Will Whitmore and Ugly Bunny

For those of you that don't know William Elliot Whitmore, you should. Here's a few pics and a video (I missed the first two lines of lyrics) from the show the other night. Don't mind the stupid girl talking through the beginning. She was a nasty person Alison and I almost had to fight. We would have won!
p.s. I turned the video right side up, but somehow youtube turned it sideways again. Sorry!

After the show, Jordan and I joined the Allen's at their house for a nightcap. I saw the ugly bunny doll I made for Finn's first birthday so I took a few pictures to post up. All the fabrics were gifted to me by my mother-in-law, Sue. The buttons are from my Grandma's collection she gave to me about a year ago. The nose and the tail were my two favorite buttons. The nose is a soft suede and the tail is a tweedish coat button.

This was probably the most time consuming part. I first made Finn's name out of bigger buttons, but they wouldn't fit. I had to go back to the button tin and find smaller ones that I liked. Don't worry, I tied those babies down so one year old Finn can't pull any off to choke on!

Let the carving party begin!

Let the carving party start! I brought some pumpkins and my tools over to the Johnson's house for a little carving fun.

Liz, a fellow carver.

Cam.

Beak.

I chose to do Michael Jackson from Thriller. Here I am transfering my pattern to the pumpkin.

Liz chose a saucy little cat with a monacle.

Here's MJ all transferred. After peeling off the paper, I connected all of the dots with a pen. The lines will be scratched into the pumpkin. The dark parts will be carved all the way through.

The scratching begins. And yes, that's the special tool from a previous post.

Cam is a die hard Bears fan. We couldn't find a pattern for her, so I printed off a picture of a Bears helmet and made her a pattern from that.

Beak's pumpkin.

Liz's cat. Beak helped her finish the bow tie.

Here's MJ, all done. Next step, light him up!

Thriller!

Mumkins

While picking pumpkins at the farm, Sue (my mother in law) and I saw a beheaded pumpkin. She looked at it and declared that it looked like a planter. She then had the most Martha like idea. Take a pumpkin, hollow it out, plop in a mum and BINGO, a mumkin! Genius.

Another crummy day...

It seems like all we have is crummy, rainy, blustery days lately. I tried to collect some leaves for making postcards yesterday. I couldn't find enough. I feel like I somehow missed the beautiful, sweater wearing fall. All the leaves were green and now they are brown! Fear not, I have not given up. I will find some worthy leaves and the postcards will be made!!!

p.s. If you'd like one, let me know!

Pumpkin tools

Here are all of the tools that I use for pumpkin carving. Most are pretty standard, but one in particular is special.

Most of these tools will come with a book of patterns. I have a few books that are especially cool. One has patterns for the front and back of your pumpkin. For example, the front may have a haunted house on it. Then the back pattern is a couple of ghosts which project on the wall behind it (see the middle carving). I like the books, but most of my really cool patterns I find online.

These tools are for transfering your pattern (which you should copy and size to your pumpkin, then tape it on). You basically just go around and poke holes into the pumpkin along the pattern lines. When you're done, you peel off the pattern and I like to use a permanent marker/pen to connect the dots. Otherwise it can be a bit daunting looking at all those holes. The middle and bottom pokers also have a drill on them for making perfect little holes. The roller poker has never really worked for me.

I've had these since I was a little girl. they are only to be used for cutting the top (or bottom) out of your pumpkin. They are to blunt and big to be used for much else.

These are the scrapers I've collected over the years. They work ok, but a nice big spoon has always worked well for me.

These are for most of the carving work I do. Any large pieces get taken out with these.

For the finer details, I have finers carvers. You have to be careful with these, they're pretty sharp.

These are my favorite tools of all. The other tools all come with pattern books, but these you have to buy seperately. I don't really use the carving end...

...but this is the money end. It's what lets me scrape off the pumpkin skin without carving all the way through. It always sort of reminds me of an orange peeler. I stock up on these after every halloween when they're ridiculously on sale. That way I have extras to give to friends!