Pumpkin Tutorial: Mini Pumpkin Vampires

PUMPKIN VAMPIRES--NOT THE SPARKLE-IN-THE-DAYLIGHT KIND

We went a little nuts this season and bought a half-dozen giant orange pumpkins, which are sitting on my doorstep and generally crowding out anyone trying to get into my house. But aside from that, we also found a bag of tiny white pumpkins, and I wanted to do something special with them. So here's my tutorial, so that you, too, can have some dashing pumpkin vampires outside your home this Hallowe'en. And remember: size matters not. If you have enough felt, you can make these fellas out of big pumpkins, too.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:
White pumpkins (small or medium likely best)
Small silver pins
Sewing pins with heads
Beads
Embroidery floss
Felt (black used here)
Hot glue gun
Carrots, other accessories as desired

WHAT YOU'LL DO:

1. STACK AND MAKE A HAT.
Loosely stack your pumpkins so you know which one will be on top, then make a hat out of felt. It's easy: cut a circle for the base. Then cut a long rectangle to make a cylinder. Glue the cyclinder shut, then glue the cyclinder to the base, which is now the brim. Glue another small square on the top to close up the hat, then trim off the excess so it's round on top, too.

2. PUT ON EYES.
I used some beads, which I poked into place with those sewing pins with heads on them. You could try another method but I'm cautious with adhesives on something that is going to get wet and slimy and frosty.

3. NOSE AND A SMILE.
I chose to make my nose out of a carrot, which I know is a bit like a snowman, but originally I'd WANTED snowmen, and anyway they're cute. I cut down some baby carrots and held them in place with more of the tiny silver pins.

The smile, I did with hot glue and a piece of embroidery thread. You can improvise here, as well. Little silver felt teeth were added; you can make teeth of whatever you have around. Maybe candy corn pinned into place?

4. PIN YOUR PUMPKIN TOGETHER.
This is a frustrating step. I didn't want to use glue in case the temperature changes outside made it break apart, so I used sewing pins of various types to stab the pumpkins into each other. You could use nails or screws with bigger pumpkins. I did six or more pins around each pumpkin connection point.

5. MAKE A CAPE.
I actually ran out of felt, so I had to cut up an old fine-knit sweater for our capes. But it would have been easier with felt. If you're using fabric, the top stand-up part of the cape (the tall 'lapels', if you will) will need to be backed with someone stiff to make them stand up. I used scraps of felt, and glue gunned them into place.

The capes are basically a triangle but instead of getting pointy at the top, they widen out again into another rectangle shape, depending on how you think about it.

That's the top part of the cape: the rectangle will create the tall lapels
and the felt piece there will keep it stiff.

At this point I took another piece of embroidery thread and tied the cape around the pumpkin dude's neck.

Then I added a bit of glue to the cape around the head area to keep it in place.

YOU'RE DONE. ENJOY.

Your pumpkin vampires are now ready for a night on the town! They're cute and also creepy, which is a bonus.
Remember to be creative. You can add and take away as you please!
If you make your own, share it on my facebook page or tweet me on twitter! I wanna see!

DIY Bunting: Make your own string of pennants

DIY TUTORIAL: MAKE YOUR OWN BUNTING

Have you heard of bunting? I can almost guarantee you've seen it, whether or not you knew what it was called.

Bunting is often thought of as a kid's thing, but I've made it a couple times now for adults and it's always well-received. You can do it up so it matches your decor, or fits in a cubicle, or specific to a holiday theme. When a friend of mine was sick this summer and needed a spirit boost, I did up this bunting for her; I just kept wishing I had enough time to also make myself one!

HERE'S HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN:

YOU WILL NEED:

Fabric (any kind that doesn't fray a lot, if you're going to be doing it the lazy way like I do.)

Felt (enough to back the triangles)

Ribbon 

Sewing machine with needles/thread (or fabric glue for the super lazy way)

Scissors

Felt or another fabric for the letters

STEPS:

1. Cut out your triangles of felt.

I made a template out of cardstock, and traced it onto the felt. 

2. Sew the felt to the fabric.

I do this so that I don't really have to worry about matching up edges or a lot of fraying.

3. Cut out the felt triangles, now attached to the fabric.

This gives you one side felt (for added weight and durability) and one side fabric (for the pretty side!)

4. Sew the whole thing into the ribbon.

Leave lots at the ends for tying up somewhere or for pinning to a wall. Space the triangles out evenly.

5. Cut and sew (or glue) your letters.

My bestie MJ actually did the lettering for this bunting. She cut out stencils by printing a cool font onto paper, then tracing and cutting. We glued the letters down because sewing around letters makes me crazy.

6. Hang and enjoy!

You'll find you have your best success if you keep the letters to 8 or less. Otherwise it can get a little large and unwieldy. 

Choosing coordinating colours can be tricky but it's worth the time to look for the right stuff. For small amounts of fabric (eg for the letters) consider using those squares (sometimes called 'fat squares') meant for quilting.

Have fun with it! There's no point in making crafts that make you miserable while you make them. Especially if it's a gift: gifts should come from a place of happiness and love. So don't stress about it too much, and just enjoy the process! Throw on some tunes or a Gilmore Girls rerun, and zen out with glue and scissors.

Why The World Needs Tree Day

I invented a holiday called Tree Day. Why? Here's an example: this is how a conversation went down in my house last night, between myself and one of those speech-recognition call answering systems.

ROBOT: Welcome to Telus. Please tell me what I can help you with!

JORDAN: Account balance. [Drowned out by puppy squeaking his new 17-squeaker Chinese dragon plushie: squeaky-squeak-a-squeaky-squeaky-squeak-a-squeaky-squeak...]

ROBOT: I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. How can I help you?

JORDAN: Account balance! [squeaky-squeak-a-squeaky-squeaky-squeak-a-squeaky-squeak...]

ROBOT: I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. How can I help you?

JORDAN: ACCOUNT BALANCE! [squeaky-squeak-a-squeaky-squeaky-squeak-a-squeaky-squeak...]

ROBOT: Could you repeat that, please? I didn't catch it.

JORDAN: [to Corben] HEY! Shut UP! [to Robot]: BALANCE! [squeaky-squeak-a-squeaky-squeaky-squeak-a-squeaky-squeak...]

ROBOT: I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. How can I help you?

ALAN [doing dishes in the kitchen]: Why do I need to shut up and what do you want me to balance? [squeaky-squeak-a-squeaky-squeaky-squeak-a-squeaky-squeak...]

JORDAN: Not you, Alan. Shut up.

ROBOT: I'm sorry, I didn't--

JORDAN: BALANCE!!!! BALANCE!!! BALANCE!!!!
[squeaky-squeak-a-squeaky-squeaky-squeak-a-squeaky-squeak...]
ALAN: Just tell me what you want me to balance!!!

ROBOT: I'm sorry, I didn't--

JORDAN: For Fuck's SAKE, not you, Alan! Corben! STOP SQUEAKING! Jesus fucking Christ! The two of you need to shuttup for like two sec--

ROBOT: Okay, I'm going to transfer you to an operator and see if she can help.

Yeah, so we're all going a bit crazy, stuck indoors during this particularly freezing cold winter, and today is Tree Day. What is Tree Day, you may ask? Tree Day is something I made up. Tree Day came to be when I realized that January is freakin' depressing, and we all need to remember that there's life after winter. Why January 23rd? Because that was the day I got my braces on, in grade four; and it was the day I got my braces off in grade eight. It just seems to be a good day most years. It's also about a month after Christmas, when everything just feels dark and sad and you've already worn holes your new Christmas socks.

I usually celebrate Tree Day by buying a plant. It reminds the senses that there are green things growing out there, somewhere. Thus the name, 'Tree Day': it was the thing I missed most by January 23, big lush green trees.

I also light some candles because they make the dark evenings feel so much less dark, and sometimes I get a treat. Maybe you'll have some ideas of your own? Share them if you're willing to.

Tree Day is a chance to have a quiet personal celebration, without the stress of family holidays. Give it a try. Buy yourself a little potted plant, light some candles, have a bath. Make a special dinner. Go on a date. Crawl under the blankets and watch a good movie. Go dancing. Tell winter that you're on to it: you know it's only temporary, and you know the secret weapons of vitamin D and steel drum music.

And don't worry if your plant dies. Mine usually do. If you're nervous, try a succulent; they're hard to kill and super cute. If you're really nervous, get a cactus: you can't even tell when they do kick off.

Realistic New Years Resolutions: the Eat/Pray/Love ideal

I have spent a fair amount of time the last few days trying to map out some New Year resolutions for myself; I found my plans becoming more wild and grandiose with each revision, and basically if I was truly successful in managing this ambitious list, I’d be some sort of zen’d out new age super rich philanthropist world traveller who also never failed to get her socks into the damned laundry bin. 

So then I tried narrowing it down into something more manageable, and found myself stymied by the actual context in which I live…you know, the part where I remember that I can’t hit Australia and Italy this year because I can’t take the time off, and oh yeah: money doesn’t grow on trees—at least, not until I complete my resolution to master the arts of both gardening and genetic science so that I can grow a real-life money tree. Okay, I’m exaggerating a little, but you get the idea: my goals were pretty lofty. Anyway, when I mentally erased the chalkboard and tried to start over, I found myself thinking of that book/movie, Eat Pray Love. I thought to myself, “That’s what I want from myself this year! I want to be like the Eat Pray Love lady!”

WHY LIFE ISN'T LIKE THE EAT PRAY LOVE BOOK

Let me tell you something, people, because this is the truth of things: life doesn’t really go ‘eat, pray, love’. For most of us, the path looks more like this:

Eat

Love 

Love no more

Eat too much

Pray for weight loss

Love again

Pray for the other person to go away

Love anew

Eat

Pray for more to eat

Eat nothing but kale and beets for months, because someone tells us these are the new superfoods

Eat a half pound of chocolate chips from the baking cupboard at midnight

Love

Pray for someone’s failing health

Pray for a new job

Pray for cute boots

Eat Chinese food at the mall and regret it

Love new cute boots

…You get the idea. For most of us, we get the eat-pray-love all out of order, and we do them all several times over and we often do them badly. Or in excess. Or not enough. Or at the wrong time, or with the wrong person, or with the worst intentions.

I’m here to tell you that that’s ok, and that while it may feel like you’re going in circles, you aren’t. You’re a smarter, better, stronger YOU with every turn of the wheel.

The point here is, don’t burn yourself out two weeks into January by attempting to fabricate a perfect Eat Pray Love year. Be realistic about how life works: it ignores all the colour-coded, numbered, and itemized plans you have, and it meanders and wobbles and gets distracted and falls apart.

It’s not going to go according to plan. Enjoy it. 

My Mother Crafted Christmas: a thought on what we learn from Christmas

This weekend I went over to my parents’ house and baked cookies with my mom. This was my first time

learning two secret family recipes, so I’m sorry but there’s no recipe to accompany this post. This was a symbolic passing of the torch: I now possess the precious knowledge necessary to continue the tradition of the world’s best shortbreads and ‘bird’s nest’ cookies.

On my way over, Alan asked me what my favourite Christmastime memory was, and my first thought was of my mom, making gifts by hand for all our relatives. She never seemed to run out of ideas, nor did she ever seem to come up against a material or medium she couldn’t work. Salt-dough candle holders festooned with perfect miniature fruit? Done. Tole-painted wooden signs? Done. Crepe paper angel tree toppers? Done! Macaroni angels, fabric angels, cellophane sparkly blue translucent angels? Done. (I’m noticing an angel trend, are you?) One Christmas, Mom and Dad decided to make my brother and I a pair of hobby horses from scratch. I remember hours of cursing after our bedtime, but in the end, two incredible horses were found under the tree that year.

I think that watching my mother’s meticulous persistence in tackling any and all crafting media has made me the fearless artisan I am today.

In recent years her confidence seems to have slipped a little—we took a tole painting course together and created a pair of really hideous Christmas balls—but I think that’s ridiculous. That same year she asked for canvasses and paint for Christmas, and just on a whim she painted two deep and expressive paintings of poppies. On a whim.

Rest assured, my mom had nothing
to do with these monsters. These
are all ME. 

I have to give a nod to my dad, too; he was the one who got me into drawing, because I’d try to stump him with demands like, “Draw a giraffe! Now draw a tiger!” when I was a kid; and somehow Dad could always draw what I asked for. Yesterday I showed him Sculpey (a bakeable polymer clay), and set him to work on a chicken statuette he wanted to make. Two hours later there stood on the table one of the finest, if weirdest, chickens you’ll ever see. It was holding a syringe and a strip of clay bacon. It’s an inside joke.

But my mom: all those years watching her work—laying out the supplies, choosing the glue, cutting the perfect tiny pieces, mastering the paints—that was (and still is) my favourite Christmas memory. It’s not Christmas til there’s glitter stuck to your face, third-degree glue gun burns on your fingers, and paint on your jeans.

Christmas for me has always been made by hand, with love and meticulous care. It’s much the same anytime we’re expressing love to one another: lay out all your goodies, proceed with conscientious care, and be entirely fearless. Sometimes it’ll work out, and sometimes it won’t. But anything you put your heart into, no matter how much of a fail it is, was worth the effort and is worth remembering.

This Christmas, remember it’s the thought that counts…and also the effort, the care, and the blood/sweat/tears. This transcends any price tag. 

DIY Macaroni Angels: a Christmas Craft Gong Show

DIY MACARONI ANGELS--FOR THE ADVANCED CRAFTER

 When I was about nine years old, my mom went on a Christmas ornament-making binge. This in itself isn’t unusual; Mom is very creative, though she doesn’t let it out nearly enough, and Christmas has always been an opportunity for her to shine. I remember that particular Christmas, however, because that was the year of the macaroni angels.

Mom slaved away for hours. Days, in fact. At the end of it, she had produced several dozen perfect little macaroni angels, made of four different kinds of pasta, white enamel paint, and wooden beads. I was too young to understand why I wasn’t allowed to help with this specific craft, and I have wanted Mom to do this one again now that I’m older and am certain I would be a better helper. So last Christmas, as the last two surviving macaroni angels were visibly chipped and damaged, I demanded we craft these anew. With a turn of good luck, Mom found the right farfalle, and we were good to go!

The last of the original angels.

In the end, this craft took:

-three days of crafting

-four adults working on them

-one-and-a-half tubes of smelly glue

-enough ingenuity to create something far more useful, like a cold fusion machine.

Let me walk you through it.

YOU WILL NEED:

-farfalle pasta

-penne rigatoni pasta

-gorgonzola pasta (or chop up macaroni into quarters)

-macaroni pasta

-E-6000 glue

-glue gun and glue

-wood beads for heads

-small beads

-white enamel paint (not acrylic)

-extra-fine tipped sharpie or other permanent felt tip pen

DAY ONE: ASSEMBLY

1. Use your E-6000 glue to:

            -attach the head bead to the penne body,

            -roll the head in the gorgonzola, after applying glue to the head, to make hair,

            -glue on the farfalle wings,

            -glue on the macaroni arms.

2. Let them dry, preferably for a couple days to be sure the glue is set and isn’t off-gassing.

If you are a sane human being, you will make one, maybe two dozen of these. You will do it in a well-ventilated area. If you are absolutely nuts (or are aiming to become nuts), you will assemble 100 of these angels; you will also do the gluing part all in one go, on a cold day when it sucks too much to open a window. You will do it with your mom while your sweetheart and your dad play with powertools in the basement, until they come upstairs and find the two of you giggling uncontrollably after two hours of inhaling glue vapors. At this point, they will demand dinner and you and your mother will continue to titter, and attempt to engage in witty quips, like, “What’s for dinner? I dunno. You’re for dinner!” At this point, both partners will take the glue away and hide any unfinished angels. It brings new meaning to the phrase, ‘Angels we have heard on high.”

DAY TWO: BEADS AND PAINT

3. Pull out your glue gun and glue a bead onto the head of each angel. This is where the string will go through.

4. String fishing line through each bead and tie a good knot. If you still have E-6000 glue (and your partner hasn’t hid it on you), you can dab the knot with some glue to make it permanent.

5. Hang the angels off of a dowel, broom, or other stick-like thing. This isn’t strictly necessary, but it helps detangle the fishing line.

6. Dip each angel, one by one, into the enamel paint. You may need to take a paint brush and fill in little areas that somehow elude the paint.

7. Hang each angel onto a dowel, broom handle, etc. Beware: the angels will require more ‘breathing room’ from each other than they did before. Let dry for at least a day.

By day two, Mom and I realized we were outnumbered by the angels, and recruited the others to help. How many A-type personalities does it take to paint 100 angels? The answer is four: one named Mom to dip and direct, one named Jordan to string the angels onto broom handles, and both to then harp at Dad to find more brooms, dowels, and sticks. Oh, and number four, my own sweetheart, to quietly help string up angels, wisely keeping his mouth shut as the other three nag each other about the ‘right’ way to do this.

At one point, we realized we’d accidentally bought acrylic paint. Why is this bad? Because acrylic paint is water-based, and it made the pasta go soft, which meant that some of their stringing beads fell off. Along these lines of pasta storm troopers, we’d hear the occasional fwap as an angel fell several feet to the table top with a splatter. Dad started nagging that my bead idea hadn’t worked, and I said, “Whoa now, everyone! Out of  dozens of angels, only a couple have fallen. I think we need to look at the bright side here.” This caused me to break into hysterical giggles and point out the theological parallel: that another Creator had reportedly made angels and a few had fallen, and before this moment He was probably the last person to make the exact comment I’d just made. My parents, cool Christians indeed, had a good chuckle.

DAY THREE: FACES AND TOUCHUPS AND GLAMOUR

8. Inspect each angel, now dry (and no longer soggy, if you accidentally used acrylic paint), for any exposed pasta. Use a paint brush to fill in these little spots.

9. Grab your Sharpie and draw a little pair of eyes. If you look at our troops, every angel is a little different because no one could follow instructions; but I have more faith in you out there, so here they are: draw two smiles from two happy faces for eyes. Add some eyelashes if you feel like it. Now put the pen down.

 We ended up having to paint over many of the angel’s faces and start again. There was just too much temptation for my own sweetheart, A.D.D. man that he is, to try out different faces. Somehow, whenever he veered from the prescribed eye-painting method, the angel would end up looking angry or unhappily surprised, like she’d sat on a tack. My dad couldn’t seem to get the knack, and my mother just kept painting the eyes the wrong way-up. I couldn’t believe it. The years have really mellowed my mom, who, twenty years earlier, made every angel meticulously identical. Her new que sera sera philosophy should have pleased me, but it turns out, I have inherited her perfectionist streak and so I found myself having minor heart palpitations as she handed over angel after angel with upturned eyes.

10. Hot glue fun things into the angel’s hands: harps, books, holly, pompoms, etc.

A bonus of mom’s relaxed crafting mood: she was totally on board with putting all sorts of nonsense in the angels’ hands. When Mom made these angels the first time ‘round, she painstakingly glued a piece of creased ribbon into each of the angel’s hands to function as a choir book. This year, Mom and I went to the dollarama and gathered all manner of tiny decoration. Technically, I think it detracted from the angels’ classy-ness, as I’ve always seen Mom’s angels as the pinnacle of Martha Stewart-worthy crafting. But it was more fun, and it was a nice splash of sparkle.

SUCCESS: A HOST OF ANGELS

Oh, Boba Fett, what have you done.

In the end, we had one hundred perfect little angels. Do you remember that scene in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones when Obi-Wan Kenobi sees all the lines of identical storm troopers that those weird tall aliens have been manufacturing? Take a good look at the rows of angels. Yeah, there’s a parallel there. What I loved about this craft was doing it with my mom. I agree wholeheartedly with her that this is not a kid’s craft, so I completely understand why I couldn’t help out when I was little, though even then, it was fascinating to watch her work. But now, as an adult, learning one of my mother’s secrets arts, the experience had a feeling of deep importance. I have inherited my mother’s ability to MacGyver a pile of sequins, pipecleaners, pompoms, and toothpicks into an adorable chotchkie; and for this I’m eternally grateful. Mom’s ability to craft something out of nothing has always been an enviable brand of witchcraft that I hope I will one day master as she has done.

Next year, we’re going to make new crepe paper angel tree toppers. Mom’s is twenty years old and badly torn, and I don’t have a topper at all yet. This will require no toxic glue and we’ll only be making a couple, so I suspect it will be less of a gong show.

But I did enjoy the gong show.

Adorable!

On the tree.

Dad, monitoring the troops.

.

.