Are you right brain or left brain??

This is a cool site my mother showed me (who now reads my blog...hi mom! and I'm not allowed to cuss on here anymore so she can show her friends my lovely blog [insert giggle fit here]). I am apparently one of the weirdies who can only see the image turning clockwise which means I'm a rightie, which makes sense. I did some reading up on right brainers and it really fits me - artistic, messy, etc., etc., lol.

Are you a rightie or a leftie brainer??

And...I finished the poodle skirt and didn't take pictures. I'm saving that for halloweenie night, plus last night was the big halloween party sleepover and guess what I was doing at 12:30 at night? Picking up my poor little girl who was scared out of her wits. They watched a scary movie (a kids' scary movie) but it was just too much for my little thing. I felt so bad, she called me crying in the bathroom to come get her. We gave her my husband's cellphone. This was her 2nd sleepover party. She made it through the first one but that was probably because it was in a hotel with 4 hours of swimming.

Today, Ms Em and I went to the Lion King musical while my mom and dad babysat Mr E so my husband could have a day to himself. Ms Em claimed it was boring "because she had already seen the movie." Uh, wha??? I thought it was great! The guys who played Mufasa and Scar had wonderful voices. Then, we hung out at my mom's til she kicked us out at 10:30 tonight and she has the coolest catalog called Casual Living. I have to get these things, they are hilarious:

I'm such an Elphaba fan, I think I'm going to have to make a tote bag with this on it.


And I am dying to hang this on the front of my house by the front flower bed.

Hey dude, um, cut your damn grass

So raise your hand if you think foot tall grass is great curb appeal when selling your house? Anybody? Oh wait, hey, I think I see my next door neighbor in the back raising his hand. Yoohoo! Mr Neighbor! Let me let you in on a little secret....when people come look or drive by your house when it's for sale, they don't want to even look at it much less buy it when the grass is over a foot freakin' tall. And they sure as hell don't want to buy my house when the next door neighbor's yard is a FOOT FREAKIN TALL!! He's moved out...so I have seriously considered calling his realtor so he can let him know to mow his damn grass. Do you think that would be tacky?

And then we have the "new" neighbors across the street. We live in a fairly nice neighborhood and these people play some kind of weird musical cars with friends or relatives or they are car thieves or possibly a family of prostitutes, as I can't quite figure out why different people spend the night there on various days and at any given time 3 or 4 different cars are there. And these same people have parties that literally do not start until 10 pm at night, who does that after their early 20s? Now they decided to park their "clunker" with the expired tags and expired inspection directly across from my driveway. Isn't that lovely? Of all the spots to park it, blocking my driveway was apparently the choice pick. It's been there for 3 months now. I've called the city on them, but apparently the city could give a rat's patootie. Can the police do something about it since it has expired tags? I have no idea. My infamous "go to hell and take your damn car with you" stare apparently has not conveyed the message to move it yet.

I got pics of the mum I made Ms. Em, and tonight I'm pulling an all nighter after I finish working to make my nemesis -- the deadly poodle skirt and its partner the pink petticoat. Wish me luck in keeping all my fingers, I'm going to attempt the cutting with my Gingher scissors. I'll have pics up tomorrow.

Fabric Shopping!!

I just had to share. I happened upon reprodepot fabrics to look at something and I just couldn't pass these up. I usually never order from them because it can get expensive, but aren't these adorable??




I got these two prints for a skirt for Ms Em. It's going to be a full skirt with a flat front waistband and elastic back. I'm picturing it in my head now, so cute! The pink is going to be the waistband.



And I just can never pass robot fabric up. And this was robot knit, so Mr E is getting a t-shirt out of this.



And last but not least, I am a diehard sock monkey lover. I made him pants out of the lime green print last year, so this one was on sale for only $5/yd at reprodepot and I picked it up tonight. It's a brushed poplin. And it's so hard to find elastic waist pants at his size right now, he's getting to big for 4Ts, but regular 4/5s are way too long and I can't find many with elastic for school and he still needs to be able to rip 'em off quick for the potty.

So reprodepot has some great sale prices right now on some things. So you fabricaholics out there might want to do some shopping. I am ever the enabler :)

Poodle Skirts can be Dangerous!

So we went to my mom and dad's on Sunday to hang out, eat lunch, watch the football game (stinkin' Cowboys), and I was going to sew a fast and easy poodle skirt for Ms Em's 50's girl look. Well....the poodle skirt tried to kill me. Really.

She picked the Shocking pink felt for her skirt. My mom has this wonderful granite island in her kitchen (she upgraded it specifically for sewing when she bought the house, lol). I had the fabric laid out correctly on the granite to cut a continously circle skirt with no seam. I marked off the waist measurement to cut and went to find my mom's rotary cutter. [Insert Psycho music here] I picked the 60-mm rotary cutter as I thought it would go faster and easier with the the thick felt. So 1 second later I start to cut and then whoosh, the rotary cutter glides over the fabric and slices deep into my first finger. I grab my hand and blood starts shooting across the room, running quickly down my hand, getting all over the cabinets, all over the fabric. I ran to the sink and saw that it wasn't just washing off but getting worse, so I grab the first towel I see and apply pressure and refuse to let anyone look at it as I know I'm going to bleed to death right there while my husband watches the damn football game. So my husband and dad decide to keep the kids and not leave the football game, while my mom takes me down the ER. I'm freaking out in tears because I figure I hit something pretty big when the blood is shooting out across the room, and figure I will die bleeding out in the car on the way.

But I survive, we are in and out of the ER in 1 hour. 3 stitches and a bunch of gauze. I think the worst part is the tetantus shot I got, my arm is KILLING ME, I can barely move it, but apparently that's normal on the second day.

So that is how a poodle skirt can kill you. And now I'm scared of rotary cutters and all sharp objects too, lol.

The best part is the Joann fabric store literally a block away from the hospital, so my mom and I popped in so I could buy new fabric that wasn't bloody, after we left the ER.

I'm debating on taking a picture of my sewing wound. I'm still kinda scared to look at it. Can you believe I wanted to be a doctor?

HALLOWEENIE CONTEST!

For your chance to win a free TipToe Fairy Pattern - post in the comments your favorite halloween costume you've sewn.

It will be your choice of pattern. Contest will end Friday, October 12 at 7 PM CST. One of my little helpers will draw a name on Friday night.

I've sewn almost all of my children's costumes, there might have been maybe once or twice Em wore her costumes straight from the princesses of Disneyland. My favorite was rather simple, but I literally came up with it as I pulled out the fabric, used no pattern and it came out just I envisioned it. Mr. E's first costume was when he was 10 months old, and he was a spider. I tried to come up with something easier he would wear in the stroller since he wasn't quite walking yet that was comfortable too. So I had this super soft black cotton interlock and made a long sleeve hoodie and then I made 4 fake "arms," 2 underneath each of his sleeves. I stuffed each arm with polyfil and then just sewed 2 on each side of the shirt as I was sewing the sides up of the shirt. Then I made him matching knit pants. I had picked up one of those spider baby hats from Old Navy just for fun and that just added the perfect touch. It came out soooo cute, he got lots of compliments. There are pics on our other computer I will upload after I finish working (as you can see I'm working hard right now, aren't I? Oh the fun of working at night when the supervisor works days...ha ha ha...ssshhhh!).

My most memorable costume as a kid was when my mom had sewng a Wicked Witch (or Elphaba as I like to call her) costume for me. I remember it was a black dress with a black apron and then the hat. I wore that green face paint and it was SOOOO itchy, I clawed most of it off before the treak or treating had ended.

Tiptoefairy.com Website and Pumpkin Spiders

Earlier I forgot to mention this. With my website, tiptoefairy.com, I'm going to be changing my site host in the next week. I just wanted to let y'all know because when I do, it will take about 2 days for the name servers to switch and my site will not be accessible during that time which means neither will any of the tutorials or the sewing patterns. I'll announce here on my blog when it's going down. The blog will still be here, but the site where I keep all the goodies will be down for just a short while.

Also, since it's getting closer to Halloween, I've lowered the price on my Pumpkin Spider Overall applique patterns.

It's Halloween time!!!

I know, I know, I've been missing with my fun-filled posts too. I had a lot on my plate so I decided to say the hell with the internet for a little while. But I actually got caught up on stuff. I'm caught up on my school work and have created a plan to do most of it on the weekends, so now I'm totally whizzing through it. It's great - heck, I might be done and graduated by the end of the year!! So I'm making a big effort to post more from now on. So much has happened in the last couple weeks, I have to share, but I'll do it through several posts.

So....it's Halloween....my favorite time of the year. I wish it was like a week long holiday or more than just once a year. I would take Halloween over Xmas any day, lol. I love to make costumes and decorate the front yard. And don't you just love the Nightmare before Christmas?? And who doesn't love trick or treating. Thank goodness I have kids, lol. So Em is going with 50s girl with a poodle skirt, and I have found this great link to make one, Poodle Skirt How To. And just and FYI to anybody else, Joann's is having a sale on 72 inch felt for only $2.99/yd. I'm going this week to find some bubblegum pink.

I need to make a crinoline to go under it this weekend, and I'm going to try to remember to do it with the camera and put up a tutorial for it. You can never find a petticoat tutorial when you need one, or so I discovered awhile back when I needed one for a particular outfit for Em. And they are fairly easy to make.

And on a completely unrelated note....how 'bout them Cowboys?? I can't believe we are 5-0!!! We are Dallas Cowboy fans in this house. In fact my husband hated them until he married me, lol. My dad is a Cowboy's freak and my husband and dad love nothing more than falling asleep in recliners at my parents' house watching the Cowboy game on Sundays. Seriously, outside of the office, he ONLY wears Dallas Cowboy t-shirts. I'm not kidding. He's a freak. I am probably the one who keeps him in the shirts as I give him 2 of them every birthday and Xmas. But he's been a loyal fan since the beginning. I grew up with life revolving around football season and during football season, life revolved around what time the Cowboys played on Sundays, lol. He and his dad had season tickets back when they played at the Cotton Bowl many, many years ago. And....my son's middle name is Landry for my father's love of Tom Landry and the Dallas Cowboy's, lol. Heck, when we finally have baby #3 and if it's a boy, it might end up with the name Emmitt. We have an "E" thing going with our kids names, they all start with E, so #3 will have an E name too, lol.