I'll Get You My Pretty...

Oh, Halloween, how I love you and all your spookiness!

This year Little Miss M was a witch. I bought the costume at a thrift store for $1 earlier in the year and the hat was another dollar. The dress has a cute collar and apron/skirt with glittery purple spiderwebs on it. I tried to convince her she should call herself the Spider Queen (one of her earlier alter egos) and wear a tiara instead of a witch's hat but she wasn't interested so a plain ol' witch she was.

Excuse me, the cutest plain ol' witch there ever was!

I didn't take a great pic of her face (did I learn nothing from my SnapShop with Ashley?!), but she had purple swirls kind of swooping out from the corners of her eyes and a big spider hanging out on her cheek.

I, too, enjoy dressing up for Halloween and I went to a costume party on Friday night. I went as Bianca from Lars and the Real Girl, a movie which you all should see if you haven't already. It stars Ryan Gosling and is just a cute, funny, quirky movie. If you haven't seen it, I won't spoil it for you. I'll let the following photos peak your interest.

Here's a shot of Bianca from the movie:And here's my rendition of her:

...And Your Little Kitty Too!

So Little Miss M turned the big FIVE this past Monday. We celebrated her birthday last Saturday Hello Kitty style (Leslie T., can I get a what?what?!). We invited four of her little girlfriends from church.

We played Pin the Bow on Hello Kitty...

decorated Hello Kitty outfits for felt kitties I had cut out... had a makeshift photo booth with a special Hello Kitty disposable camera that will add a border to the photos, attempted a Hello Kitty puzzle for approximately 48 seconds,

ate cake...

and opened gifts...

Whew!

And let me just say that the party planning process and the party itself are much more fun than the party preparation. I was a nervous wreck the 24 hours leading up to this little shindig. I could hardly sleep the night before and ended up in my kitchen at 3:00 AM and 5:30 AM cutting cute shapes out of meats and cheeses, thawing out cupcakes my mom had made for my birthday several months ago after my attempt at these cake pops from Bakerella turned out like this...

Turns out I didn't even have time to frost the cupcakes so I ran to the store and bought a small cake and had them slap the number 5 on it.

Speaking of 5, I made M a little shirt with a freezer paper stencil but I didn't get a cute shot of her in it. This is as close as I got. Yes, the "hair" in one form or another is never too far... On Monday, her actual birthday, my fam came up from T-town and we ordered pizza from Giorgio's who graciously arranged the pepperonis on one of the pizza in the shape of a 5. Little Miss M kept changing outfits throughout the evening and finally settled on this leotard. With a pull up on underneath. Quite the fashionista, eh?

I did have time to frost the aforementioned cupcakes (or "cuckakes" as M likes to say) for this celebration and even though I had removed the candle stick this tray had been glued to at the Hello Kitty party I thought it would be okay to just balance it on the candlestick. I was wrong. The lid of one of the pizza boxes flopped over on the tray and the cuckakes took a nosedive onto the bench behind the table. Argh.

This picture, my friends, pretty accurately depicts the whole party-planning experience from start to finish! At least I have a year to recuperate!

It Is Finished

Not well. But it is finished. Sorry, Valerie, no giftie for you this time. I did discover that I hate painting even more than I thought. Definitely NO FUN when you do it by yourself. I needed my mommy or Kara to be here to help out. I'm pooped out and my eyes are playing tricks on me...can't even tell much of a color difference even though I know it went from a weird green to white. Hmmm.

But this whole money motivation worked well (for me at least!). I need to channel this into other areas: weight loss, other home improvement projects, credit card debt reduction, etc.

Thanks for all the encouragement/motivation/friendly competition.

If I Were a Betting Girl...

Okay, we all know I'm a bit of {which is a bit of an understatement} a procrastinator. I had planned to paint the entire interior of my home the week I closed on the house. Then I was going to paint certain rooms last Christmas break. Then it was pushed to the summer. And now I've set a goal of painting my living room prior to Little Miss M's birthday party. On Saturday. Yes, a mere three days away. So I've been "planning" on painting tomorrow on the first day of fall break so that I can reward myself on Friday with shopping and whatnot in the big city. But I fear that I will, once again, put it off. So...as an extra incentive I'm going to wager against myself. Sort of.

Here's my proposal:

If I don't paint my living room by midnight tomorrow night (Friday morning, technically) then I will purchase a $25 gift card to the establishment of choice for the first person to respond to this post. Which will be sad if nobody posts until after tomorrow...

So good luck to you! But more luck to me! Either way, someone will get something by the end of the day tomorrow!

Rock {'n Roll} A Bye Baby

I keep telling myself that my sewing machine is not something I should be afraid of. Last week there was a baby shower at work and I had psyched myself up to sew some burp cloths but then chickened out in the end and bought my gifts. Well, a friend is expecting a baby boy next month so I finally bit the bullet and conquered my fear.

I had purchased a two-pack of metallic iron-on transfers that said "My Dad Rocks" (because his dad does) and "My Mom Rocks" (with a rocking chair). I found this cute longsleeved onesie at Wal-Mart and slapped the daddy transfer on it.

Now I had to figure out what to do with the mommy transfer. I decided to make a burp cloth and while I was waiting for the lady at Hancock's to cut the flannel (black and white houndstooth on one side, solid red on the other) out I had the bright idea to make it in the shape of a guitar. Not necessarily the most practical burp cloth design, but I though the concept would be cute. I drew out the shape on a sheet of newspaper and then cut out the flannel. I wasn't sure to do with the tuner knobby things so I sewed some ribbons near the top to simulate them. And added the transfer near the bottom. The finished result:

I topstitched a zigzag stitch but wasn't very adept at sewing it in a relatively straight line near the edge and therefore didn't quite get the opening at the bottom sewn shut so I had to deviate a little and add a second wonky topstitch (see below) to correct it. I'm hoping that that houndstooth is busy enough that you don't really notice how poorly it was sewn. But, all in all, not too terribly bad for my first go at it.

Blast from the Past

I was just going through all the pictures on my computer trying to weed some out because my laptop is a little sluggish these days. I ran across a bunch my mom took a few years back and this one is my favorite so far:

My mom was watching her on this particular evening and had put her down to sleep in her (my mom's) room. Apparently Miss M (she had just turned 2) got off their big bed and found one a little more to her liking. I wonder where their dog Mattie slept that night...

My New Favorite and Best

Every once in awhile I stumble across a great find at a thrift store or a garage sale: my vintage O'Keefe and Merritt stove, my round blue coffee table, the set of Calphalon cookware, my awesomely funky headboard, that great dresser I scored a few months back...and for awhile that thing becomes my favorite item in my home.

Well, this morning Little Miss M and I got up early, hit the donut shop, and headed out to the garage sales awaiting us in our thriving metropolis. The first one I hit was for a local pet rescue organization. I was browsing the tables and bookshelves and as I was about to pay for my measly little purchase I saw this chair:

It was near the cash table so I assumed that it was for the volunteers but I asked anyway. I was wrong! For $12.50 it could be mine, all mine. Although a bit on the office-y side, I loved its Danish modern lines and it was in great condition. There was a great debate about whether or not it's upholstered in leather or vinyl but I'm confident I'm right and that it is vinyl. Obviously (for those of you clever enough to notice the chair is in my living room and not a garage) I made the purchase. Fitting it into the car was an adventure, especially in light of the cracked window incident last summer (trying to cram a desk into my compact car). Neither my mother or stepfather would be proud of my knot tying abilities, but I prevailed and it found its way into my house.

And now I get to figure out how to rearrange my living room to make space for them.

Say what?! That's right...

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I bought two of them! Not too shabby for $25, eh?