SPARK 3: Day one

Last September, my mom and I had the opportunity to attend Spark No. 2, an amazing creative event in Utah. It was so incredible that it took me three whole posts to chronicle the awesomeness. When registration opened for Spark 3 earlier this year, the decision to attend again was a no-brainer for both of us!

I knew going into Spark 3 that things were going to be a bit different. Two of the original founders had stepped down and another woman stepped up to join Margie Romney-Aslett in putting on Spark 3. I knew that things would have a different feel and quite honestly, I wondered if they'd be able to measure up to Spark No. 2. It's not that I didn't have faith in Margie and April, but more that Spark No. 2 was so completely over-the-top, so awe-inspiring, that it was just a whole lot to live up to.

I shouldn't have been worried. Margie and April gave their hearts and souls for months and months and it was obvious! Just as in Spark No. 2, every little detail was attended to. The decor theme was 'Granny Chic', and warm textures of yarn and lace and fabric and thread were everywhere.

We started off the day by choosing beautiful  handmade nametags, each one different and each one a tiny work of art:

From there we moved into the large hall, which was truly spectacular yet again this year!

Yards and yards of crocheted yarn, trim and lace hung from the ceiling.

Chandeliers made from pattern tissue-covered paper lanterns and plumbers tubing hung throughout the room.

Each table had a centerpiece made from a doily-covered jar, a pedestal made from vintage china and a candlestick, a yarn ball, and a stack of old books with the covers torn off.

At each place setting was an absolutely beautiful journal and memory box from Paper Coterie.

Our first session of the day was a creativity lesson from the fabulous Mindy Gledhill, who had performed at Spark No. 2. She spoke about the stages of creation and sang a few songs, including one from her new Christmas album!

Our first class was taught by Emily Falconbridge, another holdover from Spark No. 2. Last year she taught us to use wool roving to make into felted wool beads. Confession: all of my wool is still sitting in its plastic bag in my closet! I had a hard time with the beads so I never finished them. This year's project was making a felted soap.

You use a bar of soap and wrap it with wool roving. Using hot water and soap and the motion of your hands smooths the wool over the soap and causes it to felt around the bar. You then have essentially a bar of soap and a wash cloth in one! We also got to try needle-felting a design onto the top of the bar of soap, something I enjoyed and would like to try again.

The second class was taught by one of my blog idols, Cathe Holden from Just Something I Made. I'm pretty sure I let out an audible squeal when she revealed a few months ago that she was going to be teaching at Spark 3! In Cathe's class we made these beautiful little wire nest pendants.

After a delicious lunch catered by Dear Lizzie, we hit our third class of the day, which was taught by mixed-media artist Christy Tomlinson.

We didn't know what to expect other than the project would be a collage, which made me a bit nervous. Collage (especially mixed-media) just doesn't come naturally to me and the collage class from Spark No. 2 was not my favorite. However, Christy's class ended up being so much fun and I'm absolutely tickled with the SHE art collage that I made!

It's totally different from anything I've made before, but I love it!

The last class of the day was a Junk Journal altered book class taught by Jennifer Jensen, an artist I've long admired. She has been designing in the scrapbook world for ages, and has always used vintage and antique objects in her art.

Our class materials were wrapped so beautifully! The theme of the book was metamorphosis so all of our supplies had the most beautiful butterflies on them.

That evening we had a delicious dinner catered by Plates and Palates, including a Lemon Tarragon pasta salad that was to die for! I found a similar recipe online from someone who frequents their restaurant and I'm dying to give it a try to see if I can recreate that goodness! We laughed that dinner was such chick food--spinach salad and pasta salad and rolls. :)

After dinner we were able to do several make-and-take projects provided by generous vendors. I made pretty earrings from Making Memories

I don't know why Blogger has decided to load this one upside down

This tissue flower was from 7 Gypsies and the yellow fabric flower from somebody else who I can't remember.

This one is upside down too. No idea.

It was a full, exhausting day but every bit as wonderful, warm, and inspiring as I hoped it would be! Stay tuned for Day 2...

Halloween 2011: leftovers

Remember the giant teeth Trunk-or-Treat idea that I Pinned?

Well, I bought some sheets of white posterboard and delegated that job to The Mister, who did a fabulous job and even made some big fangs as well:

I loved it! But apparently we weren't the only ones who saw that idea, because there were two other cars at our Trunk-or-Treat with teeth:

This decidedly more friendly version,

and this full-on face version, with kids passing out candy from the mouth. Funny!

Some of my favorite costumes from friends this year:

Flo, the Progressive lady. HATE those commercials, but my friend Stephanie looked just like her!

This cute Peter Pan family costume from my friend Brittney. I think this costume theme works best when you have adorable 1-year-old twins.

An amazing, elaborate Lego man costume my friend Annie made for her son, Graham. Holy cow!

And this creepy drowned Titanic victim costume from Keeley, which I am totally going to steal for a costume party someday!

What was the best costume you saw this year?

Halloween 2011: our Scooby Gang costumes

I didn't mean for it to take so long to get these photos posted, but life has just gotten in the way. Today school has been cancelled for snow, which is ironic since on Monday it was 71 degrees. It was like that last week too: nearly 80 on Monday, then 6" of snow on Wednesday. The only reason school wasn't cancelled last week too is that we were already on Fall Break! I am really thankful that last week's snow melted before Halloween and this week's snow held off for 24 hours so that we could enjoy a beautiful sunny Halloween and not even have to wear coats over our costumes.

Speaking of costumes, here's how we dressed up this year:

For a family with a little girl who LOVES Scooby-Doo, this was a natural choice! In fact, we chose this theme before Halloween last year, so I've been thinking of it ever since. Here's a run-down on our costumes:

The Mister as Freddy: wore his own jeans, blue dress shirt and white v-neck sweater. The orange scarf was thrifted (I had to work a little magic to make it the right shape) and the horrible blonde wig was new, but bought at the thrift store.

Maren as Velma: wore a perfect thrifted orange turtleneck sweater and thrifted red skirt. Bought the orange socks at Gymboree. We tried two different wigs but both had issues and she was not feeling great, so in the end we just curled the ends of her hair under and called it good. She also had more square glasses that looked much more Velma-like, but they were an adult size and wouldn't stay on so in the end we went with Harry Potter glasses I had in the costume box. Ah well. She also had a homemade magnifying glass made from a dowel, a thrifted embroidery hoop, black spray paint, and a piece of clear Saran Wrap.

Porter as Shaggy: wore his own brown pants. I thrifted a green turtleneck and when the weather turned out to be so nice that day, I went ahead and cut it into a v-neck to be more authentic. His hair is naturally shaggy, I drew stubble on his chin with an eyeliner pencil, and he gamely carried around a Scooby stuffed animal all night.

Heidi as Daphne: my purple vintage dress was thrifted 7 years ago, so to make it authentic, I simply sewed on two stripes of wide lavender ribbon and then made a headband to match. My green scarf was thrifted, my pink tights (which I didn't think would be quite so lacy) were on super-clearance at JC Penneys and my wig was new but from the thrift store. I couldn't find the right color of shoes at the thrift store, so I just bought a pair and painted them with acrylic paint (which totally cracked when I wore them, but they gave the right effect). The cutouts on the front were made with chipboard that was painted and hot-glued onto the shoes.

Bronco the yellow lab as Scooby: Even Bronco-doggie got in on the act! I made him a Scooby collar using teal ribbon and then made a tag out of teal and metallic gold cardstock that I hung off the ribbon with a binder ring. Bronco went with us to the Trunk-or-Treat, but stayed home for the actual trick-or-treating around the neighborhood.

We got so many nice compliments on our costumes, and I have to not-so-humbly admit that I think we rocked them! I may not be able to sew everything, but I can MacGyver the heck out of some thrift store finds!

I do wish I had just sprung for the $20 Velma costume for Maren, just so that we could have had the child-sized wig and glasses but I was determined to find something cheaper and make it work. Those efforts included one disastrous (new) black wig from the thrift store, and a thrifted blonde wig that I attempted to color brown with a brown Staz-On permanent ink pad, which is an hour of my life I'll never get back, especially since in the end she wore neither.

Even our jack-o'-lanterns were Scooby-themed! Truly, it was a fantastic Halloween and I'm so thankful to have a family (especially a husband!) who will go along with my crazy ideas. I'm already starting to plan our costumes for next year...

Just three more days and Trunk-or-Treat ideas

Each day, Maren counts down the days until Halloween and squeals as it's getting closer--and I want to squeal right along with her! I've got work to do this weekend to put the last touches on our costumes, and I still need to hit a few thrift stores to see if I can find shoes for mine. We're going as a coordinated group again this year and I think our costumes will be really fun! For any new readers, here's how we dressed up last year:

Our church traditionally has a Trunk-or-Treat event on Halloween, which I have mixed feelings about. On one hand--I know there are people that go and distribute all of their candy during the Trunk-or-Treat and then go home and turn off their lights, which I think is NO FUN at all! I happen to think that one of the fun parts of Halloween and trick-or-treating is getting to know your neighbors, and you can't get to know your neighbors if you won't open your door! On the other hand, the Trunk-or-Treat is usually held early enough that the kids can still go out trick-or-treating in their neighborhood, so double the candy--yay!

I know some churches have car decorating contests and I wish ours would start doing that--I think it would make the whole event more fun because right now, it's little more than an organized but crowded grab for candy. I found this awesome car on Pinterest

Original source

and I think I might be making a run to the store this weekend for white poster board! The rest of the car is made to look like a giant whale to go with the family's costumes, but I think I'll just stick with the big scary teeth.

Last year at our Trunk-or-Treat there was one person who went all out and made a Honeyduke's Sweet Shop in the back of her van. We didn't get there until it was almost empty, but I still got a few snaps so I could remember how clever it was!

Be sure to click on the photos to enlarge them so you can see the neat tags she made with the candy names. It would seem like filling all those jars of candy would cost a fortune, but most of the candy was inexpensive (salt water taffy) or homemade (toffee) or store-bought candy, gussied up (Licorice Wands were individual Twizzlers dipped in candy melts & sprinkles, Acid Pops were sour Dots on a sucker stick).

The key to this was the presentation--all of the candies were individually wrapped in little bags and each jar had its own label, printed in the Harry Potter font. The car owner made a shelf with a piece of painted board that was held up on either end by a large gold-painted book. The whole effect was really impressive! Maybe she'll be back again this year and I can get some photos when the jars are all filled up.

And just in case you haven't settled on a costume yet, let me leave you with a few of my favorites from last year's Trunk-or-Treat:

Incredible papier mache Mike from Monster's Inc.

The blue shirt was an XXL thrift store find and he stuffed the front with fiberfill. Hat was made from felt-by-the-yard from JoAnn's.

My friend's two-year-old as a Toddlers and Tiaras winner. Hilarious!

Have a fun weekend! Are you doing anything fun to get ready for Halloween?

Pinned it and Made it: Fishnet stocking pumpkins and 2011 Halloween decorations

Once I finally finished painting the china hutch black, I could hardly wait for the paint to dry so I could load it up with my Halloween decorations! They'd been sitting in my front room for two weeks and it was already the middle of the month so it was about time. I do wish I could have gotten it all done sooner, but it was worth the wait--I love how my Halloween goodies look in my new black cabinet!

I incorporated a Pinned it and Made it project into my decor: fishnet stocking pumpkins, pinned here. Last year I bought several pairs of black fishnet stockings when they were 75% off at Target, where they had a whole endcap full of them.  The pumpkins were leftover from an unsuccessful project a few years ago and were already painted silver.

I used a pair of ladies' one-size-fits-all stockings for the larger pumpkin

and a pair of kids' stockings for the smaller one. Was I really thinking of putting black fishnets on my 6-year-old daughter? Sheesh. This isn't Toddlers and Tiaras, for crying out loud. I do like that pair better, because they were black with silver threads running through and they look really great on the silver pumpkin! For both pumpkins, I simply stretched the leg over the pumpkin, with the toe hidden by the underside. I cut them off and used a small rubber band to attach the stocking around the stem, and poked in a couple of vintage foil leaves. A real pumpkin with a larger stem would have made that a bit easier. I do love how they look! Easiest pumpkin decorating EVER.

Here are the rest of my decorations. Since I had already taken everything out of my hutch to paint, I left it empty and filled it with only Halloween, which I like. Normally I have to decorate around the stuff that's already there.

It's a pain to load everything in and out and carry it up and down the basement steps, but I think I'm going to clear it out for Christmas decorating too. There's just so much more space.

I added a pair of orange and white polka-dotted melamine plates to either side of the big turquoise jack-o'-lantern plate and I LOVE how they look against the black and white checked background! I really wanted to emphasize the black and ORANGE with my decorating this year.

I kept things simple on the top of my aqua dresser. The Halloween lollies are another Pinned project that I may or may not get around to sharing this year. Those might have to be saved for 2012.

I added one of my big black sparkly flower pins to my orange and white striped pillow.

The display on my little ottoman is simple but again emphasizes the orange.

The family room got a little bit of decor, with a trio of estate sale vintage die cuts hung on Command hooks and a banner I made last year hung on the chalkboard. I have a display started on my sofa table but I got sidetracked so I'm not sure I'll get it finished at this point.

It took a little longer than usual this year, but I'm happy with how it all looks! Now my next task is to finish up our costumes...

Did you incorporate anything from Pinterest into your Halloween preparations this year?

Painted china hutch transformation

One of the (many) things that makes The Mister a saint for putting up with me is my propensity for getting hare-brained (but potentially awesome) ideas at the most inconvenient times, and I managed to keep up my track record with this project. Back in the first week of October, I dragged all of my Halloween boxes upstairs to the front room, determined to get things decorated so I'd be able to enjoy them all month long. I was on the ball! For once!

Enter the hare-brained idea: I remembered that I had been intending to paint my china hutch all summer long, but had never gotten around to it. I knew that if I loaded it up with all of my Halloween stuff, I wouldn't want to unload it all to paint, and if I waited until after Halloween was over to paint, it would be into November and too cold by that time. So I decided that I needed to get it done RIGHT THEN, because it was now or wait until next year.

Let me back up a bit--earlier this year, I decided that I have hated this hutch for so long that I was finally going to do something about it. I didn't want to pay big bucks for a new one, so I figured I'd find one cheap at a thrift store or on Craigslist and make it over. A friend asked me what size/shape of hutch I wanted, and I told her that I wanted one to be the same size and about the same shape as the one I had already. I like the flat top because I use it for decorating and to bring height to that room, which has two-story ceilings. However, I was having a hard time finding one that I liked that was the right shape, size and price. My dear friend, thank heaven for her, said, "well, why don't you just paint the one you have?"

She was right, of course. I decided to paint it black and change out the knobs and figured it would give the piece a whole new look. Last year I started the transformation when I put $5 worth of black-and-white checked scrapbook paper over all of the mirrors.

I knew that paper would look great with black, and most importantly, I knew my Halloween decor would look especially great in/on a black hutch! Priorities, you know.

My original intention was to spray paint this beast. I'm not so good with the brush & latex paint on furniture and Mandi over at Vintage Revivals spray paints furniture all the time with awesome results. I forgot one tiny little detail: this hutch is a monster and weighs about 5000 lbs. It comes apart into two smaller but still massive and heavy pieces, and in order to spray paint them, I'd have to find myself a couple of burly dudes with a furniture dolly who would be willing to haul these out to my garage, and then back into my house when I was finished painting. Plan B was to paint the darn thing in situ with latex paint and my mortal enemies, the brush and roller. I bought a quart of Valspar's Cracked Pepper latex semi-gloss and a quart of Glidden Gripper tinted primer on this recommendation, because sanding in my front room was not really an option.

Let's just say that I do not have a future career in furniture refinishing.

Because of all those pieces of trim around the doors, most of the painting on the hutch had to be done with a brush, and I ended up with crazy brush marks no matter how hard I tried to keep things smooth. The sides of the hutch where I was able to use a small foam roller are not so bad, but everywhere else is a hot mess. I tried sanding lightly between coats of primer & paint, but it just didn't help enough. I also made the stupid mistake of deciding to paint the interior ledges where the glass shelves sit. I wasn't sure that I would like the brown interior with the black exterior, but it was a ton of work because I had to do it all with a brush as well and it was tricky to maneuver inside the cramped space.

I'm normally something of a perfectionist, but this was one project where I decided it was better to be done that perfect. I do really like the final look--I think the black updates the piece to the point where I don't completely hate it and I love the contrast with the red walls and the wood floors. And I have to admit, it looks awesome filled with my Halloween stuff! I'm not saying I still wouldn't like someone to gift me with the perfectly-painted, distressed, vintage-style china hutch, preferably for FREE, but until that day happens, this will do the trick. Just don't look too close if you come over for a visit!