Apron Thrift Girl

Decorating for Halloween

Decorating for Halloween

Every year we decorate for Halloween on October 1st. Not a day earlier and not a day later. Until this year. 2010 brought our school's Michealmas festival, a Waldorf celebration, on October 1st. The children begged to decorate when we arrived home after an afternoon of dragons, knights, potluck food and picnic blankets but I just didn't have the energy. Not to mention the living room was a mess and the children were mostly to blame.

Eventually on Sunday we were rested and the house was tidy, we decorated accompanied by Danny Elfman's Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack.

Handcrafted Happy Halloween Banner. You can find my Halloween Banner Tutorial at this link.

Martha Stewart Silhouette Bird perched on lamp.

Halloween Mantel - Our favorite decorations this year were the addition of the Martha Stewart Silhouette line. They really helped create a subtle spooky ambiance. The children thought they were so funny to place around the house.

Martha Stewart Silhouette Mouse and Mouse Hole

Halloween Spiderweb Coaster & Thrifted Halloween Book (with still attached thrift store price sticker)

Hand Drawn Pumpkin Man - I found this a few years ago at a sale or thrift store. There is something I just love about it. Maybe because it's handcrafted, or perhaps because it looks even older than the 1989 date hand written on the bottom. It's just so Halloween and is always included in my yearly Halloween decor.

Felted Pumpkin Man on Lion

Cobweb Covered Sticks - Keiran came up with this decorating trick. He found the sticks, covered it in cobweb and stuck it in a vase. Relieved to see that my 8 year old boy has a decorating sense.

Each year I add a few items to my Halloween box. I try to buy post Halloween when the prices are low. Last year I scored a lot of Martha Stewart items at Grandin Road. The prices were so cheap and I was able to take advantage of a Free Shipping Coupon. Don't worry about rushing to buy them. All of my Grandin Road Halloween items were bought after Christmas.

Next week I hope to create some Halloween Decoration Ideas for my Make Share post. There also will be a Make Share post tomorrow so have your handcrafted creations ready to share.

Have you decorated for Halloween? What's your thriftiest decorating trick that you do?

holiday baking

Despite my allegiance to thrifting I still couldn't help myself and did sneak into Target to have a look at their Christmas decorations This year I told myself that I could only buy two small items to decorate my home. I sold 3/4 of my Christmas items before we moved so our holiday supplies are very low at the moment. Two items felt appropriate on a thrifter's budget.

This 2-tier cake plate was rather sad looking when I found it on the shelf. It was by itself and was tilting over to one side. I was so disappointed that the last one was broken but a quick turn of the bottom screw tightened it and it was perfect. It was $14.99.

The glass tree behind the cake plate was so beautiful that I couldn't' resist it either. It was on sale for $9.99. 

Gluten Free sugar cookies with icing & sprinkles.

I always use my Joy of Cooking icing recipe. I don't know why except that it's just the staple recipe I reach for first. This year I couldn't locate Joy so I looked at this book instead for a recipe and found this. 

The addition of the cream cheese gave it a hint of a marzipan taste but the recipe was so easy. Even though I would follow Joy's recipe perfectly, it always seems to take awhile to work it into a nice glaze frosting. The Cook's Illustrated recipe was done merely with a whisk rather than a mixer and it felt like it was ready practically before I even started. There wasn't any playing around with ingredients, it was simply precise. 

We tend to avoid food coloring for many reasons, but there are times when I simply need something so pretty & blue on my cookies. Call it nostalgia. It is nearly impossible to find items that are gluten free and frosted unless you make it yourself. I think I miss icing on cupcakes more than anything else in the world. Sour Dough would be a close second followed by Lucky Charms. Sigh....at least these cookies are heavenly scrumptious. I even ate three of them before dinner despite the fact that it was dinner time when I began my first nibble. And then I just couldn't stop at one.

a time capsule oven

Here is our time capsule oven in the 1960's ranch house that we are renting.

At first glance I thought it was adorable. Then we tried to bake in it and it wasn't quite so adorable.

So I was happy to find this recipe in this magazine for a space-saving bird. When I bought my free-range organic turkey yesterday I batted my eyelashes kindly or possibly weirdly and begged the butcher to please "butterfly my turkey". Before this recipe I didn't even know such a maneuver existed for a turkey. And if the butcher had said no I would have panicked because I certainly don't know how to butterfly one on my own. I wouldn't know where to begin. But he did say yes (after exaggerating to him that my oven is literally the size of a single brick) and I'll be giving thanks to him tomorrow at the dinner table when we sing our blessing.

I'm still not certain that the turkey will fit in the small oven so our back up plan is to BBQ the bird. It's suppose to be 65f tomorrow which still qualifies as BBQ weather in my book. The recipe even includes instructions for cooking it on the grill. Either way we should be covered.

I finally sat down with magazines and cookbooks last night to create this menu.

Appetizer: Hot artichoke spinach dip (Food Network Magazine pg 80) with homemade tortilla chips.

Dinner:

• Crispy cornbread (pg 142 Country Living Magazine)
• Lemon glazed sweet potatoes (pg 142 Country Living Magazine)
• Pimento-cheese potato gratin (pg 143 Country Living Magazine)
• BBQ Brussels Sprouts (covering them in olive oil, murray river salt & pepper)
• Cranberry Sauce (Martha Stewart Cookbook pg 274)
• Butterflied Turkey w/apple cranberry glaze (pg 155 Food Network Magazine)

Desert: Wholefoods Gluten Free Crust with Martha Stewart Pumpkin Pie filling (pg 490)

Beverage: wine, organic sparkling apple juice & TJ's sparkling blood orange juice.

I don't tend to stick to a traditional menu that we follow every single year. I mix it up, change it around and above all try to make sure that everything is packed full of flavor. The entire menu of course is gluten free. We'll be cooking all day but it's what we love to do. Blessings on your Thanksgiving (or happy Thursday to everyone not celebrating).

Petaluma Vintage Holiday Boutique

If anyone is in Sonoma County on Saturday November 21st, please stop by and say hello to me at the Petaluma Vintage Holiday Boutique. I'm going to be bringing lots of sweet vintage items including some quilts, quilt toppers, vintage fabric, Nest Planners, vintage paper packs and as well as some original hand craft work.

Nest Planner (includes file to reprint all forms from your own printer)

Vintage Quilt

This is a perfect way to not only shop local but also a way to weave vintage into your holidays. I hope to see you in Petaluma on the 21st of November.

3 vamps & 1 leopard

Keiran's cape was $1.50 at St. Vinnie's, teeth $1.75 at a joke shop, pants he pulled out of his dresser, shirt was his sister's turned inside out so it wouldn't show any remotely feminine sparkles.

Here is my vamp princess (her choice I swear...it had nothing to do with my obsession with this show). Cape .99 cents from St. Vinnie's, dress (on sale at Macy's is actually going to be her Christmas dress). She had a brown thrifted gown which I bought for a dollar but Cerys thought this dress would be much more fitting for a vampire princess. Her fangs were $18 but they are reusable and fabulous. Shoulder hole on cape happened by Cerys playing in her cape daily up until Hallowe'en. What can you do?

Every year I want to create the perfect costume. Every year I've got this, that and the other thing going on that prevents me from focusing my time on our festive attire. At this point I can't even find my Berina presser-foot which I'm a bit panicked about with Christmas just around the corner.

I went to a yard sale where a women was obviously obsessed with every thing leopard. She had at least 75 stuffed animals of leopards, the 1980 high wasted pants that I am painfully wearing, the leopard mask and countless other leopard theme things that I didn't buy.It's one of those sales where a collection has gone terribly wrong. The pants were .50 cents (she should have paid me to take them), the mask .25 cents and the hair band .25 cents. The jacket I think was $7.00 from a yard sale a couple years ago and the boots were my find of last summer.

Dave went as a Vamp too. Teeth $18. He used one of his black work shirts and blank pants and he was done.

Dressing up doesn't mean spending heaps of money on something that you may use once or twice. Our favorite part of dressing up is creating an outfit from scratch even if it takes us a few weeks to find all the missing pieces. We love going to a thrift store with a million costumes in mind, waiting to see what idea pops out at us.

Keep your crazy thrift Hallowe'en finds coming. I'll close the Apron giveaway on Saturday, November 7th.

Here are some photos of a neighborhood in Santa Rosa where we went trick or treat in. The entire street is closed off to cars and people go way out to celebrate. I mean seriously way out.

This is a house on McDonald Ave. that was used in the movie "Scream".

I hope this witch doesn't mind being in this photo. Doesn't she look fabulous?

In-n-out boo-ger

more from the In-n-out Boo-ger

 

This house had so much going on that it made your head spin. I think their party started well before the sun was over the yardarm.

I don't think a house could get more haunted looking.

 

Thriller was blaring loudly creating the ambiance for this scene.

Hallowe'en 09, Santa Rosa, California.

a tease of hallowe'en

Lately all of my photos that I try upload to Etsy have been too large. I can't seem to change their size easily in MS Pictures so I started playing around with them in Picnik. And then I found their Halloween tools (I did upgrade from free to $4.95 for a month because of them....how unfrugal is that?). Cerys is partly inspired by Sally, and by one of my favorite songs sung by Katethegreat19, an incredibly talented musician.

 

The teeth need some work but I think Keiran looks cute as a troll like scary thing. 

Sydney and me about to cause some trouble.

While Hallowe'en always offers an opportunity to be frugal when hunting for costumes and candy, this year we decided to spend a bit more money on treat side of the holiday. We live in a more populated neighborhood than last year and expect some trick or treat foot traffic to make it to our door. I didn't want to hand out healthy sesame treats or organic apples in fear of the sneers and I didn't want to hand out conventional sweets. I wanted to offer both a treat that is sweet and delicious but without too many chemicals. I happily found these at Trader Joe's on Sunday for $2.99 a box:

And they look wickedly deletable in our cauldron....

writing christmas lists

I realize the weather up here near Seattle has been strange with unseasonably warm days but really it feels like it's still October with regards to time. Whoever had the idea to throw us American's three holidays in a row was obviously off their rocker. While I love the boomerang feeling of going from September to January with the speed of light, it means that the months of fall go by in a whirlwind. I never feel caught up with life until February. And I think February is a little late to start thinking of Christmas presents unless I'm 10 months early. And we know that would never be the case. Seriously.

Dave left for England on Sunday which left the house feeling very empty yesterday. When the children arrived home from school on Monday we made ourselves comfortable in the living room. I found some paper, pens and craft books/magazines to inspire us into creating a hand made Christmas list. With our attempt to put the soul back into Christmas it would mean no Amazon wish list gifts this year.

And luckily this arrived in the mail yesterday.

This cover is the inspiration for my afternoon with the children. 200 gift ideas is just the motivation to start working on Christmas.

Cerys didn't seem too interested in the crafty side of the books but instead starting copying the Japanese characters onto her paper.

Keiran also couldn't resist a blank piece of paper in front of him.

I took the lead and started to make some suggestions. They would agree positively to most things although still focused on their work in front of them. I will admit that I am normally pretty lousy about helping the children to make gifts. Each year I think about doing something with them but it usually gets pushed aside as more pressing issues takes the place of making gifts. I think the economy has been a gentle reminder to get me off the procrastination wagon and help my two children to craft.

Here's the beginning of our list:

Embroidered Monogram (this months Ready Made magazine) -take fabric, place it in an embroidery hoop, have child sew the first letter of the person's name that they are giving it to.

Watercolor bookmarks with finger knitted yarn for the loop.

We cut strips from Keiran's watercolor painting that the school gives us each June. I folded it in half with Keiran's help and stuck it together with some double sided tap. Keiran used a hole punch and we tied his finger knitted yarn through the hole. He is giving one set of three to his uncle in Seattle.


He made another set to send to his uncle in Iraq.

Also on our list:

Felted ball (from Cerys to her neice)

Herbal Tea in jars

Felted wool Hot Pads (made from recycled sweaters, CRAFT zine)

Paper Mache Vase
Hopefully this biokleen jug will look something similar to this one once I figure out the right gluten free paper mache paste. Jacki suggested potato starch.

Tonight we are going to attempt to make the vase. I don't know why but I've never made paper mache as adult. The last time I remember was at a girl scout camp years ago. I remember it being goopy and kind of gross. If it still is, the children are going to love it.

Linn also has some lovely holiday gift ideas. It's December 2nd and we have 23 days left until Christmas. Gulp. What handmade gifts are you making this year?

sinfully sweet

As it is Hallowe'en today, a day typically filled with sugar laden candy, maybe you won't think of this delectable treat as anything but normal. I'm sure I'm not the only one whose sugar intake climbs a little higher in October and then again in December. I'm really not a sugar-aholic. I have two tiny spoons of turbinado in my coffee, a few peanut butter cups here and there but that is mostly it. Even the gum in our house is some healthy xylitol kind that is supposed to help our teeth. But lately I've been crazing a certain flavor from my childhood.

Does anyone remember making the cookie dough for Tollhouse Cookies? The first step in this process was adding margarine, brown sugar and vanilla. I used to make these weekly, sit at my little typewriter desk and write my great novel (age 15) with my chocolate chip cookies and a large glass of milk. I suppose it was the chocolate chips that helped me write and finish my 88 single spaced type book titled "Once Upon a Summer" (which I later discovered was a name of another book sadly-remember this was pre-internet when you couldn't check for this kind of stuff). I loved writing even at an early age and my cookies could turn out 5 pages on a single sitting.

These cookies are a thing of my past now as is my dated novel. There is not a single chocolate chip cookie on this earth that is gluten free that tastes remotely like those incredible toll house cookies. When I lived in England and Dave would travel to the states, I would make him smuggle back chocolate chips and brown sugar just so I could make my favorite cookies. English brown sugar has a very strong molasses flavor and it did no favors to this recipe. I miss these cookies and have not tasted them in nearly 4 years. 4 long years.

Last spring I somehow accidentally came up with this recipe while making something else.

Cookie-ish Batter - gluten free

1 cup margarine (I used Earth Balance because I grew up with Blue Bonnet and this recipe is really all about nostalgia and not about health)

1 cup brown sugar (1/2 cup is pictured here because I don't normally follow a recipe. I just add stuff until it tastes good. It was too creamy with just 1/2 cup of brown sugar so I added more)

2 tsp vanilla extract (for any gluten free worries about Vanilla see this post by Shauna)

Mix everything together in a bowl until it is creamy, grainy and looks heavenly.

I leave it in the fridge until it hardens and then I eat it by the spoonful with a small glass of milk, just like the olden days. Honestly to me it is one of the most incredible flavors that I have ever tasted. My eyes sort of roll back in my head when I take my first bite and usually I have to slap my hand to stop eating more after 5 or 6 bites 10-11. It takes away all my gluten free sadness away especially with the holidays coming up which is a particularly hard time for anyone with an allergy that adores food. 

While the children are digging into their Hallowe'en candy booty this evening, I'll be snuggled on the couch under a patch work quilt eating my cookie-ish dough and drinking my milk and sighing with pure contentment.

Home Made Christmas

Home Made Christmas by Julie Paulling

Around this time of year, I start thinking about making Christmas Gifts for my family and friends.  I’m a fair knitter, make some very pretty jewelry, and can occasionally whip up a wonderful jar of squash pickles.  Particularly in a year like this one when money is tight, the thought of charging less on the credit cards sounds really good.  Of course, you still want to show everyone how much you care about them, and we all know that money spend has nothing to do with how much you care.  So it’s a perfect time to start planning all those cozy home-made gifts.

Then there is that hazy memory that suddenly jumps into sharp focus of knitting like a crazy person on Christmas eve, trying to finish the felted yoga bag.  Even though I know each row takes 4 minutes and I have about 120 rows left to go, I keep knitting.  Fingers cramping up, a couple are bleeding, and missing out on my kids’ excitement and anticipation, I keep knitting.  And knitting.  And knitting.  I finally got it done around New Year.  Not quite what I had in mind.  Same thing for my nephew’s baby blanket.  I planned to have it ready for the baby shower in December, but I was still knitting furiously in late January, around his due date.  It turned out beautiful, but I can’t say I was thinking focused and loving thoughts with every stitch by the end.  I just wanted to get the darn thing done!

And then there is the jewelry.  I think it’s quite beautiful, but it isn’t so appropriate for the men in my life.  And the women have received jewelry from me before.  Many times.  Maybe they deserve a break from that.

It has taken me 43 years to realize that all my wonderful projects and plans take way more time than I expect them to.  Call it starry-eyed optimism, or just plain poor planning, I seriously underestimate the effort involved.  Which isn’t too much trouble if I started making gifts in June, but late October is another matter.

Of course, home made gifts aren’t really inexpensive, either.  Every time I choose a project, I end up spending way more than I had planned at the craft store on supplies and equipment I need.  The equipment is an investment, right?  If these gifts go well, I’ll be making loads of the flower presses or felted bunnies or patchwork baby quilts, so spending the money is ok.  Except things usually don’t go as well as planned for me.  Those flower presses never lined up right, and I drilled the holes too small, so my nieces couldn’t get the two sides apart to put any flowers in between.  Felted bunnies look so cute in the book, but they kind of get lost on Christmas.  And I never have been able to figure out how to thread that darn sewing machine.

So I’m thinking instead of choosing carefully, not overspending, on very personal and appropriate gifts for everyone on my list.  I hope they all like the squash pickles!

Thrifted Hallowe'en Costumes

Every year I sit down and talk to the children about what they want to be for Hallowe'en. I try to have their costumes picked out "firmly" by October 1st. In my ideal world we would talk about their costume, I would secretly hope that it was one with some historical value, then I would hop down to Joann's and buy patterns and fabric. During October I would sew and sew and sew until the costumes were finished. I would have the children try them on and we would lovingly walk the streets of our island in search of candy on Hallowe'en night. 

But that isn't how it ever goes. At least not at our house. Well sometimes I actually buy the pattern and fabric but I never complete the costume. Or my children both change their mind about what they want to be. With an 8 & a 6 year old I have finally learned a little more about how to deal with them for finding the right costume. We still have our discussion about what the children want to dress as in the beginning of October. I try to get them to make their "final" choice but they tend to change their mind back and forth. I'm okay with this unless I have already bought something for their costume.

This year Cerys wanted to be Molly dressed up as a Hula dancer from American Girl.

Then she found some bunny ears and wanted to be a bunny. So we switched gears again and started to look for bunny gear. Sunday took us to a thrift store 45 minutes away in search of our costumes. Dave and I are throwing a little party for two other couples so we are in need of costumes too. Before I left on Sunday morning I had planned for Dave and I to be vampires. Keiran too. Partly inspired by this movie.

We spent an hour there without much luck. Bunny suits were long gone which left us to look at fluffy sweaters. We did find one but Cerys, being a spitting image of me, was starting to have doubts about it. Once she gets her mind on something it is so difficult to steer her in another direction. She was set on a bunny suit and the sweater thing was a poor substitute. We could only find a half size cape for Keiran in the vampire department. We took little breaks from looking as I nonchalantly went past the dishes, books and napkins (in search of Vera) and then would go back to costumes and try again. Cerys was getting more and more upset and I was getting more and more frustrated.

Finally I had to let go of the idea that they had chosen their costumes and that they had to stick with their choice. I told them that they could go back to the children's Hallowe'en racks and choose anything as long as it was 2nd hand. I took a deep breath and we walked back to that area of the store. Keiran immediately found a black nylon, somewhat tacky, costume covered in a plastic green bones and became set on going as a skeleton. Sigh...Cerys moped as she kept being drawn to the $24.99 new costumes. I kept pointing her back to the used area. I finally suggested that we try Molly again. Her eyes lit up just a little for me to realize that she might like this idea. We went back together and found a green hula skirt with a matching coconut bra that made her giggle. We next found a red sweater and finally a lei.

Sometimes a part of parenting is letting go of our ideas of what we want for the children. I will admit I'm slightly envious of the talented sewers who create the most amazing costumes for their children. I want to be that mom. But I'm not that mom. I'm the mom who takes the children to the thrift stores or maybe the consignment stores (often on October 30th) to find a last minute costume for the children. It's not near as romantic as making them but it's part of our family tradition. And even though I'm not so keen on Keiran's skeleton costume, I can't help but feel pleased about the fact that he is over the moon with excitement about it.

Here's my little Molly/Hula girl. Looking at her I can't help but think of Missa at Thrift Candy with her thrifted clothing poses that I love. I think Cerys has been sneaking peaks at Missa when I wasn't looking.

Hula Skirt $9.99 (higher than I would like but I guess they charged more because of the these.)
Red Sweater $4.99
Lei .99 cents.
Total cost: $15.97

Skeleton Costume $4.99
Short cape $2.99
Total cost: $7.98

I also picked up some vintage 70's clothing for Dave and I. I'm going to dress as her. And Dave is going to dress as him. I'd love to go as Trina but don't think I can get away with it being a mere 5'1". Are your costumes thrifted or handmade? What thrifted costume ideas do you have to share with us?