welcome to the pumpkin patch

despite being ill all weekend (sinus flu-bug. nothing major, just enough to keep me tired and achy and feeling yucky), it's been very productive! a couple of weeks ago, i was flipping through magazines looking for halloween gift ideas for my friend juli (every year i give her some kind of a halloween gift and try to make it as fun and creative as possible). in one magazine i found an advent calendar...of sorts. it marked down the 13 days of halloween with paper cones filled with candy and little gifts. in another magazine, i found a how-to on creating tissue paper pumpkins filled with candy to give out on halloween night...so i combined the two ideas and created this:

the 13 days of halloween pumpkin patch

i took a box top, covered it with green tissue and stuffed more bunched up, green tissue on the bottom. i bought or made 13 small gifts - all halloween related, wrapped them up in orange tissue paper, making them look roughly like pumpkins and twisted the "stems" with green floral tape. it was simple and fun and i know she'll love it. juli did something similar for me for christmas last year; she worked for an accessory store and made up 25 tissue paper roses that held many, many pairs of earrings, bracelets and necklaces. i got to unwrap one rose every day from the beginning of december to christmas - it was so much fun and she really stocked me up on earrings! so starting october 19th, juli can open one pumpkin a day until halloween for little treats like a tee-shirt, a copy of a cd i know she wants, candy, earrings, a bracelet, a pin, a an autumn scented candle, candle holder, a small decorative clay witch's hat, etc. etc.

the other thing that i worked on this weekend was a fairy house and fairy that my old roommate from university (who lives outside moncton, new brunswick) asked me to make. she said that her aunt is creating a fairy garden at her home in alberta (i think it's an indoor garden) and jenn wanted to give her something fairy and unusual to go with her new garden for a christmas present.

jenn said that her aunt loved bright colors, so i went with a festive orange...not because of the autumn season, but because i found that striped fabric (that her shirt is made of) and the colors from my stash just fell into place. you can see more pictures here, some close up and singularly of the fairy and her house.

i also have an imp that juli and my friend maddie commissioned. there are only 2 more things to do on it and it'll be done! i hope to finish that tonight (have pictures by thursday) and start work on a quilt fairy for my aunt's friend.