Happy Halloween!

Here are some pictures of the tombstone cupcakes I made for our Halloween party on Saturday. First I used chocolate frosting to write RIP on Milano cookies.

Then I used a cupcake plunger to scoop out the middle of the cupcake.

I filled each cupcake with a scoop of cherry pie filling.

And then I put the piece of cake back on top, with one end sliced off for where the cookie will go. 

I put a spiral of chocolate frosting on top, then smoothed it out with a knife. I stuck in the cookie, then sprinkled crushed Oreos on top for mounds of dirt! Here are some finished cupcakes in my new spiderweb cupcake stand.

For the party, we created two haunted rooms. The first one using my dress form, costume, pumpkin head, and a wig to create a scary pumpkin lady. For my sewing room, Alan taped up all of our painting tarps and on the table he placed saws, duct tape, bleach, a "bloody" rag, and a mask. 

With the lights dimmed at night, they were very spooky!

Here is a picture of our dining room table. I bought a piece of lace from Joann Fabrics with skulls for the table cloth, used all of our candle holders, and spray painted some leaves silver. 

We had lots of fun this Halloween. I hope you did too! 

Another finished costume!

After my last post about making Alan's costume for the Renaissance Faire, I had made the shirt, but I still needed to finish the pants and make his doublet. Here is a close up of the fabric for the doublet:

And here are some pictures of it all finished:

Here we are ready to go to the Renaissance Faire. 

While we were there, we overheard people saying we looked nice together and several people wanted to take our picture. We had a lot of fun!

House Painting: Part 2

We have been very busy since the last house painting update. After work this week, I powerwashed the retaining wall on the side of the house one night. I also cleaned the front walkway another night, which was begging to be washed... 

Here's a better picture where you can see the difference between the clean left side and the dirty right side.

After I was all done, the walkway looked almost brand new!

The weather forecast said that it was going to rain all weekend, so I was disappointed that we wouldn't be able to get any painting done. On Saturday I did some shopping while Alan watched the Iowa football game. Afterwards, we realized that it still hadn't rained and decided to start painting the front of the house at 4:30. 

I didn't think we would get much done, but we painted for 3 hours and almost finished the entire front wall! On Sunday morning we started at 9am and Caitlin came over to help too. We finished the rest of the front pretty quickly. I also worked on painting the front porch. 

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 Here is a closer picture of the freshly painted front porch. I picked out a color called "Raffia Cream" from Home Depot. It is just a bit lighter than the original porch color. You can see the difference if you look at the house numbers, because I didn't paint the wood background.

While I was working on the porch, Alan and Caitlin were working on the chimney. They scraped all of the sides and painted the back side from the roof.

 Can you believe we finished the front this weekend? We haven't painted the window ledges yet because we're not sure which color we want to use. We might use the same cream as the front porch or might just paint them the same color as the house. Which color do you think would look better?

House Painting: Part 1

We're painting the outside of our house! Every time I tell someone that they say I'm crazy! That may be true, but I don't care!

We started at the back of the house and scraped off all of the peeling paint.

Last week we painted for two hours on Sunday, and we also painted one night after work. We were able to get most of the back wall done:

On Saturday, we worked from 8-10 in the morning and almost finished the back wall. We had to stop to watch Iowa football (right in the middle of the day!). At least they won the game!

Today we got a lot of work done, we worked from 8:30am until 4pm! We started by painting one side of the house. Caitlin came over to help for several hours. It was great to have an extra pair of hands!

After finishing that wall, we starting scraping and then painting the wall by the front door.

While Alan and Caitlin were painting the wall, I started caulking the cracks in the ceiling and walls of the front porch. We are going to eventually paint this area a lighter color than the rest of the house, although I haven't picked out a color yet.

As if that weren't enough, we also used the power washer today to clean the house. I got up on the roof to clean one side of the chimney, and Alan cleaned the other side. Alan washed the side of the house too.

After all that work, we were exhausted! Now we have two sides of the house done, and only two more sides to go!

Summer Projects

Here are some pictures of projects that have kept me busy this summer:

In the spare bedroom, aka my sewing room, we installed shelves in the closet. The previous owners had a stackable washer/dryer in the closet, and when they left there was absolutely nothing in the space. No hanging rod, shelves, or door. Here is the awful before picture:

I primed and painted the walls, and Alan installed the shelving unit. Then it looked like this:

Finally, I found some baskets at the Container Store for gift bags and boxes, ribbons, etc. I also cleaned out a white flower pot and put wrapping paper in it, so now all the gift wrapping supplies are in one place. So organized!!

We also worked on a couple of projects for the guest room. Alan sanded and I painted two nightstands we already had. Here is Alan hard at work using my new power sander:

The after picture of the nightstands is below. But first, I also made a new headboard for the guest bed. I used a piece of plywood, 1" foam from JoAnn's, and an extra brown curtain that I had.

Here I am drilling holes in the legs so I can attach it with bolts to the bed frame:

Here it is after I attached it:

And here is the finished headboard and nightstands!

Renaissance Costume: Part 2

Last year I made an Elizabethan costume for myself to wear to the Renaissance Fair in Annapolis. It was fun to see everyone's reactions when they saw me, especially the little girls. The only trouble was that Alan didn't have a costume to wear, so we were an odd pair. Me in a ballgown. Alan in cargo shorts. So Alan agreed that he would wear a costume this year if I made one for him, and I just happened to already have a pattern:

Awesome, right? I like the one on the left better, but didn't want it to look like a Robin Hood costume. Instead, I wanted him to look cool (well, as cool as possible :) Sort of like what Joseph Fiennes wore in the movie Shakespeare in Love:

So I decided to make the collarless shirt, but without any of the lace trim (I knew that would not have gone over well!) For the doublet (vest), I am going to put buttons in the front instead of having it lace up. I think this will make it look a little more like a nobleman's clothes.

First up, I made the shirt because it seemed like it would be the easiest. It didn't take too long, only a few hours. For the fabric I used a creme-colored gauze. I changed the pattern slightly to lengthen it because Alan is so tall.

The pattern also said to attach ribbon at the neck so it could tie close, but I thought it would look funny with a bow right there. So I rummaged around in Alan's drawer of man pins (for ties and lapels) and found two that work really well! One was a gold cross, and the other is an Episcopalian shield. I really like the shield pin because it looks like a coat of arms:

Next, I decided to work on the pants. I picked out a black lightweight corduroy fabric. Here is a picture of the pieces all cut out:

I worked on the pants this Saturday when hurricane Irene was storming up the coast, so I'm almost finished. I'll post again soon once I get a chance to take some pictures. I have to work fast because I just started hearing commercials for the Renaissance Fair on the radio!

New Dress a Day: Dress 1

One of my favorite blogs is called New Dress a Day where Marisa revamps clothes she finds at flea markets into fashionable outfits. She mostly finds dresses for $1, so its not like she invests a lot of money into each project. Now I'm trying it out myself!

This dress from the 90's reminds me of something Elaine wore on Seinfeld. I first removed the ties from each side seam and stitched up the holes. Then I cut off the bottom of the dress and hemmed it to knee length. I used the extra fabric from the bottom of the dress to make a long sash to tie around my waist. Because the top fit pretty well, I didn't need to alter it at all. Now I have a really comfortable dress that I can wear to work or even on the weekend. And I got it for free!

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