Happy Halloween

Birthday and the Witches Tea with Pumpkins

My friend L had a birthday this past week and  I tried to use some fall colors in her card.  Pretty Petites and French Foliage were the stamp sets I used along with the hexagon punch and some DSP.  

L and J and I went to the "Witches Tea" at Teaberry's.  We were supposed to go to this last year but the hurricane put the kabosh on that.  The tea room was decorated to the nines in Halloween regalia and most of the participants came dressed as witches.  This was our favor - a rosette ornament used as a napkin ring.  Below was the menu for the evening and you can catch a glimpse of the spiderweb-lace tablecloths that wer on the tables.

I took pictures of our food and I won't bore you with them, but I will tell you that it was delicious. A four-course meal that included a bowl of award-winning soup, a tangy fall salad, my choice of braised spareribs with garlic mashed potatoes, carrot coins, and red cabbage and a final course of pumpkin mousse.  Of course we each had our own pot of tea and over 100 varieties to choose from.  

This owl was in the ladies room.  I wish I could have taken more pictures of the decorations in the main rooms but the light was very low and the seating was sold out.  We were entertained by a lovely witch who told us all about the history of witchcraft in her storyteller way.  

If you walked into the tearoom you really would have thought that it was a meeting of witches. Almost everyone had on black and some sort of witches hat.  

While not exactly a witches pointed hat, this was the hat that I wore.  I picked up this little felt top hat when we were in Delaware visiting Rachel earlier this month and I knew that I wanted to make a hat for Halloween out of it.  I really had hoped to find a pointed hat that size, but it was not to be. I had some fabric from the quilt show (oops, I don't think I posted about that yet), and some beads and fall picks that I gathered along the way and put this together.  

There are hair clips sewed to the brim underneath that I used to pin it to my head.  That white pumpkin is smaller than an adult head just to give you an idea of the size of the hat.  I think I mentioned that I had plans for the pumpkin but it wasn't to use it as a hat holder, though this did work out for the photo and looks pretty cool on the kitchen table.  

I've had a run with fabric projects this fall that I've been trying to complete along with some other things that I've been working on.  These pumpkins below are the easiest pumpkins that I've ever done.  I found the tutorial here.  I opted to use just three strands of jute and found that taking a longer running stitch around the yo-yo made it go faster and didn't leave such a big opening for me.

I had these fat quarters on hand down at the condo and thought it would be okay to make some non-traditional fall pumpkins out of them.  I pulled plates and bowls out of the cabinets to use as patterns for the circles so you see a variety of sizes.  

I'll have to get a better picture of the basket that I used for the picture.  It was a project that I had asked HWNSNBP to do for me - a  wood and wire trug to gather produce from the garden.   I didn't get a chance to use it for that this summer since we let the garden get away from us this year. There's always next year.  

I have so many things on my to-do list that I wanted to get done for Halloween but I've got a stinking cold that's knocked me for a loop.  I was going to bake cookies, try making pumpkin marshmallows and throw together some pumpkin fudge, but I don't want to spread my germs around.  It's frustrating when you stay home sick and can't get to do the things you would really like to take time off for.  

Nature Along the Way

A quick stop at Marlboro Farm Market in Bridgeton last Saturday.  Winesaps and mini pumpkins to go.

Blue cedar berries from the grounds at the East Point Lighthouse.

A very large hawk atop the dead tress along the road to and from East Point.

Zinnia from the front yard of the lighthouse at Hereford Inlet.  

And the many different colors of lantana that they have growing there.

This pyracantha bush is just outside the doorway to the Barnegat Light Museum.  It is a beauty.

And more cedar berries on the grounds of Barnegat Light.

Lighthouse Challenge 2013....Almost

Last weekend was the Lighthouse Challenge of New Jersey.  I've lost track of the number of years that we've done this, but I think it's our 11th year and the first time we started but didn't finish.  We got an early start on Saturday morning but had to make a stop on the way to the first lighthouse that took longer than we expected which put us behind schedule to begin with.  

Below you will see Tinicum Lighthouse.  I haven't seen this light at night, but the information on it says the light is red.  It is a Rear Range Lighthouse that is still used in helping navigation on the Delaware River.  Not all lighthouses are on our ocean coast.  

The next stop was Finn's Point.  This lighthouse is no longer active as a navigational tool.

East Point below, is to me, one of the most picturesque although I had a bit of difficulty getting a clear picture from the road as my camera kept wanting to focus on the grasses that were blowing in the wind.

The information on this lighthouse says that it is the most remotely located one and that is true.  It takes the longest to get to and from there. It still guides those who sail this portion of the Delaware.

As we traveled on to Cape May it began to drizzle and continued for much of the rest of the day.  It was at this point that we decided that we would eliminate the Life Saving Station stops and the lighthouse in Absecon to avoid going through busy Atlantic City in the rain.

So from Cape May we headed northward to Hereford Inlet in North Wildwood.  Another of my favorites because of the surrounding garden.  But we didn't venture into the garden that day because of the rain.

Between Hereford and Tuckerton, with HWNSNBP at the wheel, I was able to secure a little nap.  I usually try to stay awake during this journey to enjoy the fall foliage, but with the cloud cover I gave in to a little shut eye.  Thank goodness that HWNSNBP doesn't mind driving.

There was something else going on at the Tuckerton Seaport that I think might have had something to do with Breast Cancer Awareness, but we never did find out exactly what it was before we left.  

Our next goal was to get to Old Barney, a familiar sight if you follow.  Surprisingly the water in the channel alongside the lighthouse was relatively calm and we only saw one diving bird in the area of which I didn't get a good enough picture to share.

You can see all the cloud cover below.  

On Sunday morning, though the weather was much better and the sun was shining, we decided to forego finishing the last three visits that would have taken us most of the day.  We figured that since we had skipped a lighthouse and more the day before that the challenge wouldn't be a complete one anyway and we could take advantage of the beautiful weather and gets some things done around the house.  

We do seem to have a never-ending supply of leaves to gather, and HWNSNBP got to some of that.  The two of us even managed to get over to the school to clean up and clean out the beds that we had planted there.  I picked what I could of the zinnias for a bouquet to take to work on Monday knowing that this past week would bring us a frost that would take them.... that was a good decision.  I got to enjoy them all week long on my counter and brought home the remnants this weekend.

Full Moon to Sunrise in 10 Minutes

We set out early Saturday morning for the Lighthouse Challenge.  The full moon was still visible and bright just before sunrise.  Here it is casting it's glow on a freshly baled hay field.  

The picture below was taken at a stop light with the moon over a field of solar panels under construction.  They're popping up all over the place.

About 10 minutes down the road you could see the sunrise.  

The weather stayed nice on our journey until we reached Cape May around 1:00.  Then we had a light drizzle the rest of the way.  There'll be more pictures soon.

Happy Anniversary and Pumpkins for the Girls

My son and his beautiful wife just celebrated their first wedding anniversary.  Boy, that year flew by.  Their wedding was on the beach last October and they just returned from an anniversary trip to another beach destination.  Using some of the paper that I had left over from making their wedding invitations, I created this card for them.  My inspiration came again from this card made by Julie Gearinger.  

I got a chance to use my new thinlit die that allows that circle to swing out when you open the card. On the back side (sorry I didn't get a picture) it simply says Happy Anniversary.  

This weekend was one of those golden ones.   That's what I call it when I get to see all of my children.  We got to see Chris and Michelle when they returned from the airport after we had spent the day in Delaware visiting Rachel.

I made these paper pumpkins with sunflowers for Rachel and her two housemates.  Inside there was candy of course.  

The sunflower die is a Susan's Garden die and the box pattern comes from My Scrap Chick.  I printed the pattern onto Pumpkin Pie cs and then stamped the top pieces before cutting it out and putting it together.  I used red-line tape for this to ensure that those curved sides stayed intact.  

Sorry for the blurry pictures.  My goal this week is to get my photo tent set up so I can share some decent photos again.  

It was so good visiting with Rachel this weekend and catching up.  She took us to do a little shopping at Trader Joe's in Wilmington where I bought almost everything "pumpkin" that they had and then we hit her favorite store - Target.  Lunch at Bertucci's Italian restaurant, shoe shopping at DSW and a last stop at JoAnn's Fabrics.  It was so good to see here and spend time with her - I know I said that already, but it really was.  

White Horse, White Birds, White Pumpkin - Charmingly

My good friend J and I attended a fall festival at a little church down the shore last weekend. There was a path through the woods that they were using to give horse cart rides to those that were interested.  We didn't take a ride but we took some time to admire this beautiful white horse.

Besides having crafts and vendors there, they also had a little rummage sale area where I picked up two wooden stools for a steal.  They need some sprucing up which I hope to get to soon and share.

I also found another seagull pin to join the one I had found at a flea market some time ago.  Here's the old one......

And the new one.  The furniture cushions at the condo are "wearing" them.  I've been keeping my eyes open for more to join the flock and was thrilled to find this second one.

Staying with this "white" theme, I picked up an artificial white pumpkin at Mike's that weekend also.  They were on sale so I went for it.  I have something planned for this pumpkin, but I need to get myself in gear to move forward with it.  I did take care of another project this past weekend though.

Big Lots had  "Charm Packs" of fabric squares for $3.  I picked one with fall colors.  There were 24 in the pack.  What to do with them?  I made yo yo's.  And then I stitched the yo yo's together to make a little mat for the pumpkin.  It covers up that empty space in the middle perfectly.

Pretty cute, eh!  

Bag of Sunshine with an Optical Illusion

One of our good friends has recently been fighting off a serious infection and we wanted send him a little sunshine to keep his spirits up.  So I set out to find yellow things to wrap in yellow tissue and put in a yellow bag  with a yellow sunshine stamped card attached.

Some yellow eating utensils (service for four) wrapped in yellow napkins.  Yellow highlighters.  A couple of toys in yellow.  And not pictured were a yellow bag of peanut m&m's, Mr. Goodbars, and Chiclets and Lemonheads in yellow boxes.  

It was fun searching for yellow items and I keep adding to the collection to use if needed in the future.  And let me just say that this was not an original idea of mine.  If you search Pinterest for Bag of Sunshine, you will see several variations and uses for this collection.  

Speaking of sunshine, the sun caused this optical illusion below.  You see the island in the distance appears to be floating.  

The sun was hitting the water in such intenseness and at just the right angle to cause this phenomenon.  We had actually seen it once before but I did not have a camera with me at that time.  This time I did and HWNSNBP pulled over so I could snap a few pictures.  I wasn't sure whether they would come out our not and was pleasantly surprised that they did.  

I just wish I had paid more attention to straightening the horizon.  

Zentangles - July and August and a Little More

So now that September is almost over, sigh, I am finally getting around to posting the tangles from July and August.  Truthfully they were done at the end of August, I've just been so busy with school starting, trying to find time to photograph them and then to edit and post.  

But with two weeks behind me at school, I am slowly getting back into a somewhat normal routine.

Typically the beginning of the school year is busy for me, and I can't say that this year has been any different in that respect.  But our staff is really feeling the stress of new protocols and changes in curriculum and the whole evaluation process.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I empathize with them and have tried to listen and help as much as possible.   But there's a general sense of being overwhelmed and it's not good.  

I told someone recently that you can't rearrange all the furniture in a blind man's house all at once.  You need to go about it little by little so he can acclimate and master his way around.  And that should be true of changes in education.  Educators need time to acclimate so they can master their skills or they'll be overwhelmed and either we'll start losing people to other jobs or retirement, or someone's going to have a meltdown and hurt themselves or worse, others.  

It's just a mess.  

And forgive me for this tirade, but don't people read directions any more?  I've been updating our student information and just cannot believe how people cannot follow simple directions.

We ask our parents to log in to our database and update their "demographics", which means changing contact information like e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and emergency contacts.

Then it's my job to go into the database, identify those that have made changes using a system search and then I have to go through each student on that list and "approve" the changes.

Three-quarters of the students in our school had changes to their demographics.  And I would say that about 1/3 of those people could not follow directions even though they are repeated throughout the page.

The system only recognizes phone numbers in the 000-000-0000 format and at the top of the page they're asked to use that format.  But that's not the only place they see it.  Beside each box that would get a phone number, this 000-000-0000 is next to it as a reminder.

If a hyphen is missing, (000 000 0000) the system won't recognize the number.  If there are brackets around the area code (000)000-0000 the system won't recognize it.  If there are no hyphens and no spaces (0000000000) the system won't recognize it.  Or if there are dots instead of hyphens (000.000.0000) again, the system won't recognize it.  So I have to change every darn phone number that is not done in the correct format.  

I mean, really - is it that hard to figure out????  

Phew, that felt better.  Sort of.  

Okay, enough ranting.  I think I need to do more tangles to relax.