Jack O'Lantern Jars

 A friend of mine made these with her kids....so of course we had to try it.  Very easy and fun.  There are a lot of tutorials out there, we followed the instructions here.    

 So fun at night.  We light ours with some battery operated candles.  

 The kids were so excited to wake to snow on the ground.  Unusually early for Massachusetts.

They are predicting more for tomorrow night.  Looks like we'll have to put on our snow boots this Halloween.

What a Hoot

I made these cute owl cupcakes for an annual Halloween bash at a good friend's house.  There are a lot of owl cupcake ideas out there, but these were by far the easiest.  I followed these instructions. 

I can't help but smile every time I look at them.  Easy, cute and delicious. 

Something I've Been DYEing to Try

Now that the Halloween costumes are done, I've had some time to work on some more fun projects. As much as I enjoy sewing Halloween costumes, it feels like a lot of work, for one dark, cold night where (at least here in Massachusetts) chances are good you'll have to throw a coat on.

I've been hoarding onesies and fabric dye for a while now and finally got the courage to try it. I mainly followed Dana's instructions with a few modifications along the way.

I used Dylon permanent dye that I bought at Joanns. The only part of the instructions I followed was to add the salt. Here's what I did differently

• They recommend 4 cups of water, I used about 8-10
• I used more fabric than they recommend
• I left the fabric in dye overnight instead of 45 minutes
• After rinsing in cold water, I washed in the washing machine
  
• I dried mine in the dryer. The instructions say to dry "away from heat"
  

I used a few different brands of onesies and definitely noticed a difference in the color absorption. I didn't pre-wash them though, which I've read can make a difference. I dyed maybe 30 onesies total and found that the Target brand worked the best (without pre-washing)

For whatever reason, I had the most trouble with the pink. By the last batch (the yellow) I felt like using enough salt and mixing a lot is key. The salt is supposed to help the fabric absorb the dye, so for the yellow I added more salt since I was using more water than recommended. I also mixed much more than I did for the previous batches and I felt like the end result was the best.


I also tried some woven fabric. I had a white fabric with white polka dots that you could hardly see. It dyed really well and I like it much better than before.

So fun, and much easier than you'd think!

More Costumes

The Elephant Princess' dress is done which left me some time to help a friend make his 3 year old son a stove costume.

This was entirely my friend's design, I just executed it.


The oven opens up and you can stick different things inside.

Burners on the back. Not perfect, but fine.




It's such a relief to have all these costumes done. Now on to some more fun projects....

One Down, One to Go

The boy asked to be a rocket ship and I think I pulled it off. This came out so much better than I expected. The silvery fabric was pretty tough to work with, much like oil cloth but my usual tricks didn't work. Still puckered. Oh well...

I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the hat I made to go with it. I used my friend Roselee, aka Jane of All Trades' cute party hat tutorial.

Now off to work on the elephant princess costume. The girl gets points for originality.

How are your costumes coming?