Harry Pogger vs the Hedgehog Dementors

After four night shifts, my mind shifted back from work-work-work to Poggles.  I had hoped to pick up a new baby hedgehog this Sunday, but soon realized I was not really in the right mind set to get a new baby yet.  I still missed Poggles too much.

Instead, my hunny took me out for coffee and pastries, we strolled around the markets, and we hunted for Halloween pumpkins.  He picked three perfect pumpkins and I chose one demented one.  I imagined turning its hideous-ness into some kind of amazing art piece, but had to admit afterwards that the pumpkin (unfortunately) looked like a large orange butt.  C'est la vie.

Today, I curled into bed and read books.  It was very comfy and comforting.  I also painted this picture of Harry Pogger.  He is fighting plump hedgehog-shaped dementors.  My hunny says the dementors need scarier, longer arms, but I like them short and chubby as is.  Sort of cuter... in a dementor sort of way.

My friend came by and gave me a lovely card wishing me to feel better soon.  She also gave me a cute hedgehog ornament that reminded her of Poggles.  She even drew in a V where Poggles used to have two white quills that formed a V-shape.  I thought that was really sweet of her.  It really brought a smile to my day.

I hope you are having a good weekend  :)

xoxo

Poggy Does Not Love The Pumpkin

I thought Poggy might like to check out the new pumpkin. 

Poggy, what do you think?

I think he... wants to keep sleeping?

My little prickly pear took a while to warm up to the fact that he was beside a great pumpkin.

"Pumpkin what?"

Aha! Finally a face!

"So what is it you want?"

 There's a pumpkin, see!

"Uh huh..."

"... don't care."

Lol, I hope you are finding your Halloween much more interesting!

Halloween Pumpkin Quilt Carving

I've been obsessed with quilts lately (as you may have noticed).  So when it came to carving my Halloween pumpkin... well, it became a quilt.

I started off with a normal pumpkin.

 Well, it wasn't completely normal.  I like to pick the funny looking ones.

 I drew out the design with a pencil and pointed metal thing, and then I began to carve the design out.

 It wasn't easy.  I used a small paring knife and x-acto knife mostly.

 It has some issues since the image curves around the sides... but it looks great lit up!

  Here's my funny skeleton.

 A witch's hat.

 The notorious black cat.

 A pumpkin!  (on a pumpkin no less!)

 A bat!

 Now my pumpkin quilt sits brightly lit on my porch.

I hope you all have a happy Halloween time!

Happy Halloween 2011

 Are you ready for another SPOOKY Halloween?  I know I am!  I baked up a batch of peanut butter cookies (Yum!) and my honey came over for some pumpkin carving.  We turned on the hilarious Sean of the Dead and then continued on with the more frightening classic Halloween.

I made the spooky-cute tree and he made a classic jack-o-lantern.  I like how he looks kind of goofy  :)

The pumpkin seeds were boiled in salted water, dried, mixed with garlic butter and a little olive oil, and baked for 45 mins.  Then we sprinkled them with some salt and munched away to our hearts content.

I wish you all a very delightful and happy Halloween!

The Pumpkin Hunt

It was a beautiful day to go pumpkin hunting today.  The weather was cool, the leaves are starting to change colour, and it was sunny.  My sweetie and I stopped by the local Farmer's Market to look at all the yummy baked goods and fresh produce.  There were some amazing pumpkins available!  The kind that look like something out of a Halloween cartoon - the odd shaped, Tim Burtonesque variety.

Unfortunately, they cost about $10 for a big one, so we had to pass.  Instead, we picked up a fresh bag of kettle corn, still warm and sticking in clumps.  It was so good!

At the grocery store, we found plenty of big pumpkins for a reasonable price.  I spent forever looking for odd shaped ones only to finally settle upon a very nicely shaped regular pumpkin.  I showed it to Poggles, but he seemed a bit bothered by it.  He refused to come to the take-out window to get his food.

Maybe the pumpkin is HAUNTED???

(More likely, it just smells funny...  :P  Have a great day!)

Happy Halloween 2010

A little elephant just came to my door. It didn't say trick or treat. Instead, it spouted some exuberant gibberish at me and waved. It was super adorable :)

A vampire, Scooby Doo, and a bride came by too so far.
I just wanted to show you some pictures from today. This is my pumpkin on my porch right now! Check out his big ears and large eyeballs! Lol!
This is the delicious apple pie that my sister baked from scratch yesterday for the anniversary party of our first year at this new house. It was a good party!
These are the candles my sweetie put inside of the large-eared jack-o-lantern. See his nifty toothpick trick? He tapes the toothpicks onto the candles and then sticks the rocket-like contraption into the base of the pumpkin.
He also rubbed some cinnamon on the lid. When the pumpkin lid starts to burn from the candles (those black marks), it smells something like French Toast or Pumpkin Pie.
These are the pumpkin seeds that my mom plans to toast in the oven. Mmm...! They look kinda of cool too!

Have a happy Halloween!

Zombie Weekend

After a bruising week five, I was ready to take a break - a zombie break that is! I woke up, sat myself down with pencil crayons and paper ready, and drew to my heart's content. The result is five lovely jointed paper zombies. Oh how I love zombies :)

The first one was truly hideous. His name is Zombie Ted. He was formerly a farmer, but now he's a much-decomposed zombie. All brains and no carrots.
Next came lovely Zombie Margaret. I guess I was grossed out by Zombie Ted, so I opted for a prettier lady zombie. She's a little slow and wanders a lot. On her travels through the woods, she's known to emerge with a cluster of flowers in hand. Next came Zombie Theo. He's a laid back, easy going guy that loves cool skull T-shirts. He also loves slurpees... he's holding one now! Check out those nice white sneakers too. What a nice dude.

On a pretty gal spree, I made Zombie Lillian. She's wearing a thick caramel coloured sweater, white pants, and camel heels. On her tussle with the original zombie, she got pretty covered in grass from her lawn. Not wanting to be caught dead (literally) with her hair in a mess, she grabbed her sexy red hair dryer to take on her brain-hunting adventures.

The last is small, red-haired (my favourite!) and a little on the goth side. She's got a black T-shirt, a purple skirt, and pink and purple leggings. She's a cheerful gal and 100% awesome. Don't judge her by her missing arm, she makes up for it with extra love - extra love for your brain, that is!

My sis is having a bake sale at a local baked goods fair so I'll probably take these there to see if anyone would like to buy them. I figure they'd make good Halloween decorations/presents!

Have a happy weekend! Don't let the zombies get you!

Flowery Caterpillar and Love Letters

I hope you all had a delightful Halloween! I sure did! My workplace had an infestation and we became zombies on Halloween. The costumes were over the top, and some of them were hilarious. I tried to be a zombie too, but I didn't pass as one successfully. Instead, passerbys were concerned for me, asking if my cat had scratched me, or taking a wide berth because I looked like I came from the wrong side of town. Tsk, tsk! See, I didn't dress any differently than usual; I only put numerous scratches, bruises, a split lip, and blood dripping from the bottom of my mouth. I didn't really take it over the top, so I guess it looked a bit too realistic - like I'd been beat up badly or something, oops!

After work, I drew some stitches around my neck and a cut from the neck to the mouth, but bus passengers on the other side of my new additions, still leaned over after some scrutiny to ask, "Is that real?" with concern on their faces. Lol!

Halloween night was great. V. and I stuffed our pockets full of candy and took a stroll around the neighborhood. We were lucky to stumble across a grand fireworks display. An entire townhouse complex had chipped in to buy a motherload of fireworks! Free entertainment is always a plus! We stopped to watch them light their boxes of fireworks off one at a time, until the entire area was enveloped in smoke.

On our way home, we came upon another elaborate fireworks display. I guess some families had gathered for a Halloween party and the dads wanted to give the kids a really good show. These 3 dads lined up 3-4 of the biggest firework tubes I'd ever seen and would set them off all at once. The kids inside the house would squeal and cheer and yell, "More!" and the dads would file out again to repeat the expensive treat. These dads did an amazing job. Their fireworks were so fancy that it was like a mini version of a public fireworks event.

On the weekend, I took it easy and worked on some projects I had started.

Here are some of the new updates to the store.

Happy Halloweenie Day

It's been a happy Halloweenie day with pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies to decorate, pumpkins to carve, and yummy banana cream pie (which is not Halloweenie, but it's still good!)

V. carved the short, fat pumpkin while I attempted to carve the tall, smooth one. Unfortunately, the tall, smooth one seems to be made from wood and no knife could cut it with any sort of ease. We finally gave up and drew on him with a sharpie marker.

We've got PUMPKINS!

V. and I went on a hunt for the perfect pumpkins this week, and here they are! As you can see, I chose a tall, skinny, smooth pumpkin and one short, fat, lumpy one with lots of defined sections. They are a match made in Heaven, hee hee hee!

V. chose 2 perfect, normal-looking pumpkins for his house, tsk tsk! They definitely don't have as much character as mine. V. says my tall one is "the one no one would pick". He kept trying to put it back. Good thing I saved it!

They're shown here with my 2 small, home-grown delinquents :)

Fall is Lovely

Yesterday it was sunny and the trees looked so lovely! They are bright yellow on one side, and vivid red on the other, like fire! The wind blew and one tree with round, pink leaves sent a shower of little spining pinwheels down the street. They rolled like cheese down a hill along the pavement and it was quite delightful to watch.

Other trees are turning oranges and browns, and it contrasts quite nicely with the still-green grass.

I was able to harvest 3 pumpkins from my borrowed garden (the communal garden that I took over). These pumpkins actually grew out of my discarded compost, so I guess they're children from last year's pumpkins. Since my borrowed garden is not as well-watched, squirrels and disease had gotten to the pumpkins. The result is some of the ugliest pumpkins I have ever seen. They have wierd scars all over them, some from hungry squirrels, and some from bugs or some kind of rot. I don't know what caused it, but it's quite hideous. However, since I did rescue the pumpkins (readjust their position from under lots of rotting leaves and such), they did heal over from their trauma. Yes, so wierd scars is the result.

I offered them to V., but he was so disgusted by their appearance that he declined to accept, lol. However, my family adopted them immediately and they now sit on the top of the TV. My family thinks these war vetrans have a lot of character and look perfect for Halloween. Aw, now isn't that nice!? I'll have to post a pic when I get home so that you can see them.