Happy Halloween!

Anyone who knows me IRL knows I am married to the worst photographer in the world. Officially. He is awful. So apologies in advance!

It was Cubs tonight and being a leader requires some dressing up. And since somone had nicked my goth fairy idea *harumphs* I opted for a nice lady pirate. With zombie leanings. It's actually really hard finding a costume that isn't too....erm....adult. If you know what I mean.  Everything is sexy this or slutty that. I quite liked some of them but they're hardly Scout leader appropriate!

Here is my lovely left hand side. I made a rather buxom pirate! I nicked the bandana from Chook - it's her Menorca one for in the pool!

And here is my zombified right hand side. That's about 6 layers of latex make up and some red face paint. We left the blood off and didn't go wild with the peeling coz I was creepy enough for little kids.

Here's a good one of my dodgy right eye! I'm wearing a sunglass contact lens I've had for a loooong time. It made everything look really weird only having one in but it gave the Chook the willies so was deemed worth the discomfort! What a great Mum, eh? *grins*

The party was a roaring success. We even managed to get the boys all doing the Timewarp by the end!! Can't day that happens very often! And my right cheek had been beautifully waxed by that damn latex coming off. Oooow!

Christmas scrapping.

No, not fighting - scrapbooking! My scrapping has pretty much degenerated into Chookie's birthday and Christmas these days but I figure that's better than nothing to have preserved, right? Right.

This is scraplifted from an advert (I think) in an old issue of Creating Keepsakes - I'm still getting round to reading last years subscription copies! The background papers are really old Basic Grey ones - Fruitcake and Blitzen. There's bits of my very favourite Sassafrass Lass "Life at the Pole" in there, too - gotta love those vintage reindeer!

The wee pocket holds a list of Chook's gifts and her letter to Santa. I'm very lucky that Santa lets me keep her letters *cough* so I have them all from when she properly started writing them when she was about 4 and couldn't write!

The photo was actually taken at Easter since I'd forgotten to get one at Christmas last year! This is her outfit, though. I like looking back on how her style is developing from little sparkly dresses to something a bit funkier. It's a sixties style colour block dress this year - very Twiggy!

my goth fairy

Yep. I think at the ripe old age of nine we can definitely say we are past the cute Halloween costumes stage!

And, yes, her hair is sprayed black. And now my bathrom is black. And several towels. *grins* You can't see the purple glitter on her face but the bat wings are just peeping out there.

It's amazing what you can cobble together from Poundland and stuff kicking about the house. She was a very happy kid running off to the school disco tonight!

my winter stitching list.

Coz all the cool kids are doing it! Linking up with Sarah at FairyFace Designs to pledge what I'm going to sew over the cold next few months. I have these lists at home, just inside my Mickey Mouse notebook, not public! So.

1. Christmas for Granny and Papa (head and arm covers for their wee arm chairs)

2. Christmas for Uncle (a mugrug using that awesome Japanese train fabric)

3. Christmas for brother and his wife (a double bed quilt - probably the Hills n' Hollers pattern.)

4. Old Red Barn Co dresden round. A cushion, I think.

5. Make some more strings for the Scraptastic Bee quilt.

6. Get out the blocks from the Oh! Frannson paintbox quilt-along that I started in January 2010! Making some more would be nice.

7. Window dressing for the kitchen. New blinds or  curtains.

8. A less summery blind for Mum's kitchen as a change around.

Small but manageable so I can join swaps and make random stuff as the whim takes me!

mid-week mundanities

Surprise! Haven't done one of these in aaages and it's still Wednesday - that's a record!

my general mood? I'm on top a the world, ma! It's the school holidays here and I'm off tomorrow and Friday and plan on getting some Christmas sewing done - woop!

what am I wearing? VERY holey jeans and a plain white tee. And, unusually, socks coz it's freezing here all of a sudden...

what have I been watching? I'm checking the Sky+ box right now and the only thing I'm really keeping an eye on telly-wise is the BBC3 series "the Fades." It has been awesome if a bit scarey. I fell asleep during the second Transformers film at the weekend. Even pretty Shia couldn't hold my interest for THREE HOURS!!! Geez, just show us the robots transforming and making that noise already!

what am I reading? I've just finished "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs (honestly, with a moniker like that he was destined for fame, no?) It's a YA novel so was a really quick read but was thoroughly enjoyable. It's important to see all the photos that are an integral part of the story so I went for a hard copy and not an e-book, it's definitely worth a look (and isn't as scarey as the sleeve notes make it out to be - I'm a devout coward!)

what have I been listening to? My last download is "underwear" by Royal Republic. It's ridiculous but it makes me laugh and dance like an eejjit in the kitchen with Chook so can't be all bad, right?

what have I been creating? I actually made a scrapbook layout yesterday! I cannae show you coz I need a photo printed. And there's been lots of sewing that I also cannae show coz it's for Christmas presents. Maybe I'll sneak in some little mosaic pics at the end of the month. But trust me, it's like Santa's Workshop in that wee room!!

Can I just say a HUGE thank you to everyone who commented on Chookie's scooter post. She was thrilled to absolute bits and actually had big plans to personally reply to each one. And then holidays and lazing about and generally being a kid got in the way. You'll forgive her, right? Blog visits for me have been few and far between, too. Lately something has happened to all my time. As in, I have even less than usual. But I at least am big enough to take the flack for being rude. *grins* Thanks, pals, you made a wee girl very happy! xox

my first guest blogger.

This evening I'm pleased to introduce my first guest blogger on here. She's someone very dear to me and I thought it would be fun for her to show and tell one of our latest family projects since it was made for her. Yes, great people of the Blogasphere, I give you my child, the one and only - Chookie!

*applause*

Hi! This is my scooter before it was prettied up. It's all rusty because it was left out in the rain (oops) I'm trying to get Mum to say it wasn't my fault but she says it was. (note from Mum: it was TOTALLY her fault!)

The rustiest bit of the scooter is this front bit. Oh dear!

First we got a hairdryer to heat up the grippable sticker to peel it off. We took the other stickers off, too. Then we sandpapered all the rust off and the base metal was pink! We masking taped the wheels and covered the handle bar grips with Aldis bags! Now we sprayed it with grey primer.

Then once it was dry we spray painted the top handlebars black.

Then we sprayed the bottom (while having a cup o' cha!) That was us finished stage one coz we had to wait for it to dry.

A few days later once the black paint was dry we finally figured out how to put the pink skulls on!! We put on neon pink grip sticker and a green http://www.skateslime.com/ sticker.

Pink skull!!!

Pink skull and flowers!!

ME!

I am happy with my new scooter, Dad did really well!

goodies part 2!

I got my second parcel in the Goodie Swap!

 All the way from sunny California from Diane (ylmommyx4) and didn't she spoil me? Not just a fabulous mugrug (my love of bunting has definitely been noted this swap!) but that absolutely darling little dresden shoulder bag. I've used it all weekend, it's the perfect size for taking out and about when I don't need a "Mummy bag." AND do you see the Pringles? My snack of choice ANDANDAND a big bag of peanut butter M&M's!!! The Pringles are long gone (I shared them with Jake Gyllenhaal last night) and the M&M's are disappearing by the handful. Just as delish as I remember!!

Isn't my wee rug a cutie? Really, I'm expected to get drinks spilled on these?!? Me no think so! Thank you SO much, Di, I love everything to bits and am so happy to have another great swap concluded!