Halloween, my forbidden fruit

When I was younger I was allowed to celebrate Halloween. My mom was very active in the PTA and threw the best freakin’ Halloween room parties. I can remember the costumes she wore on those days better than I can remember my own costumes. One time, she was a woman on a safari. She had on a safari vest and a safari hat and had stuck jungle themed Beanie Babies all over her, in her pockets and everything. I was so proud of her. I was so proud she was my mom. All my friends had a great time, every time and, and always said how awesome my mom was. I knew she was, they didn’t have to tell me.

One year I remember we went to Trick or Treat at a nursing home. My sister (who we will call “L” because I didn’t ask her permission to write about her) was just a little baby. I remember watching my mom really quickly, and almost out of nothing at all make a costume for her. She took a pink onesie with the footies, one of those thermal ones. Hot glued a poofy ball of fluff to the butt and painted her little nose and put whiskers on her. everyone at the Trick or Treat “ooed and awed” about how fantastically adorable she was. She really was too.

One year, for me, she took a pizza hut shirt from a thrift store, a hat, and a pizza box. She cut finger holes in the box for me to hold it. I was a pizza delivery girl. I still had that shirt ‘till I graduated High School.

Out of everyone I come from, I definitely get my creativity from my mother. She seemed to always have an unlimited supply of arts and crafts supplies in the basement. She just made magic happen for us all the time.

When I sat this year making costumes for my whole family I had a lot of time to think about her. See, time, and real life has happened and my mother and I are no longer speaking. It’s been that way for a long time too. Very strained.

Around when I was 14, I started having to pull together costumes for my sisters. It was really hard.  Then at 16 suddenly Halloween was “satanic” in my new family unit and we weren’t allowed to celebrate it anymore. It was ok for me because I was kind of too old to trick or treat, but I was sad for my sisters. I have those early memories, they don’t.  Now Halloween is “eeevil.” And the precious memories my mom was trying to make for us are gone.

I was always of the impression that every day is a day G-d has made, and if I want to celebrate the day He made, I can do it in a costume and get candy from people. So, I mean, if you are giving “the devil” credit for this day, you’re kinda taking the credit away from G-d for this day…………..not a good idea…..

A good friend and I were talking one time and he said the costume he remembered the greatest was the year the Ninja Turtles were really huge. His mom didn’t buy him a store bought turtle costume, but made him a homemade one instead. It had a huge stuffed floppy head that would flop around when he ran. He remembered that costume but, didn’t remember the nanny he had for years. His response to his mom was “well, she didn’t make me a giant floppy head Ninja Turtle costume did she?”

My husband’s family on the other hand, Halloween at his house was “AWESOME.” He tells me stories about how he and his brother Sean would dress up and go around the neighborhood, come back home and put on different costumes and go out again. They would have literally pillowcases filled with candy. Halloween is his favorite holiday. It is a big deal. That means thank goodness, we will be celebrating this holiday in my family for the rest of my life.

So, I aspire to make magic for my family, just like my mom in those early days. I want them to have fond memories that they treasure forever. Halloween is the one holiday you can spend with just your immediate family unit, bonding and learning about each other, having a really fun time.

Well, I gotta go make ghost sugar cookies and put the finishing touches on Tank’s mane.
Be safe out there tonight, kids with glow sticks and reflective patches! My porch light’s gonna be on and I’m going to have candy!

Can’t wait to see everyones “scaaaaawy costumes”!

I am not a hoarder. I really will use that ripped up gift bag!

All those who know me know that my office is continuously in a state of chaos. My husband sometimes will help me clean it and when he does he sometimes picks up a paper towel tube or Popsicle sticks or in this case a ripped gift bag and try to throw it away. After I am done diving after it I find I have to embarrassingly explain myself. "I'm not a hoarder I really will use that stuff!" His adorably quizzical face turns melts into raised eyebrows and "my wife is insane" shrugs.

So, today, to prove a point, I sat carefully today cutting out individual pink flowers from a gift bag from my birthday. I will be decoupage-ing a wooden box. I'm excited about it. Also, to prove I am not a hoarder I will, for the next week be finishing a lot of half-finished projects.

Including but not limited to:
Christmas Tree topper Angel
2 Paintings for my sister and brother for Christmas
Christmas/Hanukkah ornaments for friends and family
Decoupage Box

I'm sure there are a lot more I just haven't ventured in there is a while. Expect lots of pictures and tutorials.

I miss Kala, a LOT and other life musings..

I do, I miss her a lot lot lot. I tried making my husband call me Tawa Lynne but it didn't work. She is a beautiful wonderful human being that can't be replaced. She is a wonderful human being and I both treasure her, and respect her as a sister and fellow person of this world we live in. She is valuable, sweet, compassionate, vulnerable  intelligent, and sensitive. She deserves, like everyone else in the planet to be treated with compassion.
I miss her.

I decided I will make Cranberry Hooch for Halloween. I'm sure it will taste nasty and bitter and I imagine it will be perfect for Halloween. I have also eaten almost all of the good candy that I bought for our neighbor kids leaving only the strawberry hard candy with the gooey middle and, the peanut butter candy that comes in the orange and black wrappers which is totally gross. I am shameless.

My husband also leaves for Arkansas in just a few days. I won't see him for 3 weeks. It's sad. But, it will give me time to spend with my secret Bullmastiff boyfriend named Tank. Who, lets face it, keeps me much warmer at night and is a way better listener.
But seriously, what's the point of a wife is she doesn't give you the freedom to follow your dreams? What good is a husband if he doesn't give you the security and freedom to follow yours? The point I fee,l is to do them together right? Accomplish together.

Anyway, Just Dance 3 is in redbox. I got some codes that will knock a dollar off of anything you rent @ redbox. Comment me if you want 'em.

Catch ya later turtlenecks!
Love,
Tawa Lynne

I finally finished my Dorothy costume

So, our rockin' neighbors invited "us" to their Halloween party. I officially had to finish my Dorothy costume.

It was so easy it was unreal. I used McCalls Pattern M5833. It's basically a smock dress. I used blue gingham fabric from WalMart that was on clearance for 1.50 a yard.

I put some buttons on it and done.
If you don't have a pattern it's really easy to do without. Measure yourself above your bust (boobs) and make 2 big rectangles and sew them together at the sides. Then make 2 straps and sew them on. It's soo easy.
I like the "smock dress" Dorothy a lot more than the "slutty Dorothy" made available to me at costume stores. I will be putting my hair in pigtails. Easy-peasy.

I noticed something disturbing the other day while watching Hoarders (aka the best show of all time; a close 2nd: Dance mom's)
Why can big fat men grow beards that they can carefully sculpt into making them look like they have actual chins, yet, big fat ladies do not have this option?! We have to let our 2nd chins waft in the wind for all to see and embarrass ourselves in pictures, sicking our heads really far forward in a shameless effort to create some shadow effect! LAME!

Catch ya' later turtlenecks!

I was drunk on box wine and didn't check on my baby for 10 hours and she was missing.....

Are you for realing me with this? I can't even have kids and people can just lose theirs when they have too much Franzia?!?!
What?
Yea, yea, I know, "This is a horrible tragedy Sarah, we need to show the family love and support so they can find their baby!"
Forget you, no.
I, for one, love my Amaretto Sunrise. 2pm, it's called day drinking people, it's kind of a thing. I however, don't have a freaking INFANT to take care of; I also, don't drink a box of it. All's I have is Tank that I need to let in and out every 3-4 hours so he doesn't poop in the house. (Panzer is a wild child that hates it indoors.)
I just read that the couple got Joran Van der Sloot's lawyer. So, um, that seems really weird. Just sayin'.

Also, I really need to finish my Dorothy costume. All I need to do is hem it but I'm soooo unmotivated.

Tank is totally my enabler, "Let's go play Frisbee in the yard mommy! I love you!"

How to make a Cowardly Lion costume for your dog, or, Why did I decide to do this part: 2

Today I will bring to you Tank's costume The Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz. Tank weighs about 150lbs so it had to be pretty huge. I still used Simplicity pattern 2303, which is essentially a dog coat. The only difference is Tank's costume had the hood option because he had to have a mane. I used fleece because in the winter this will be his coat.

Cut out the pattern and sew it together.

The picture already has some mane sewed on but you get the point.
Next, cut strips of fleece or felt in the color of brown you want about 4 or 5 inches thick and very long. If you are making this for a smaller dog make sure the strips fit his body size. Cut the strips about an inch thick to make something that resembles a grass skirt. You will need to cut a LOT of these strips.

Sew the strips to hood to make the mane. You can arrange them however you want them. I put mine on back to back to give the mane lots of body and make it really poofy. Like, one going frontwards and the next one going backwards. Fill in any gaps with more strips. This is the part that made me regret not making him be the wizard.

Next, I made the "Courage" medallion. I had a really hard (but fun) time trying to find a solution to this. You can order one online but it's expensive. You can buy a circle medal at the dollar store but it looks stupid and not realistic like the movie. I found at Wal-Mart in the craft section one of those plastic "painted glass" things that you are supposed to paint yourself. They cost like .75 cents.

I painted it gold on the front and back so you couldn't see the black lines and so it would be really shiny. Then I flipped it over and used WordArt to make the "Courage" part of it. Then I hot glued it together. Then I attached a red ribbon to attach it to his costume. I used a little metal thing to make it look more realistic.

I put it all together and I think it looks really cute. I had to sew in some elastic to keep it on his head because the mane was so top heavy.

DON'T FORGET TO TRIM THE FRONT OF THE MANE A LITTLE TO KEEP IT OUT OF HIS EYES SO HE CAN SEE!!!!!!!

How to make a scarecrow costume for a man, or, how to make a scarecrow costume that doesn't look stupid.

My husband's job is flip-flopping about whether or not he will be in town for Halloween so I decided to make his costume without spending money on it. I did buy some burlap for the hat because I didn't have enough of the color I wanted to use in my office. It was $3.50 a yard at Wal-Mart. Also I stole handful's of hay from a grocery store parking lot.
First I got a long sleeved shirt and some lounge pants that he never wears anymore. Then I cut 5" x 5" squares of random quilting fabric that was kinda manly looking. I ironed down the edges of the squares. I didn't want to totally ruin the pants so I sewed the straw directly to the square.

Then I pinned the squares on the pants and sewed them on. I only did 4 patches because I got bored of it pretty quick. You can do as many patches as you want of as many different sizes as you want. The important thing is to not forget the back of the pants. ALSO when you are sewing the straw on, it might get crunched off and fall off. Sew on more then you need so straw loss is not a big deal. Or, pin and sew on each patch as needed. I sewed them on all at the same time but that's because I got tired of the straw.

Next, for the shirt I did the same thing...sorta. The shirt is really stretchy so I didn't want to do a bunch of patches. I combined 2 squares and sewed the straw on the back too. Then I pinned it and sewed it to the shirt.

 

Then, *sigh* the hat. I did see a hat at Wal-Mart that was straw and was his size and was, well, perfect. It was also, however, almost $10. That is more than I am willing to spend on a hat that he will never wear again and will be smushed and in the bottom of my closet on November 1st. So, I decided, never having made a hat before to make one out of the burlap. I decided I wanted it to sit kinda high on his head and have a small brim so he would look kinda cool and intentional instead of being huge and having a giant floppy brim and looking stupid and lame like "My wife made me wear this."

Start by measuring your victim's head. This is how big around you need to make the hat. My husband has a huge head. It's 24" around. Divide it by 3 and add about an inch. You need to make 3 triangles first, and that will be the length of the bottom of the triangle. Decide how high you want the hat to be. Like I said I wanted his to be short. Mark it and cut it out.

 Trace around each of the triangles on fabric that is kinda softie or else your victim will be complaining all night  "My head itches." Pin it to it's respective triangle and sew it together. This step also gives the bits of the hat something to grab on to. Burlap unravels and comes apart really easily.

Pin the triangles together burlap sides together and sew the sides. (not the bottoms!!!)

Turn it inside out and you will have a little (or big) cone. My sewing machine has a hat! The sides should be even but if not don't freak out. It'll be dark outside first of all and second of all, you're going to be attaching a brim to it. Well, unless you're going for a "Pierrot" type of scarecrow.

Leave your little pointy hat alone for a minute and get the burlap again. I doubled mine to make two layers so the brim wouldn't be so floppy. You need to make a circle for the brim. I found the hugest circle in my house and traced it. You can also put a pin in a tape measure and take your marker in a circle to get a perfect circle.

Cut it out. pin it together. Sew it together lining up the edge. Take the cone and put it in the middle and make marks where the hat will fit.

Sew where the marks are. Cut out the hole. Take the brim and line it up exactly to the cone and sew it. Be careful not to sew it backwards. The soft fabric is on the outside and the brim is on the outside. The burlap part of the cone is in the middle. 

This is what mine looks like finished. You can add ribbon to the brim or hot glue straw to it. Just because I didn't doesn't mean you can't. 

I decided the neckline of the shirt looked kinda naked so I made something to go on it with the leftover burlap. Make it the exact same way as the brim of the hat only a little thicker. Just cut it somewhere and put Velcro on it so you can put it around your neck.

This is the final product. (Sans pants) I think it looks pretty cool.

Let me know if you have any questions and let me see pics of yours if you make some!

How to make a Tin Man costume for dogs or "Why did I decide to do this?" part 1

I decided to make my entire family costumes from The Wizard of Oz for Halloween. It includes me, my husband, and my 2 "children" which are 55lb and 150lb Bullmastiffs. Today I will feature step-by-step, my husband the Scarecrow and Panzer (yes like the tank) the Tin Man costumes.

Panzer was the easiest by far. I used Simplicity Pattern 2303 which is basically a dog coat. I used grey fleece so she could also use it in the winter. Bullmatiffs are not outside dogs and Panzer is especially dainty and prissy. I just cut it out and sewed the belt on it. I used buttons instead of Velcro because she chews on Velcro.

Then, because every Tin Girl needs a heart, I cut out a heart from red felt and a white circle from fabric laying around. I drew a clock on it and sewed it to the heart.

Then I pinned it and sewed it to the coat. On the side that her actual heart would be.

Then I picked some buttons out for her back because the Tin Man has buttons on his chest. I picked ones that I thought were kinda girly but still grey.

Mark out where you want the buttons to go on the coat, and mark it with a sharpie. Sew them on.

Next I took a funnel that I bought from Wal-Mart and painted it grey. After that dried I spray painted it with Acrylic Glossy Sealer. Then I hot glued a little pink bow on it so people can see she is a little lady. Last, I hot glued elastic on the bottom so it will stay on her head.

And here's the final product! It was soo easy and except for the dry-time of the funnel hat it only took an hour from start to finish because you don't have to hem or sew the flannel coats except for the belt.

Shame is a stupid word...and concept......sometimes

I remember when I was new to the internet. I was in 8th grade and I received from my father a laptop that I was told to share with my siblings. Until my butt-hole of a brother stole it from all of us and requisitioned it to use for his own stupidity privately in his room, I had a Xanga account.
Every day I got on it and ranted about what I was feeling that day. The next day I would log back on the account and post a new post and read my previous day's post. I felt seething shame reading it. As though I wasn't supposed to be feeling any of the feelings I had wrote about the day earlier and certainly wasn't supposed to be sharing it publicly. I deleted the post.
This behavior followed me into my adult life. Through Xanga, then Myspace, then Facebook. Post, feel shame, delete. In my adult-hood it only changed slightly as a few specific family members felt the need to even go so far as to police my posts for me and tell me what I needed to delete and change.
It all changed after I got married. I guess you could say I married a man that didn't care about what people thought about him. I learned to say what I had to say, in private at least.
My resolve with this blog is to post what i want, what I feel, what I need to express. I will make it a rule not to delete a single post, no matter how horrible I feel after posting it.

I can, because I must, because I want to.

I was forced to write a blog....

My husband is an over the road trucker and is hardly at home and told me since I have a lot of "feelings about things" that I had just better start a blog and that I needed to start one as soon as possible. To vent and what-not.  Understanding that no one will be reading it and I'm not on Facebook to advertise myself, I think I had just better put stuff on here that's real and honest and maybe it will reach someone.

I have a lot of ideas about stuff.

Love you!