Jen Bowles Design

Our {Semi-Handmade} Halloween Costumes: Through the Years

We're gearing up for Halloween weekend around here with decidedly mixed enthusiasm.

Today I saw off to school a medieval princess (with a cell phone--sort of like that time traveler in the Charlie Chaplin movie), a sushi chef and a Princeton graduate.  Of course they all have the idea that they'll be dressing up as something different on Halloween--and one of them isn't sure he's going out trick or treating at all.  He's only 10 though. We'll see what happens when darkness falls on Sunday night...

In the meantime, I was looking over our pictures from Halloweens gone by and dang it, we've had some cute costumes.  Our best family costume was back in 2002 (pre-digital camera and I don't have a photo handy to scan).  We totally rocked an Alice in Wonderland theme.  Ebby was Alice, Bobby Law was The Mad Hatter, I was the Queen of Hearts and the boys were, wait for it, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum!  I cobbled together all the costumes with the exception of the Alice dress which we borrowed from a friend.  When your kids are 5 and 2 you can do stuff like that.  Not so much anymore...  

Now, I rather pride myself in cobbling together Halloween costumes using a combination of thrift store clothing, fabric, fun foam and felt.  Along with pertinent props.  That's not to say we don't also purchase costumes from time to time, but I find the d-i-y ones much more creative and appealing.

Here are some of our greatest hits {so to speak}:

Robot, Will 2003

Aw, so cute.  And eco-friendly since I pulled most of the embellishments out of the recycling bin

Swan Princess, Ebby 2003      

Yes, the dress is a re-used Sleeping Beauty gown, but the crown and the feather trim fleece cape were all my doing.

Jester, Bobby Law 2003

A part of the Royal Swan Court, this costume all started with the hat.

Santa, Will 2004

I love that this was his idea

Smarty Jones' jockey, Cuyler 2004

We were big horse racing fans that year. His helmet must've been lost in the leaves.

Mermaid Princess, Ebby 2005

I thought she looked quite lovely.  My first hand glittered shell bra!

Puppy, Will 2005    

I impressed myself with this one, constructing a white fleece unitard using only a pair of pants as a pattern. 

Frog, Cuyler 2005      

Not sure what I think is more clever, the bulging eyes or the net full of plastic flies...

Captain Underpants, Cuyler 2007

Yes, he was wearing shorts under his underwear.

Here are some of my top tips if you're creating a semi-handmade costume of your own:

• Most anything can be attached with hot glue.  Though it's always good to have a sewing machine on-hand as a back up.
• It's all about the details:  I like to use thematically appropriate badges or pins and clever props to help "sell" the costume and up the cute factor
• Never underestimate the power of tulle.  Or felt.  Or fun foam.  Or sparkly face glitter...
• It doesn't have to last forever, it just has to last long enough to look good in pre- Trick or Treating photos ;-)

Happy Halloween to all, whatever costume you may wear!

 

Nantucket: Island of Shells & Flowers

As our taste of Indian Summer continues, so will my reminiscence of our trip to Nantucket in August.

As I metioned in my last post, once we reached the island the weather for our day was beautiful with plenty of bright sunshine.  The colors and natural beauty of Nantucket was visible at every turn.  Beauty that showed itself in two themes in my photos:  shells and flowers, both bountiful all over town.

At Jetties Beach, the shoreline was awash in slipper shells.  We delighted in digging through the sheer volume of shells to find those special ones that came home with us.   One thing none of us could seem to find: scallop shells.  On my first trip to Nantucket  (circa 1980) I remember the beach being filled with scallop shells.  When we left,  our bike baskets were loaded to the brim with the iconic shells in all different colors and patterns.  Or so I remember it.  I was rather disappointed until we were getting ready to leave the beach.  While we were waiting for the bus back to town, I took a walk in the dune paths near the playground.  Jackpot!  I had no idea why all the scallop shells were partly buried in the sand dunes until Jeanne van Etten clued us in.  Apparently the shells from the scallops are disposed of in the beach parking lot in the fall, in concordance with the scallop season.  Additionally, the scallop "population"  in Nantucket is much lower now than it was 30 years ago.  Happily I did find several large {unbroken} scallop shells to collect ☺.

Back in town, Main Street was full of flowers in full color, glorious bloom.    We saw loads of beautiful window boxes and planters in front of shops and homes all over town.    

When we stumbled upon this set up on Main Street, I really felt like I was in Nantucket.  Such beautiful hydrangeas!  And the lovely and playful floral arrangements in the Nantucket baskets!  My favorites were definitely the succulents tucked into the shells.  Adorable.

No sooner had we finished admiring that curbside display, I stumbled upon this wonderful truck from Nantucket Wildflower Farm.  Such beautiful summer flower goodness, such an awesome truck. Too bad she had already packed up.  But a great view as the truck drove away!

Throughout the day, shells and flowers were recurrent themes.  It seemed every shop we went into had flowers outside and shells inside.   I love the way she stacked the scallop shells on the stacks of books and on the  wonderful chippy windowsill at shop at No. 8 Orange St.    The Nantucket island collage with shells and sand would make a great souvenir--so clever.

Even down on the wharf, more shells, more flowers.  This collection of treasures was lined up along the dock as we walked along admiring the boats.  Looks like someone had a good day by the sea ;-).  The flowers and window boxes at the wharf shops were splendid.  Maybe the salt air gives them a little extra ooomph?

Whatever it is, Nantucket is surely a beautiful, enchanting island. 

And I can't wait to return.

Signs of Nantucket

The warm temperatures and shining sun are making it feel a bit like Indian summer here in Massachusetts today. 

Ah, summer.

I miss you so much.

Luckily I have plenty to blog about from this past summer, so I can re-live it as the weather and calendar start to become decidedly more un-summerlike. 

Back in August, I took a day trip to Nantucket with my mom and my cousin Penny.  The day started out gray (there's a reason they call the island the Grey Lady) but turned out sunny and warm by the time we made our first stop at Jetties Beach.  We fit in so much in our 8 hour visit, today I'm going to share just one aspect of our visit:  the signs.

I love lettering & love words and there were so many great signs all over the island, I kept snapping away with my camera.  In fact, as I looked back over my photos, I realized I documented nearly our whole day in signs.

Want to take a trip to Nantucket?  C'mon along...

When you step off the ferry, you are assaulted with bike rental options before you even step off the wharf.  On this day, we instead opted for the bus.

We took the bus to Jetties Beach, the closest beach to the ferry terminal.  We happily searched for shells and interesting beach ephemera for over an hour.

As we were leaving, Penny spotted this in the sand.  A Scrabble tile??  First time I've seen one of those alone at the beach!

We took the bus back to town and walked past several cute shops on Center Street.    

We ended up stopping here for a delicious lunch.

As we strolled up toward Main St., I noticed several signs for the upcoming Sand Castle contest.  I wish we could've seen it.

At the bottom of Main Street, of course we had to stop and take pictures with the compass directional sign at Gardiner's Corner.       

On our way to the restroom, we stumbled upon a pay phone.   First of all, a pay phone (!) and second, how cute is that carved fish??

I recognized the name of the Cheryl Fudge shop from a story in Country Living.  Great painted stairs, maybe inspiration for our basement stairs someday...

How could I not take a picture of the Peter Beaton sign?  We saw his (?) car around the corner, a cute little convertible with a striped hatbox on the seat.

One of my favorite signs of the day ♥.

I loved the cuteness of this message sign.

As we criss-crossed the cobblestone streets, I noticed many car bumpers with several years worth of beach permit stickers.  Color me jealous.  Luckily I was able to score a Nantucket beach permit t-shirt later in the day.

A happy stop, what's not to love about a thrift shop on a resort island?   I found several items that came home with me, cheap but a bit bulky.

There are even interesting signs on the ground, if you look down.

This sign was outside the shop of artist Jeanne van Etten, a visit so enjoyable it deserves its' own upcoming post.

Jeanne sent us over to this shop, owned by a friend of hers.

While this bag was pricey, I love the idea.

Dogs (mine anyway) kind of drive me nuts.  Dog art?  Very cool, especially this mosaic with name of a popular local watering hole.

Our meandering next took us to:

We checked out several shops as we wandered but couldn't keep our eyes off the yachts docked along wharf.   Le Bon JouJou indeed.

There were several nice outposts along the wharf, including this gallery.

After dinner, we walked around another part of the wharf.

We were in search of ice cream before boarding the high speed ferry home.  After one false start, some people on the street directed us here:

They said it was the best ice cream on the island.  We had no argument ;-).

A sweet end to a lovely day.

Mosaic Monday

Once again, thank you flickr friends for all the beautiful inspiration

 

1. "The Unwanted Chair," 2007, Natalie Souza, 2. Art teachers have to have colorful boots!, 3. Trophy Cupcake Trio, 4. Envie Journal - Page 5 - Back, 5. <3, 6. Pumpkin Floral Arrangement, 7. a cup of sweets?, 8. Picture 665, 9. Home to Grandiflora

Have Cupcakes, Will Travel: Georgetown Cupcake

It started innocently enough on my part.

I was emailing back and forth with my Uncle who lives in the Washington DC area.  He was making plans to come and attend my mom's OMG 70! party.  We hadn't seen one another in a number of years, so there was some catching up to do.  In the course of one of the emails we exchanged my uncle mentioned he enjoys taking long walks around DC on the weekends.  Fresh off of watching DC Cupcakes on TLC this summer, I asked him if he had ever visited the Georgetown Cupcake bakery in his travels.  He replied that he generally tried to avoid foods were less than friendly to his aging waistline. 

Fast forward to the evening of the birthday bash.  My Uncle, having taken a plane, train, bus and an extra long walk to the house thanks to being misdirected in the darkness, arrived at the party with two large shopping bags.  One bag contained gifts for my mom.  The other contained...cupcakes!

I was so surprised, and amazed, and touched that my Uncle had taken it upon himself to not only visit Georgetown Cupcake on a busy Friday morning, but  purchase a dozen cupcakes which he then transported all the way to Massachusetts!  Incredible.  And so generous and thoughtful. 

We {reluctantly} put the cupcakes aside and {very much} enjoyed the party.  In the wee hours after midnight, we took a peek into the pink box.  Sure, they were travel weary, but the cupcakes looked wonderful to me.  Come to find out, my Uncle brought another surprise--specifically for Ebby.

Look at that, a great Georgetown Cupcake t-shirt!  She was psyched, she watched the show with me this summer and knew all about the bakery.

The next day, Ebby & I set about discovering exactly what flavors we had in our box of cupcakes.  My Uncle, having gotten a sense of my cupcake fascination, included two Georgetown Cupcake menus, which are drool-worthy in and of themselves.   It was a tough job, but over the next couple of days we managed to identify (and consume) almost all of our cupcakes.  As they say, it was a tough job, but someone had to do it ;-).

Among the flavors we were treated to:  Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip, Vanilla² , and Coconut.  All quite delicious.  Ebby was particularly enamored with the fondant shapes that topped several of the cupcakes. My hands down favorite  was the Red Velvet.  I remember watching an episode where the sisters showed how they made their Red Velvet.  Oh. My. Goodness.  So good.  The cake was moist and flavorful and the icing had just the right amount of tang and creaminess.  In fact, I think it's safe to say it was the best Red Velvet cupcake I've ever had.  So far, anyway...

As a result of my Uncle's generosity, I took away from our traveling cupcake experience several tidbits.

First, cupcakes make a wonderful souvenir.  Second, people have the power to surprise and delight one another.  And finally, next time I'm in Washington DC, I'm going to Georgetown Cupcake and getting a Red Velvet cupcake.  And I'm not sharing it with Ebby☺.

Wishing you a wonderful, sweet weekend!

 

 

Return of the Art Journal

Last week, I finally cracked open my art journal after neglecting it for months.

I'm not sure if I could really consider these pages art journal pages in that I've not really journaled in them.  But all the pages involved art supplies and words in one way or another so maybe I'm safe...

This book is a 5.25"x8.25" Moleskine, so not terribly big.  I had painted background colors on a bunch of pages so I was a step ahead there. 

I hadn't intended for this to be a two page spread when I started, but once I finished I rather liked the way the two pages looked together.  The right page has ripped text from a children's book along with an image cut from the cover (?) of Better Homes & Gardens magazine.  I used a cool glittery walnut ink spray that my mom brought back for me from Art & Soul to add some irridescence.  I also used watercolor crayons to try to build up some layers of interest on the page.  The left page is really simple. It's just a charcoal pencil line and a painted heart with text from a magazine.  I smudged the line on purpose and like how the walnut ink oversprayed onto the yellow page.

So, I'm in the midst of painting our deck.  I'm thrilled, as you can tell.  I waited too late in the year and it's really not warm enough at this point but I started the first coat and I have to finish before the first frost.  Hopefully I'll be more motivated in the spring for the 2nd coat...

I used acrylic paint, a Pitt pen and words cut out of old books and magazines.  The paintbrush is cut from BH&G and the painting girl is cut from a vintage children's dictionary ~Little Golden book.  My favorite part about making this page was using an old broken tip dental pick to make dots with the white paint.  It could be my new favorite tool.

Finally, an ode to fall.  And baking.

The inspiration for this page was an ad in Lowe's Creative Ideas  magazine featuring a page full of apples.  I spent a while cutting out the letters for the pie crisp muffins words, but I find that task oddly relaxing. Looking through my stash of old children's books, I found a poem about apples and was able to cut those words out whole.  See, it pays off to have way too much stuff--you never know what you might need for a project☺.

 

OMG 70! Birthday Party

Last month my mom had a milestone birthday:  she turned... 70.  70?? OMG!!

{not-a-great scanned copy of the invitation, created by me}

I couldn't let such a big birthday go by without some fanfare, so I convinced my mom to have a party.  Now if I was a really good daughter, I'd have planned & paid for it all on my own and just had her show up ;-).  But I'm an only child and I know my limitations.  It all ended up for the best for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that one of my boys was in the hospital for 4 days and was discharged just 72 hours before party time.  Luckily we have some good friends that jumped in and helped out with the final preparations!

My mom did an awesome job with the decorations.  She was awash in a sea of patterned paper, glitter, and punches for weeks beforehand.  Take a peek at some of her fabulous creations...

The centerpiece of the main party table was this beautiful faux cake that my  mom created using cardboard, cardstock, dimensional stickers and loads of ribbon and fun embellishments. 

For each and every guest, my mom made what she called an Honored Guest badge.  She was burning up the lines on her Martha Stewart scoring board for days ;-).  I'm not sure what she had more fun doing:  creating over 30 unique badges or pinning them on the guests as they arrived!       

Here's a shot of the table, all set, complete with white twinkie lights that may or may not be snowflake lights that my mom likes to leave up year round...

Throughout the house there were colorful paper pinwheels of all sizes and patterns.  They added a touch of festiveness and whimsy, just the mood we were going for.

My contribution to the decor was an OMG 70! banner that was strung in the living room.  Please pardon the poorly lit iPhone pics.  I used some of the same patterned paper from the invitations on the front, along with ruffled crepe paper and a lovely pale seafoam mini ball fringe.       I backed the pennants with pages from a vintage children's magazine--published in September 1940, the month and year my mom was born.

Along with my lovely assistants (Ebby and My Cousin Laura), we put together these fun party favors.

We saw the idea at our local scrapbook shop and loved it.  I purchased the specially colored "chocolate gems" at Fresh Market and we got the bags at our local shop.  Once I did some research and made a paper funnel to slide the M&Ms into the bags, the work went pretty quickly.  They are great favors and can be adapted to so many different occasions.  If you're interested, here's some info on how to make them and here's a link to an online source for the 1"x8" cello bags.

Before we knew it, it was time to set up the desserts.  I put myself in charge of making all the cupcakes in my mom's requested flavor combinations.  We had four different cupcake creations:  Vanilla with Vanilla Buttercream, Chocolate with Chocolate Buttercream, Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing, and Lemon with Vanilla Buttercream.  They were all, dare I say, downright delicious.  I mixed and matched recipes from the Cake Mix Doctor books, I checked out 3 of them from the library.  The frostings were all from scratch which is one of the CMD tenets. 

My mom also ordered a cake from a local bakery which was a fun addition.   And it gave us something to stick sparklers and candles in for my mom to blow out☺.

It was a wonderful party, full of love, laughter and lots of sparkle.  When my mom declared it her best birthday ever, I knew we'd achieved success.

 

Mosaic Monday

Latest lovelies from flickr...

 

1. autumn orange, 2. Cuba Gallery: Old vintage car textures, 3. Nesting Heart Set, 4. the raven, 5. more wood & word signs, 6. b a s k e t, 7. Hello Yellow, 8. Sweetness primavera, 9. our travels to vancouver

Halloween Around Our House

I {finally} worked up the energy this past weekend to go up to the attic and get down the totes of Halloween decorations.  It's always fun to discover what I bought on clearance last year and stashed away.  

Anyone need a pair of pink and black striped tights??

Anyway, I foraged through our decorations and spread what felt like an appropriate amount of spookiness throughout the downstairs.

First stop on the tour, the dining room--now with bookcases!

It's always good to know how much 5 glittery skulls weigh, right?  Please note: not very much.  Though it could be that my free baby scale from the swap pile is not exactly accurate...

I was going to put the rest of the glittery skulls under a cloche but they weren't fitting in easily.  Instead they've taken up residence in the Pottery Barn (never been used as but intended as an advent calendar) shadow box.  Amazingly, the head vase woman does not appear at all fazed by the ghoulish visitors.

Now, not only do the new bookcases in the dining room hold lots of books, they present additional decorating opportunities.     Thank you very much ☺.

Moving on to the family room, hark, it's one of my handmade BOO banners strung between the curtain rods.  Just below that, on a chest that has been begging to be painted a faded apple green color, a vintage Underwood typewriter (yard sale score) and a mini pumpkin Ebby got at the corn maze this weekend.

Panning left, a collection of some of my favorite vintage inspired Halloween goodies and of course our friend David, in costume already.          

Finally in the kitchen, an adorable Jennifer Murphy crow-in-cone, all decked out for the season.

So there you have it.  I may have no idea what any of my children are going to be for Halloween, but by gosh, the house is decorated!

 

Vintage Key Ribbon Bookmark

Last year at the local flea market I bought a whole bunch of vintage skeleton keys.  The keys have great shapes and details with a nice amount of rusted patina.  What really sealed the deal for me however were the unique circular stamped metal "labels" on each key.  The vendor told me the keys were from M.I.T. and indeed one of the keys is labeled MIT Small Cottage.  Among the others I purchased:  No. 1 Lv. R. and Wind Tun.  Pretty cool.

So far (over a year later...) I've only completed one project using my M.I.T. keys, a ribbon bookmark.

  Here's what I did:

1. Separate the key from the key ring.  For my bookmark I used No. 1 Lib., as in library.  Clever, I know.
2. Cut a piece of ribbon apprx. 15 inches long.  I used wire edge ribbon.
3. Here's the {not} tricky part:  tie the key onto one end of the ribbon then tie the key ring with the label onto the other end of the ribbon.  Phew.
4. Trim the ribbon ends and put your new bookmark to work holding your place in your current reading book.

Now if you don't happen to find keys that already have metal stamped labels you could certainly make your own using a metal disk and your metal alphabet stamps (I have some from Harbor Freight).  You could also use some other cool vintage metal item at the top of the bookmark--basically anything you can tie a ribbon through would work.

Now maybe someday I'll do something with No. 1 D.R.  or 1st. H KIT.  Until then I'll keep using my No. 1 Lib. bookmark and enjoying the rest of the keys just sitting in a bowl on my desk.

Happy Reading!