Happy Halloween!!

We carved a spooky Buffalo Bills pumpkin this year! I forgot a lit up picture so I'll post that tonight. 

No dressing up for us this year. We have a double header in soccer tonight, But....if Crosby was dressing up she would be a crab.  We've been calling her Crabby, Crabs, and Crabcakes for a while now. She has rolling nicknames.

Crabcakes jumped up on the counter yesterday while we were at work and ate a whole bowl of fried rice. Don't worry about why there was a whole bowl of fried rice on the counter. Focus on how shameful Crabby was yet again!

Happy Howl-ween from our favorite Crab!

Fa Fa Fa Fa FAIR!

It's State Fair time again!! Derrick and I hit up the fair with Travis and Claire last Monday night. Derrick wasn't convinced we needed to go again this year...it's not like anything ever changes from year to year, but he knew I wanted to go so he didn't put up much of a fight. I think he's glad we ended up going, we had a great time!

We each got a lemonade to split but Travis and Claire immediately showed us up by getting the tanker. Claire had to carry it with two hands!

We also played a lot more games this year then we had in the past. The first game we played Travis failed so Claire took a turn and won him a giant minion!  This minion turned him into a celebrity at the fair. All of the game leaders were asking him to trade with them. Apparently they don't make this guy anymore. He even got stopped by a dad wanting his son to have a picture with the minion. 

I tried this game again. I tried it last year and failed and this year was no different. Claire tried too. One of these years I'm getting to the top!

Since Derrick and I were clearly terrible at all fair games, we settled with pretending we won the minion. Dream big!!

The animals! They are my favorite part! The sign the goat is eating says "Goats for Sale." I guess he's not OK with that.

Those ears!!!!

And those ears!!!!!

I love the fair! I hope we go again next year. I know it never changes, but I just feel like it's a fall tradition at this point.  Also, Travis took this picture. He took three so he could get a good firework in the background. This one was the only one that wasn't blurry and the only one without a firework.  womp womp

Pillow Talk

How cute are these?

Before you praise my amazing creativity and tell me how awesome I am to think of making these adorable pillows all by myself, the idea is not my own. It's my own interpretation, but I saw these pillows somewhere...probably browsing Pinterest. There weren't instructions on how to make them, so I just decided to wing it. I thought they would be adorable sitting on the couch at Nikki and Justin's engagement party and then they would get to take them home at the end of the night. 

These pillows were made very similarly to the Conehead Dog pillow I made for Nikki last January. I used a canvasy beigy whitishy fabric(y?) for the base of the pillow and everything else if felt! It's kind of weird to work with felt....it kind of reminds me of elementary school art class,  but it's perfect for this kind of thing. The edges don't fray so you don't have to worry about hemming every edge to make it clean looking. Plus, it doesn't stretch too much so it's pretty easy to get whatever shape you want. Anyways, the tutorial is pretty much the same as the dog pillow except you have to free hand everything. Don't be scared...it's just hair, rectangles, and triangles! And hair is supposed to be crazy looking :)

Cut all your pieces out and eyeball everything for proportion. You may like more face and less robe. To make my scarf look like one piece, I cut one long yellow piece out and then put the maroon on top of the yellow. That way if any of the pieces are crooked or uneven you don't risk seeing skin......no one wants to see too much skin. 

Pin, pin, pin! Pins are your friend when working with felt! It does stretch just a tiny bit, but the bigger problem is keeping it straight and not letting the fabric underneath wrinkle or get caught up. Oh...and the glasses! Good luck with those. They are fine, just take your time sewing them.

Ron is just like Harry, except easier! No glasses and no scar! Looking at him now, I should have added some freckles.

Same with Hermione. Her hair looks a little mulletish but she had to be distinguishable.

Here they are all pinned and before eyes! I cut out little felt eyes as placeholders. This is good to do before you sew anything so you can make your proportions right. Now, just sew away! I matched the thread for everything except the scarves. For those, I just matched it to the yellow. In fact, I think I used Ron's hair thread. I didn't want to see thread anywhere else but it worked out fine to see it on the maroon parts of the scarf.

For the real eyes I used buttons! I had these green ones on hand. I think from the $1 bin at Michaels! Gotta love those impulse buys! Now, I know Harry has green eyes but these buttons seemed a little extreme to put on as is so I whipped out some craft paint, a piece of old cardboard, and some What Not To Wear and got my paint on.

I LOVE how they turned out! And I think Nikki and Justin were pretty pleased too. I may start a felt pillow business....you know, to go on my chairs when I start my chair reupholstery business.

A Feast Fit for Hogwarts!

To keep with the Harry Potter theme for Nikki and Justin's engagement party, we couldn't forget about the feasts that Hogwarts is known for so this post is all about the food! 

Except, before I get into that, Derrick was the sweetest and surprised me with Gryffindor colored flowers on the morning of the party. Awwwwwwww

Ok. Now that that's out of the way, here's a rundown of all the food we made! We had one table set up for drinks and desserts. Jess made all of the food labels and the Honeydukes Sweet Shop sign that we strung in front of the table. 

We went a little crazy with the food. How can you not though?

 

The Krum Punch was just a Rum Punch. I don't have a recipe for what we made because I am pretty sure I just asked Megan to wing it. I had bought a bunch of mixers and some Rum. Whatever she did was delicious. You can also see the Butterbeer here. Can't have a HP party without Butterbeer! I didn't try it, but heard it was good. I think it's some sort of mixture of cream soda and butterscotch schnapps.

We had Bertie Botts Every Flavor beans!

Megan made delicious pumpkin pasties.

I created some jello worms. Let me tell you...this was quite the event. My hands were like claws by the time I was done. I used this recipe and they turned out great, but they were a pain in the butt to remove from the straws. Also, I put them back in the refrigerator after removing them from the straws and they re-gelled together so it was really just a big clump of wormy looking jello. They were difficult to individually remove. They were a big hit though.  You can see Hagrids Rockcakes in the background as well as the butterbeer cupcakes.

Chocolate frogs with the amazing frog cards that Britt created. She found a chocolate frog mold and they were like giant reese's cups.

Kristin ordered these adorable Owl cupcakes!

The rest of the kitchen was dedicated to non-dessert food. 

I missed pictures of some of the other foods, but we also had Bludgers (meatballs), Dursley Dogs (pigs in a blanket), Maggot Salad (pasta salad made with orzo pasta), Polyjuice Potion (queso with chips), Hogshead Baked Beans, Mini Shepherds Pie (fit with the English setting of HP), and Mac and Cheese...I forgot what we called that.

It was all delicious and worked with the theme perfectly! Stay tuned, HP pillow tutorial is up next!

Harry Potter Party: Overview

Wow! It's done and it was a success! My dear best friend Nikki got engaged to her wonderful fiance Justin. (Anyone know how to get the accent mark over the E?)

Anyways, her bridesmaids and I have been planning a Harry Potter themed engagement party for her for a few months and it was finally showtime on Saturday night!  I'll come back with another post with specifics about the themed food that we made and some of the smaller details and how we pulled them off. The front door acted as Platform 9 3/4. Kristin came over for a craft night one night and knocked this out and it turned out awesome!! It's just a shower curtain, a large sponge (I think it was a mop head) and some craft paint. Be careful when you do this though. We didn't put a drop cloth down and there was a brick pattern all over my kitchen floor after we finished...the grout is still tinted pink.

Also, how adorable are these pumpkins that Megan and Ryan carved?

Once you made your way through platform 9 3/4 you had to be sorted! The sorting hat decided everybodies fate. Jess is a designer and made these fantastic stickers that you would draw out of the hat to determine your house.

You can see the scarves right  behind the sorting hat. After you were sorted, you were given a scarf in your house colors to wear for the night. Each scarf had a pocket on the end. Why? For your wand of course! See the wands sticking out of the cauldron to the left? They are amazing! Nikki's Mom and Dad cranked out almost 40 of those for the party and everybody got one.

Here's a close up of the amazing wands. They were all unique. Now that I see that picture on here, it doesn't even do them justice. They were amazing!

We had tons of food! Separate post to come. Can you see those chocolate frog cards??

Another of Nikki's bridesmaids is a designer as well! Britt designed the chocolate frog cards and they were out of this world and a huge hit!!  The celebrities on the chocolate frog cards were the wedding party, Nikki and Justin or course, and Nikki and Justin's parents.

Britt also made these educational proclamations which we used throughout the night. They were posted on the sunroom door and if you ever broke any of the rules on the proclamations you had to lose house points.

It was a fun thing to keep up with and the most common loss of points was probably dropping a wand or losing at Quidditch. (Quidditch was really just cornhole and KanJam in the backyard). We did have one Slytherin walking around using the term mudblood a little too liberally and he lost quite a few points for his house. You know who you are!

Ok...enough details.  I'll post more of those later. People pics are where it's at!

Here's Justin getting sorted! He was a Hufflepuff.

Derrick and I took an online quiz once and he was Gryffindor and I was Hufflepuff. The sorting hat confirmed our house fates! You can see the cute stickers Jess made for the sorting hat on my scarf.

Nikki's Dad was a very good Ravenclaw. He had house pride from the start. And that's the rogue Slytherin, Steve.  Oh, and those cornhole boards? Isn't Britt amazing? She painted one in Slytherin colors and the other was Gryffindor colors and they were a gift for Nikki and Justin.

I think this picture of Nikki's parents is hilarious.

 Adorable! Nikki is one of the most beautiful and photogenic people I know.

Mother and Daughter Gryffindors.

You can see the scarf pockets really well in this picture. I've decided all scarves need pockets.

Nikki and Justin have become fast friends with Travis and Claire so I was excited they were able to come to the party as well!

We played a game where I would ask a question and they had to indicate with each other's shoes who most fit that description. This was probably their response to "Most likely to fail Herbology."

Megan took a lot of these pictures I'm posting here. She's another one of Nikki's bridesmaids and made the most delicious food for the party!

All the party planners and the Bride, minus Jess who lives in California :(

The most commonly sorted house was Ravenclaw. We have a lot of Smarty Pants friends apparently. Nikki has the best friends. Some of them came while they were still on call, some traveled in from out of town, and all of them made the party a blast!

Justin's whole family was Hufflepuff. I guess it's genetic.  Oh, and you can see the flying keys in the background here!

The party was so much fun and went perfectly! It was a true group effort and I'm so thrilled that Nikki and Justin had such a great time! More posts to come with other little details!