Haunted Halloween Fun!

I am willing to admit it, I am a total scaredy-cat when it comes to scary movies and haunted houses. So when friends of ours invited Matt and I to go to Markoff's Haunted Harbor, I was a little hesitant. By "little" I mean shaking-under-the-sheets scared. However, it turned to be a relatively tame* Haunted House, and all the other attractions cost enough money that it wasn't really worth it to do. It was a bit of a dud, but in the words of my friend, "it beats sitting at home."

Luckily, the night before, I was invited to go to the Enchanted Forest (by the same people who run Haunted Harbor) with a friend and her small children. Waaaay more my speed.  It was fantastic! If you are anywhere in the area with small children, I highly recommend it. It starts with a tame hayride, where you meet Mother Goose at her cottage, and she leads you on a walk through the forest where you meet famous storybook characters. We met Rapunzel, Hiawatha, Mr. Tumnus, the Fairy Queen on her unicorn, and a not-so-big, not-so-bad, actually quite nice wolf. The kids got to taste a witches brew that may or may not turn them green (that tasted suspiciously like root beer), shoot marshmallow arrows through a hoop, pet a unicorn, pick out a pumpkin, and get a candy treat. It was a pretty awesome child-friendly Halloween Event. In the words of the 6 year old I went with, "That was the best. night. everrr!"



*I was still clutched to the back of my friend and possibly hid my eyes at multiple times, but I was able to sleep that night, which classifies it as relatively tame.

Happy Birthday to me!

Last week was my birthday, and I was VERY spoiled! On my actual birthday, I had a day off to relax and sew, then I was taken out to dinner by my daddy and boyfriend, which was fantastic. My dad was in town on business, so we went to his hotel, then went out to Red, Hot, and Blue, which I'd never been to. The two carnivores I was with were very happy with this choice!

George and Martha, the swans that live at my Dad's Hotel

On Friday, I got to go for a run, then after work, my boyfriend took me shopping (which was the best gift ever!). On Saturday, I met up with friends and we went to the Maryland Renaissance Festival. We saw performers and artisans and the boyfriend got to learn to juggle, which he was pretty excited about. We didn't get a chance to look at everything, but hopefully we'll be able to go again. I made my own Birthday hair piece to wear, which I thought came out well, though I need to work on how to position the clip when I have feathers.

I love all the sights and colors of the renaissance festival. The sets, the costumes, the crafts, the performances. It's such a feast for the eyes. Here, I'll just show you:

Fortune Teller

Glassblowing

Revel Grove

My Birthday hair clip!

Sick day and inspiration results

So yesterday the boyfriend had to stay home from work, which was nice for me because I got to spend the day with him, but bad because I didn't get any work done! Tomorrow's my birthday, and I'm hoping to have my Etsy shop up and running as my present to me. Unfortunately with him home, I got distracted, and going to the library and sitting with a big pile of yummy new books meant that I didn't get a thing done!

OK, that's not entirely true. I did do a bit of sewing that I would otherwise have put off, and I did take some pictures that I almost missed the light for. But anything I needed to do on the computer was completely forgotten until it was entirely too late. However, I did manage to take pictures of the results of my inspiration pictures from before:

A hairclip of autumn leaves made of satin with gold embroidery.

A headband made of satin to look like falling leaves.

I've made a few more as well. I'm not entirely satisfied with them, but that's more because I'm a perfectionist than anything else!

Daily Inspiration - Autumn Leaves

I just found weheartit.com and I am in love. I'm going to use it to help me think of new designs. Today I've been inspired by Autumn Leaves. No, there are not any autumn leaves where I live yet, as its still August. But I've been making fall-themed hair pieces and looking at gorgeous pictures certainly gets me in the mood to craft! 

So here are a few of the images I found from weheartit.com to help me create things. I'll show you what I create later!

Photos courtesy of weheartit.com. 

unfortunately I cannot find the actually artists/photographers who took them, but it is definitely not mine!