On the eleventh day of Halloween

The Great Pumpkin gave to me:

One cat who is FREAKING out over Halloween decorations.

One finished Halloween costume.

One kid who has declared said costume his "favorite costume ever", which makes all the glue gun burns worthwhile.

And one pretty good trip to the flea market on a chilly Halloween morning.
I didn't buy this HUGE (think trash can) sized shortening can because I had already blown my cash, but I will probably be forever sorry I didn't. There is something about the colors and patterns that I just adore.

I did buy:
reflectors;
this vintage Japan Christmas decoration which opens up to do...
this and which Jack is really, really, really wanting to get his little hands on;
this owl bucket which I have been waiting to get my hands on for YEARS;
and the matching pumpkin (I think there was also a ghost and a skull? or maybe a witch? they were made by Dept 56 I think);
a toddler sized quilt (probably cut down from a larger one)...
with sweet dresden plates;
and a lovely red, white and blue quilt...

with really tiny stitches.

Thank you Great Pumpkin!

I will be back tomorrow with the costume and the end of the Great Pumpkin. (Does that mean I can put the Christmas tree up then?)

On the tenth day of Halloween

The Great Pumpkin gave to me:

Pumpkins, finally.
Pumpkin gutting;
a roll in the grass;
an impromptu tea party;
goofiness;
pumpkin carving;
a proud helper;

and a bounce house at the neighborhood party. (Where sadly there were no kids Jack's age that appear to actually live in the neighborhood. Boo.)

I guess I should finish that costume now, eh?

On the ninth day of Halloween

(There will have to be two posts today, I never got around to getting this up last night. Ooops.)

The Great Pumpkin gave to me:
One trip to Old Navy to try and find some shirts to cover the belly. An extra 40% off clearance? SCORE. I wiped it out.

One late night knock on the door to tell us that the neighbor had smushed our truck while it was parked on the street. Oops. (The knock was enough to make me nearly pee myself since no one EVER rings the bell here and we had just watched House of the Devil. Ha.)

One last minute trip to the pumpkin patch, complete with:
Jack taking forever to choose his gourds (that's a hard decision you know!);
one cool pumpkin man;
obligatory big pumpkin photos;
a kid who cannot lose his cheesy grin;
I always like this display;
and my favorite...

the white pumpkins.

One day to Halloween and we still have no pumpkins for carving (they are crazy expensive this year at the farms) and the costume is still needing to have the wings attached.

Oh yea, and the neighborhood party is today, where I am REALLY REALLY hoping to find some kids close to Jack in age for him to play with. Too bad I don't have a business card with our phone number on it...

I better get the whip cracking, eh?

On the eighth day of Halloween

The Great Pumpkin gave to me:

Weather cold enough that I had to turn the heat on after my nap this afternoon, brrr;

Some stuff I have been meaning to show you forever-
A pile of FANTASTIC feedsacks;
two sweet bottle brush trees;
a handful of ornaments (I found a HUGE box of ornaments in the basement yesterday while digging for an emergency costume for Jack to wear to his kindergarten party today. I have decided that this year I *am* going to weed down the collection some. They cannot stay in the basement where they will be ruined by humidity. I am ITCHING to start that project, but holding off until after Sunday.);
a doll cradle that I am crazy, madly, deeply in love with. Sorry this is not a great photo, the sun is getting lower before I have a chance to take pics for the day.

It's the perfect shade of green and yellow and it's actually pretty small. It has no signs of ever having had a bottom, so I need to get Dave to put some kind of bottom on it and then it goes into Miss Thing's room. (And PLEASE let me have a free moment soon to make a little dolly for her to put in it.);
a little note in Jack's bag from "Gracie" at school. He has been bringing home quite a few notes from Gracie this week. Hmmmmm :-). (Except that he doesn't seem to give one hoot about the little hearts she is drawing on everything for him!);

and while this is not thrilling to you, I spent the morning cleaning out the linen closet. Dave asked me to do SOMETHING about it way back when I was on bedrest (not right then, of course), and I decided it was time to make room for the rest of the laundry in there once and for all.

However, we are NOT going to discuss the fact that I have 20 duvet covers and I could only manage to purge one.

Because you understand that problem.

Right?

3 days till Halloween and I have to figure out just how Jack is going to wear the bat wings and then the costume is DONE.

But we don't even have any pumpkins yet!

On the seventh day of Halloween

The Great Pumpkin gave to me:

More holiday decorations.
Die cuts in the hall of frames;
stuff on top of the china cabinet;
a Gurley witch thrifted just this morning (two in one year? miracle);
a wall of Halloween papercuts (I really want to show you a better photo of these, but that requires taking them all down. I cut them all while waiting in the carpool in late September);
bats hanging from the antlers;
several versions of the cat/pumpkin blowmold have come my way this fall;

and the Halloween embroideries are hanging in the bathroom. (And I like having art there so much I need to figure out what to put there when I take them down.)

4 days till Halloween and the costume is still not finished. And Jack is refusing to wear a costume to his school party tomorrow.

Let the good times roll ladies.

On the sixth day of Halloween

The Great Pumpkin gave to me:

Apparently a computer virus. You can no longer log onto the laptop. It refuses to accept my password and says I need to insert a floppy disk. Never mind that the computer doesn't even have a floppy disk drive!

So, how about some random Halloween decorations? It was killer hard to put up the decorations in the new house. I definitely had a "system" in the old house and I could get it all in place in one night's time. Trying to decide where to put stuff took me more than a week!
My FAVORITE vintage costume is hanging out in the office;
the super creepy lady is above the fireplace (we have plans to add some paint to turn her into a vampire, but that short on time problem is really a bugger this year);
a new die cut is added to the hall of frames;
I stuck some rats in unexpected places;
my wickedly cool chandelier FINALLY has a good home (I could never plug it in at the old house) hanging from an old bird cage holder;

and before the crazy started Jack made me a tissue paper Jack o'lantern.

I have the bat wings done, I have to go make the ears and the belly and then I can mark that costume off the list. (It was way, way, way harder than the owl. What was I thinking? I have no fingerprints left from hot glue burns.)

On the fifth day of Halloween

The Great Pumpkin gave to me:

Some works in progress.
I bought this glittery Christmas house at a yard sale a year or so ago thinking I would fix it up for Christmas. When I was thinking about how to fix the top which is a little crunched in I had a revelation -
leave it crunched in and make it a haunted house. I just spray painted right over the glitter and added velum windows. A battery tea light inside lights it up.

It is totally not finished, I have grand plans for inhabitants, but I cannot see it happening this year.
This is what the laundry room looked after we moved in. It was fine, except as I showed you a few days ago those hampers and cubbies became a GIANT mountain of crap that never ended.

I got the idea that I wanted to put a dresser there instead, which David was not very supportive of. (He dreams of some kind of bench + lockers there.) I finally stumbled on a garage sale dresser that would work.
Three coats of my free quart of Glidden paint and the mess is tidy now. The drawers are full of little cubbies that hold hats and mittens and sunglasses and swimming gear and scarves and all that other stuff that has no home.
I like the detail on the hardware, so I just spray painted it. You should know if you do that it is NOT a permanent fix, it does come off easily. But I can live with that.
This is not a before of that particular dresser, but another matching one that was already in my closet, just to give you an idea of what it looked like. (Complete with ordinary closet mess*.)

And with 6 days to go I have started the Halloween costume. Which I am returning to as soon as I hit publish. :-)

*I bought those wicker lamp shades at IKEA the last time we went. APPARENTLY I didn't buy all the parts? (Sometimes that place is confusing.) So they won't work on a lamp. IKEA is 6 hours away, the lamp shades weren't really all that cheap and I can't use them. That BITES.