Photo booth

Many of my Pinterest followers would have already guessed I was planning on making a photobooth due to the items I've been pinning.

I basically cut the front off the box we had the washing machine delivered in & wallpapered the inside of it (the box, not the washing machine). The central piece of the box (the back) I covered in blue tissue paper to try & resemble the blue background you can get in photobooths.

I printed out several halloween images such as mouths & attached a stick covered in white tissue paper (they were originally green which looked awful so I covered them) Other props I cut out of coloured card, sometimes adding embellishments.

I set up the "photobooth" with a stool inside & my camera set up on a mini tripod & a table. Then I got the kids to take it in turns posing ... heres what they came up with with the props

Kai even began adding his own props.

The kids had great fun with it so watch this space as I'm sure we'll be taking some more shots with different props soon.

Halloween Fun

As many of my long term readers know I love Halloween (or as I & many others call it, Samhain). I dont take my kids out trick or treating as I'd rather not take them out in the dark to knock on strangers doors for sweets, it holds all sorts of morally dodgy arguements but I sha'nt go into those. So instead, while Zack was at school I took Kai to his friends house that we'd been invited to & had a lovely day there. Kai dressed up as Mario...

...& I dressed up, minimalistically, as a witch. By minimalistically I dont mean I was half naked, that would have been a Halloween Horror, I mean I wore one of my long black skirts, blouse, green eyeshadow & black shoes. What made it more witch like was my purple & black striped tights, & my little witches hat I'd made...

.....which I slipped onto a head band...

We got home & I put the finishing touches to one of the main events of the evening.... my photobooth & halloween props! I shall show you these in a little while on another post as its rather picture heavy.

I then helped the kids make chocolate apples...

I stuck lollipop sticks into the apples before covering them with melted chocolate....

...before placing them onto baking parchment & allowing the kids to decorate with raisins, hundreds & thousands, and sprinkles.

These set in the fridge while we ate our tea of worms & eyeballs (spaghetti & meatballs)

While everyone settled down quietly I carved the pumpkin

One of my favourite movie characters "you're jokin', you're jokin', I cant believe my eyes"

**wanders off humming**

Recovering a Fancy Computer Chair

Ryans computer chair hasn't been standing up to the wear & tear its put through. As a heavy PC gamer, & as someone who watches TV on his computer the computer chair spends most evenings being sat on at somepoint. It also has to endure having cats sitting on the top of its back, clawing away. Then theres the kids spinning around on it, Kai enjoys curling up & falling asleep on it, as do the cats etc etc etc. As you can tell, its a well used chair, & with all the use the fake leather has been peeling off. It was looking shabby, and as its one of the main things you see when you walk through the front door I was concerned how it reflected on the rest of the house. Luckily my Mom had given me a roll of thick denim material ... which goes perfectly with the blue denim curtain at the front door, and I'm sure will wear a lot better than the original covers.

I covered the chair in 3 stages ... the back, the seat & then the arms. I carefully took each piece apart & used the old material as my pattern pieces. I frequently turned the air blue, let alone the seat as it was complex at times, and I managed to get through 15 sewing machine needles :-O

I added a bit more padding to the arms as the foam had flattened too much, I also added a couple more, shorter, internal pockets at the sides so we wouldnt have to reach right down to the bottom of the pockets (not far off the floor) to get anything out, very annoying when its a slim item.

Rocking My World Friday

Its the half term hols, yay! which means I have actually had a few lie ins, always a plus ..... even managed to sleep until 9:00 the one day :-O

 

So what else has been rocking my world this week? A few of you asked what new craft I was taking up, well here it is....

My Mom gave me her knitting machine, I totally suck at knitting with needles so thought this would be a good alternative.

so far I have learnt to do a zigzag hem & a plain hem

...how to do different types of stitches

& patterns with a different colour added. Next lesson is to make a wooly hat & a scarf, hopefully I will build up to making gorgeous long cardi's, & knitted jumper dresses.

While we are on the subject of knitting my MIL has made myself, Kai & Zack gorgeous wooly hats for this winter.

Kai's is the same as mine (as above), & Zacks is a beany style hat.

She also made me a fabulous corset...

Made to my figure, fully boned with metal bones (they keep their shape longer) in absolutely GORGEOUS Alexander Henry material, I want to get some in blue at some point to make a summer dress. Click on it to enlarge & see why I think this material is so great.

 I am really happy that we have a new 99p store in my area. I love poundland & this place is bigger AND a whole penny cheaper!!! I even managed to pick up a 30cm x 40cm canvas there which I turned into this...



 A lil idea I picked up off Pinterest.com.

What else is rocking my world?
Merlin & Misfits

My tigger hot water bottle

Halloween crafts (watch this space)

Olbas oil tissues

So what great things have happened to you this week, even if its a bad week, dig deep & it might make you feel a bit better, jin us over at Celtic House.

Carding Mill Scrapbook page

A double page spread about our visit to Carding Mill. I started off by planning the layout of the photos & deciding as the main colours in the photos were grey (the rocks) & green (the plants) I'd reflect these in the page. I found I didnt have any green sheets that went together though :-( so stamped swirls onto a white sheet in a matching green to the dotty sheet :-)
I made the outer border by cutting around the outside flowers of a sheet.

Ruth sent me in a fab pack full of black & grey die cuts which worked perfectly on this layout.
I finished off my adding "natures playground" as the title

I have to admit, I'm not sure if the grey & green theme worked, it comes across as rather cold to me when it was actually a lovely warm day ... though the water was very cold :-)

1st Christmas scrabook page

The latest challenge at Sarahs Cards Ltd is too get inspiration from their pinterest board & create something. Well after seeing THIS picture I knew what I wanted to do. I had seen a layout on 2peasinabucket via pinterest that I wanted to use the layout of so came up with this.....

 

Halloween Horrors Scrapbook page.

This months challeneg over at Creative Craft World was to use their scrap map & when their October Scrap kit landed on my door mat I knoew exactly what I wanted to do ....

When cut out the clock centres were perfect for putting photos behind, it also helped them merge slightly with the page so the main photo stood out more... & I can use the bits I've cut out on another project in the future. I inked around some of the edges in brown to age them a little.

All the papers, letter stickers & the journalling circle came from the CCW october kit so made it much easier to match things up, it is easily the best scrap kit they've done so far.