The Spice of Life

I came up from the basement after doing some laundry yesterday to find that Miss C and Mr. Q had made a mess. They got into my spice drawer and dumped 7 or 8 bottles on the floor. They were having a grand time mixing them all together.
They did this once before, several months ago. I remember this event so well because I had just put a new bag into the vacuum before the wreck of the spice express, so every time I would vacuum, this faint smell of a weird spice blend would escape from the vacuum. Just last week, of course, I replaced the spice filled vacuum bag and I was looking forward to not having a spicy smell whenever I vacuumed. Sigh. So much for that.

DIY Camera Case - my version

A couple of years ago, Matt bought me a camera for Christmas. It came with 2 lenses and we bought an inexpensive camera bag to store it in. It's nothing fancy, but it did the job. Then, one day, a friend of mine posted a link on Facebook to a camera bag giveaway. I followed the link and was shocked by how pretty & functional a camera case could be. I fell in love with the Kelly Moore B-Hobo Bag, but I just can't imagine spending $169 on a purse. I am way too cheap for that. I liked the Kelly Moore Facebook page and whenever they do a bag giveaway, I enter the contest (along with probably about 20,000 other people...) hoping I'll be the lucky winner. Anyway, at some point in the last year, I saw this pin on Pinterest, showing how you can make your own camera case out of a purse. Later, I saw another pin with much easier-to-follow instructions, so I decided to give it a whirl.
I bought a cute purse from Winners with the intention of making a camera case out of it.Then, it hung on a hook by my back door for 2 months while I procrastinated. I tend to do that.
Finally, I got sick of seeing the bag sitting there and I decided to get it done. It took me a full day (with all 3 kids around to "help") and then a few hours the next day to hand-stitch the new purse lining in. It probably would have taken me less time if I knew how to hand-stitch. Ugh. That was the worst part, by far.

Here's how it looks. I love it! I love that I can adjust the foam dividers to fit my lenses, my wallet, whatever. Thanks Pinterest for a fantastic idea!

Viking Obsessed

I feel like I've been viking obsessed for the past couple of weeks getting ready for Halloween. Last year Miss A said she wanted to be Astrid from How to Train your Dragon for Halloween. I thought it would be a really cute, not quite so typical costume & then thought it would be fun for us all to dress up as vikings. Miss C wants to be the same as her sister, as usual. I thought about dressing up Mr. Q as a dragon, but decided to just stick with the viking theme.
Twice a year I go to this garage sale type of thing in St. Albert called the Share & Wear at the Alliance church. For the last couple of years, I have also volunteered at the event as well. It has been a great opportunity to help out the community and I get a lot of great clothes for my family there as well. There are areas for children, baby, ladies, & mens clothes, coats, toys, books, etc. set up and all the donations have to be sorted as they come in the door. This year, I wasn't able to help on the day of the event, so I went the night before to help with sorting. We sorted from 5:30-8 and then the organizers let us go through and "shop" for a few minutes before they closed the doors. I wasn't able to find much for clothes this year. I found lots of cute things, but they were in all the wrong sizes. Oh well, that's the way things go. On my way out, I looked at the coats and found a few coats that I thought would really make our viking costumes fantastic. I wish I took some before pictures, but I didn't think of it until too late.
Here's a picture of Astrid from How to Train Your Dragon, beside my little cuties.

Their shirts came from an XL size womens shirt that I refashioned into 2 smaller shirts. My sewing skills are not the greatest, but you can't really tell from a distance. Hahaha.
I cut the skirts out of a couple of the coats from the Share & Wear. I just put velcro on the ends and it wraps around & sticks together. The boot covers are from one of the same coats. I just cut off some of the fake fur, and sewed it in a cylinder. They just slide them on their legs before they put their boots on and then tug them down. The shoulder armour was made with craft foam & hot glue. Man, hot glue is amazing!
We made the skulls and spikes out of Crayola Air Dry Clay. We molded them and then let them dry and the girls painted them. Getting them to stick on the skirt was a challenge. We first tried hot glue. They fell off so quickly. I decided to try sealing the spikes with Mod Podge first. I tried hot glue again. Still didn't work. We tried Gorilla Glue next and that seems to work the best, though the glue bubbled out and you can see it around most of the spikes. Whatever. I still think it looked great!

Here's Mr. Q. in his costume. My brother's girlfriend Sarah crocheted the "helmet". Amazing!! She is really talented.
Matt and I also had costumes, but they were not nearly as extravagant. Of course, I don't have any pictures. Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!