more halloween goodies! stationary! images! vintage pics!

i signed up the 2nd halloween weekend swap last week, and i made a few fun things.

my partner wanted a cape for her wizard costume, and i managed to get a good enough deal on the fabric that i could actually afford to make it! i quite like the fabric actually, it has a really nice drape to it, and it's fairly sturdy.


(note my left over pj fabric pinned to the dressform for contrast! it's so damn bright!)


i didn't bother lining it, since she only needed it for a costume, so i just serged all the edges and hemed it. it was really hard to give up!

i also made her a halloween apron, since she likes to entertain. i used cotton halloween fabric for the main part, which is 45" wide, and gathered into the waistband. the ruffle is black cotton fabric with a swirly pattern, and was hell to gather! i don't know what the problem was, but my basting threads were breaking constantly. the fabric is fairly thick for cotton.



but i was so happy with how it turned out! so cute!

and then i also sent a long a little spider stuffy made of vinyl. it was just super quick, 20-30 minutes, but it's cute. i've been wanting to make vinyl stuffies, but hadn't gotten around to it.



i spent some time playing around with the bits and pieces i received on monday, and hauled out my own goodies as well. i made myself some stationary!

i made a version of it on tuesday morning, but i wasn't totally happy with it, and then i didn't think and deconstructed it before i could scan it. so i recreated it, adding a bit, and scanned it so that i can print out copies whenever i want without worrying about where the original is. i'll probably print it in black and white mostly, but it looks cool either way.


it's got a piece of microfiche, bingo cards, a plastic fan, an old card from flowers, bits of old greeting cards (i love the ones with the fake lace around the edges!), a couple of religious charms, some tickets, a little balsa wood tag, sushi grass, a piece of a bridge tablet, and bunch of the little pieces from the ephemeral mailbox museum. i really love it.

i centred it perfectly so that all i'll need to do is cut down the middle to have two sheets to write on. today i found a really awesome copy place pretty close to my house, where colour copies are only $0.26, and b&w are $0.05, and both are printed on a really nice weight of paper. i got a bunch of colour copies made for now, though i'll switch to b&w eventually.

i've also been totally obsessed with my scanner lately! i've been scanning old family photos, partially in preparation for a project my mom's doing for the party tomorrow, and party because my grandmother sent home a shoebox full of pictures in august, and we need to return them in november.

my scanner is one of my favourite things ever, i can do so many cool things with it! the other day i started scanning images of old wallpaper from the book "Off the Wall; Wonderful Wall Coverings of the Twentieth Century". these are a few of my favourites.


(aren't the deer fabulous? i adore them!)

i bought the book a couple of years ago on clearance, thinking one day i'll get a scanner and i'll be able to use them! i want to use them in paper stuff obviously, but i also want to try printing them on transfer paper and ironing them onto fabric to sew with.

and then a few days later i started scanning old photos. when i was in manitoba this summer i bought a stack of photos about 3" high for $5.00, and then about 10 more at $1 each from an antique store. i've been intending to scan them, but it's taken me a while to get my butt in gear! i've scanned 148 pics so far, and i'm not even near half way done. there were also about 10 negatives in the packet, and they're super fun too.
these are some of my favourites so far.

i love this couple

and then a few of the negatives. after i scanned them, i used photoshop to invert them so that i could see what the actual pictures looked like.



(doesn't the baby look like the abominable snowman? so cute!)

i have a couple other packages worth of projects to post, but i'll save them for another day, this is long enough!