Halloween - better late than never!

Wow, I honestly had no idea that it had been a month since my last post. October was ridiculously crazy, I even had a bit of a breakdown at one point. And really, I wasn't very happy with my ability (or lack of) to handle the stress, so I wasn't about to blog about it :)

So, it has been brought to my attention that I didn't share my kid's costumes this year. And I didn't even talk about them... which is weird since we are normally discussing them several months in advanced. But this year, I feel like I got off easy... which was probably a good thing.

My daughter was Luke Skywalker (wearing black) and my son was Anakin (he didn't want to be the pod racer one - I thought the helmet would have been fun to make). I didn't make the pants or shirts, just the robe, tunics and belts. And yes, my daughter even got to have a lightsaber. This was a huge criteria for her and what costume she wanted since I didn't allow her to carry weapons last year. I think I was just weak this year and liked the idea of an easier costume.

We did all Halloween "stuff" on Halloween - including carving the pumpkins which is why they still look nice and fresh.

This year was a learning experience for me. After the chaos, I figured out that having two online shops that sell costumes - meaning twice as much business. Which is awesome... if I had anticipated it and been ready. I am happy to say though, that this Halloween was my best yet. And probably the most enjoyable in terms of creativity as I really liked making costumes from recycled tshirts. They added a bit of challenge. My favorites were the Bjork dress and the Queen of Hearts... both of which sold (yay!). I don't have great pictures of the Bjork swan dress (I made it too big for my daughter to model). But you can see the Queen of Hearts in my photos on my Facebook page for NueToMe.

I wasn't accepted to any big craft fairs this holiday season, so I've decided to mostly take it off and focus on my shops (and family :)).

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Sneak Peak

I thought it would be fun to do a quick sneak peak of what I've been working on this week. Of course, I guess I snapped the pictures a little too quick as they are a bit blurry... but I figure it's just a glance.

Last year I had so much fun making my daughter's costume from recycled tshirts that I decided that I was going to try to do a few for the shop. While I'm not really into doing Princess Leia again, I do have a few ideas of other ones that I'd love to tackle. I'm going to make the majority of them my daughter's size (3/4) just on the off chance, she decides she wants it for her Halloween costume. Of course, I know better. She and I never agree on costumes. She's been wanting to be Luke Skywalker for a long time now (it was her first choice last year and I refused to make a costume that had a gun holster for a 3 year old - haven't decided if I'm going to give in this year).

Anyhow, here are some photos of the three that I have in the works right now. I find that I work better if I have more than one in various stages at the same time. Plus, it's easier for me to sew by thread color this way :)

I'm sure you can get the first one, but let me know if you know what the other two are going to be.

I look forward to sharing the end results. The first one is nearly done. The second one is going to take a while as it's a lot more involved and the third one I just started this morning. All my costumes are inspired by iconic figures but I don't really worry about making it look exactly like the inspiration. I think that's what makes these so much fun.

Yay for Halloween preparation! I'm also working on another full mermaid costume for a custom order. I'm excited that custom orders are starting to come in. I'll probably be cutting them off around the beginning on October to be sure I'm not stressed out this year.

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5 Little Pumpkins

I've been meaning to spend more crafty time with my daughter while her brother is at school. My son and I used to do these things all the time when it was just the two of us - but with the addition of his sister, it just never seemed to fit well into our schedule. Now, I'm forcing it into my schedule. It was a good thing that I chose today to do this. While she and I were in the middle of our project I got a call (thankful I had my phone working again) from my son's bus driver. Apparently, today was a short day and I missed him at his bus stop. After picking up a distressed kid... I was thankful that I had a project already planned to distract him.


We started off my making pumpkin faces with the print out from here. I printed it up on orange paper since it was originally for my daughter and I wanted to make it simple for her (I would have lost her interest if she had to color it as well).

Then I made a page with 5 pumpkins on it (I'm including the picture of them in the hopes that you can click on it and print it. If not, I took the pumpkin clip art from here - and then changed the shape of it and flipped it a few times to make each pumpkin different.


I had the kids cut the pumpkins out first (this was my primary objective - to get my daughter cutting something other than confetti). I worked with her on how to hold the scissors correctly and how to turn the paper while cutting. It took us a bit, but I think she did a great job, never cutting into the pumpkin... and not cutting herself or me! Then I had them make a face on each pumpkin. We taped Popsicle sticks to the back of the pumpkin - and voila! They have their own set of The Five Little Pumpkins.


My daughter chose to glue googly eyes on hers... but my son insisted that googly eyes would just be too silly for halloween.

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