A Happy almost Halloween coupon!! and what I'm up to...

Happy almost Halloween!! I usually really love Halloween!! I love decorating, carving pumpkins, halloween candy, making costumes, etc. But this year I have been avoiding the topic. I think I'll dress up as a sleeping mommy this year! oh wait!! I'm basically already a sleeping mommy. Or at least I wish I were... sleeping. ;)

Anyway, I thought a coupon and a little giveaway would be fun way to kind of get me in the mood.

Save 15% with code: HALLOWEEN15

expires 10/31/15

Good in my Etsy shop and in my Bigcartel shop

Would you like to win a FREE pattern of your choice? 

• Leave a comment and let me know what you and your family are dressing up as for Halloween. 
• If you don't celebrate Halloween, let me know what your favorite holiday or time of the year is.

In other news....


I'm working on a new pattern this week. I hope to get it out to testers by the end of the week.

Space Gem

I'm going to really make my son a quilt with this pattern (I always say that...). He's getting too tall for all his quilts and blankets, so naturally I need to make him a new one. And I'm really going to this time.

Anyway, this block will be a fun one for spotlighting focal prints. The center square that is on point, will be one solid fabric! (which means the assembly of this block is a little trickier, as apposed to constructing it as a 4-quadrant block. It was a tough decision to make, but I'm excited! I'll show you more soon...)


AND

because I honestly can't just work on one thing at a time, I'm going to make up some Halloween fabrics and print them on Spoonflower. I want to make a "Happy Halloween" banner like this "Happy Birthday" one I made a while ago.

But I haven't found just the right fabric for it... we'll see how this goes!! I'm really excited to finally try some fabric designing!! :)

I am still planning on turning this banner into a pattern, or perhaps kits. I'm just waiting for the right time to squeeze it in.

I hope everyone has a fantastic week!!! 

Don't forget to pick up those patterns you've been eyeing!!

Happy Halloween!

From all of us!
Hope you all are happy and safe, wherever you may be. :)

Trick or Treat - Halloween Paper Piecing Blog Hop

Soma was so nice to invite me to join her Halloween blog hop! Thanks Soma! If you are visiting my blog for the first time, Welcome!! :) I hope you'll stop and stay a while. If you are new to the blog hop, check our Soma's blog, Whims and Fancies, to see the daily blocks and where all the other blog hoppers are! There are also some giveaways going on, so you don't want to miss those. :)

I think Halloween is such a fun holiday. Well, besides haunted houses, scary movies, and all that evil stuff (those things I could do without), but decorating can be so fun and of course candy is always nice. ;) And I really do love dressing up! I had such a hard time coming up with what block to make, but I'll blog about that later. Right now I want to share with you my block and pattern!

Trick or Treat

I decided to go with a word pattern, which is proving to take longer than expected to piece. Yep, this is just my digital mock up. I'm using Riley Blakes "Trick and Treat" fabric bundle, which seems fitting. ;) So the patterns are different than what is in this photo, but the colors will be the same.
(I hate excuses, but the truth of the matter is that my husband was out of town all week, my sense of "this will take x amount of hours" is TOTALLY skewed!. I'll get my real block up later today so I hope you'll come back and check it out!)

You know how when you piece a block, even if you are using a solid fabric, the seam lines still show up a little? I think if you did all the letters in white, it kind of looks mummy-ish.

Or on a white background (I didn't leave the mock up lines in this one, and it's actually just a little bit different, if you can see where the letters are smoothed out. This is the font I started out with. I think it's called Green Fuz or something.)

So now for the sharing! I have a full pattern that contains 12 different letter pieces, instructions for combining the letters, and a small color block you can use to help plan out your colors. It does not include instructions for paper piecing. If you need some, there are tutorials all over blog land, including my 3 part tutorial which you can find here.

You can find the pattern for FREE in my Craftsy store! 

(oh, and print it at 100% or no scale)


***UPDATE: I added an extra seam allowance around the edge of my pattern without realizing it! I will fix the pattern once I get a chance. For now, the block will measure 11" square, 10.5" Finished. KEEP THE SCALE at 100% or NONE! All you need to do is trim 1/4" off each side once your block is complete. 
I'M SO SORRY FOR THE CONFUSION! 
I promise if you do this it will turn out exactly the same as when I fix the pattern!

If you make this block I'd LOVE to see it! Share it on Craftsy and link it to my pattern, or add it to my flickr group. AND OF COURSE add it to the Blog Hop Flickr Group so you can win prizes!!!

from blank pages... #10

Despite being down and out this week (which has unfortunately meant that some of my fun blog posts for the Friendship Quilts Blog Hop didn't happen this week...) I did actually start on something new last night! Hooray for progress, right?! I am really getting tired of being tired and sick of being sick. heehee. I hate when it draaaaaaaaaags. Hopefully that I'm feeling a little better last night and this morning means I'm on the mend! crossing my fingers!




Onto my new beginning:
 Did you hear about the "Something Wicked This Way Comes" Halloween paper piecing blog hop at Whims and Fancies? Well, it's almost October already and that means it's about to start!! That also means I need to get crackin on my block! I am so excited to participate in this hop and have an excuse to finally use the cute Halloween fabrics I've had in my stash for a while now. :)


Originally I was thinking a castle, or bats, a witches broom, a black cat, a witches hat... and I'm sure I found a few other images on google that I thought would be fun. Last night I drew up a few images in Illustrator,

a hat

and a cat.

More people liked the cat on Instagram, so I'm going with that... (my user name is fromblankpages if you're on there, come follow me!) 

I was on a roll until I got to the ears. I'm a little stuck about how I want to break them up. I would love to keep the head one piece, so we'll see what I can come up with. :)

I don't know if I'm supposed to do this much reveal before the show, but hopefully this gets you excited!! I can't wait to see what everyone else is making!

p.s. Don't forget that tomorrow is the last day to link up your Friendship Quilts Projects!!! I am LOVING what projects have been shared and hope to see more!! :)

So what have you been dreaming up or working on??? I am really loving seeing your projects that you've been sharing!! :)

Just a few things with the link up:

1. PLEASE make sure to link back to this post in your blog post! Let others know where you're sharing your projects so they can come share theirs as well! :) You can also grab a button from my sidebar.
2. Make sure you are talking about some kind of beginnings in your post. If I can't figure out how it ties into this theme, I'll have to delete your link. no offense.
3. stop by others posts and leave some comment love! :) 

Linky will be open until Saturday night! :)

Happy Halloween: Trick or Treating to Graves Disease

Today was so much fun! Can I just say that I never thought it could be so much fun taking your little kiddos trick-or-treating?!!! Hunter is just the right age that he is so awesome at it, and I don't know which of us likes it more. :)

We quickly pulled some old costumes out of the closet today... Hunter was a skeleton, and Jacks an army guy. I don't think I've ever thought so little about Halloween. Usually I love it! Anyway, it worked out perfectly!



Mabel was a cute little butterfly! A neighbor so kindly gave us this costume about a month ago.

My mom had found the halloween bags that I used when I was a little kid and gave them to me. I loved seeing my kids use them! They are the perfect bags! I can't believe how much candy they got!!! We only went to houses around our neighborhood that we knew, but everyone was so generous! I can't wait to dive into it when the little ones aren't looking. ;)

It was impossible to get pictures of everyone together!

she can ALMOST stay sitting up by herself. :)

Happy Halloween!!!

oh, and it's official. Today I found out that I do in fact have Graves Disease. I think it's only fitting that I found out on Halloween. Doesn't it sound like a halloween type disease?! ;) And now the adventure begins. :}

Fab Finds: More Halloween

(unfinished post, but I'm posting it anyway.)

Happy October!! :)

There are just too many cute Halloween things out there. I need to clean out my bookmarks so I can save room for more. ;)

Fab Finds: Halloween

I really love Halloween. My hubby is not so excited about dressing up and celebrating. But I drag him along and we always have a lot of fun. I think he's starting to enjoy it more! :)

Last year I found so many cute Halloween decorations and ways to decorate your pumpkins. Here are my pictures from last year. (and the link to the original post: ok, it's to all the Holiday ideas that I had on dbByDesign. So there is some Christmas stuff and even a few Father's Day ideas. Nothing wrong with starting early right?! haha)

Pumpkin, Pumpkins and Pumpkins

    

and a few more...

  

an up close view of the quilt idea - so clever:

Cute Halloween Cupcakes

  

They have plenty more ideas plus directions and how-to's on their site. ClickHERE to check them out!

  

I LOVE looking at all the photos. I've started putting a collection together from this years finds, it's not quite as complete yet, but I'm getting so excited for Halloween already!

Stay tuned for this years photos. I'll wait until I get a few more to put together. Otherwise I'm not sure how impressive it will be compared to all of these. ;)

As much as I love looking at all of these, and the many more that are out there, I am so lame when it comes to decorating. (Hopefully that will change when we actually have a house to decorate. Right now there just isn't a whole lot of extra space). :) 

What are your favorite Halloween decorations? or activities?

Picture Links:

If you want to find the links to all (most) of the photos. Simply go to the original post of these and click on the pictures. Most of these I found from the BHG Holiday emails. :) 

Bloggity Blogs: Project Naptime

There have been a couple of projects I've seen on the linky parties that have taken me to this awesome blog!! I couldn't wait to feature it any longer!

Blog: Project Naptime

This is definitely a recent favorite. I'm sure you may have seen it already... I know I'm not the only one that likes it! :)

Halloween Advent Calendar

Super cute bow tie! I would love to make this for my little boys to wear to church! :)

I've seen these every where before, but for some reason when I saw hers, and her super easy directions, I just really wanted one! :)

Just over a year ago I started to make a quiet book. Boy are they a lot of work. I still have yet to finish it. haha. ;) She has some really great pages that she's put together and I love them! :) Maybe one day I'll finish that book... and add some more fun pages.

Thanks for the great blog!! :)

Don't forget to grab your "featured button" from the bottom of the sidebar!

Picture Links:

Halloween Advent Calendar: http://projectnaptime.blogspot.com/2010/09/pottery-barn-knock-off.html

Key Leash: http://projectnaptime.blogspot.com/2010/07/key-leash.html

Quiet Book Pages: http://projectnaptime.blogspot.com/2010/07/quiet-book-pages.html

Bow Tie: http://projectnaptime.blogspot.com/2010/05/easy-bow-tie-tutorial.html

Made It: Halloween "BOO" Blocks and a quick tutorial

Did you see the BOO Magnets I made last week? (check them out. I have an extra set that I'm giving away, so leave a comment if you want them!) Well, I had first tried to use my cricut to cut them out of fabric, and was struggling horribly, but I just couldn't give it up. Finally I simplified the design a little and got it to work alright. I ended up with these giant BOO blocks! These kind of turned out ho-hum, though I do think they're cute, just not as much so as I had hoped, and they were fun anyway! And my boys really like them! Hike can kick them clear across the room, and throw them pretty far too, it's kind of funny. :) Maybe they'll be useful for a fun game at a Halloween party or something. Maybe I could paint the words and the owls and bat with glow in the dark paint! That might make them more interesting!

"BAT" + "OWL" + "OWL" = BOO
honestly, I'm a little disappointed with how hard they are to see.
Tip: either use a solid fabric for your applique, or a solid piece for the background fabric. The mixture of two designs is too distracting!! (At least I think so now that I'm done).
A skill I will have to work on to master. ;)

These were super easy to make! You can easily make your own, even if you don't have a cricut (or can't get it to work the way you want it to) :). Figure out the design you want, I made mine using Make the Cut, or draw it on paper (Make sure they are all the same size). Trace it onto the fabric and cut out (or simply cut it with your cricut. You can find the tutorial I use to cut fabric here.) Once your applique piece is cut out, cut square blocks about 1 inch larger than your design (6 per block).
After you cut out all of your fabric, figure out which one you want your applique piece to be on and you can either sew it on now, or after you sew all the green arrows together (see below. If you sew it on after, make sure your fabric doesn't get pulled under what you are sewing or you will have to undo it. I know) ;}

Here is how I sewed them: (this is an all inclusive block piecing diagram. If it doesn't make sense, let me know and I will do a more detailed description of how I piece it together.)
***It is really important that you start and stop your seams 1/4 inch from each end, or it will make it difficult to sew the other edges of each square together. An easy way to make sure you don't forget is to simply cut out a 1/4 inch square from each corner of your piece.



After finishing these I REALLY wanted to make a quilt!!! But alas, there are still other projects I need to finish first. Do you ever get like that? When something doesn't turn out as great as you'd hoped and you can hardly stop yourself from making more things until you get something you're really proud of?!! I think instant gratification is a huge reward and motivator when it comes to creating things! LOL! :) Other times I just tell myself to "finish it already" so I can stop thinking about it. ;) haha.

Thanks for stopping by!
I love to hear from you!!!
Leave a comment and I will love to visit you too! :)

Have a great week! :)
I'll be linking up to most if not all the linkies on my side bar. :)