happy halloween!

hope you have a fun and safe halloween! :)  

getting ready for halloween!

1. halloween banner swap with my art group: check!

the challenge was to use "non traditional" color combinations.  so, in other words: no black/orange.

so i tried different combinations: black/white/purple/red/green

i think they turned out pretty good! (or bad, i mean, it is halloween afterall!)

2. visit to a pumpkin patch: check!

the girls were lucky to be invited to a birthday party that just so happened to have been held at the cutest of cute pumpkin patches.  there was a giant pumpkin to climb inside (hence, orange-tinted photos!)

and lots of opportunities for cute photo-ops (none, of course, that came out of the cute hay-bale maze, train ride or petting zoo!  but that's ok.  we had fun and that's what matters most!)

3. time for some october journaling: check!!  not in traditional fall colors, but that's ok by me.  what are you doing to prepare for fall/autumn/halloween?

JOURNALFEST and halloween and rainbows!

i can't believe journalfest and halloween have come and gone. but they were so much fun and a much needed break from the hum-drum of daily life. so, i'm much too tired to go into a detailed account, so i'll just post some photos and say that if you love journaling and/or making art in general, you've GOT to get up to the fort fort at least ONE of the 'fests that teesha and tracy put on every year. c'mon! what are you waiting for? or, if you live too far, check out if there are any local groups that get together for some kind of artsy gathering. and if not, start your own! :) (and be sure to let me know...i'll come and play!)

so journalfest...

this year i shared the cost of a rental car with some fellow journalfesters instead of riding the shuttle. it was cheaper AND we got to ride the ferry! i've never been on a ferry before. what a great way to start a magical journey.

bye, bye seattle!

i stayed in the officer's housing which is so different than the dorms. the houses are cozy and quaint and you really get to know your housemates. each night after classes and dinner, we'd gather in the dining room and spread out our projects and supplies and show and tell what we made that day and then continue making art late into the night.

house number 11. yes, it's as spooky as it looks! :)

view of the grassy field in front of our house.

i took classes with roxanne padgett, orly avineri and indgrid dijkers. i'll let the photos speak for themselves! it was tons of fun. i can't even begin to express how wonderful it is to make art all day, break for food and fun and then make more art into the wee hours of the night. it was so nice to have a break from, "mommy! i need this! i need that!" and just do art AAAALLLLL day.

colorful, messy table evidence of a fun class with roxanne padgett

a peek into one of indgrid dijkers' tunnel book journals

i barely had enough time to decompress from journalfest when i returned sunday afternoon because it was halloween! but it was fun. the kids dressed up, my gal pal and her little munchkin came over and we walked the little ones down the street for their first halloween as trick-or-treaters. i think they were still too little to really "get" what was going on, but it was still fun. sureya had the most fun giving out candy and knocking on doors (something she does anyway when we go out on walks around the neighborhood).

little strawberry princess all ready to go

climbing around outside, waiting for it to get dark

strawberry's friend, "chupi" dressed up as a cute little nerd!

mamas and their little "treats" on halloween

and i finally got around to photographing the lovely items i received from my swap partner, marilyn. such a gorgeous and eclectic array of goodies! you can view more of the rainbow goodies on our flickr group.

my favorite color, blue! this bag was packed full of goodies!

thank you marilyn! :) so i think i'm caught up for now! sorry for such a packed post...blogger is only letting me upload one photo at a time and now i've kind of lost steam. i still have so much more to say about journalfest and my new adventures in homeschooling my 8-year-old daughter. more on that later.

our days have been in the upper 80s, really unusual for autumn. glad i can still get a little more wear out of my summer skirts and flip flops, though. as much as i love the changing seasons, i really do love running around outdoors in the sunshine. more on that later, too!

halloween party

my daughter decided it would be fun to have some of her friends over for a halloween party this past weekend. she had so much fun planning the games and food and picking out the decorations and goodies for the goodie bags. her favorite party prep task is putting together the goodie bags! i wish i would've gotten a picture of her with everything lined up on the dining room table, assembly-line style! she is my daughter, that's for sure. we both love to plan parties and organize and make lists and check them twice.

we went with an orange-and-black snack theme. carrots & olives and oranges & grapes (found these super dark black grapes at trader joe's!). we had a candy platter for making candy kabobs (full of gummy spiders, worms, brains...yum!) the kids also made candy (easy candy-making kit from michael's. it was a hit!)

i found these fun drink labels at target. the drinks are mexican sodas (jarritos) and they come in all kinds of bright and wonderful colors!

this year for halloween, she wanted to be a weeping angel from the bbc series, "dr. who." (basically, she is one of those stone angel statues you see in cemeteries, but in the show, they are aliens from another planet who can only move when no one is looking at them. so if you look at them, they seem like normal statues, but if you blink or look away and look back, they get closer and closer....it's super spooky!) i just wanted to share some photos of our fun day and hope you all have a wonderful halloween!

i will be gone this week attending journalfest in port townsend, washington. (yahoo!!!) i will be racing around like mad at the last minute packing supplies and warm clothes and trying to remember everything i'll need. i'll post photos of the fun when i return! :)

Etsy Treasury: All Souls Day

I LOVE curating treasuries on etsy. it's like window shopping and creating an inspiration board all-in-one. i typed in "soul" and found some interesting items. then narrowed it down with a black-white-and-orange theme. hope you enjoy some halloween inspired goodies! check it out by clicking HERE. happy fall!

ok, i'm ready for fall!

i'm usually the last one in flip flops and summer dresses, desperately clinging onto the last few drops of sweet summertime. but after seeing everyone around blogland getting ready for halloween, i am officially ready for fall to begin! :) i forget that my favorite holidays start just around the corner after i've splashed my last cannonball into the deep end of the pool. (actually, we didn't do much swimming this summer. it was one of the mildest summers i've ever experienced here in the past 10 years! brrr! and when i mean brr, it's the california gal in me, going, "it's 65 degrees out? turn up the heater! where's my fuzzy socks??)

peek-a-booo! halloween mini stitched journal/album available in the shop!

anyway, i've been a busy bee and i've added some more items to my shop. halloween-inspired mini journals. perfect for jotting down little notes or tucking in sweet photos of loved ones. i always sneak little goodies into the pockets and folds of every journal i make. kind of a fun little surprise. and a way to get a little creative jumpstart!

kitschy kid costume fun!

birds of the night sky. great old book page from an old children's book on birds

i've sent laurie her mini journal in the mail today, hurray! and i'm getting started on sally's custom made journal this week. sally was the big winner of the giveaway--winning her very own custom made journal. yay! i'll share a couple of behind-the-scenes photos of the work in progress. ;) and if anyone knows ejmom, please let her know i'm lookin' for her! (she won the collage pack! if i can't find her within a week, i'll have to re-draw the prize.) these three ladies are our winners from my 100th post giveaway. if you missed out, don't fret. i'll be having them frequently! we'll have another one coming up pretty soon to kick start the fall/halloween fun! stay tuned...

whooo doesn't love owls?

pages inside a stitched mini journal

would make a great back-to-school gift! ;)

more mini journal pages. i LOVE old paper!

pumpkin themed page! found in the halloween mini stitched notebooks

we are still enjoying mild summer/early fall weather here. which means we can still run around in flip flops and bare feet and eat popsicles for lunch if we feel like it. took the girls to the park today and they had a blast. sureya loves the slide! she loves climbing up in her little bare feet and sliding down on her back and then doing it all over again. she is my little daredevil. today, in fact, i walked out of the kitchen only to find her sitting ON TOP of the dining room table, shaking both the pepper and salt onto her feet. cute, but kind of terrifying too! she is a quick little one, i guess the baby gates are going back up! she only had a few seconds lead time on me, but that was enough time to get into trouble!

hope you are enjoying these last few days of summer before the smoky fall air and cool nights wrap around us like fog. i'm looking forward to it. finally. i'm not dragging my heels like i was in years past. maybe because i avoided michael's where they start putting up halloween stuff in july. i really don't like to be forced to do anything (who does?) and i really don't like to hurry through anything as precious as life and the everyday "little" things like the passing of seasons. after all, there will never be another day quite like today.

dirty face and feet: evidence of a great time had at her friend mo's 2nd birthday party!

Halloween Fun, Too

Another fun and spooky Halloween has come and gone. This year me and Maya made some holiday wreaths with a macabre theme in mind. The wreath below looks rather tame but upon closer inspection, you'll notice the fingers tucked in here and there (Maya's idea!).


One stop at our local Michael's was all it took to put these spooky wreaths together in a matter of minutes. I borrowed some red sparkly poinsetta from the Christmas section to top off the creepy red-and-black theme.

And added some fingernail polish to the plastic fingers for a gruesome touch. ;) (ooh, no pun intended).

This year we had some help from my stepdaughter, Brielle, to create a Halloween scene on the porch and a graveyard in our front lawn. Here she's posing as Captain Jack Harkness (from the show "Torchwood") with Sureya as a little monkey, Maya as Mulan and our old, dear headless friend, Freaky Freddy.

All night we couldn't figure out why little kids were so hesitant to approach our porch for sweets...until we noticed that from afar, it looked as though Brielle's head were attached to Freddy's body! And as you walked closer, it looked like Brielle's head was floating off to the side (thanks to a weird optical illusion!)

Next year, I think I'll get it together sooner and include Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) in with our Halloween fun. I'm taking Suzi Blu's online course right now and it is full of Day of the Dead inspiration and fun. Hope you're having some creative moments wherever you are! Let the holiday fun begin!

Happy Halloween!