Making Halloween!

We've been busy little Halloween bees around here. Last week, Hans and I took the children to see Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D, and it was wonderful. We watch that movie every single year, and it was special to see it in a new way this year.
Saturday was party day here and we invited our friends and neighbors over for cupcakes and general mayhem. All of the kids dressed up and most of the parents too! We had faeries, genies, princesses, scarecrows, skeletons, puppies and kitties too.

I was a pirate wench...but Ella did not approve because I was lacking a proper hat.

The house was shiny clean before the party and decked out in all of it's Halloween finery.

"What do you do with all of this Halloween stuff the rest of the year?!" was heard more than once.

I never have any structure to our parties. It's just a general invite to come into our home, eat snacks and drink. One little girl came up to me early in the evening, looking concerned, and asked "so uh...what are we supposed to be doing here? I mean, what's the point?".

Cracked me up.

Obviously, she's used to more planned parties, with games and contests. But the thought of rounding up 15 children ranging in ages from 2 to 8 and trying to organize something other than complete chaos intimidates me too much. So it's cupcakes and freedom to run wild for me!

Is he about to bonk the princess on the head?

We are excited about going trick or treat tomorrow night! Last year, Hans had just begun Chemo/Radiation and didn't feel well enough to walk the neighborhood, but this year he is so much better and I look forward to walking as a family again.

three, two,one...

Here we go!

The newest herd will be at amyrue.com in a minute or so.

If you see a Lumpling you would like to adopt,

email me at amy@amyrue.com

I will either send a Paypal invoice or a note letting you know that the Lumpling was already adopted. I will update the page frequently with the adoption updates.

Adoption fees are paypal only.

Shipping is $6.00 in the United States and $8.00 International.

Shh...sneaky sneaky now

My lamp lady can keep a secret...can you?

A new herd of Lumplings will be sneaking on the amyrue.com website tomorrow.

Sneaking because I'm not announcing them in a mass email yet.

I want the loyal blog readers to have first dibs. It's a small herd with some Halloween ones.

I'll announce it here on the blog when they go up and give all of the purchase info then too.

Yeah, I know it's overkill

And that's okay with me. Halloween overkill is just what I do.

A close up with some of our Halloween guys.

And that is my favorite little vintage glass lamp ever, but the lampshade needs help. I'm thinking Polka dots. I'm usually thinking Polka Dots...or stripes....stripes are nice.

Halloween clutter around the fireplace in full. The painting is one of my Mother's landscapes, it's hard to see the true colors and textures of it through this picture. My Mom is a fantastic fine artist, as is my Grandmother, but did I get any of that talent? Noooope. I can make cutesy left and right and upside down, but never could I just pick some oil paints and whip up something like this. That's okay though... I wouldn't have the Lumplings if I didn't do cute.
We took the kids to the most popular pumpkin patch around North Georgia, Burt's Pumpkin Farm.

We always let them pick out a special pumpkin or squash to bring home and Finn picked out this knobbly little green thing. Look how freaking excited he is about that weird ass little green thing! It has a place of honor on top of his dresser with all of his other treasures.

Weird kid. Where in the world does he get that from?

ahem.

Hans got to pick out his own special wheelbarrow. Aw.

This weekend I'm working on several Lumplings and Pillows, so hopefully next week I'll have some things to put up in the shop.

I Squish Your Head!

We had a perfect Fall morning making Halloween Cupcakes

They were going to be complete little skeletons on each cupcake, but we got lazy so they are just little skelly heads.

I squish your head!

The children and I poked holes in mini marshmallows with skewers, and then filled the holes with sprinkles to make a face. Some marshmallows ended up as cyclops or they had tiny devil horns.

Aww...now we eat you!

~~~

Later we hit the annual Georgia Marble Festival in Jasper, Georgia. This is only the second year in something like 13 years that Hans and I haven't been working a booth there selling his Father's marble sculptures and planters. Our area is full of marble, in the yard of our previous home there were huge chunks of white and pink marble all over the yard and supporting the house itself. Heavy crap to move around.

~~~

Hans is printing our Halloween Party invites for all of the kids in the 'hood right now.

Lots and lots of fun with munchkins running all over the house in their costumes! Gotta make more cupcakes!

Whistle while you work

Here is the recipe for our all purpose cleaning powder.

I keep small shakers of this next to sinks and a larger jar for carpet sprinkles.

The nice thing about this is that you not only save bunches of money by not buying so many different cleaning supplies, but you know exactly what's in this and that it's safe for your family.

It works like a charm and your house never has that synthetic cleaning product smell!

Please be careful with rosemary oil when pregnant; it's strong stuff!

Lavender oil is perfect for cleaning bedrooms and children's bathrooms...it's a natural disinfectant. Lemon or Peppermint oil give the kitchen a crisp clean feel.

~~~

I'm in cleaning mode still, even though I feel pretty icky run down with a cold.

I really want to have another batch of Halloween Lumplings up this month, but I avoid working on them when I have a cold. See, I have enough paranoia for us all!

Instead I've been cleaning our studio space and doing tons of laundry. My laundry must be related to rabbits because I swear it breeds more laundry in those baskets when I'm not looking.

While it still looks a cluttered mess, it's actually clean to me!