Halloween Mantle

I just updated my mantle a few days ago for all of my Halloween items I just finished. I love Halloween and I love decorating for it. This year I focused in on more of the black and white palette. Not the best light in these photos as it has been pretty gloomy here the past couple of days. 

You can read more about my mantle and how I made it into this here.

Most of the items on the mantle were made by me, with the exception of the 2 signs that I got from Marshalls. I love Marshalls for all the treasure hunting! You never know what you will find. ;)

First up is the spooky-fun pumpkin head. I made it from a Funkin™ that I painted white and added the face. It sits on a vintage Black Amethyst glass candlestick from L.E. Smith.

Then I made a paper mache cone with some vintage-looking scrapbook papers I had and added vintage copy of a crow.

And lastly another Funkin™ that I hand-painted again (they were orange originally) and covered in sugar glitter. This one also sits on a Black Amethyst glass candlestick from L.E. Smith.

I'm selling these on Etsy, but even if they don't sell, I'm more than happy to keep them for my own house!

Now that the mantle is finished, I need to go back to my Fall house cleaning (I didn't do much in the Spring, so now I have lots of dust and dead bugs to clean up) . It's been slow going since I've been trying to repaint my bedroom at the same time. Hopefully I will have DONE photos to share soon. Then I can do the decorating in the rest of the house. Wish me Good Luck!

A Beautiful Saturday!

Another beautiful Saturday at the ballfield. And another win for the boys. They are 3-1 so far. They did lose last week in a tough loss to the undefeated Aliquippa Indians, but rebounded this week with a 26-7 win over the Monaca Indians.

Here's the boys with one of their coaches. They have a total of 6 teaching them the game. My hats off to them, it's a big commitment of time to coach  (11 weeks +) and they have done a really good job. This same team only won one game last year. And as team mom I hear what  they tell them at half-time. They never yell or make them feel bad even if they are losing.

I marked where Carrick (#61) is in this shot of the boys. Isn't the location beautiful ? The stadium is right along the Ohio River.

This shot was from later in the game when the 2nd string offense got to play. I marked Cole's position.

Cade got to play, too, on defense and helped to get a tackle.

Great job, boys!

They Won!

The final score. A Sunday afternoon game vs. the Rochester Rams and a game that counts on the record. They are 2-0.

Cade (30) and Cole (55) got to be Captains for the team and went out for the coin toss.

The boys in action. Carrick (61) is in this photo on the line. Hats off to the Coach who got all the kids into play. He understands that kids do get hurt and it's a good idea to get everyone in to play so they have the experience and can fit in when they have to. That's why the final score was close -- he left the 2nd string in to play most of the 2nd half. All the boys had a great game. Carrick started both offense and defense, Cole played Guard on offense for most of the 2nd half and has his defender pushed clear into the backfield most of the time, and Cade made a kick-off recovery! So proud of them.

Old Friends

I went to a birthday party tonight for my sorority sister Kerry. She and I suffered through a lot of boring History lectures together (we were both History majors in college). Since our names were the same, I was Car-e and she was Keery. That was how one of our professors differentiated between us in class (we generally sat next to each other). It was good to see her and some of our friends that could make it -- Lou Ann, Zimmer and Sweitz.

Here's a photo of us in college at a sorority event. Must be about 1990. We went to Thiel College in Greenville, PA. I am right in the bottom middle of the photo and Kerry is to my right (left of me in the photo).

We don't get together nearly enough  and I hope we will still keep meeting up over the years!

 Here's Sweitz, Zimmer and family.

And my wonderful husband and Lou Ann all sitting on Bob's beautiful new deck he just finished.(Bob is Kerry's husband and my husband's fraternity brother). Good Times!

Tomorrow we have another football game! The boys are ready. Too bad it is the same time as the Steeler game. Good thing we have Tivo. I'll let you know how it goes...

I've been a bad blogger...

I know. I'm pitiful. I leave this poor blog hanging with weeks in between posts. I do have excuses, but don't we all?
I've been busy with the kids going back to school, continued football practice and games (I'm team mom), but I've been working on some new things to go in my Etsy shoppe, Hootenanny. Here's a shot of my Fall mantle with some of the new things.

A collage that I did on a 5x7 canvas with a copy of a vintage photo that I have in my collection. I used patterned paper from Pink Paislee, October Afternoon and Foofala. I also used fine black glitter, vintage buttons, vintage and The Girls' Paperie letters and the Martha Stewart Halloween punch. If you are interested you can see it here.

And here's a closeup of the "HALLOWEEN" banner that I made with decoupage, and glitter and a lot of Halloween paper scraps. You can see it here.