What Time Is It (Almost)?

Guess what I bought at Trader Joe's today?

YESSSSS!!!

The first pumpkin of the season!

All you Halloween haters?

Need a little visit from Kevin Bacon,

so you can get that stick out of, well,  you know.

Goodbye, Beautiful Summer

Because of my school schedule,

this summer I ended up with a full

THREE MONTHS

of no work, no school, no being a taxi mom.

It was the longest I've been off since I was ELEVEN.

To put this in perspective,

the last time I had this long of a vacation,

I was cooling off in the family above-ground pool and

and quenching my thirst by getting a drink from the garden hose.

As usual with the summers I started off ambitious...

... but by the end felt I had accomplished something

if I changed the Britta water filter.

(Hey, there's three whole steps in replacing that thing!)

However, student teaching starts next week,

so it's time to say goodbye to all the good times I had this summer.

Goodbye to long, sweaty, satisfying days in my garden,

where I pulled out the dead plants that didn't make it through

the shockingly dry winter,

and replaced them with sturdier natives and succulents. 

(The above section is in honor of a local landmark,

Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village.)

Goodbye to long mornings at the city library's used bookstore,

where I stocked up on books for my Little Free Library,

my bookshelf, and my future classroom.

(Also, shout-out to the lovely Linda,

 who always gave me the best deals on my books.)

And speaking of bookshelves,

goodbye to hours of luxurious reading,

which I know will be in short supply once school starts.

(These are just a few of my bookshelves.)

Goodbye to sewing for my Etsy shop!

I haven't put my shop on vacation,

but I won't be adding new items any time soon.

Goodbye to looong cuddle-pets with my kitties...

... who will probably be thinking,

I thought we'd never get the house back to ourselves!

Oh, bed.

How I will miss getting up every morning sans alarm clock.

And while I hope I'll still have time to practice my ukulele...

...I know I probably won't progress much past

the half-dozen folk songs I've sorta mastered.

Sigh...

I would stay in my funk for a bit longer,

except...

except...

... look what I just saw at Joann Fabrics!

Yaaaay!!!!

Beautiful Halloween is just around the corner.

Goodbye, Wonderful Halloween

The Sweet Man thinks I'm having a little trouble

letting go of Halloween.

He says it's time for me to let the jack o' lanterns rot in peace.

But they're not that bad yet, right?

Right?!?

Sigh...

okay, maybe an intervention is in order.

Hey, Kid...Wanna Treat?

Look what I'm passing out

in addition to candy:

BOOOOOKS!!!

BUT... I don't get many trick-or-treaters.

Do you think this will work to lure them up my hill?

Here's hoping!

A Comic For Meeee!

Since I titled my post from yesterday before I saw this,

I'm choosing to believe the talented Mark Tatulli drew it 

just

for

me.

Put On The Brakes, Christmas People!

Last week, when NOVEMBER had barely begun, driving home

I 

saw 

THIS:

Okay, it was actually only three of those giant balloony Santas and reindeer,

but I was gobsmacked.

I hadn't even taken down my Halloween decorations!

(This is just a portion of my Halloween decorations, y'all.  I go nuts for Halloween.)

Look, I've become resigned to the fact that celebrating/decorating for Christmas

is getting pushed farther and farther back.

(I have no idea why the people are so tiny and Santa so huge.  

Just go with the "Christmas in July" idea.)

But can we please at least wait until 

after Thanksgiving 

before putting up the indoor tree and outdoor blinky lights?

I myself handled the transition between the two holidays 

by stacking up my leftover, uncarved pumpkins,

and covering them with a string a white Christmas lights.

It feels kinda Thanksgiving-y with all the pumpkins, no?

And I'll be able to leave those lights up through January 1st.

It's the Lazy Martha way of dealing with decorating for the holidays.

Down The Pinterest Rabbit Hole

I've written about Pinterest before,  and since it's my new crazy-obsession,

I thought I'd scour its archives for hours at a time

efficiently find an idea or two for the goody bags I was making for some friends.

Let's see what I put together, shall we?

I started with these wee mummy pumpkins:

They were fast and easy to make with my modifications;

you can check out this entry to see how to do them.

Next, I made these super-cute little jack-o-lantern "seeds", 

which are just orange Tic Tacs in their original container with an added Halloween label:

Here's the original Pin complete with a printable label;

the Sweet Man blanched at all that black ink required, so I made my own with this graphic.

Also, I thought the black kitty was a nice shout-out to my own dear Jackie-Cat,

the Springsteen of kitties.

Next!  Spooky eyes!

Now, for the original Pin,

the crafter said she fed Christmas lights through the toilet paper rolls.

The pin I saw said to use glow sticks. (They're tied with the purple ribbon to the TP roll.)

Also, I would try out one or two before committing to making a bunch.

I was at a Trunk or Treat last night and my neighbor, (a sister Pinterest addict aficionado)

was having trouble getting these to sit right.

And if you decide to give some?

 You might want to make directions like I did, and cover the TP roll with black paper. 

Getting a regular TP roll in gift bag could be kinda weird.

To the pattern!

Shiny Happy World has all kinds of patterns, including some for free.

I included this elegant witchy embroidery pattern in a nice big envelope.

Here's the original Pin; she has other Halloweeny stuff there, too.

Here's something fun and easy:  spiral ghosts!

They look like a snail when flat, but when you string them up?

They spin and move in a very satisfying way:

It was hard to get a picture of these guys, since they really move in the wind.

The original Pin said to use poster board,

but the Sweet Man had some vellum to share.  It was nicely translucent for these ghosts.

For both the witch and the ghost, I used some big envelopes I snagged from the staff lounge

(teachers are always doing stash purges),

and stickers I bought from a favorite Etsy shop of mine, waddlinonion.

When it came time to bag all these up, I knew exactly what I was going to use.

Check out this freakin' adorable witchy goody bag!

Don't you just loooove it?  I know I do.

The original crafter didn't have a pattern, but it was pretty easy to figure out.

If you're making some of your own, here's some tips:

1) A standard bag is 6 inches across, so two rows of lace will require a foot per bag.

2) After I punched the holes in the stockings, I backed them with crepe paper to make the purple polka dots.  The crepe paper was forgiving, and easy to glue.

3)  I didn't have big letter stamps for the "Eeek!",
so I made my own with some DIY stamp stuff I had stuck on the end of a wooden dowel.

According to Pinterest, if you don't have the DIY stamp stuff you can use craft foam.

Let me just say, the original crafter? 

Made over SIXTY of these bags for her kids' classrooms.

Kudos to you, Crafty Lady.  

KU-DOS.

They weren't too difficult, but they did take a bit of time.

So, how does everything look, all together?

Pretty amazing, if I do say so!

Interested in more Halloween ideas?
Check out my Halloween and Day of the Dead board on Pinterest!