Halloween Treats and Tablescape

Happy Halloween everybody!!!!

We still are in the dark today (posting from Red Maple Cottage, that is lucky enough to have power). I went to work this morning only to leave at noon. We got hit hard and they are saying maybe no power for a week :(

The worst part.....they cancelled Halloween. I didn't care I still went to work in my Halloween outfit.







I work in a Doctor's office.








I also made Halloween treats for my coworkers and family. I got the idea to make mummy wrapped candy bars from the Idea Room. She has lots of great mummy ideas!

Since I had no power, I had no printer and had to hand write the tags, but it still looked cute!

They looked great on the table setting for dinner.

Dinner is at Red Maple Cottage tonight, since my house is in the dark.

That black shadow in the background is my parents' dog, Picasso.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween!


Linking up here:

Autumn blizzard

I will not be able to update soon. The storm that passed through yesterday took many trees and wires down. I am posting right now from my phone. we have no power along with most of the state of Ct. Hoping to be back blogging soon.

Friday Night Soup

My family has a Fall tradition of Friday night soup. Every Friday night from Sept-Oct we have soup night. It is usually held at Red Maple Cottage, but occasionally my aunt will host Friday night soup (my place has been in a remodeling stage for over a year...almost there...maybe next year I can have soup night). The Friday closest to Halloween is always ghoulash night.

Ghoulash 

I love these bowls! My mom has had them for a few years.

Notice the pumpkin with the crow on it. I found this picture in the corner..

I thought it was done on purpose, but when I pointed it out my mom had no idea they matched (she painted this picture)

Halloween Decor.

I ran out of time to make a whole bunch of pumpkin pumpkins and leaves so I had to make some muffins too.

I will be linking this post up here:

First Snow "Fall"

Gotta love New England...a few days ago it was shorts and sandals weather then today there was  this

Yes that is snow!

Can't wait to see what it will look like in the morning. And I thought stores were crazy to put Christmas stuff out before Halloween was even here. 

Halloween Cupcakes

Good Morning!!! Are we all having a wonderful Thursday?

 The weekend is almost here! Woohoo!!  And its almost Halloween! I feel like I haven't done much Halloween/ Fall activities. I has been soo warm out, here in CT  and then sooo cold out. I feel like I missed Fall. I haven't even done much baking. ......But my mom did. She made these little cuties

 Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting, orange sprinkles and jack o' lantern lollipops.

These just have Halloween picks in them. It was the perfect after work snack. ! :)

Tomorrow is our last Friday night soup night for the year. I think I will make pumpkin pumpkins.

 I also need to come up with a healthy Halloween snack for the hubs ' lunch. I make him a lunch every work day that consists of 2 sandwiches (he says 1 isn't enough), a healthy snack, and a yummy snack. I would love your ideas or thoughts.

I will link this post to:

30th Birthday Gift

I hope everyone is having a great Tuesday. Is it the weekend yet?
ahhh the weekend.
 Last weekend we went to a surprise 30th birthday party for a friend of the hubs. Since it was his friend I let him decide what we would give as a gift......ok ok I added to it, but his idea was still there. He decided on $30 worth of scratch off lottery tickets, I turned it into this

I got the mug at Savers and cleaned it out. (that's what was in the car when the hubs found his anniversary present) I added the lottery tickets and some candy I had leftover from the Beer and candy gift.

He liked the whole thing. He said the mug was great since it was larger than a regular mug and he drinks alot of coffee. The candy He was trying to hide so his kids didn't eat it all on him and we were all hoping he wins on the lottery tickets.
When the hubs turned 30 I got him 30 scratch offs $90 worth. He won $45. I was really hoping he would at least get my money back. Oh well. I also threw him a surprise party...I got him good too. I will post about that sometime in the near future.

I will be linking up here:

Paper anniversary

Yesterday was my first wedding anniversary and I really wanted to stick to the traditional gifts, at least in some aspect. Unfortunately, my sweet sentimental gift of a scrapbook of our first year together was upstaged when my hubs bought me the sewing machine I have been wanting for a very long time. (the hubs can never wait to give a gift, so as soon as he buys it he has to give it to you)
I felt the need to get him something he would at least use more than the scrapbook. Not having much time to shop I bought him a prefilled caddy for screws , nuts ,bolts etc.

I also bought a couple monster energy drinks. He loves them. I will explain why I don't have a picture in a minute.
These gifts were obviously not paper, so I had the great idea to make him guess what I bought him. Unfortunately, things didn't work that way. But this is what he was suppose to open.

Two pieces of paper, one says "I got you this gift because I am "nuts" about you"  with a picture of a nut and bolt. The other says "I got you this gift because I know it is something you like" with a picture of a monster on it. Then he would have had to at least attempt to guess what I got him. 

Here's what really happened:

Saturday, the day before our anniversary, the hubs and I had to go to a party for a friend. I was getting ready and had not assembled the friend's gift yet , plus part of it was still in my car. I asked hubs to go get the bag that was in my back seat, forgetting all about his present in the car as well. The hubs comes back in the house carrying the bag I asked for and asks if I was sure that was the only bag in the car, in that "are you sure you wanna do that " kinda tone. That is when I remembered where I left his gifts. Needless to say, he guessed correctly when I gave him the papers. I don't have a picture of the energy drinks because they were gone as soon as he discovered them. 

I will post the scrapbook at in another post. 

Anniversary

In honor of my anniversary I am posting this picture of my husband and I on our wedding day. I will be back tomorrow with a full post on anniversary gifts.

Beer & Candy Gift

Today is my brother-in-law's birthday. Last night we were going to have his birthday dinner but he and his wife had other plans. So instead of making a cake, I got to make a fort with their 2 1/2 yr old son. It was fun. I love how easily amused little kids are . I did learn that I proably should have some last minute activities ready to go for whenever we have him again. Hmmm... any ideas? We don't watch him that often though. Ok enough rambling..on to the birthday gift.


I was really clueless as to what to get him, so I settled on something easy that I knew he would like.

Beer

I don't drink much so picking out the right one was kinda hard. I figured Samuel Adams was a good choice though.(The first thing had said about the gift was "oooohhh and thats a good beer" so I guess I did good )

I needed to jazz it up a bit though. After all I couldn't just give him a plain old  6 pack of beer..

so

I

added

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.

.

.

.

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Candy

Please forgive me for the quality of the pictures. I took them with my phone. Also, I cannot tie a  nice pretty bow, so I tied it like I was tying my shoelace. If anyone could teach me to make pretty bows..give me the link to your tutorial please.

I just taped a whole bunch of candy that I bough in bulk at Costco to the outside of the 6 pack ( I used some of the leftovers for another gift today but that will be in another post ), then tied it with a ribbon.

It was simple and inexpensive, but got a good reaction.

Tomorrow is my 1st anniversary....Wait til you see my take on the "paper" gift.

I will be linking this post up here:

Red Maple Cottage

I promised to show you Red Maple Cottage, aka my parents' house. My mother is a very talented decorative painter, sewer, gardener and queen of all things crafty. My creativity comes from her.

This is the front of her house this fall

This is The living room of Red Maple Cottage

I made the vinyl letters using my Cricut, then it was just peel and stick. The tree is a metal wall art piece that my mom bought at Costco. It was originally all bronze. Red spray paint turned it into a Red maple tree.

This pillow was purchased at Savers (one of my favorite stores). It already had the house painted on. My mom added the maple tree and "Red Maple Cottage". It was a perfect find though. Doesn't the house look just like Red Maple Cottage?

This is some the Fall decor in the backyard. I will have to show you more pictures of Red Maple Cottage later. The backyard is beautiful, especially in the summer.

For now I have to get going to work. Later I will be making a cake for my brother-in-law's birthday dinner tonight. Check back tomorrow for those pictures.

I will be linking the post up to:
fingerprints on the fridge
Tidy Mom

The Painted Pumpkins

Hello,

  It has been another crazy couple of days. I have so many exciting things to show you over the next couple of days. For today, we have..........drum roll please............

Painted Pumpkins

This pumpkin was painted by my mom. She calls her house Red Maple Cottage. I will show you the house later. But for now ...the back of the pumpkin...

Next up is my grandpa's pumpkin. My grandfather died on 10.18.08. He had Alzheimer's. The last year of his life he loved to sing. One song. Over and over and over again....My Wild Irish Rose.

So My mom made him a pumpkin ...to put at the cemetery....

Shhh. this one is actually a Funkin. (Those fake carvable pumpkins)

Since we are talking about painted pumpkins, Let's look at the
 Wedding Pumpkin.

The Wedding Pumpkin was done by my mother for my wedding last year. She painted a large pumpkin white and painted the stem black. The bride and groom silloutte was bought at Joann Fabrics and decopaged on. The accents are scrapbooking emblishments that are glued on. On the back of the pumpkin she painted our names..I can't find a picture of that though :(   She also added some glitter for a finishing touch..I loved this pumpkin...It fit well with my fall wedding but still went with my black and white colors.
I will be linking this post up to :

Wine bag and ornament

Whew! Last week was crazy. I had to work longer unexpected hours last week. Which was great but unplanned. That means I neglected the blogging world. But I didn't go too far.

Last Mon was my in-laws Anniversary. I wanted to give them a gift but funds were low. I knew they like wine and champagne. But I needed to dress up the bottle a bit. I found a great idea at Under the Table and Dreaming Hers is a no-sew. I decided to sew mine..mostly because I didnt have to go out and by anything. This is what mine looks like.

 

I wish I took pictures of the process but I did it rather quickly. Here is how I made the whole gift.

1. First I bought a bottle of champagne. (It is an Anniversay gift after all)
2. Next I got 3 sheets of felt. (luckily for me, my mom has a whole stash of felt)
3. I sewed the 3 pieces together top to bottom until I had a complete ring.
4. Then I laid the ring flat with the piece of felt on the bottom folded and the other 2 pieces forming my front and back. ( just picture the final product laying on a surface.)
5. I traced the bottom of my bottle, and cut out a opening in one piece of felt.
6. Then I sew the sides together, leaving a 1"-1.5" opening at the bottom (this allows the bag to sit flat when you put the bottle in)
7. After it was all sewn together, I reached in the whole and flipped the bag inside out. Now my bag was done and it was on to the ornament.
8. I used a jar top from a relish jar. Washed and dried it.
9. I asked my hubs to drill a whole in one of the sides of the lid. (he is better at power tools than I am)
10. Once I had a whole, I cut some ribbon and threaded it through the whole then knotted it to make a loop.
11. I cut out  U shapes from felt and hot glued them around the lid to make the flower.
12. The last step was the center ..It is just a button I found that id hot glued in the center.
13. All I had to do was put the bottle in the bag and the ornament around it.

Under the Table and Dreaming has a much better tutorial.

They loved it. They got to toast their Anniversary and now they can reuse the bag to give someone else some wine.

 

I am linking this post up to :