Thoughts of a Grasshopper

A few of the things that make you think of Halloween.  I love the candy corn "flowers".  I appliqued the Boo letters with orange.  I really like the pop of color rather than just plain black.  The black cat with the moon behind on the "O" is too cute, too!

September was a busy month for me.  It was as if October, November, & December were combined in one as far as busyness goes.  One happy event was a baby shower I had for a new mother.  I knew her the last time we lived in Albuquerque and she was a teenager then. My girls took a few pictures for me to help me remember what we did.  The food wasn't all out when they took the pictures but that is okay.  I felt bad that most of the food was store bought.  I would have preferred for it to be homemade but time did not allow for that.  I would have liked to have streamers go the width of the table but it was rather frustrating because the crepe paper had a mind of its own.  This is as much as I got up before I called it good. haha I love balloons.  I think they make it so much more festive.  I had two dozen balloons and half a dozen mylar balloons in the atrium, living room and dining room. I hung a clothes line with the clothe...

Another beautiful wall hanging that I enjoyed seeing about our door.  The letters on the burlap are attached to the twine.  The ends of the twine are tacked onto the wall hanging.  It didn't get to hang too long before the one for Halloween went up. 

I made this wall hanging in July and hung it for August.  I'm going to use it again for January because I'm not into having 2 snowmen and a penguin above my door.  I'm sure I would feel differently if I had little ones or I actually lived where the snow stuck around for more than a few hours. The wall hanging itself I think is adorable.  My favorite section is the beehive with the bee buttons "flying" by the hive.  The "Home Sweet Home" is loose and hangs on the button.  I need to come up with a better way of storing these wall hangings. than carefully folding them.  I would like to leave them laid out flat, I just need a container for that. This next picture of the Bloc-Loc I had to share because this is the BEST tool to have for half square triangles.  It makes squaring up go so much faster.  I've had several projects, one with many squares and these make it go so much faster to square up and move on to the next step.  I was told yo...

  Fall of 2015 I saw a picture of "quilted" Christmas trees on Craftsy.  I saved the project and the fabric requirements.  The instructions list a youtube video that is no longer available.  With the information I had, I figured out how to make these trees. Sometime around the time that I saw the idea on Craftsy, I bought the styrofoam trees with the intention of making it.  I bought fabric for it last year but still didn't get them made for Christmas.  I've had it on my "to do" list all month.  My reasoning is that I have more time now than I will in November. Surprisingly, It took me about 5-6 hours to make these two trees.  I didn't think it would take so long.  The taller tree has a 4" base and is 12" tall.  The smaller tree has a 3-1/2" base and is 9" tall. The trees are made with 2-1/2" squares of fabric that are folded in half diagonally, pressed and then folded in half again and pressed, making a smaller triangl...

I don't have a lot of decorations for Thanksgiving.  I usually stick with the fall leaves and pumpkins.  I have a stuffed fabric turkey and some pilgrims and Indians someone gave me as a gift years ago.  I thought it would be nice to add something to my Thanksgiving stash. Like the other projects I shared this week, I painted the wood pieces first and then I cut the paper and mod podged it on.  I must admit, I wish I had some sort of a template for the leaves.  I could have made one but I didn't take the time.  In some ways I wish I'd taken the time but I'm okay with how it turned out.  Honestly, no one is going to sit and stare at the turkey feathers and think, "ooh that one needs to have more of a curve."  Well, you might now that I pointed it out. haha.

I did this the same way as the "family" letters.  I traced the blocks onto paper, cut it out and mod podged onto the wood blocks after painting them.  I like the paper for these blocks.  The black paper is soft and fuzzy.  Down side is it picks up lint like crazy. haha The pumpkin is sparkly chevron paper and a wood grain for the stem.  The ghost is white paper with gold sprinkles all over it.  This will be a fun decoration for October!