December Sewing Update

Okay so I debated whether or not I should even post this one this month. I really haven't had the time to do much doll size sewing at all. I only got three Christmas themed long sleeve t-shirts finished this month and that was only because the sew along in my doll sewing group was for anything for Christmas.

I did cut out a couple more shirts but didn't have time to finish them. I will hopefully get back to them soon.

So here is a picture of the girls in their shirts in front of my real life tree in my living room. The shirts are all made from a pattern I have been tweaking for a couple of years. I started with the pattern for a t-shirt in Joan Hinds Contemporary Wardrobe Book. After I made it up the first time (a couple of years ago) I started to adjust it to fit the way I wanted. I don't remember what all I have done to that pattern except I know I made it longer and a bit more fitted. I have also re-drawn it with several different necklines so I can pretty much use it to make any style shirt I want. I have also used my adjustments to make a raglan sleeve top too. This is my go to pattern for tops I have also made it longer for a tunic type top (ending mid-thigh) that I have sold to several people.

For this sew along I wanted to make the kids some Christmas t-shirts, the only ones I got done were the ones I used my embroidery machine to decorate. I had others planned but I guess they will happen another year. The three designs I used all came form Embroidery Designs.com. All of these were in their free designs, this company allows you to get 3 free designs per week (more if you buy their designs that are for sale) I have had really good luck with their designs and so far have been really happy with them. One nice thing for using these free designs for doll things is most of them come pretty small to begin with. All I did was to use the re-size option on my sewing machine before I started sewing. The present design was supposed to have a fourth present but I liked the way it looked with only three, odd numbers are usually more visually appealing and it fit so nicely on the shirt this way.

So if I wasn't sewing for the dolls what was I doing you might be asking. I did sew a couple of aprons for Christmas presents and that was all the sewing I got done. I spent a lot of time still working on getting my storage room/ studio in shape. It still has a long way to go but I hope to have it useable in a week or so. I want to get back to doing all my blogs and I need the space to do the photos.

I hope everyone had a wonderful December- no matter what holiday you celebrated. I am looking forward to the new year and I hope it brings all of us good health, good fortune, and many friends.

Storage Room Make Over- In progress

I have been planning the make over of this room in my house for several months. I just hadn't worked very hard at it. In the last couple of months I would work on a day or two and then there were so many other things to do that I would not get back to it. That went on for a while.

A couple of weeks ago I had decided it was time to work on the room and actually get it done. That made me come up with a plan to get the job done. At that point it was hard to even get the door to the room open all the way. The room was stuffed with boxes and furniture that had been put there simply because they had no where else to go.

Let me take a moment to tell you the history of this room and what I had decided it was to become. Originally it had been my middle son's room and when he finally got all (most) of his stuff out of there my daughter decided she wanted that room. She had to paint it lime green which would not be my first choice but it is alright and easy to change at a later date. Since my son had done some damage to the carpet she also got my go ahead to tear out the carpet and paint the floor under it with a floor paint.

When my mom passed away she and a boy friend moved into my mom's house and the green room became a storage room. There was a lot of stuff from my mom's house that I wanted to store and all the three kids that had moved out had left some things so they needed a place to go. And as with a lot of families there was just a lot of stuff that needed a place to go. Since I didn't have any plans for the room it became the dumping ground for all kinds of stuff.

When this process of dumping stuff in the room started there was some order to it and I could actually find stuff. I moved a lot of my sewing stuff in there since I sew in the dining room and there really isn't a place to store that stuff there. It worked pretty well until we just over stuffed the room with stuff.

Last summer I started to think about what I wanted that room to become. I'm not sure how many of my readers are aware that I write 4 different blogs, this one about 18” dolls, my dollhouse one, a general crafts one and a cooking blog. I do admit the cooking blog really takes a back seat to the others but I am hoping in the new year to change that and get on a regular schedule with all four of them. Anyway because of writing 4 blogs I am really in need of a place that I can set up to take photos easily. Some place that I can have everything I need for that conveniently located and to a degree be able to leave some parts of the photo taking equipment set up. Basically I began dreaming of making that room into a photo studio. I also wanted to have a good amount of storage for not only the things I needed for the photography end of the blogging process but for my dolls in general and for my sewing. I was tired of having to dig in multiple locations to find the stuff I knew I already have. Or worse just give up and buy stuff because I couldn't find it.

As far as sewing stuff not only have I been sewing for as long as I can remember but I inherited my mom's stash of sewing goodies. So storage was going to be a priority for this room.

I admit I didn't really have a solid plan for the room until I got to thinking about it as I was cleaning house for Thanksgiving. As I cleaned and picked up the house my mind started to work on the dynamics of what I needed in this room. I decided that I was going to start over the weekend following Turkey day to work on getting the room set up so I could use it the way I wanted to use it.

My first step was to clear a path along the wall directly in front of the door so that I could open the door all the way (what a  concept) and so that I could start putting shelves along that wall and start organizing the room from that point. I made myself a work area the length of the wall over that weekend, leaving only a couple of things that were too heavy for me to manage by myself until Monday when my youngest son could help me.

On Monday during my shopping trip to town I went to Home Depot and picked up 3 shelf units. Two that were 3 feet long with 5 shelves each and one that was 22 inches wide with 4 shelves. Since I had 8 feet of wall to work with this was just about perfect.

It was Wednesday before I got time to work on them. Then I brought them into the room one at a time and assembled them in place. They went together beautifully and are nice and sturdy.

As a wonderful coincidence one of the members of the doll sewing group I belong to suggested a 7 day mini challenge. The idea was that for the next 7 days those that wanted to take part would work on projects related to sewing and/or our dolls. It could be sewing, organizing, or just about anything related -just something. I decided that this was the perfect way to keep me on track and push me to get as much done as possible on my room quickly.

So I was able to tell them about what I had accomplished that day for my day 1 of the challenge. On day two I cleared out a lot of the boxes and most of the extra furniture from the room. I made 4 piles of this stuff in my living room (I am very thankful that I could get my youngest son to help with this) These piles are stuff to go back in the room, stuff to go the storage unit, stuff to donate to Goodwill, and stuff to take to my daughter so she can deal with some of her stuff.

On day 3 I picked up 4 more of the larger shelf units at Home Depot so I could get them into the room. I also got some clear plastic boxes to put stuff into and still be able to find it. I also pretty much emptied the room the rest of the way. 

Day 4 which was Saturday my son and I made multiple trips to the storage unit with stuff. I also got all the rest of the shelf units put together. The only real problem I ran into was that one of the units was missing a piece. I was able to go to the website and order it free of charge. I put the shelf together except for that piece. I will just have to leave myself room to put it rest of the way together when the part comes. On one of those trips to town I also picked up even more of the storage boxes.

Day 5 we started with the first of two trips to the storage unit for the day. I think that will be all of the stuff that needs to go there. I spent a lot of my day going through the stuff in the two dressers that had been at my mom's house and then stored in the storage room. I need to empty those so I can use the dressers elsewhere in the house. I found lots of interesting things. I also was able to start putting things away. I took the 3 photos of the room in progress at the end the work day too.When I get this project done there will be more photos as well as a video tour.

So let's talk about what we are seeing in these pictures.

Photo 1-is going to be my sewing storage area. It is on the south wall. Ignore the stuff in front of the shelves after all this is a work in progress. Also ignore the non-sewing stuff that has wandered onto the shelves until I figure out where it goes. LOL On the shelf unit to right you can see my boxes of fabric, I have it roughly sorted by color. The only bad thing is I have found a lot more fabric in my mom's stuff that isn't in those boxes and isn't going to fit in them. I will have to figure that out later. The second shelf has my serger on it and I hope to leave a spot for my sewing machine when it needs to be put away. Over time I will get the space organized but for now I am happy with just sorting to the correct area.

Photo 2- the window corner of the room. Sitting in my mom's child size rocking chair is one of my childhood dolls. She is one of those dolls that was the size of a real child (wears about a size 2 T) and at one time could “walk” if you held her hand. She was one of the few dolls I actually played with as a child and I had thought she was long gone. We found her when cleaning out my mom's house. I hope to make her some seasonal clothing to wear as soon as I have time. Funny side story she totally gives my son the creeps. He visibly shudders when he sees her. Next to her is a small chest that was my moms.

To the right in this photo you see the sewing storage shelves and to right are shelves that I hope will contain some general craft supplies and also some of the props I have for my cooking blog photos. Ignore the chair that needs to go back to the kitchen. LOL

Photo 3- shows the wall of three shelves I put together the first day. Primarily these will house the 18” doll stuff. Right now the “kids” are all sitting in a box on the smaller of the shelves, they will find a better place later. That shelf also contains some plastic shoe boxes where I am keeping the clothes and accessories for those dolls. On top of the units you can see the kitchen that I use in the Allison's journal posts. Now that I have storage space I will be able to build more sets for more stories in that blog feature. I also have a bunch of stuff on those shelves that I pulled out to put in other parts of the house. The desk in front of the shelves will be going to Goodwill as soon as I don't need it for a work surface in the sorting process. Behind the door and also between the shelf and the corner I hope to have room to store the walls that use as backdrops for the Allison's journal photos.

The other wall- which I totally forgot to take a picture of has the closet. It also has a space where I am going to put an antique writing desk that belonged to my grandparents. I plan to use the writing desk as an area to work on prepping/dressing the dolls for photo shoots. Right now that piece of furniture is next door at my mom's house where my oldest son is now living. He also has a table that was my mom's that I am going to use in the middle of the room to take photos on.

Then I will need to get some light stands built so I can light the photos. For that I am going to use PVC pipe just like I did for my video lights. I have a blog post about that on my mini blog. (you can see that blog post here) I do plan to do a video when I build the light stands so you all can see how to make them. And don't forget I will be back with a video tour when this room is pretty much finished.

November Sewing Projects

I thought I would take a few minutes to tell you about the doll sewing projects I have been doing this month. With the Thanksgiving holiday I only had so much time and decided to concentrate on the projects for my doll sewing group's Sew-along theme. This month was coats, and I had been wanting to work on a couple of coats so I did as many as I could!

One pattern I had been wanting to re-visit was Simplicity 5733, I had made it a couple of years ago and although it had turned out cute I wasn't totally happy with it. The fit was pretty good but I had used the quilted cotton fabric like the pattern suggested and I just felt the resulting coat was too bulky and didn't hang well on the doll. This time I decided to just use a corduroy on the outside since the coat is lined I felt it would work just right. I chose a brown corduroy and a pale pink lining fabric, I just love that combination together. I had also picked up some pink/white/& brown yarn a while back and had knitted a doll size scarf and this would give that a place to go. I was going to have the fur trim around the hood like the pattern calls for but totally forgot to pick it up when I was at the store. It wasn't until I started to sew that I realized that I had forgotten it. I decided to just skip it and I think it looks fine with out it.

 I love how this pattern came out this way and with the lighter weight of the fabric it hangs really well. The fit in the shoulders is very nice and as a bonus there is also room to put a heavier weight sweater under it.

The second coat I made was really more just a jacket. I raided that wonderful wool fabric I had picked up at the Pendleton store and used a piece of that to make the Liberty Jane Cropped Jacket pattern. As soon as I saw this pattern I knew I wanted to make it up and I had to do the eyelets down both sides of the front. I knew that if my daughter had found that jacket in her size as a teen she would have worn it a lot so I wanted to make the doll size version.

The week before Thanksgiving I was contacted by Steph at Many Small Friends (see wonderful blog her here) because I had volunteered to be a pattern tester. She had a coat pattern that needed to be tested. I jumped at the chance to make this adorable Wrap Coat pattern, it was a dream to sew and I absolutely love the coat on Molly. I will try to remember to let you all know when the pattern is finally available for sale. I had intended to use some fabric from my stash but I when I went to the store to get the fabric for the color I fell in love with this brown suede that was on sale so I decided to use it instead. I think it is perfect for this pattern, don't you?

The last coat I got done this month was the Liberty Jane Bomber Jacket, I had purchased the fabric and all the rest of the stuff I needed for it a couple of months ago but just had never gotten around to even cutting it out. I decided that it was my Saturday project this weekend so it would be done in time to count for the Sew-Along! I think it looks really cute on Micheal and fits him really well. I did try it on one of my AG dolls and it was a bit snug on that doll size. I think if I make this again I will be adjusting the fit a bit to give a bit bigger.

So that was the sewing I got done in November, now I think I am ready for December hopefully I will have time to get at least a few things made next month to show you.

Fabric Score!!!

 

my haul!

This has been a very long week for a variety of reasons most of which are way toooo boring to mention here. I will say that if the weather this last week is an indicator I think we are in for a very nasty winter.

Anyway I decided that on Friday since I had to make 3 trips to town I was going to at least do something fun on one of those trips.

Since the sewing theme this month for my doll sewing group sew-along is coats I decided this would be a good time to visit the Pendleton Wool store. If you aren't familiar with this company they make beautiful wool items of many kinds and are an iconic Oregon company. They have a store that is fairly close to my destination on Friday so I decided it was time to make a visit.

The front of the store is filled with many of their wonderful items and they have tables with yard goods that start at around $20 a yard and go way higher.

I knew what I was looking for would be further back in the store and I was right. In the back of the store they have a line of bins on wheels and these bins are filled with some wonderful things. Two or three of the bins were of paricular interest to me because they contained what the sign refered to as either Blanket ends or blanket headers (I can't remember the exact name) Basically these are pieces of fabric that are the ends left when the clothing and blankets the company makes are cut out. There were pieces of all types of the wonderful wool fabric in many weights. Some were too heavy for doll clothes or had designs that were too large to use. But I grabbed one of the large plastic bags and proceeded to dig through the bins. I was able to find 8 pieces that will work wonderfully for various doll clothing. Oh, did I mention the price?? These bins are priced at $5 per pound! My bag of wooly goodness only cost me $15.95! I can get at least a garment out of each piece and most the of the pieces will make more than one so that is a true bargain.

Here is a closer look at the individual pieces I got:

Piece #1 is brown and a medium weight, I would say about the thickness polar fleece. I think it was probably a used for coats or blankets. The piece I got has a usable section of at least 27” by 36” plus a bit more on the edges.This one is cut oddly on both sides as you can see in the photos.

Piece #2 is a cream/ off white color (absolutely gorgeous) and is the same weight as the first piece. The usable area is a bit over 23” by 32”

Piece #3 is the same fabric as #2 but is a completely straight piece that measures 9 ½” by 96”!

Piece #4 is black and a bit lighter weight I would say about the same thickness as the felt that comes in the squares at the craft store. It (and the remaining pieces) has an interesting shape. It is overall a rectangle but with a chunk cut out. I have a feeling all these pieces were used to make the same type of garment and this explains the shape. The shape gives 2 very usable pieces plus a small bit over the chunk that is cut out. I only measured the larger pieces on each side. This one has a piece that is 10” by 35” and a piece that is 10” by 13”.

Piece #5 is black and in what I would refer to as a suit-weight the two usable pieces are 14” by 35” and 14” by 18” plus of course the bit in the middle.

Piece #6 is brown and also a suit-weight with the sides being 17” by 15” and 17” by 35”

 

Piece #7 is a red suit-weight fabric with the usable areas being 13” by 28” and 13” by 18”.

And finally #8 is a blue suit-weight that has usable areas measuring 9” by 18” and 9” by 29”

So you can see there is a lot of fabric that I can use for doll clothes. Now all I need is the time actually sit down and sew.

Gingerbread House

I had been kind in a bit of a slump when it came to making doll stuff. I got a few projects done but none of which I was really feeling if you know what I mean. That is until a while back when I was reading my weekly newsletter from Paper Minis. I had glanced at her contest area a couple of times but this time it really caught my eye. I read what Anne had written about this year's Gingerbread House contest and for the next day or so it just kept coming back to my mind.

completed house

One really cool thing this year is she is opening the contest up to multiple scales. Normally I think she has just done 1/12^th scale which is the size I do for my dollhouse projects. This year she is also inviting projects in 1/6^th scale- that is for dolls like Barbie, Monster High and all their friends and most exciting for this blog 1/3^rd scale- for the 18” doll community.

Anyway I would love to see all of you join the fun. All you have to do is go to her website (right here) and sign up for her newsletter. When you get the newsletter you will find the contest rules and the link to download the PDF of the gingerbread house.

When you go to print your house be sure to have your printer set to print the pages border-less and at 100% on all pages. If you skip this step things might not fit correctly.

You can use almost any medium to decorate your house: glue, pens, paints, clay, fabric, gems, really whatever you can think of!

For my house I am approaching this as a polymer clay project. I spent a day or so thinking about how I wanted to do this. I have in the past made a few gingerbread houses in 1/12^th scale but the main problem I always had was getting the structure together and straight. Now that I think about it that was the same problem I had the one time I tried to make a real gingerbread house with my kids..... Anyway I got to thinking about how having the paper house from the PDF as the base structure for my house would solve this problem.

This meant that my first step was to print off all 4 pages first on a tan color card stock which would be the base of my house. I then printed the first 2 pages again on plain printer paper to use a patterns for my clay.

I cut my plain paper patterns out carefully and set them aside. Next I cut out the card stock set and after cutting out the window openings I glued in some acetate pieces that I had colored with yellow markers behind those window openings. This will help to let out just the right amount of light. Next I glued the card stock house together and set it aside to dry. I also used the pattern for the base to cut out a piece of foamcore. I then decided where on the base the house would sit and cut a hole out for one of those little battery operated tea lights to be inserted from the bottom. Next I covered this base with some aluminum foil and set it aside.

Now onto the clay. I had picked up some tan Sculpey III on sale the other day so I mixed a block of that with an equal amount of Fimo Caramel. This gave me a nice gingerbready color. I divided this clay into 6 pieces that were roughly the same size and worked with each piece separately. Using the thickest setting on my pasta machine I rolled these pieces out to form a sheets of clay. I wanted to try a method I had seen on a video a few months back of texturing the clay with ground cinnamon. It is an interesting technique and I plan to play with it some more in the future. Basically all you do is sprinkle some ground cinnamon onto the rolled out clay and use your fingers to rub the surface with it. It both colors the clay and gives it a texture that does resemble a baked cookie. I am a bit concerned about the cinnamon deteriorating over time or drawing bugs to the project. Only time with tell. Anyway after the texturing I used my paper patterns to cut the needed pieces for the roof (2 pieces) and walls (4 pieces) I used some of my scraps to cut out two little tiny gingerbread men and some little tree shaped cookies. For these I used some little tiny cookie cutters I had picked up on a sale last year. They are each about 1” tall, I am pretty sure you will be seeing these on another project if not this year then next year.

I baked all the pieces at the recommended temperature for about 10 minutes and allowed them to cool completely before working with them.

While these were baking and cooling I also used the windows from my pattern pieces to cut some window frames out of white clay so those got baked next. I plan to cover them with “frosting” later.

I used my normal 527 multipurpose glue to attach the walls and roof pieces to their card stock counterparts. I did the walls one wall at a time so that I could give the glue time to set before moving them. Next the window frames went on and then the roof structure was glued to the top of the house.

Now it was time to think about candy to decorate with.

I spent some time looking at a few gingerbread houses online to get some ideas. There are so many beautiful ones that it was hard to pick what I wanted to do.

little disk shaped candies, kind of like Necco wafers

I ended up deciding to make something that resembled Necco Wafers for the roof since I didn't have the real thing to look at I did the best I could looking at pictures online. I am really not sure what colors they really come in since I think I have only had them once in my whole life but I just picked colors that I wanted to use. To make these I rolled out the various colors of clay on the 4^th setting on my pasta machine and cut out many circles using my ¼” circle cutter. I tossed these little pieces with some cornstarch so they wouldn't stick together too badly and then baked them.

the gumdrops and the mold I created to form them

For the roof line I wanted gumdrops so I made a small mold out of mold putty using one of my ball stylus tools for the shape. I then used some translucent colors of clay (Translucent Green- Fimo, Translucent – Fimo and mix of Fimo Translucent and Premo Pomegranate) to form them in the mold. After baking they were tossed with some glue and then some very fine iridescent glitter.

I made 4 candy sticks for the corners of the house using some pearl Fimo and some same red clay mixed with translucent clay. These were also baked off and allowed to cool.

For the cookies I used some 3-D fabric paints as frosting to decorate them and sprinkled the trees with some mixed color micro no hole beads.

All of the above was day 1, yeah all that in one day. I also spent a long while gluing those “necco wafer” like candies to the roof.

how the windows look

In the evening I also did something that I almost wished I hadn't done. I decided that the windows were still letting out too much light so I set the house on one side and put some Glossy Accents into the window to kind of cover the plastic. I was trying to make the plastic windows look more like hard candy. Well, three hours later that stuff was still not dry. I was really worried when I went to bed that I had ruined the window. At least it was just one side and I figured I could put a tree or something in front of it if I needed to. I really didn't have to worry so much because by morning it looked just the way I wanted. I do know now that I need to do this step and just walk away for several hours.

So let's talk about day 2.

When I came into my work room and checked the window I was really pleased.

Then I took a better look at my roof. I really just didn't like how it looked. I really wished I had added some “frosting” to the roof before all those shingles. So after some thinking about it I decided that I just would not be happy until I re-did the roof. I sat down with a couple of sharp tools and picked all those little circles of candy off the roof. I even managed to save most of the pieces of candy.

the finished roof

Then I spread a nice coat of white Latex caulk over one side of the roof and then put the roof back on one piece of candy at a time. This was repeated on side two also. Then I ran a bead of the caulk down the peak of the roof where the two sides meet and added a line of the little bitty gumdrops I had made yesterday. After all this was in place I sprinkled on a pinch or two of no hole beads and some iridescent glitter over the top.

While this was drying I made some little candies to look like M&Ms. For these I rolled my clay out to the thickest setting on my pasta machine and cut out a bunch of little circles with my smallest circle cutter. These were then all rolled into tiny little balls and slightly flattened with my fingertip to give a decent representation of the iconic candy. After baking and cooling these I coated them in some Future floor wax. This is one of my favorite finishes for clay when I want them to have a shiny but not too shiny coat.

the chocolate bar mold

I also decided to make some chocolate bars to use as the door and maybe somewhere else too. For this I just used some Chocolate color Sculpey III. In the end I decided it was so much work to actually get a candy bar that I liked I stopped and used the one I had made to make another mold form Amazing Mold putty. Next time I want to make a chocolate bar I can just press the clay into the mold and bake it.

When my house was dry enough to handle I set it on the base and traced around it so I would know where it was going to sit. Then I also drew on a little path leading to the house. I spread some more of the caulk in the area of the path and then placed a bunch of those M&M like candies into the wet caulk. I love how it turned out.

I used a bit more caulking to fasten on the candy sticks to the corners of the house.

I did notice that my roof pieces were not attached as well as I wanted them to be so I decided to give the roof a coat of Matte Mod Podge to act as a sealer. I also deiced to coat the path with it while I had it out. I really don't want to loose any of those little pieces that I worked so hard at making.

The last task for today was to coat a second window with the Glossy Accents and I will leave it to dry until tomorrow morning.

On day 3 I ended up just coating the last window with the Glossy Accents since I had a bunch of errands to do.

Day four I spent putting the rest of the project together.

I had been looking at more gingerbread houses online and had seen a candy that looked like a tree but was made of candy cane so I got out some more of the pearl, translucent and pomegranate clays and made a couple of them I also used some of this same clay group to make some “starlight mints”

I put a Wilton #14 star tip (the kind you use to decorate cakes with) to my tube of caulking. I use a narrow piece of duct tape to hold it on. I then piped a border of the caulking/frosting around the front edge of the roof, around the front door and along the candy sticks on the front. I then piped the all the areas on one of the sides of the house. I then had to let this set up a couple of hours. When this all set up I proceeded to do the piping on the remaining side and the back. I then cut the tip of the caulking tube closer to the tube so I had a larger opening and spread the what remained in the tube over the board. I went inside the lines where the house was to sit but not up to the light (I did add a bead of glue to hold the light in but I hope I can pop it out if need be in the future) The house was carefully placed on the board along with the cookies and the candy trees. I also put the starlight mints along the edges of the path. Then while the caulking was still wet I sprinkled on some more iridescent glitter over the everything.

When everything was dry I did decide that the chocolate bar door needed to have a coat of satin finish Mod Podge to make it look a bit more real.

So that is how this house was made.

Now do you want me to make some videos showing how I did make some of these elements like the candies?? If so let me know in the comments below and I will get some made for you to see.

In the meantime go to Ann's site and subscribe to her newsletter and join in the fun!!

Happy Day After Halloween!!!!!!!!!

Happy day after Halloween, I hope you all had as much fun as we did last night. Micheal and I have been begging mom and dad for months to let us go trick or treating by ourselves this year. They have always said that we were too young to go by ourselves but this year they not only let us they talked to Jeremy's parents and Molly's parents and they got to come over too. 

 

Molly arrived first wearing her new witch costume. I love her costume especially the spider design on the leggings she has to go with it. 

 

Next Jeremy got here, he and Michael are going as Star Fleet officers from the original Star Trek show. I think they have all the dialog of that show memorized as often as they watch it. LOL

I had found some nice big Halloween bags for each of us so we decided which one we each wanted. 

 

 

We did have a list of rules we had to follow but they were really good rules that we were going to do already. Things like staying together and having our flashlights stuff like that. They also made a list of the houses we could go to and gave us a time to be back. It was a little colder than we expected so we actually got home early.

 

Look at all the candy I got though in such a short time. 

I love M&M's what candy do you like the best?

Then after we changed we stayed up and watched all the scary movies we could find. We had all gathered up all the movies we had on hand then we also found some that were playing on the TV too. Then we watched a couple on Netflix too. I love scary movies, I think The Shining is my favorite, what's your favorite scary movie? Maybe we could watch it next time.

Molly and I fell asleep on the couch together before the boys did though. But that just meant we got up first and got to make ourselves some breakfast without them.

I hope the boys get up soon though because mom said that the new puppy we are getting is ready to come home. We are all going to go pick her up later today. I will try to post some pictures of her soon. Her name is Cocoa and she is a brown lab.

Talk to you later!

Allison

Decorating the Front Porch for Halloween

Michael and I decided to help out mom and dad by taking over the decorating of the front porch for all the different holidays that are coming up. Today we got a start by getting out some of the Halloween decorations.

What the front porch looked like before we started

It is a beautiful day so we didn't even need jackets, sure a big difference from a couple of days ago when it was raining and the wind was blowing.

we gathered up what we have so far to decorate with

We picked out some real pumpkins at the store yesterday and they look really nice next to the big fake one that mom got a while back. We also got to pick out a nice light up pumpkin decoration at the store. I think that when they are all on the porch together they look really nice.

our two real pumpkins with the fake one

Light up pumpkin from the store

I even got busy and made a wreath for the front door. Who says you can't have a Halloween themed wreath? I think it turned out really nice.

my wreath

Michael is this straight??

Do you think we need to get more decorations? I think it still looks a little bit empty but we may have to wait until the sales after Halloween and then get more stuff to use next year. 

all done! time to step back and see how it turned out.