Autumn Fun

Autumn in the mountains was beautiful...the reason I say "was" even though it's technically still autumn is that it has been super chilly here for a couple of weeks now. It's supposed to be "warmer" today, but it's still kinda chilly due to the wind. Most of the trees aren't letting go of their leaves just yet, but I'm sure with these cooler temperatures and windy conditions, they can't hold onto them for long.


In the spirit of fall, here are some of the pics from our day at our local fall festival/pumpkin patch.


This is the hayride that takes pumpkin seekers out to the pumpkin patch:

I didn't get any pictures of the pumpkin patch because we were diligently searching for the perfect pumpkins. This particular farm has both a pumpkin shooter and corn "cannon." We were able to shoot some corn cobs (really, really fun), but the farm was about to close and the line was too long to get to shoot a pumpkin out of their launcher dubbed "Dorothy." I love that the launcher has a name :) Here are some folks launching mini pumpkins with Dorothy:

And here is the corn cannon:

The Gnome would really love to have goats so of course he was excited to see that they had goats at the farm. The goats weren't horribly interested in us so they stayed at a distance, but check out the contraption they have for the goats to climb:

The farm also had a corn maze. It was the most complicated one I've ever experienced. The maze had two phases. We only made it through one phase before moving on to the next activity. We got stuck (for quite some time) in phase 1 in a section for which there was only one way out. At least we weren't the only ones...we kept seeing the same groups of people over and over again. There was a bridge you had to cross to get to the rest of the path. I stopped and got some great pics of the surroundings:

Isn't that view magnificent?! (all of that corn at the bottom of the photo is part of the maze) And because I haven't shown any pictures of pumpkins, here is the toddler pumpkin maze they have set up:

Now, for crafty news...I've been working on several projects, but sadly, some are presents so no revealing yet. (Sorry!) 

I've mainly been knitting and crocheting all kinds of goodies. I've been making flowers from two different books: 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet by Lesley Stanfield and Crochet Bouquet by Suzann Thompson. So far I'm liking the 100 Flowers book better. It is much more organized, and I love organization! 100 Flowers has the patterns divided into knitting and crocheting sections. The patterns are also organized by degree of difficulty within those sections. The main reason I prefer 100 Flowers is that each pattern has a picture of the flower directly below it. Crochet Bouquet has the patterns listed all together with a group of flowers pictured at the side so you have to guess which pattern goes with which flower. Both books have patterns for leaves so they both earn bonus points for that :) I find myself wanting to attach flowers to everything, EVERYTHING. Look out! Aahhhhhh giant flower!!!!

I stumbled upon a 100 Flower Scarf here. So I decided to try it! Here's what I have so far:

I haven't been able to make any amendments to my Flower Vine Scarf from this post because the lady that was helping me at my LYS is out of town. 

Leaf out.

P.S. I went with some friends to an Indigo Girls concert on Saturday night. We had a fantastic time and even got autographs after the show (we camped out on the street with a small crowd and waited for them to come out). It was a great show and a great crowd :) Now, I can't stop singing..."How long till my soul gets it right..."

Flowery Friday

Happy Friday! 


I've been meaning to make a card for some family members that just had a baby (um, last month now). With the gift cards from my birthday (and a 50% off coupon), I bought this Martha Stewart acrylic stamp set. 

It has all sorts of combinations of flowers, leaves, pots, grass, and some cute butterflies and bugs as well. Oh, and birds and a bow, too. I forget how many stamps there are, but you can count 'em if you're bored :)

I love the included ink pads. They are teardrop-shaped and are lovely colors. I'm gonna check Michael's to see if they have other colors/sets.

 

Here are some sample cards depicted on the outside of the package. I decided to do something like the upper card.

Here's my finished card:

I changed a couple of things and added a cute ladybug and butterfly, but it's pretty much the same design that was on the package. I have a Congratulations stamp set from SU so I used the main "congratulations" stamp on the front and the "on the birth of your beautiful baby" stamp on the inside.

Other cool stuff I bought with my birthday gift cards...

A Scotch adhesive gun (I need a holster so it's at the ready whenever I need to whip it out and glue something)

And this customizable self-inking stamper: the i press from Hampton Art.

You can see a picture of Hampton Art's display from CHA here. You can even choose the color of the stamper! I chose pink :) The collection includes interchangeable ink pads, a variety of acrylic stamps, and sets of tags and cards for stamping. I have an unmounted acrylic stamp for my Etsy shop so I bought the stamper (which includes one stamp and black ink) and a set of 2 ink pads (brown and white). I removed the included stamp and stuck mine on, and then I was good to go. Oh, and I changed the ink to brown. It works great. The directions had me a little stumped on how to remove the ink pad to change it, but I eventually figured it out. I guess I'm a little directions-challenged.

Well, that's all for now. Have a great weekend everybody! I'll be heading to Virginia Tech tomorrow to watch the Hokies play.

Leaf out.