I Made This

I made this dress for our Grand Daughter.

Once more I used this pattern to make the dress.

It is such a quick and easy pattern to use.

The dress was easily quickly completed in an afternoon.

I had quite a bit of fabric left over. Because the pattern is definitely one direction, I had to use most of the length of the two metres I'd purchased. 

So there was more than enough fabric to make the following draw-string bag.

Our Grand Daughter loves Halloween and her birthday is just a few days before, so it was a combined Halloween and birthday gift for her.

I'm a little late with this post! But perfect for today's photo a day challenge...I made this.

I Saw This

I Saw This

November Birthdays Celebrations - Halloween Theme

Thrifty Thursday

Halloween is becoming more and more popular here in the Blue Mountains.

Our little subdivision has been practising the tradition for a number of years now.

For some reason I have been feeling the need to be thrifty of late, perhaps there's a bit of anxiety behind this as Mr HP nears retirement.

My health has been an issue too and I'm not feeling motivated to do extraordinary things.

But not wanting to disappoint, I made an effort to be prepared for the children in the neighbourhood.

These little packages took me less than a morning to complete.

And here's where the thriftiness comes in;

these little packages cost me less $1 each to fill, and the packaging and crafty bits all came from my stash of scrap paper and craft items.

I'm linking to Thrifty Thursday link party #22

Halloween

This is how my day panned out today:

0700 hours wake to an aching body and an episode of vertigo even before lifting my head off the pillow. Drag myself out of bed and drink a glass of water with the teeniest pinch of Celtic sea salt to counteract the vertigo.

0715 hours yoga nidra 

0745 hours load up the washing machine with another lot of what seems to be never ending dirty laundry which, I remind myself, will have to be pegged up indoors to avoid it smelling smokey.

0800 hours turn the sprinkler on the thirsty herb and vegetable patch because, despite a sprinkle of rain in the past 24 hours, my plants seem forever needy for water in this climate of low humidity, high wind and high temperatures. 

0845 hours make myself an affogato...sort of entree breakfast.  Follow this with half a fresh pineapple and freshly picked blue berries. Turn off water sprinkler.

0900 hours call my Grand daughter's school to see if they will accept a box of thirty copies of my sister's self published children's book: Ursula The Flying Unicorn. 

 I'm informed that they have been inundated with donations and I would  be better off taking them to the Baptist Church in Springwood.  The Salvation Army has agreed to host a toy drive initiated by an out of the area school and will be delivered to the church tomorrow.

0930 hours Shower

1000 hours Move carved Jack O'Lantern pumpkins outdoors in preparation for tonight's Halloween Trick or Treat.  Poor pumpkins are melting before my eyes after being carved out by Mr Honey Pie for a party last Saturday. They are quickly approaching their use by date. Into the car, I load books and  funnel web spider (discovered on driveway last Sunday by Mr Honey Pie).  

Lock up house and head off to Baptist Church to drop off books to be donated.  Meet some lovely people at the church working their little hearts out to help anyone affected by the recent fires.

1130 hours Arrive at Mum's house to meet up with mystery person which Mum had informed me about at 2145 hours last night when she phoned to asks if I can be there when they call this morning.  Meet Mum, she still doesn't know who is calling in this morning...thinks it's someone from Sydney Water.

1205 hours Man arrives at Mum's house.  It turns out he is a property developer who is looking at buying up land affected by the North West Growth Centre. Not quite what I expected but quite helpful all the same.  Although bad news is that Department of Roads and Maritime Services are cutting up Mum's land so badly that the developer is not interested.

1245 hours lunch with Mum at a cute cafe (a church-to-cafe conversion) not far from Mum's house.

1330 hours drive to Windsor to drop off above mentioned funnel web spider, 

drive up the mountain, quickly shop for individually wrapped chocolates and lollies, rush home, invite Daughter and Grand Daughter to dinner.  Eat cake while I make up twenty trick or treat lolly bags for expected trick and treaters later on in the evening.

Happy to report...some little neighbours arrive, attempt to scare us out of our wits, collect some treats and leave happy, with little Miss Six joining in her very first Halloween Trick or Treat Adventure.

Day 305/366

I almost lost all my Trick or Treaters when I commented that I didn't know any of them (because they were so heavily disguised and scary).

On hearing this, they turned to go away...I guess their Mums had told them that they were not to take any treats from people they didn't know.

I had to quickly confess that I knew at least some of them!  Phew!  Otherwise I would have had to find other ways of distributing my basket of goodies.

My Grand Daughter got into the 'spirit' of things too and called around in her purple tutu.  That's what witches wear isn't it?

(Sorry about the revamped photograph...time has been very scarce of late.)

Day 302/366

Having lived in Australia all my life (except for a brief period as a five year old), I'm not very experienced with things Halloween.

But since celebration of the festival is becoming more and more popular 'down under', I have taken it upon myself to partake of the  trick or treat festivities. 

Last year I 'forgot' and the younger generation of our little estate by passed our house.

The practice for us is that if we wish to be involved, then we decorate our mail box appropriately as a sign that the children are welcome at that particular house. 

So today, I took some time out to pack little parcels for the children.

I found some little paper cups decorated with skulls at the bargain shop which I filled with lollies and packed into cellophane bags tied with spider web looking thread. 

Then I remembered the Christmas wreath I own and which I freshly decorate each Christmas and decided to decorate it for Halloween and to hang on our front door.

Unfortunately, us poor 'southerners' celebrate all our significant festivals 'out of season', so pumpkin is as rare as hens' teeth and quite expensive at the moment so I don't imagine that we will be carving too many pumpkins around here! 

I suspect, that because we have so little experience with things Halloween, an Australian Halloween will develop with idiosyncrasies that may bewilder Americans or Canadians visiting our shores.

What preparations are you making for Halloween?