Pumpkin Carving

 
We started Halloween off by doing a little pumpkin carving this year. It was the first time either Chase or Boris had ever carved a pumpkin! Chase is truly is father's son, he was horrified by the mess the pumpkin guts made!







Next we decided to make a pumpkin headed snowman. Isn't that how everyone spends Halloween?






Here is Chase trying to sneak off for some early Trick or Treating...



Hopefully the rest of the day is as fun as the morning was!
 

Bat Mobile

 
Chase and I tried to get into the Halloween spirit by making this adorable bat mobile.



We ended up using glitter instead of glow in the dark paint. It was a fun little project.

 

Snow!

Today we played in the snow...

There is Nothing More Delicious...

 
Here is the recipe for my favorite cookies (which I stole from a friend a few years ago)...we call them crack cookies around here because of their addictive qualities...but I'm guessing most people would refer to them as PB Butterscotch cookies...

Ingredients:
1 bag of butterscotch chips
1 - 2 spoonfuls of peanut butter
Cornflakes

In a double boiler mix the bag of butterscotch chips with peanut butter (as much as you would like, I usually use two very large spoonfuls) and stir / melt the chips until smooth. Remove the mixture from heat and pour in Cornflakes and stir (keep adding Cornflakes until there is a nice light coating on the flakes). Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto wax paper and let cool.

Can you tell I like easy recipes?



Here is what yesterday morning looked like at my house...







 

I Feel Like Santa's Workshop

 
Lately I have been doing a surprising amount of crafting but I can't post pictures of everything because a lot of it may end up as Christmas gifts. The other reason is because I have about 20 projects in progress but very few finished things. Here are a few of the things I actually finished lately.

I decided to try the applique pillows that I have seen everyone making. Overall I think they were a success, they will make great gifts.



Instructions:
1) Use your computer to print the letters that you would like and cut them out so that they can be used at stencils
2) Trace the letters onto the back of your fabric and cut them out (be sure to "mirror" them so that they face the right direction when you are finished)
3) Use permanent fabric glue to glue the letters to the backing of your choice
4) Once the glue is dry stitch around the edges of the letters (typically people use a zigzag stitch but I happen to be a fan of frayed edges so I used a straight stitch and let my edges fray away)
5) Piece the rest of the front of your pillow together as well as a back that is the same size as the front
6) Sew the back and front together (right sides facing each other) and leave a small opening at the bottom of the pillow
7) Trim the corners and turn the pillow inside out
8) Stuff the pillow and then top stitch around the edge of the pillow closing the hole

Tip: I top stitched everywhere that I pieced fabric together and I love how it turned out, I would highly recommend it.

Easy as that...

The other project that I recently fell in love with are these alligator scarves (I used the baby scarf pattern and I think if you just made it a bit longer it would work for an adult too). If you have a young child they may very well end up getting one of these from me for Christmas...





Here is a picture of it on my husband (really it was made for a kid so it looks small but I think it will fit a toddler perfectly).



Here is the second one that I am still finishing up...hopefully there will be a bunch of them soon!



I am now in the process of making a pattern for matching mittens because I love the scarf so much. My first attempt didn't turn out that well because the yarn and needles I used were too big. So I am starting over with sports weight yarn and it is looking much better.

 

I could eat cookies all winter long...

 
Chase's daycare was closed today so I got to spend a day in stay at home mom land. It was quite the adventure!

We made 3 Ingredient Pumpkin Cookies. They were AMAZING! I'm hooked.



1 Box of Spice Cake
1 15 oz can of Pumpkin
1 Cup of Chocolate Chips
(I also added 1/4 cup of flour because we are high altitude)

Mix ingredients together, drop onto cookie sheets and bake at 350 degrees. The recipe I used said about 10 minutes but my cookies took more like 14 minutes. I used the toothpick method to check them and they are perfect.

Here are a few cookies that Chase decorated.



I put a little bit of butter cream glaze on mine.

1 tablespoon of butter
Powdered Sugar
Splash of milk

Mix together and drizzle on top.



Chase and I also decided to make Candy Corn bark.

1 bag of milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup of white chocolate chips
Candy corn

Melt the chocolate. Pour the milk chocolate in a pan (I lined mine with parchment paper) and then drizzle the white chocolate on top. Use a toothpick to marble to chocolate. Add Candy Corn on top. We were also going to use pretzels but I forgot to add them. The only thing that didn't work out is that I think the pan I used was a bit too small so the final result was thicker than I wanted.





Tomorrow it's back to work but it was a fun day at home...

 

More Decorating

 
Here is our next decorating adventure...

We bought this table and the chairs (in brown and white) for our breakfast nook. I love Target...



We are thinking about getting this light to go over the new table, is it too funky? I like it for some reason.


 

A Blog Award!

 
A Capricious Perspective was kind enough to give me a blog award today!



The rules of the "One Lovely Blog Award" are: Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link. Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you've newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

Here are a few of my favorites (I know I didn't list 15 but these are the ones I frequent the most!):

3 Men and a Lady
The Yarniad
LuLu Bug Jewelry
So Smitten
Philigry
The View From My Pencil
 

Let's Talk Art

 
I was so excited to find the art for my new library / office / art room yesterday! I am a total sucker for simple abstracts. What do you think?




We did some art as our house as well...Chase's love for stickers makes an appearance in everything he does.




I even got the chance to do some crafting of my own today! Recently we found a tiny little pillow and Chase fell in love with it and has been using it every night. So of course I decided that it was time to upgrade him to a real pillow. I made this little pillowcase for him. I am now in LOVE with invisible zippers!!!




Here is the fabric that I picked for the back up pillowcase.