Happy Halloween 2022

I'm not a spider lover, but these googly-eyed ones aren't that scary and I thought they would be good for Halloween cards for our grandsons.  The fun part of these cards is that they are almost completely made from scraps.  

McDonalds brought back their Halloween Happy Meal buckets this month and I did snag two of the three.  Rachel noted that she heard a lot of people were disappointed that they didn't have lids like the originals, just that bar across the handle representing the top of the pumpkin.  I was disappointed in that the faces, there were 3 on each pumpkin, were cock-eyed.  Sometimes less is better.  If they only had two, they could have been centered evenly on either side of the handle.  

I think you can see more clearly what I mean with this one.  Kind of odd.  But I'm sure they sold a ton.

This pumpkin was another blow up one along the main drag in Cape May (near the cat from a couple of posts ago).

And I got permission from my cousin Janis to share this picture she took of her three dogs all dressed up for Halloween in front of her beautifully decorated landscaping.  

As I was putting this post together yesterday I was thinking back to waking up 10 years ago to no power after Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey.  Although we didn't have any property damage aside from a tree down up the hill, we were without power and running water for 13 days.  Your house will retain heat for only so long once the temperatures drop and that's what happened when there was a cold snap right after the storm.  Our gas generator provided some electricity to keep a small portable heater going and I remember taking these large rocks from our yard and heating them on the heater so we could put them in our bed to warm it up.  I still have those rocks under our bed.

I doubt that we'll be getting any trick-or-treaters here and it's supposed to rain later, but I hope that everyone enjoys their Halloween!

Lighthouse Weekend and October Round Up

We were blessed with another wonderful weekend this month.  It happened to be the weekend of the Lighthouse Challenge.  HWNSNBP and I set out early that Saturday morning to begin our 483 mile door-to-door road trip.  These clouds caught my eye, and I know it's a stretch but they reminded me of the gray streaks in the hair of Elsa Lanchester when she played the bride of Frankenstein in the movie of the same name.  A little apropo for the month of October.

Further down the road, I was able to get HWNSNBP to stop briefly so I could get this picture through the car window of the sun illuminating the feathery grass in this field.

I've posted many pictures of the lighthouses before and I won't do it this time, but I will share the picture of one of our favorites - East Point.  Our tokens that we collected along the way this year were postcards featuring information on one of the lighthouse keeper and one with a picture of the lighthouse and information on it.  At our first stop of the day we paid the small fee of $4 each for a little 4x6 photo album that had just enough pockets in it to contain all the postcards collected.

Having done this a number of years, we usually plan our bathroom stops along the way - Wawa (a chain of convenience stores/gas stations in NJ) usually have well kept facilities and we can also pick up snacks there.  I don't remember ever seeing this info on the door handle or even the handle itself before, but I wish that there were more of them in other public places and not just bathrooms.  We are still pretty diligent with using the hand sanitizing spray in the car whenever we get back in after an outing but not having to touch the door handle is a plus to me.

Coming out of Cape May we were in a bit of traffic because it was such a beautiful day.  I thought this looked like the cat was whispering into the horse's ear.  I wonder what he could be telling him?

Hereford Inlet is not on the scheduled stops but it is on the way from one point to the other and just a few minutes there usually allow us to get our obligatory gazing ball picture in the front garden.

We overnighted in Barnegat and got a somewhat early start on Sunday to complete the route.  Our last stop was at the Twin Lights in Atlantic Highlands.  This is the lens that they have housed in an outbuilding next to the north tower of the lighthouse.  This venue is also a museum inside which we have visited before.  It was a bit hazy and I knew that the view from the front wouldn't be much so we just collected our tokens and were on our way home.

Later that afternoon, the crisp air was clear and we were treated with this balloon flying overhead.  More autumn color.

Here is HWNSNBP auditioning for float driver in the Rose Bowl Parade - not really, but we pulled out all the scraggly cleome and he took it in the tractor up the hill to spread out where he dumps the yard waste.  Some of it also went across the street stratigically scattered in the open area in the hope that it might seed itself there.

Our backdoor and it's alliterative display for October - Ghost, Gomphrena (globe flower), and Gourds.

And our scare Crow on the front steps.  

We've had a threat of an overnight freeze, but we have been lucky to have avoided it so far.  However, I've just been informed by the resident master gardener that all the planters will be cleaned out next week regardless.  It's always a bit of a disappointment, but it has to be done.  I'd just rather see them die from the frost than get pulled out when they're still blooming.  This doesn't include the winter pansies we picked up and whatever mums the deer have not ravished.   And I'll keep those gourds for a while until it's time to take them to a local farm to give to the cows and other animals to eat.  (Have you seen the new trend to give a pumpkin to your chickens, if you have them, and let them peck out the face?  It's pretty cool although I never was a fan of what the squirrels and racoons have done to ours in the past.)

Another $Tree Pumpkin Project

I cannot take full credit for this project as I saw it somewhere recently, but I had a few of the ingredients already on hand and only needed to pick up one or two things more from Dollar Tree.

I actually had the plain white styrofoam pumpkin on hand and some of the roping.  You could use a pumpkin of any color for this though as you will be covering it up.  Using hot glue, you glue lengths of the various ropes over the outside of the pumpkin.  I started with the thickest rope first and gradually added the thinner ones.  The last one that I used was a neutral colored net tubing which I could squeeze into the tiny crevasses that were left from the thicker cords.

 

I initially left the styrofoam stem in place as a placeholder.  HWNSNBP had a small length of 3/4" doweling that I covered with the tubing and used in place of the styrofoam stem that I scraped off the top.  I had some wired jute that worked perfectly for tendrils.  I added some neutral colored berries and a flower and leaves to the top also.  The smaller pumpkin was a plain burlap one also from $Tree to which I also added some berries and leaves.

The first picture with the ingredients also shows some plaid bows, but I wound up not using them on these.  I'll have to find another project to use them on.  I'm loving the texture on these.  Particularly that thick marine roping.  I've got some other projects in mind for the leftovers, but not necessarily for Fall.

Kite Festival Weekend and a PSA from Our Daughter

Well, I don't know how this posting about the kites got past me - this event was actually two weekends ago but I'll catch up someday.  I've added something at the end that has had us holding our breath over that I can now share.  

But let me start with the kites - we were able to sit atop our friends' deck which overlooks the dunes on LBI where once again this year the kite festival was happening.  The weather promised to be cool, but it wasn't too cool to be outside enjoying the day.  The funny thing is, though there wasn't too much wind at our level or below, there was too much wind in the upper level for most of the larger kites to fly that day, but we enjoyed what we could see there nonetheless.

Like this dragon.......................

And this lovely colorful spinning circle kite that I was able to use to frame the sailboat in the distance.

This pteradactyl kept popping up and down just at the height of the dune as if it were spying on us.

And we were treated by the antics of several whales just off shore.  You can't see from this picture, but there was a large crowd of people along the shoreline taking in the whale show rather than the kite show.  This is not something that you often, if ever see.  

I had seen this on our way in the morning on a street corner on the mainland and hoped that it would still be there on our way home and it was.   Why it was there I don't know for sure.  There didn't appear to be any signage explaining it.  There was an autumn/wine festival going on further down the street in that area but not within walking distance of this area, so it's a pretty puzzlement.

Moonrise was before 6:30 that night - the Hunter's Moon, as the full moon in October is called, was just about at it's peak.  Here's what I wrote on my Instagram post: 

Mere minutes had passed since the moon 

broke free of the horizon in the east

and the sun slipped under it in the west.  

Though sometimes it would appear that way

Nothing stops time.

The sun was indeed setting at the same time and it was impossible to be in two places at one time, but the clouds were missing in the back, so I gave my attention to this view.

I found this free app for my phone that will remove objects from photos - how do you think this worked out?

And now for the PSA

Late this summer, our daughter let us know that she was having a suspicious mole removed from her back.  Her husband noticed it and thought that it appeared to be two colors and urged her to have it checked out which she did.  Below is her PSA that she was brave enough to share on her FB profile.

After the initial removal and it was determined to be a melanoma, the dermatologist told her that it was just slightly over the margins of acceptability by .01 which meant she had to see an oncologist.  In addition to going in again and removing more tissue, they also removed and tested two lymph nodes to rule out any spread.  Thankfully all looks normal and she will not need further treatment.  She will have to have more frequent skin checks going forward.  My daughter is not a sun-worshipper and hasn't spent a lot of time out in the sun.  I think I can remember only one time when she was in her early 20's that she might have had a bad sunburn.  So I do encourage everyone reading to get your skin checked by a professional.  Especially those parts that we can't see on our own.  It could save your life.

Jingle Belles - I'm Dreaming of a Pink Christmas (and a Little Pink Halloween Project)

Pinktober has come around again and the Jingle Belles have tasked us to put the pink in our creations.  I dug into my stash of papers and found this pink and green paper that I thought would make a good background for a few of my new die cuts.  The flower is a Hellebore or Christmas Rose - a Susan's Garden die from Spellbinders.  The die cut sentiment is from The Greetery.  And the green and white panel is another Spellbinders die.  

Our lovely hostesses Steph and Lauren will each be making a $2 donation to breast cancer research for each card entered in this challenge.  Aren't they awesome!  You can check out their beautiful cards along with all the others entered by clicking  here.

While we were in Delaware a couple of weeks ago I found this macrame feather kit at the Dollar Tree there.  I had an idea that this would work nicely with another Pinktober project I had in mind.

The instructions were quite clear and this went quickly.  Took me back to the 80's when macrame was all the rage and we were making plant hangers and bracelets.  I still have this owl hanging in my laundry room (please excuse the dust - the laundry room definitely needs a good cleaning this fall).

I used my little clipboard made by my blogging buddy Sabrina to hold onto the center cords.

It's just simply alternating left and right with adding the cords.

Once you get about 5 inches done you unravel the cords and trim them to form the feather/leaf shape.

These items (a square scarf and some mesh cording), plus a roll of toilet paper........

 Made a cute little breast cancer awareness pumpkin.

Preschooler Wrangling, a Pumpkin, and Some Trivia

We spent a few days at our daughter's house taking care of GS2 (who was in between preschools) so they could work.  He loves being outside and luckily for us the weather was still mild enough for us to get out there and play in the sandbox searching for buried dinosaurs and racing monster trucks.  We also got some yardwork done.

Yeah, not really, just raking up enough of the leaves to make a pile for some fun leaf pile jumping.  He loved jumping in them and while that pile didn't stay a pile for long, he did help gather up all the big "sticks" and throwing them into the stick pile.

I brought my box of kid markers, paints, and whatnot and he picked out an articulated wooden fish to decorate with markers.  He also did a rhino, complete with wiggly eyes, but I forgot to take a picture of that.  I give them the paints to use if they want, but these brush markers get a quicker and brighter reward as well as a shorter drying time.  

I wanted to do a printing project with him that I had seen demonstrated by Cassie Stevens on Instagram.  Unfortunately Papa (HWNSNBP) was on a work call during this event and there weren't very unmessy opportunities to take process pictures to show.  These are the ingredients:  a metal pie plate, some acrylic paint, a sponge brush, and some q-tips.  All purchased at the Dollar Tree.  Oh, and not pictured - paper.  I didn't have the white paper with me that day and forgot to get it when I was at the store but lucky for us, the Dollar Tree in Delaware is still using paper bags and I was able to cut them up for this.

So what you do is turn the pie plate so the bottom is up - that is what you will be printing from.  You add some squirts of paint onto the plate and spread it around with the brush, covering it completely.  Then you take a q-tip and make a design in the paint.  We were using orange paint and trying to make pumpkins.  Once you have your design, you lay the paper over the plate and rub.  It should be noted here that having a Matchbox car in your hand helps with this rubbing process.

When you peel off the paper - you have a pumpkin.  Like magic.  Believe me that this is really as round as the pie plate, the paper curled a little when it dried which makes it look distorted.

One of the first pieces of trivia that I remember learning long ago was that a pumpkin is a berry.  This is because a berry is considered a fleshy fruit that has many seeds, and yes, that also means that a pumpkin is a fruit.  And to totally confuse anyone still reading, it also is a gourd.  But as true as all that is, I was trying to segue to this next item with that fruit/berry theme.  

There's a raspberry in this container to show you relative size, but what do you think those green blobs are?

They're Kiwi Berries - my daughter saw them at Costco and had to try them.  As you can see below, when you bite into it it actually looks like a kiwi.  It does taste like a kiwi also.  The difference is the skin, which is not hairy like a typical kiwi, and it takes a little effort to bite through.  But all-in-all these weren't that bad.

I saw somewhere that Costco was also supposed to have something calle Pink Berries but we haven't seen them yet.  That would be nice for Pinktober though, don't you think!

Dollar Store Project and October Anniversary

I saw a video showing how to make a quick fall wreath from some basic dollar store supplies and made a note to look for the ingredients on my next trip to the Dollar Tree.  Unfortunately I forgot to bookmark the source but I thought I could still give it a try from memory.  The ingredients include 8 three-yard spools of wired ribbon (2 of each pictured were used), a wire wreath form, zip ties, and an optional wooden sign.

I began by layering 4 of the ribbons on top of each other and attached them to the second ring from the center with a zip tie.  Then I made loops with the ribbon, approximately 7 inches, and continued attaching with zip ties until I used up all the ribbon.  I initially left the zip ties a little loose to begin with on the front of the wreath form.  That gave me a little play with the loops if they looked uneven.

I twisted the ends of the zip ties around the back of the wreath form and tightened them before I snipped off the excess.

The next step involves pulling the layers of ribbon apart.  I did this alternating the order that I pulled on the loop so you'll see that all the same ribbons do not wind up next to each other.

The wooden sign was also purchased at Dollar Tree. I attached it to the back of the wreath form by wrapping some additional ribbon through the outer ring on the top and bottom over the sign on the back and then hot glued the ribbon onto the sign.  I left the original hanger on the sign so that I could use it to hang the wreath up.  I have a Command hook upside down on the top of the inside window pane that allows me to loop ribbon over the top of the door to hang things.  You can see the bow through the window.

The sentiment "Give Thanks" is just barely visible on this but I think it still looks okay when I move the loop away from the "s".  

 

Because I was able to use dollar store materials for this it was relatively inexpensive to make - less than $15.  Using this method you could use a variety of wreath forms with any particular seasonal ribbon.

These fall colors I used on the wreath also inspired me to use them on my son and daughter-in-law's anniversary card.

After I colored the background panel, I added the sentiment in a double layer of Bermuda Bay which I also used for the card backing.  I still have a significant stash of Bermuda Bay leftover from their wedding invitations I made 10 years ago.  

I really had fun coloring this image so you might be seeing it again soon.