HALLOWEEN

Halloween was kind of quiet this year. The highlight of the night was when Garrett came driving up in his convertible looking like THAT! LOL! He acted it up to the silly hilt in his werewolf costume. Shabree is at that age where she doesn't really want to dress up TOO much, so she wore a Tinkerbell shirt, a longish tiered black skirt, and a pink gauzey boa. The long pink wig was too hot. Then she carried a pink jack-o-lantern. Zachary was in the 'too old' state of mind too, so he just dressed all in camo. Mathieu was Indiana Jones. I dressed Coconut up in the pink 'BOO!' shirt with the flickering lighted ghost on the back. It matched her pink jeweled collar. I had her sit with us out front to greet trick-or-treaters, but she was not too enthused with it.

Sadly, we only had 95 trick-or-treaters this year- WAY down from what it usually is. And only 3 hay-trailers with kids/parents on them, and two of the trailers were the small kind. There was a big in-town football game, so that might have been a factor, but still I am disappointed in the (lack of) turnout. But one surprise was that one family brought their dog with them trick-or-treating. She was a chihuahua in a Snow White costume. That was really fun to see. Coconut was surprised at that, but not enough to get out of my lap and go investigate closer.

GETTING READY FOR HALLOWEEN

Miss Violette Spice-Blythe is entertaining her friend, Falba, this week. They are taking a break telling spooky doll stories, after a day of canning pumpkin, making pumpkin pies, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin empanadas, pumpkin candy and pumpkin stew.

WINTER/SNOW HOUSE

I finished this one yesterday. It's also for the Charming Row Houses group on Swap-Bot. Then I started on the Thanksgiving House which is next.

GINGERBREAD HOUSE

This went off in today's mail to someone in Arizona. The theme was Gingerbread House, and I made it with Hansel and Gretel rather than a Christmas type of gingerbread house. It was really hard getting a good photo because of the thick coat of clear or irredescent glitter on the house.

AMADEA?

I got quite a bit of really great mail this morning. Included in it, was this cute Halloween postcard from 'Amadea', postmarked from San Diego, CA. There was a nice long note on the back, that shows that she read something (long and blathery, probably) that I wrote about Halloween. But there is no clue as to where she found me or where I know Amadea from... I have spent the last hour searching on Swap-Bot and Flickr and half a dozen other places without success. So if you are reading this, Amadea, thank you so much! It is so cute, and just the Halloween style that I especially like. And thanks for the movie recommendation. :)

ART TABLE

Good grief! Yesterday, in another blog that I read regularly, the subject was art supply storage or use, and I mentioned my tin can pyramid sharpie holder. I had said I'd post a photo as soon as I cleared off my art table a little. That turned out to be a LOT more work than I thought it would be. I worked on it off and on all day long. That table had become a huge mess with me doing more collage and mixed media than I've done in ages. Plus all the art swaps I've been doing, added to the stacking of incoming art and outgoing projects. It doesn't look that spacious now, but believe me, it is wide open compared to the tiny bit of exposed table I have had available. No way am I going to move on to photographing the rest of my art space - the two bookshelves, the paper cart, etc. It would be just as big of a hassle, if not more so, to clean them up beforehand. I was up until 4:30 am, as it was, cleaning off the table. What a difference it made. I wanted to do art right then, but sensibly (if you can even call it that by that time of the night/morning) I went to bed. Now, it's 5 and a half hours later. *Yawn*
Okay - left to right: some cut outs for bases for some gothic arches and some row houses in the making, two baskets of collage elements and various papers and misc. (I have a LOT of miscellaneous, everywhere!), a wonderful painting an artsy friend gave me, that I framed, the tin can pyramid, the old wire card holder with seasonal things people have sent me, my paint brush water in front of that, a metal basket with my cheapie paints in it, a Guatamalan vase holding paintbrushes, a little gnome planter holding paintbrushes, the lamp, a big basket of seasonal or current use items/elements, another basket of more papers and misc.... Both of these are set on top of stacks of paper and cardstock, with an art journal and other things thrown into the mix. What did I leave out...? Oh, the plate that I use for mixing paints is in front of the pyramid, and then a black and orange box that someone sent me, plus my jar of modge-podge, too. And a stuffed bean bag like crow that someone sent me around last Halloween. I have a huge plastic mat front and center so I don't get paint on the table and don't have to be careful about getting paint everywhere. I think that's it.
Here's a closer, and blurrier look at the tin can pyramid. I had planned to paint it, and maybe collage over the duct tape, but haven't yet. I may not, ever.
When we move, I'll have my art studio in a separate little building out back and will have lots of space to spread out. I don't know exactly when we are going to get over there, and we are not totally leaving this house, either. I expect we will be back and forth all the time.

TINY FRIDA KAHLO SHRINE

I made this, this afternoon for LMM for a Swap-Bot forum 'Wishlist Tag' swap. This, being so tiny - not quite 3.5" square, overall - was fast and fun to make. I may be making more of these. The gray cord you see, is gauze to tie it closed.

CEMETERY POSTCARD

This postcard was mailed today. It's another Swap-Bot swap: Handmade Art Postcard - Theme Cemetery. The photo I used for it is one I took at St. Joseph Cemetery in Beeville several years ago. I did a little bit of designing on the back, too, but didn't photograph both sides.
Isn't that a beautiful pumpkin blossom with the postcard?

...AND MORE

Untitled. This is for a 'Color Red Handmade Postcard' swap.
This is a 'Halloween Lucky Parcel' for a swap by the same name. This is the first one I've ever made, so I hope it is okay. It looks more like a 'lucky gift basket' to me.

And here it is after it is wrapped and tied up in a gray gauze piece.
This is a whimsey jar for the Magical Forest Whimsey Jar swap. The jar didn't photograph very well, but it is really, really stuffed full of all kinds of things. I leaned it in a pot of foxtail fern wrapped around with baby tears for the photo.