This idea came about when Abbey from Aesthetic Outburst threw a fabulous birthday party with a “hand-stitched/granny chic theme” and as one of the decorations she painted a cross stitch design on a pumpkin.  The whole party was beautiful, but this idea was extra awesome and I thought maybe I could cross stitch for real on a fake pumpkin. The project turned out even better than I hoped and so I’m sharing it with you. I know there are only 5 days until Halloween, but this is a quick-ish project and the pumpkins will last forever.

How to Cross Stitch on a Pumpkin:

Materials

• a fake pumpkin
• thick yarn
• a bamboo skewer (the ones you use for kebabs) or an ice pick or something similar
• a yarn needle
• a pencil

Directions:

1.) First you need to choose a design. I found some great, simple Halloween cross stitch patterns here, but feel free to design your own. It’s easier than you think, I made a bat and a boo! by playing around with Xs in my sketch book (go ahead and copy mine if you like). Just remember, simple is better for this project and try not to put any of the design near the hole on the bottom of the pumpkin because it’s very hard to stitch there.

2.) Next, transfer the design to the pumpkin. To do this, I looked at the pattern and then with a pencil I made very light dots for where the ends of the Xs go (see photo above). I thought about coming up with some complicated way to get your pattern perfectly onto the pumpkin, but really I love the look of free hand cross stitch and I don’t think it needs to be perfect.  If you want, you can lightly draw all the Xs on the pumpkin because the yarn will cover them up anyway.

3.) Now you need to poke all those holes. Take the bamboo skewer and poke straight down into the pumpkin.

4.) Ok, time to cross stitch. All I know about cross stitch I learned five minutes before I started this project! Thread your yarn needle with a piece of yarn no longer than your arm, no need to tie a knot. Stick you hand in the pumpkin (if you hand doesn’t fit or it’s a squeeze, do yourself a favor and make the hole a little bigger) and insert your needle into one of the holes you’ve made.  It can be difficult to find the right hole. To help, take your skewer in your other hand (the one not holding the needle in the pumpkin) and stick it in the correct hole, then by feeling for the skewer on the inside you can find it and draw your needle through. I started sewing at the bottom of my design and Xed my way around until I was done. It’s fastest to sew with both hands: one staying in the pumpkin and one out.

And that’s it. I think this project could go so many ways. A ghost done on a black pumpkin with some super fuzzy white mohair would look super cool. You don’t need to stick with cross stitch–any simple embroidered design would work. Go crazy with it and if you do be sure to add it to the elsie marley flickr group so we can all see! Happy Halloween!

Since I crocheted over a stone a while back I’ve been working on little crochet projects here and there.  It’s nice to have a little project to work on for no other reason than it’s enjoyable to do. Crochet can be so odd and sculptural, like this potholder: it looked like some leggy sea creature when I was working on it and then with the last row it suddenly came together and became a beautiful flower with folded petals.  (Here is the ravelry link if your interested in the specs)

I’m not sure if these projects will be gifts or not, but the baby seems to think we’re keeping this one. Crochet can get very crazy, very quickly and this very apparent with potholders for some reason, but these bears are restrained enough to be just the right amount of cute.

Though I failed horriblly at facebook, I’m kind of enjoying twitter. If you would like to listen to me blather on about nothing at all there, I am elsiemarleyblog. Hey, have a good weekend!

I made a curtain for my kids’ closet this weekend. Not a big deal, but I hate making curtains, no, haaaaaate making them, so it’s a big deal for me. It’s just so much hemming and I kind of suck at hemming, but the curtain isn’t as bad as it looks–though it is a little straighter on one side.  There are more curtains that need to be made and I’m trying to psych myself up for it. I finally after three years of living here have picked out fabric, but haven’t ordered it yet. I want to try this roller shade hack, which looks easy enough, and roman blinds, which look hard. Has anyone had any luck with them?

I also cranked out some fitted sheets for the kids’ beds. I simplified the process a bunch from last time I made sheets. The edges are serged not hemmed and the elastic is only around the corners.  I was able to get two fitted sheets (for my kids’ weird size beds) out of one full size flat sheet. That means the pattern is sideways, but they couldn’t care less. The flannel sheet has deer and bunnies and someone about to get pelted by a snowball right in the butt.

Oh and I have some of that ikea bunting fabric left, do you think it would be ridiculous to make my son pants out of it? Would dying it gray help? or should I just make pillows and call it a day?

I went back and forth about buying it, because it was ten bucks, but in the end I got it and I’m glad I did. I duct taped some batteries in (why do we have a thousand C batteries on hand?) and the sucker works! Push the green button and the conveyor belt moves, slide something across the scanner and it beeps, and if you push the yellow numbers a bunch of times the receipt pops up.

On the conveyor belt: bananas, a calorie counter book (really, why?), gouda, asprin, toothpaste, cookies and shoe polish. This is definitely an old man’s shopping list–a slightly overweight old man, in the eighties with a hangover. Meet the toy designers of the past.

When we were thinking about what food to have at the party, my kids and I made a list of all the rainbow colors and the foods that matched. Turns out an assortment of rainbow foods makes for a pretty fantastic sandwich. So we had salami sandwiches, fruit, and chips. And I bought some grape jelly for pb&js too.  My daughter wanted to know where the blueberries were, but they are very much out of season and at 4$ for half a pint I opted for blue chips instead, which are pretty much purple. Oh well. You try and think of a blue food that isn’t jello.

So the food was easy, the cake on the other hand was a pain the in ass, but I knew it was going to be.  The cake is what started the whole rainbow thing in the first place, so we had to have it. My daughter was sitting next to me while I was on the computer one day and spied this rainbow cake. That was sometime in the summer and she has been talking about it ever since.

So I knew I had to make a six layer cake filled with buttercream and covered with piles of fluffy white frosting.  I’m sure she must have told her friends she was having a rainbow cake, but it looked like a plain old white cake, so I’m guessing they just didn’t believe her. But when we cut the first piece everyone lit up. And it was an awesome surprise–sort of like a cake pinata (except this is a cake pinata–do not let your children see this, or you will be cursing me the night before their birthday).

If the cake weren’t a rainbow honestly it wouldn’t be a very good cake. It’s tastes a little like a wet sponge, but you are eating a rainbow so your brain tells you it tastes like a rainbow. It’s virtue lies in it’s dye-ability,if I were to make it again (ha) I would use a different recipe. The frosting is a swiss meringue buttercream with some lemon flavoring thrown it. The recipe calls for an obscene amount of butter. I used less than half and it was delicious.

For the favors we made rainbow glitter playdough. After cranking out six batches of playdough I can make it at the drop of a hat now. Why I didn’t make a big batch and split it 6 ways, I don’t know. Whatever, it’s a good recipe for a mom to have memorized anyway. We packed it in jars and I wrote the guest’s names on paper rainbows for the top. Luckily my daughter got an awesome playdough kit for a present, because I forgot to make any playdough for us.

There were definitely a lot of projects for the party, but my kids helped with all of them and none were really all that complicated. I’m not usually an all out crazy birthday party mom (or at least I didn’t think I was), but I had fun with all the projects. And the anticipation make the actual day even better I think. But rainbow fever has not abated–my daughter now wants me to make her a rainbow costume for halloween. Any ideas?

the rainbow birthday party: part one