melt-scrunch the petals.   I used the heat gun on the satin, too, and it helped create some more scrunching.  Loooove how they turned out.  I stitched the flowers individually to the hat.  I added little dots of stickles glue to the main big flower for some more sparkle.

I WAS going to wear these FABULUSH false lashes, but I got them on and it was like I was a horse wearing blinders… I could not see ANYTHING periferally and since I was going to be driving and trying to walk around in a big crowd that was not a good idea so I opted for a shorter, more reasonable, yet still lucious pair from my stash.

I needed a fru fru top to go with the costume, so I bought a roll of “boa” and stitched it to the neckline of one of my existing shirts.  I love how it turned out! 

I think we turned to be quite the cute witchy pair!

Here are a couple of snapshots of some crazy witches on the train with us. I don’t think you can see how FABULOUS some of the hats are. It was hard to be “inconspicuous” while snapping pics on the train…  I think the lady in the cream sweater/scarf knew I was taking her pic. LOL!

       

It was a giant costume party… seas of hats everywhere… there were even some Pilgrims that showed up!

We had so much fun!  Next year we are going to have a hat party prior to the event so we can work on making some FABULOUS hats!  We were UNDERDRESSED and UNDERHATTED compared to some of the guests! 

                 

        

Here’s the group of us waiting at the Trax station,  We decided to take the train to avoid the crazy parking lot situation.  Witches Night Out is a HUGE event.

 

Hope you have a FABULOUS Halloween celebration tonight!  Be safe and stay warm!

Inky Smiles!

Video Tutorial - Nickel and Dime Style Bling Rings

Hey guys!

It’s been a LOOONG crazy summer!  I know I’ve been MIA entirely too long.  We have had so much going on around here and quite frankly, I decided to cut a few things out of my life for a little while and not stress about them.  It’s been a nice vacation from the blog, but I think I am ready to get back into some crafty action again!

We’re still in the process of remodeling our kitchen. We took a break from the finishing touches while we had family in and out for weeks and weeks and did some traveling for Brent’s job. And then I got sick the last big of Sept on our way home from a trip (some respiratory flu) and was sick until just last week when I finally went to the ol; doctor and became a walking pharmacy. haha.. feeling much better now, though.

Oh, and it’s been “that time of year” again…. CANNING SEASON… We did BUSHELS and BUSHELS of grapes and tomatoes, peaches, and 40 lbs of chicken again….  It’s been fun :)

And I made a working website for my Creative University Charm Swap Ladies … I’m hosting again this year and it is going to be FABULOUS!  There are still a few seats left for Creative University… hop on over and check it out!

So anyway…

One of the exciting things I am up to is teaching at the Junior High here in town.  I am now the 4H Afterschool Club Bling leader.  I’m teaching crafts and jewelry to a gaggle of 12-15 year old girls.  It’s LOADS of fun and loads of work.  The opportunity was something I sort of fell into, or rather it fell into my lap, unexpectedly.  A friend recommended me to the coordinator and a couple of emails later I was knee deep in the planning. I’m quite enjoying it, actually!

Today we made “Bling Rings” out of Nickels and Dimes, scrap paper, bling, and Glossy Accents.  ‘Cuz a girl just can’t get enough bling, right?

I threw this little quickie tutorial together tonight to show you how easy they are to make. 

 

 

Here are some photos from today’s 4H Club Bling adventure!

 

  

 

My Poor Neglected Little Blog & A Creative Escape

Hello friends!

I bet you thought you’d never hear from me again.  But alas, I’ve wandered back into Blog Land again. I haven’t really been very far away, though. I walk past this computer day in and day out, but I just haven’t sat down to write anything in aaaages.   I don’t even know where to start again. SOOOO much has been going on here at our house since I last left you with the pics of the start of the kitchen remodel. We’ve been remodeling, had family, went to  a fun card making class with Sue Neal, had more family (2 weeks worth), had friends come visit, did more projects, built a gazillion InkStaks, discovered a rather scary health issue, and I even had a mini retreat with some friends at my home at the first of August, with the help of my sweetie pie husband AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND we’re almost done with the kitchen. LOL! No time for blogging, but I have been alive on Facebook (cuz I can do it from my phone on the go).

 

A Creative Escape

I think  since it’s the freshest in my mind I will share with you some snapshots of our little mini retreat I did at my home with a few friends at the first of this month.  Many of us met at Creative University and a couple are local friends here in town.  We have been talking about getting together here in Utah for a fun little retreat getaway for some time now.  This summer went completely crazy on me and we decided not to a full blown “go away to a hotel for a few nights” craft retreat and instead I moved some furniture around at my house, set up some spare beds and we did an overnight retreat at my place.  We had so much fun!  A few of us put together some projects to teach the group and we also worked on some personal projects.  We even had delicious meals prepared especially for us by our personal chef, Chef Brent! He sure spoiled us!

Here’s the gang… well, most of us… Amanda and Jen had some crazy things going on that weekend so they were in and out.  Amanda missed our group shot.

Never fear,  the magic of Photoshop Elements can sneak her back in.  HA.. I’m a lousy extractor/editor, but this works….

That’s all of us.  Left to Right: Kim Garrett, Lisa Tafoya (pink shirt), Tahne Timmons (batik shirt), Jenalee Graves, Bobie Glassett, Amanda Bartholomew, and mE.

When I say we crammed in my front room, I mean we crammed…

Next time I will take the couch out and stash it somewhere.. {HAHA.. good luck with that, Erin.. it might have to go on the porch!}

 

Friday night dinner and treats were “FFY” – Fend For Yourself… we went to dinner at Mi Rancherito here in town and enjoyed some lovely Mexican treats.  We came home and had fun playing and creating for the evening.  I taught the group how to make altered domino pendants.  They all turned out just gorgeous!  Here are our pendants (and my art charms) on a tray just after being resin’d.  The no name pendants are some extras I made while playing around and practicing this technique the day before.  I like the technique so much that I just kept playing.  It’s addictive!

                         

       

Here’s my finished charm that I glued a bail onto and strung on a chain.

Once we all had our pendants covered in resin and placed out in the warm garage to cure we crafted some more and giggled and giggled until the wee hours of the morning.  The night is a blur to me. LOL!

Saturday morning-ish we slowly hauled our tired bootays out of bed and enjoyed a delightful breakfast that Brent prepared for us… on of my favorites, Overnight French Toast with an orange maple syrup, fruit, breakfast sausages, yogurt, and juice. YUM!

 

Saturday was filled with lots of crafting and more yummy food prepared by Chef Brent.   Tahne taught us how to make an “inverted round chain maille” bracelet that surrounded a string of Swarovski crystals.  I chose a really pretty green crystal called Erinite.  For real. Not kidding. I love it.

Tahne created little kits for us in these darling little personalized tins!

For the most part, this bracelet wasn’t that hard to do.  The part that was most troublesome was getting the first set of rings started properly.

Somewhere in here we took a break and enjoyed a yummy lunch – my famous chicken salad sandwiches. I made salsa the night before and it was almost perfect the next day.  I think it could have used the other half of the jalapeno…

 

Sleep deprived chicas making funny faces at the photographer…

 

Bobie taught us a really darling post it note holder that you can make with a couple of scraps of paper, some ribbon, and a daaarling little teeny tiny pen from Staples.  Complete directions can be found in August 2010 on her blog-www.scrappyandcrafty.blogspot.com 

 

 

Amanda put together kits for a 2 page layout for us using CTMH’s retired Cocoa Cafe paper and loads of buttons and chipboard goodies.  Here’s her layout.  I haven’t finished mine, still need to stitch around the edges and add photos, but I will share it soon.

Saturday night we enjoyed a delightful dinner that Chef Brent cooked for us in the dutch ovens outside.  He’s a seriously good chef and makes the best Italian food, too!   He made homemade garlic bread, a big green salad, and dutch oven Chicken Parmesan.   For dessert I made an ooey gooey yummilicious apple crisp.  I totally spaced vanilla ice cream so we just drizzled some fresh cream over it.  YUM!

 

 

We also did a charm swap with an Oldies Rock N Roll theme.  Kim turned her charms into a jumble/junklace necklace charm and I loved her idea so I blatantly copied her.  Here’s my jumble:

Lots of loveliness and sparkles! I love it!  I didn’t take pics of all the charms, but you can see most of them in these pics. Guitar pics, records, music notes, Elvis, guitars, all sorts of beads n baubles.  I made a couple of extras out of shrinky dink material – a jukebox and a diner girl. My art charms were scrabble tiles with an image of Elvis crooning into the microphone to which I attached a fun guitar charm and a bead charm.  Each girl got one with her first initial on the back.

I hope you enjoyed a peek at a recent fun weekend here at my place.  We had so much fun and I can not wait until we get together next time!

Thanks for sticking with me – I’m sorry I haven’t been around as much this past month.  We’re working on finishing up house projects and I will try (but not promise) to be more active on my blog. 

Inky Smiles!