October Monthly Giveaway

Ok, so I am jumping the gun here a little, since it is about 11:30 on Sept. 30, but I am all hyped up on sugar from eating cupcakes and m&ms at work. And yes that does just about sum up my job, sit around eating sugar. I worked a wedding tonight and they had cupcakes instead of a wedding cake - genius huh? especially since I didn't have to cut a big ol wedding cake but I digress.
This month I am deviating from the hat giveaway to showcase this cute trick or treat bag. The bag is about 10"x12"x4" and is fully lined with scary eye fabric. There is a felt bat sewn on and black rick rack around the top. What could be more fun? oh yea filling it with candy!

So to enter to win, please leave a comment, maybe let me know if you think this bag is gender neutral or not? since I tried to make it so. I believe that I have changed the setting so that anyone can leave a comment and you don't have to be registered. I will leave it up for 2 weeks and then pick a random winner from the comments using the random generator thingy. I will post the winner here on October 15th and then I will mail it out to you, just in time for Halloween. So enjoy, share and comment. To check out other cute bags click away here http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6188913

Dear PTA,

Dear PTA,

I regret to inform you that I think this year's fundraiser will not be a success. In our home we are on a diet. A diet? you say in an incredulous voice. Yes, unfortunately it has come to our attention that we do not need tubs of frozen cookie dough. With the upcoming holidays approaching (or encroaching) we are in panic mode as to our waistlines, up coming ski season and the guaranteed onslaught of holiday goodies. So you see we can not be partaking of the goodies. Also 3 out of the 4 grandparents in our family has diabetes. The one great grandma who lives close and is always good for a fundraiser, also has diabetes. The remaining grandparent has high cholesterol and can not partake in the sinful goodness either. Everyone who is left in our family already has a slew of children of their own and will not support yet another children's fundraiser.

Furthermore, I feel that you are unaware of some statistics in the USA today so to help you out I thought I might share with you; the fact that over 60% of Americans are overweight and 30% are obese. And don't even get me started on Children's obesity rates. Maybe though you are aware of these statistics and that is what spurred this particular fundraiser.

Thank you for listening to my concerns

Laura Ford

P.s. I will take one double chocolate chip, one snicker doodle and two brownie mixes.

What not to Crochet

I found this website one day http://whatnottocrochet.wordpress.com/ I am not sure what I was looking for but somehow I stumbled on this little gem, and I laughed, and then I laughed some more. Okay maybe this site is not so funny to those who don't crochet, but the author is still hilarious. She searches the web and the world all over to find the most hideous and offensive crochet designs, and my there are a lot. Little bit of warning; she does seem to find a lot of crochet bikinis and lingerie. Little one's eyes should be averted.

I had to add the following picture from the site because I recently came into some of my grandmother's old sewing things, and I received this pattern! Yep. I got a few crochet magazines from the 70's and I had to keep them - how could I not, they are so cool - I am sure I will post on them later, maybe when I crochet Pete a bowler hat. Any who, it is the same picture, same design, can you imagine wearing that?

Welcome Fall (a few days late I know!)

So this is how I celebrate Fall - by picking my orange pumpkins! Yea, I know my front walk here is looking a little shabby, the heat has killed a lot of flowers, but the plants are still alive so I just can't bear to winterize my pots yet.

I was going to leave the pumpkins for a while, but the two biggest started getting some white crud on the outside, not sure what that is about, so I picked them quick. The one on the left; we call him lumpy. I thought there would be no way that I would get enough pumpkins from my vine since I usually buy at least 10 every year, but... I have like 4-5 more green ones on the vine, not to mention the 4-6 pumpkins that are growing in the neighbor's yard. That's right, my vine is stretched out four ways like 12 feet in each direction, right through the fence into 3 neighbors yards and there are big fat pumpkins taunting me from their side of the fence. Curses! Actually I told them they could keep whatever grows in their yard, my treat, uh huh Happy Halloween.

And the Winner is....

My friend turned me on to this website that generates a random number for you. Granted her giveaways get a lot more attention and that would be hard to put all those names in a hat, but I thought that I would give it a try. http://www.random.org/

I assigned each entrant a number based on the order they left a comment and the random winner was.... Number 2! Or Nichole - So congrats and send me an email with your address and the size you would like. Lauraford21@hotmail.com

Come back next month on Oct. 1 since I will be giving away a sweet trick or treat bag.

Pink, Pink Girly Baby Shower

I helped put on a baby shower for my Sister in Law who is having a girl after having two boys. She wanted it pink, pink, pink and very girly!

I don't know if it is fortunate or not for my Sister in laws that I am such a freak about parties (since I do do it as my day job) I sort of jumped right in and started taking over. We held the shower in another Sister in Laws newly finished basement, which was gorgeous, also the walls were blank, perfect for my decor. I made this little felt banner with the baby's name on it - Sophie Paige, thankfully this matched the baby's room colors perfectly so she can take it home and put it up in the nursery. This was really easy to make and I think it turned out super cute, gave me other ideas....

Here is where my planning and penchant for procrastinating kind of hurts me, at the last minute I had my husband grab some Christmas lights out of our storage and I didn't realize that only the top one was white and the rest were red! Oh well, so here is the (ghetto fab) entrance. I guess it could have been worse, like green.

And the buffet! Now, nothing is more girly and soft than a carousel horse! My husband might have thought I was crazy lugging this thing over but I feel like it really adds a sweet touch. And in case you are wondering, some of these things were borrowed from my job, I do not have a carousel horse on hand.

I made tags for the buffet, we had a little bit of a pot luck going on, but everything tasted so good! I used baby food jars (washed) for votives and put little pink tea lights in them.

Here is the cupcake tower! Very cute if I say so myself. I put different pink ribbons around the edges and then I made little sticks to go in them. I made red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (dyed light pink of course!) from scratch which I had never done before, but I think they turned out delicious! I was wanting to do a cupcake tower, because what is more girly, I just couldn't decide on the tower. I was really torn between this Wilton one and the metal one from Costco. I went with this one for the versatility, but now I really want the other one too! I am horrible about that kind of stuff!

For beverages I did a cucumber water, and Watermelon Italian Creme Sodas, which I think was a big hit.

For games I got some good ideas from a co-worker and made up this animal embryo guessing game. Might seem a little gross, but I thought it fit my animal loving sister in law. Also I made up a Celebrity Baby game, where I put celebrity heads on babies bodies. It was sort of easy, but looked rather funny. Also we played Pregnancy Mad Libs and few other games. I tried to steer away from the normal games that had been over done, but some of them might have been too hard. Sorry.

And here is a photo of my three pregnant Sister in Laws. Yes you heard right 3!! I might have a few more posts in the future on baby showers.

Baby Shower Present

My Sister in Law's Baby Shower is this weekend (more posts about that will be sure to follow) and she is having, of course from the dress, a girl after two boys and she can't wait to go pink girly crazy! I made this little outfit for her present (and I think I am safe, I don't think she reads my blog.) I think it turned out quite cute and very girly and pink. I loved how the purple dress turned out for my niece, so I replicated the design and added pants.

My Sister n' Law has expressed to me how much she loves the idea of ruffly pants under a dress, so I whipped up these little matching pants. Hope she likes it! This is something I wouldn't normally do, not my style, but I think it will really turn out cute all together, if the kid doesn't drown in fabric first.

And of course since it is crazy me (conversation I had with my husband last night about this label) I had to make a little matching hat to go with it. I am sure she will look adorable in pictures with this whole getup. ( She will look adorable in person too, we just have a fabulous photographer in our family and I can instantly picture this ensemble photographed.)