Patched

In my family, the pumpkin patch trip greatly surpasses most other things, including Christmas, in importance. Never has there been a year where we missed it, and I hope there never will be. This year was a gamble because we were out of town on a vintage buying trip in the middle of eastern Oregon. Thank goodness google directed us to a fantastic little family farm on our way back home called DD Ranch in Terrebonne, OR. They had ponies to ride (we did,) Delicious food made from their own cattle and farm (we ate,) and the best play area and kid maze I have ever seen (we got lost.)

I brought home 8 pumpkins, and am slowly going through the chop, cook, pureé process so that I can have endless pumpkin cakes and breads this winter! Basically, in case you were wondering, my whole life revolves around food.

Nearly everything I am wearing was gifted from Solanah, except my orange fishnets. She is so sweet always donating to the Twila Jean pregnant charity. HA!

Lunar Art

This month marked the opening of Toma's art showing at Lunar Boy Gallery in Astoria, OR. They have a special opening night, which we attended alongside Team Jessup. Amy of the Jessup party suggested we dress up a little spooky, as the show bore the title "Day of the Dead." It was a lovely night on the town, getting strange stares, and spooky compliments.

Season of the Witches

Much to my excitement, we have recruited Solanah for the hallowe'en series of images Toma has been working on as of late. We crammed the car full of brooms, buckets, and black hats and headed out to the edges of our town. We three drove around bickering over location, a fight in which Toma won when he threw a tantrum because he "NEEDED a Cornfield!"

Overall, I am glad Toma forcefully elected the corn stalks at sunset, as they made for some beautiful images. Very vintage feeling I think. But wait! There's more. You know you want to see the behind the scenes of this shoot, which is mostly narrated by me, as I never stop talking. We filmed as much as we could until the chupacabra started making scary noises in the corn in our direction...

Light As A Feather

We have been working on a series of images for Toma's mother in a spooky hallowe'en vein. I am not sure exactly what these images will be used for, but they are a lot of fun to create. Here are some shots from our "levitation" shoot. I was happy to get the kids involved a little, even though they have an extremely hard time staying focused on the task at hand.




Even little margaux had a hand at floating. She is much better at this than I am, she must do pilates when I am not looking. My abs (read: baby) were KILLING me the day after this shoot.


Magically, we even sort of captured a family shot with the self timer. I am still amazed by this.

Toma also has a website live now for all of his work, you should check it out:DolaraDesign.com

An All Hallows Photobooth

I hope you all had a good Halloween holiday. I personally love this holiday more than any other!
This year I got to throw a party at my house, and I decided to set up a fun "photobooth" in my basement to document every one's costumes. We had a packed house full of local bloggers, and everyone had great get-ups.
I cheated and went with a loosely Victorian inspired black dress and wore a 30s topper. My vampire fangs refused to stay adhered to my teeth, so I no longer got to play blood sucker extraordinaire. But it was a lovely night of drinking and picture taking, in a kid free environment, which doesn't happen for me all that often!

This is one of the few shots of me, but that's OK, I had a great time taking pictures of everyone else.
Pirates, super heros, one-eyed monsters, and disco divas made it to my party. I feel rather special.

We even had a cameo from miss Carmen Miranda. That fruit hat was huge, and impressive.
Here I am with Amy of Team Jessup and Solanah of Vixen Vintage... or the Chimney Sweep and the Princess.
Here are the Mister and Missus of Team Jessup, who are the fanciest people I know in real life.. usually.
There are many other pictures, but I suppose that will do for tonight. I hope you all had a lovely and safe holiday weekend. Tomorrow, I hope to update you with all the goodies I scored at the Palmer Wirf's Antique Expo over the weekend.

All Hallows

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My overseas readers are probably down right sick of hearing about Hallowe'en. So I will keep this short and sweet, with just a few pictures.
I am a severe procrastinator. I always have grandiose ideas for my costume, and every year I make something up Hallowe'en night. I did the same thing this year, I wore a black 50s wool dress, my floor length velvet coat, and my 1930s topper.
I used various shades of eye shadows and foundation to create a "skeletal" face and took the kids around demanding candy! What a fun time.
Here are some snaps of getting ready and visiting friends.

August was a green fuzzy alien with 3 eyes. And then the camera died. So we did not get very many pictures. What we lack in photographs we made up for in candy. My kids are currently pouting over the fact that they can not eat said candy for breakfast. Happy Halloween!

All Hallows' Eve

I know, I know, we are still nearly 2 months from Hallowe'en, but it's my favorite holiday so I get excited quite early. I have been brainstorming and musing my plans of attack for a costume this year. I am attending a "Witches Night Out" spook fest for ladies only where you must come, as the name suggests, dressed in Witches Finery.

There are lots of ways to go about this, as you can quite easily blur the lines between Witches, Vampires, and other ghouls of the great abyss. No one will pay that close of attention any how.

SO, like any vintage mind would, I turned to the likes of Vampira, Morticia, and Lilly.
Classic ghoulish gals from yesteryear.

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The next train of thought I fall captive to, is 16th century dame Queen Elizabeth. I think she could quite easily take a witchy form with her captivating style. Similarly I love the beauty behind 17th century style, and we can see from Sleepy Hollow, it makes for very convincing witchery!
Costumes seem to be readily available in these categories, but require a sizeable coinpurse.

I am contemplating sewing from scratch once I decided which muse to go with. Its so tempting to do them all. I hope this gets you in the mood for All Hallows, and if you need some more inspiration for costumes and such, check out these links:

AnnaLadyMoon: ETSY shop, corsets and spooky themed handmade apparel.
Spooky Kitten Couture: ETSY shop, with AMAZING victorian style costumes, for a pretty darn good price!!!!!
Haloween Express: *some* cool historical costumes, similar to etsy pricing, but probably made of lesser quality materials, and manufactured in China. Still, some cool stuff.
Baby Girl Bouttique: Some, sort of period inspired costumes, in the leg avenue vein of "sexy halloween" (which I dont quite understand myself, plus its COLD on Halloween haha.) But, some very nice pieces are scattered through out.
Costume and Prop Shop: Seems to have quite a few different styles and eras to choose from. I think it may before theatre, but bears similar prices to an average halloween costume.

I hope your spooky wheels are turning now!