Pumpkin Design

My pumpkin we took to
the nursing home!

Don't you get tired of carving pumpkins? Wouldn't you like to do something a little different? I am here to tell you it can be done. All you need is a small to medium pumpkin, some electrical tape, color/print ribbon of your choice and a hot glue gun and glue. For you thrifty mommas out there, I got the electrical tape at the local dollar store, 2 rolls for a dollar!

To make this cutie of a pumpkin, you take the electrical tape, starting at the stem bring the roll of tape down and under the pumpkin. Then cut the tape. The bottom of the pumpkin does not matter what it looks like. Continue until you have the whole pumpkin covered. 

The bottom of the pumpkin.
Good news…no one sees it!

Now take your cute little ribbon you got and hot glue the ribbon at the base of the stem. You then take your hot glue down the pumpkin to it's base and place the ribbon on the glue to the bottom. When you reach the bottom, cut the ribbon. When you are finished, tie a ribbon on the stem.

Here is the fun creative side. You can mix and match ribbon like I did or you can use the same ribbon. You can have the ribbon going vertical or horizontal. You can paint the stem or add leaves or feathers or a boa! The ideas are limitless!

The best part is you can have your pumpkin indoors for longer than being outside. It will be harder to throw it away though so maybe think about investing in a fake pumpkin that you can store at the end of the season! 

I would love to see your pumpkins! Go over to my Facebook page and share your pumpkins!

Our secretary's pumpkin!
So many ideas
to have
fun with!

Red Ribbon Door Decoration

So every year schools in Texas celebrate Red Ribbon Week. All week we focus on promoting being drug free. Think of homecoming week with their themed days, but it is about being drug free.

We always decorate our classroom doors. This year I had the perfect decoration in mind….MINION! Yes I am a minion-a-holic. I just love those little guys! I have even had students give me stuffed minion dolls! So of course my door had to be a minion.

They even have their own seats in class!

I researched pinterest and then went for it. I was blessed with 3 of my boys helping me out. They were having so much fun! I will also admit, those guys came up with ways to make the minion that was easier and faster, but I will never admit a guy had a better idea than a girl. LOL!

So without further ado….The minion door!

Now if I could win a contest….do we even have one?

Virgin Tipsy Artist

I am type A (capital, underline twice, bold letter A) personality. This comes in handy with my job…personal life, hit or miss. But when it comes to being creative and outside my box, that's where it goes out the window.

See, last week I went to one of those lets-have-fun-and-paint-while-drinking-alcohol-so-it-doesn't-matter-how-it-turns-out parties. I was looking forward to it, all excited to spend time with my sister K and just relax and unwind. Then I walked into the room.

You ever get that nervous hives nest of bees swarming around in your stomach? Yay, there I am feeling this start up. But I'm cool. We find out seats and my type A personality starts to take hold.

Thankfully, I did not have to do everything by free hand. Actually everything was a template you had to trace on the canvas. Here is what a dialogue in my head would sound like:

"Where do I put the legs? How far apart should they be from one another? They are too far apart, she looks fat! OMG chevron socks! Cute! Wait, how do I lay it out? The chevron is making the shoes look wonky! The socks don't look like chevron if I make the shoes look correct. I want chevrons and normal shoes!" 

Exhausting, right? It only got better. I was getting the hang of it tracing and mixing my paint. On went the background and found my groove.

Then I got a little cocky. Decided to got outside the box and do a different color with the dots. A Halloween picture needs some orange so let's do orange dots.

After I got the paint, I started to breath a little heavy and a little line of sweat dotted my forehead. My hands were shaking because I was going off grid. Yes, just over a different color of dots! But I stayed on the path I had forged and made it through going my own way.

As you can see everything worked out just fine.

The moral of the story is to try new things. You never know what you can do unless you take that first step. Get outside your comfort zone, even if it makes you uncomfortable. You never know what you can do or learn.

Just remember…you got this!

Last Minute Halloween Decorating

Yes, I can read a calendar. I know that October is almost over with already. Give a girl a break! At least I have finally put up my Halloween decorations! Even though it is one of my most favorite holiday, and autumn my favorite season, life still kept me from enjoying my decorations longer. That's ok. It is finally done! Here is what I threw together. Unfortunately I have bought nothing new.

Outside my little house sits my welcome sign and my skeleton
I picked up last year at Joann's Fabric.
It is made with a spring for a spine!

The entry way. I made the "BOO" sign.
I put out the Munster family picture, which was
signed by Pat Priest last year, in place of honor!

On the mantle. Just a mix and match of stuff I have.
Some are still in the box.
Of course I had to put up my new picture I painted!

This is Merrill. He was a package deal.
Now he sits in the spare room with the door closed.
He is a freaky little old man that is about 3 -4 feet tall.
Sometimes I wonder about him…and my sanity!

I always think of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry is in Kramer's apartment and hears a noise and footsteps. Sometimes I lay in bed like this and wonder if the noise I heard was Merrill.

Getting Into Halloween Spirit

Picking Pumpkins

I love autumn! Have I shared that before? Well, I do! One thing I love is being able to go to the Farmer's Market in Dallas and pick out my pumpkin. My sister and I would walk all around the area and size everything up, debating sizes, diameters, and how many to make the perfect combination. Finally, we will pick the spot and start pulling out different ones seeing how they look next to each other….gotta have a tall, skinny and a short fat. I have been doing it for years and look forward to it!

This year, LT thinks we should get our pumpkins out of a Walmart cardboard box. Now I ask you…does that scream fun, picture worthy and memory making? I just had a visual of him taking pictures of me in Walmart pulling a pumpkin out of a cardboard box. Photos on Aisle 3! The sad part is, he would do it too! UGH!

source

Needless to say we are still pumpkin free on our front porch and it may continue that way through the season. It is more than putting a fat orange ball on the porch to signify it is autumn, but it is the closeness of picking it out, the fun of debate, and the sense of accomplishment we worked together to make it ours.

Memories are things we can take with us. LT and I both believe in making memories. I believe in taking photos to capture that memory he prefers mental photos. I guess I need to remember we are making memories together and it should not matter where we buy a pumpkin, they are all the same.

With everything going on in life, focusing on what is important is the key. We will have fond memories of this autumn. Heck, it is almost as much fun debating where to buy the pumpkins as to actually doing it!