Happy Halloween!!

Am I the only that's NOT in the Halloween mood???

Seriuosly.  I'm not the least bit in the mood to decorate or even HAVE Halloween this year.  The pumpkins I made and posted about below??? those are literally the ONLY  Halloween/Fall decorations that I have going on at my house right now, with the exception of some real pumplins and guourds outside.  Plus, with Halloween on a Monday this year, we can't fully install our haunted cemetery, because the girls have school the next day and the hubs has work and I have pt, which means we don't want to have to spend all night undecorating (we have old hags and 'insert not so nice name calling terms here' as neighbor, therefore our decoractions must be taken down the night of Halloween).  We already drive that 'insert expletive name calling terms here' neighbor crazy at Christmas, rofl.  We like to get the most of our outdoor lights, install them not so long after Thanksgiving and we turn them on every night up to New Year's Day, rofl  that old fart HATES us, rofl, but we have a blast annoying him, and he can't do anything about it...but Halloween?  he complains and then the city whines to us that he's wasting their time complaining...instead of them growing a 'set' and telling him to shut up, they say 'we'll talk to them about it.'  And if we don't do it, he continues to complain to them.  I finally said, 'am I breaking any ordinance?' they say ' no, but it's being an nuisance to the 'expletive' So WE say, 'if ain't in writing stating that we're breaking an ordinance, we ain't doin' it!' HA!! that'll learn him, lol.

what was I sayin???  oh, not in the Halloween mood...yeah, I'm not.  Am I the only one?  I just can't 'get' in the mood...it doesn't help that my kids are half grown...one turns 18 on Friday, the other turns 13 in 2 weeks, and they hate trick or treating.  The 13 yr old has refused to trick or treat since she was 8, and the oldest hasn't been since she was about 11 or so, they just don't like it.  They dress up still, but that wears off about an hour into Halloween night, lol and then they all go inside and leave me outside w/the fire pit and trick or treaters all by myself, while they sit inside watching scary or haunted movies, eating big bowls of my annual pot of chili...and I'm alone, outside, in the cold, in the dark, ughhhhhhhhhh.  Plus, my bestie and her boys always come up, and since they all have work and school the next day, so they don't get to come hang out  :(   so, with all this, I am just NOT in the mood for Halloween this year.  But, I'll wish that you all are, and that you have a safe, enjoyable Halloween fun night!!!

CLOSED! Christmas Records Keeper/Tracker Giveaway w/TWO winners!

I've had these for a couple of years and haven't used them, I'm still on my first one, so I thought I'd share with a giveaway.  I have TWO of these Christmas Records Keeping/Tracking binders up for grabs.  They have a section for Christmas Cards sent/rec'd, presents, thank you's and parties and MORE!  If you like to keep track of those kinds of things so you know who gave you what so you don't re-gift something to the same person, or keep track of who sends you cards each year, then one of these Records keepers for YOU!  Super easy giveaway, will end Nov. 6 at 11 pm CST.

Disclosure:  This giveaway is not affiliated with any company, site, or promotional campaign.  The prizes above were bought and paid for, and provided by myself/Administrator of Lavender Cove.

MY version of Country Living's Toile Decoupaged pumpkins!

Last week or so, I done a post about the cover of this month's Country Living magazine with the photo of a pumpkin that was decoupaged with toile.  I got my copy in the mail and read that they used a toile FABRIC.  I have many types of toile fabric, but I really didn't want to use it.  I was afraid of the decoupage medium causing issues with the 'sizing' of the fabric and after awhile it wouldn't look quite right (just paranoid, didn't want to have wasted my resources or time), so I decided to look into it.  My challenge in that post, was to NOT spend ANY more than $2, not to have any of the supplies already (with exception of the modge podge).  So, what did I do?  I went to my local Dollar Tree.  I found several types of pumpkins...


the front 3, and the one on the far left behind the 1st row, were all $1 at Dollar Tree
the back 3 were a few that I got on sale at Joanne's and Hobby Lobby

So, I decided to use the larger pumpkin on the right and this roll of adhesive shelf paper to make my own version of the decoupaged pumpkin.  I cut them in strips to apply them, since the pumpkin is a round object, I knew I couldn't just wrap it and be done.

So I started applying them, then quickly realized that I needed to actually cut the strips to a point, so I cut from the lower right corner in a straight line up to the upper left corner, and continued to apply the strips.




When it was finished, I had a wild idea to add some sparkle, but only had some pink on-hand, lol  I didn't want to get up and dig out the fairy dust (it was a lazy moment).  So here's the final product:



it's final resting place....so far!

Total cost:  $2

~~~~~

Pumpkin Project #2

NEXT, I was pumpkin decorating happy, and continued with the two smaller pumpkins (in the above, 5th pic up) that were a dollar.  I wanted a couple of cute pumpkins that would  fit in with my mercury glass candle holders.  I'd seen a few silver metallic pumpkins at Hobby Lobby, but even 40% was more than I wanted to pay, so I decided to make them.




I took the stems out and put them on top of a shoe box, outdoors.

The pumpkins were each $1 and the metallic spray paint was $3 after my 40% coupon at Hobby Lobby.  Total cost:  $5 for 2.

Here they are with some of my mercury glass decor items.  How do they look?!

~~~~~~~~

Pumpkin Project #3

My final pumpkin project was with a small Funkin that I got at Joanne's Crafts for 57% off, so it was just $3.47, and 10"X10" piece of tissue paper that I'd gotten on after-Halloween-Clearance at Walmart last year in the card section (never forget that section during the Halloween clearance sales), it's Hallmark even.  I'm not counting that into the cost of this project, because I already had it AND it was only a small pc out of the 5 large sheets in the pkg.

This was a simple decoupaged project using Modge Podge.  First, it's tissue paper on a surface that was a bit slick, so I knew I'd have to put some of the medium on the pumpkin to get the tissue paper to stick.

After putting some Modge Podge on the pumpkin, I'd smooth the tissue paper over the spot, and did this all around the pumpkin.  Then I took a dry brush and smoothed out some of the bubbles, trimmed the top around the stem and attached the tissue down with more Modge Podge and smoothed it, then trimmed around the bottom and did the same to flatten it.

Final product:

I haven't quite decided where I want to put it yet, tho.

3 pumpkin projects to total 4 pumpkins for Fall vignettes for only $10.47!!

Pics from the Cake Demo I participated in on Saturday...

lots and lots of baking during the week, too!!

First, before you tell me how 'gaudy' my 2 tiered cake is, lol, know this ONE thing: they put us in the front of the Hobby Lobby store, less than 20 feet fromt he constantly opening and closing doors, which meant that the humidity was higher than I thought it would be...heck, I didn't realize there'd be ANY humidity, since we'd been in the back of the store a back room working for 2 days, where it was literally freezing, which is perfect for cake decorating.  So with the high humidity, NONE of our icing would allow us to make buttercream roses, or even other buttercream 'stand-up' flowers.  Which meant, my design went OUT the window and I had to design on the fly, and in front of lots of strangers.  I had no coordinaing fondant colored in the correct pink, so I had to use what I had to use.  The very top tier, isn't so bad, except I broke the gumpaste tiara more than 5 times, rofl...and had to fix it.  The last time I broke it, I literally dropped it on the floor and pearls and stones went everywhere.

So, you saw the gems that I made earlier this week in like 2 posts below.  They were too big to put too many on the tiara, so I only used 4.  Then tucked more into the border.  The off-pink flowers? ugh.  THAT was one of the biggest on-the-fly things I had to do...with the wrong color.  It was suppose to be a trail of tall roses, white tipped in pink, and smaller solid pinks, trailing down the side of the cake, but since we couldn't make roses, I tried putting gems around the cake...didn't work.  So we had to improvise, so I made molded flowers, in the WRONG fondant (which was the only pink I had made, because I didn't plan on even using it), grr.  So, THAT is why the cake is so GAUDY, lol and doesnt' even look like it matches. 

Normally, my cakes don't look this guady, I promise, lol.  Then, I made some mini-cupcakes that I handed out to little ones, whos parents loved having kids walking around the store with icing all over their face and hair, lol.   OH, btw, the roses and carnations that you DO see on the cake (there's 4), are made of gumpaste that I'd made a good while back for practice, and when my cake didn't turn out so well because of the non-roses (ugh), I had my hubs bring them to the store I so could use them...the cake definitely needed some height, and tipped them in pink luster.

Now THI product, is for a TRUE drunk, lol!

I was looking around my deal site and ran across this...Wine Collars for Hands Free drinking, rofl

are you SERIOUS???  I can't fathom a real reason for these...can you???  Wait, I have a friend, who's probably reading this as we speak, that rides a 'party bus' to and fro wineries...yep, this might actually come in handy for something like that.  You can't just sit a glass of wine down in a cup holder like you can a soda or glass, but these babies???? you can carry your wine around your neck!!  In case you're interested, they're $7.99 for a set of 2, with FREE shipping...enjoy!

Busy making buttercream, fondant, and MORE!

Many of you may know that I decorate cakes for fun.  Fondant doesn't necessarily like me, lol but we've been working together to fix that, lol.  I'm self taught, starting around age 19 or so, and have made plenty, including several tiered wedding cakes.  But I couldn't make rose...the right way, anyway.  Mine always looked....WRONG, lol.  So, a few years ago, my oldest and I took a flower making class.  The oldest enjoyed it well enough, I just didn't want to take it alone, but when I went back for the gumpaste class, she said to count her out, lol.


I even made my own wedding cake a few years back.  I didn't have time to make
flowers for it, so I used silk roses and greenery.  As you can see, I didn't
even have time to work my homemade fondant well enough to smooth correctly, lol.
But it still turned out pretty, I think.


This weekend, my instructor was going to have a cake decorating challenge, but it seems not as many people want to join a 'challenge,' so she and I are going to do an on-site cake demonstration, each decorating a cake.  I'm also going to have a bunch of filled mini-cupcakes to decorate, and let others decorate to see how crummy their decorating skills are, and how much it can improve with just one Wilton class.  :) 

Anyway, my design for my cake includes a gumpaste and fondant tiara, and since I wanted everything on my cake to be edible, I needed to make the rubies and pink sapphires.  You may think this is easy, and actually it is, the hard part is getting the sugar gems to not stick together.  My youngesextt done a batch of watermelon with a break-away mold, and I done red cinnamon (which, btw, is STRONG!)

Mine were in a mold that had at least 1/2" of space between each stone...this did not fair well for me.  The sugar was difficult to stream from one stone-well to the next without letting too much pool between them, ugh.  Out of about 50 of hers, only 3 didn't come out right.  Out of 25-30 of mine, only about 15 resemble anything like a gem, lol.  But, I'll still be using them.

She helped me make a huge tub of pure white buttercream...of course, I should say 'white decorator's' icing because I rarely use butter flavoring.  I tend to use a bit of clear vanilla, and clear almond extract.  This blend tends to taste less over-powering, so I usually leave the butter flavor out.  Then I made a batch of gumpaste while she colored a small batch of fondant and a small patch of icing for me.

I plan to be very prepared by having anything done that I can so I can spend my time decorating, rather than preparing, mixing, and such, blah, the boring parts of cake decorating.  I don't plan on using any fondant or gumpaste flowers/decorations other than the tiara, just icing.  I have aquired some new silicone fondant molds that I plan to use on the cake tho. 

I'll take a picture of my finished cake on Saturday and share it with ya'll!