Halloweeny Craftings Part Deux!

Halloween is here!

I really wanted to make this TV jack-o-lantern, but I couldn't find any of the vinyl for the face...I have an ulterior motive scheme for the vinyl so finding it would have been marvelous.

But just wait, I will eventually make this. *nods* Oh yes.

And speaking of jack-o-lanterns here are a few of the products of the craving festivities of yesterday!

I ended up carving four of them to my BFF's one. Her sister chose to play with the pumpkin guts and clean it all out for us. I'd also purchased a build-the-haunted-village gingerbread house kit so her sister (being an architect) had a ball with that and ended up using it in a kid mentoring lesson later in the week. We only kept two of the carved ones I did, the other two went to other homes one with the BFF and her hubby and one to her parents.

Unfortunately, Jack-o-lanterns look much more amazing in person, but the cat-in-the-boot looks okay here. Cerberus (or Fluffy, depending on what you know) looks really strange. He looked awesome in person and I would totally carve him again.

I did do glow stick guts in a jar of water. It looked pretty cool (again, didn't photo well). It made a nice addition to the candy staging table inside the door. It would be nice to figure out how to get it to really streak on the glass like the original one. Maybe next year...Muwahahaha!

I would very much like to make this for next year! An un-welcome mat would be very welcome! Our cat one is cute and funny, but the other would be entertaining for the rest of the month. :D

And the whole reason for the blogging this month, the luminaries. They turned out really well, and I might have to take my Aunt up on making her a few. It would be fun to also make a few Nightmare Before Christmas themed ones as well. I'll have to ponder on that a bit. But I doodled and took inspiration directly from the tutorial I found for this years. Next time I can get a bit more creative.

As I was discussing Halloween the last few days while prepping for the carving festivities and decorating, I have vowed to fully celebrate the holiday in grand style next year. That being said, a friend posted this lovely little history of Halloween write up from the Library of Congress. The history and such is one of my favorite things about Halloween. Also found this little gem of a timeline. A co-worker has also lent my books on a few of the major monster myths so I'm hopeing to read through those soon even if the holiday will technically be over.

Halloweeny Craftings!

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I remember being a fan growing up, but it is with adulthood that I really took to it. Its not even about the candy and movies (mostly cause I'm not so much a fan of horror movies). I love the time of year with Fall literally falling on us. Yes, the leaves have been changing, but there are still days when it is really warm with those hints of summer. When Halloween arrives I know it is now time for sweaters and sweatshirts! I can wear my new hand knits comfortably without worry of taking them off when I overheat. Found a neat entry on Etsy about Halloween and parenting. Granted this is still a few years down the road for me, but it got me thinking... I need to revel in Halloween a bit more.

And hey, who doesn't love a pumpkin-piggy bank? He's so cute! I did not make him though, I'm not entirely that awesome.

Last week it was painting my toes a-la-Frankenstein. Which is about as festive as I've gotten thus far this month. Though I was changing up the fingernail polish to various fallesque colors since September. I really need to remember to celebrate Halloween all month next year. Making decorating and such work it like at Christmas time.

So the question becomes, what does this week have in store pre-holiday?

Low and behold, when I find crafting ideas, I have a compulsion to do them. So when I came across the GeekCrafts link to these de-lights I had to try (and these glowstick ones)! This resulted in me finding myself in Tuesday Mornings (my crafty grandmother would heartily approve) for glassware. :D I also headed out to Micheal's and ended up with a few more Halloweeny crafty things since they were starting to be mark down what little merchandise that was left.

So I made this pile of random bits and bobs into these awesome luminaries! And I will play with glowsticks on Halloween to light the other jars. Those pictures will have to come later. *nods*

Overall, Gleeful Things has provided some really excellent projects for the future for me to craft that are outside of the knitting realm. I do love knitting, but sometimes I want to end up covered in glitter and glue. ;D

On a side note, I was perusing Gleeful Things and came across this little gem. Um, yeah, here's my converse from before and after. I might actually have to make myself an avatar with my awesome new laced shoes on my feet.

My poor Chucks are so worn. I guess it make it obvious I walk funny given the wear on the inside heel, hn?

Mittens of Yggdrasil

In the midst of trying to make all kinds of projects, I knit up some fingerless mitts for myself so that maybe I can take advantage of the nice fall weather and knit outside. This will hopefully help me to get some sunlight so I'm not quite translucent when in the sunshine.

I'd found this pattern on Ravelry. I love the tree! This was also recently after seeing Captain America and renewing my interest in Norse mythology. I still have a burning desire to pick up a mythology book. It's been so long since I read up on the Norse pantheon.

Thus, I waited to find the perfect yarn to knit these up. And low and behold, Etsy came through. AnotherCraftGirl had some other yarn that had caught my eye and when I scoped her shop, she had this luscious chocolate and caramel hand dyed colorway.

It knit up rather quickly once I got the hang of the pattern. This was also a project I semi/pseudo cabled sans cable needle. O_o

That was interesting. It might be a skill I should foster more, but I have a tendency to drop stitches so maybe when the cable isn't overly complicated. Like this pattern I'm itching to knit up from the same designer. I want to find another nice colorway to use, but I'm not sure what. I also kinda want to make them a bit long since the Yggdrasil mitts took less than 50 grams of the skein. They might look cool in some of the semi-sparkly yarn I have lying around.

I was also able to use this opportunity to pull out the recently purchased pumpkin stitch markers. Aren't they cute! The leaf is the different one to mark the round beginning. Oh Etsy, why do you have such amazing things? I wish I was half as crafty as some of those people on there.

As you can see, the mitts look pretty fantastic if I do say so myself. :) They are shorter on the fingers that I'd generally knit, but I wanted to be able to wear them while knitting so need greater finger room to properly tension the yarn.

And yes, this was an excuse to take a picture of my glitterly orange Halloween nails.

Since I got side tracked on discussing other projects, I'd like to add that I have stalled on the last Pay It Forward Project. I might have to change what I make again. We shall see. I won't have too much time since I wanted to get it done for Christmas. Lots of ideas and a few projects started for her that I could finally finish. >_>

Crochet mystery cracked!

I always find cute things I would like to crochet, then I read the book and get horrifically confused. I'm 75% sure finding such awesomely cute patterns was the reason I decided to learn to crochet. Anyway, I've had this cool Creepy Cute Crochet book.

The whole starting part was always very confusing. I really really wanted to make a little grim reaper and a ninja and...ok I wanted to make most of the little critters inside. I also would find more amigurumi books (like this one) that I wanted to make little animals from. The real kind, not the creepy. And of course while browsing for the other ones I found Crobots! I might have to put it in my queue!

Therefore I'm beyond excited that while browsing Gleeful Things, I came across her video. Now I know I could have googled for it, but she makes tons of them from what I can see and it is nice a clear. I have learned most of my knitting techniques in the past from the internets, so don't see an issue with continuing the trend! :D

So this little dream that I've put by the wayside out of frustration might actually see fruition soon!