Halloween craftiness

I have to say that after Halloween parties, sugar highs, and working at both jobs today, I'm too beat to do any writing, so you'll have to settle for captions as I show off some of my Halloween-ish creations.

Candy Sushi!

Hand-Carved Pumpkins!

Skeleton atcs

Pumpkin Carving

This afternoon we took a trip to Wilson's apple orchard with nephew Jake to pick out pumpkins to carve. He's never done pumpkin carving before, and it is one of our favorite traditions since we started dating, so we were excited. Our hope was that Wilson's would have a big pumpkin patch where we could pull the pumpkins right off the vine, but apparently that was not the case. We still had a good time choosing from the pre-picked pumpkins they had near the store entrance.
Jake had a great time picking out the pumpkin and drawing the face, but he didn't want to have anything to do with cleaning out the insides of the pumpkin. He doesn't like to get his hands dirty at all. We were able to finally persuade him to pull out a few seeds and help punch out the face shapes. The final products turned out great!
We saved the seeds so that I can season them and bake them for a tasty treat. Does anyone have a special recipe for cooking pumpkin seeds?

Sewn Paper atcs

I've been fighting a cold this week, a little sore throat, drippy nose, headache, etc, so I've been trying to recouporate in the evenings on the couch. I have gotten a little art done for my swaps this month. Above are hand-sewn paper atcs.
School has been busy. The artwork is piling up - that's a good thing - and a bad thing when it comes to staying organized and grading. My art club that meets Monday afternoon is all about mosaics - the three pots in the photo were made by my 5th grade students! Also, a student gave me this letter today - "and a good life" - I had to laugh!

My mailbox runneth over...

...with excellent mail art this week! I received self-portrait atcs from Wendy (along with the skeleton halloween card) sewn atcs from Judi, and the skeleton atcs from Amy. Not to mention an awesome envelope of Halloween goodies from Kelli, which I don't have a picture of right now.

Tonight it is back to scrapbooking - even after that marathon last weekend, I'm ready for more! Mom is coming over from Des Moines again and we'll be cropping at Reminisce tonight. The occasion is a visit from scrapbooking celebrity Becky Higgins. She's drawn the biggest crowd ever for an event at the store (actually we had to move it to a bigger venue down the street) so it should make for an eventful and busy weekend!

Marathon Crop

Reminisce holds a Marathon crop (what is a crop?) each year - the event started at 5:00 Friday evening - Bethany and mom drove over from Des Moines, along with Bethany's friend Jennifer and her mom. We stayed at Reminisce scrapbooking until 7:00 pm on Saturday. Crazy? yes! There were a few naps here and there but overall we were awake for at least 36 hours total (including Friday before the crop). Fun stuff! Last night my mom came home with me (the rest of the crazies drove back to Des Moines). We ate pizza and fell sound asleep before 9:00 pm. Then slept til' 11:00 this morning! This weekend I stayed up the most hours ever and slept the most hours ever. Yes, I'm a little punchy and grouchy. It was a fun challenge, and we got lots accomplished, but I would have to wait quite awhile before I do that again!

More pics to be seen at my flickr.

Happy Monday.

A deco page for a "hearts" themed deco. It makes me happy - kinda like my real cat. Have a great week - hoping mine will be productive... I've been feeling like things are piling up, yet semi-unmotivated to actually do anything - especially when I get home from work at night. Hmph. I did manage to "illustrate" a book called The Road to Slavery with some rough pencil drawings as a favor to a fellow teacher (to use as an example for her students who are authoring and illustrating something similar). I was actually kind of intimidated by the whole thing, but it turned out alright, and it felt good to draw.

This blog is so fun to look at and link from: Funky Finds. I need to visit more often!

Self-Portrait Deco

Photos can be viewed at the Embellished Circus blog.

Hello....mushrooms!

So, I came home and got ready to mow the lawn, and what should I come across but a backyard full of mushrooms! I suppose they were brought up by the unseasonably warm temperatures we've had this week. Alas, I wasn't going to mow around the mushrooms, so I took a few pictures before I mowed them down.

This week has flown by - everything at work is in full swing, artwork to grade and display, professional learning plans to design, and paintbrushes to wash (why am I painting with 4 classes a day right now??), as well as a visiting art ed. student who has a million (great) questions. Below is a picture of paper scraps I was about to toss while I was preparing some artwork for display, and I just thought they looked attractive.

In other news - I got a homer today! My self-portrait deco that I made 1 1/2 years ago (the first one I ever made for myself) arrived and it is gorgeous. Scans to come soon!