Before it's gone gone gone . . . this is Bakugan!

My oldest, Aidan, decided he wanted to be Drago for Halloween. Oh no, not any old store-bought costume (there's only one that I found and it did not have a tail), but knowing his parents' love of the theatrical, he wanted us to make him a Drago costume.

My husband and I are old hands at this costume thing - one year for our friends' party, we went as the Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood:
I sewed his nightgown and cap, my cape, and he did everything else, the makeup, the headpiece, etc. He looked awesome.

So we dove in to making a Drago costume for our boy.
I sewed the wings, including channels for dowels to go in so when he extends his wings they stand out, and a hood like the mail armor hoods they wore under their helmets. My husband did everything else. The breastplate, the required tail, the headpiece. Check out the eyes!
My husband shaped the eyeballs out of polymer clay, painted and baked them. Then he added the browbone, covered in matching fabric.

Aidan's parade was this morning, it was so cute to see him out with all his classmates and teachers. Now we're looking forward to Sunday for trick-or-treating!

Wow wow!

There's a cartoon my children watch, called Wow Wow Wubbzy, about a cute little creature and his two BFFs. Well, three, now since they've added a new character - hmmm, does that mean it's jumped the shark?


Anyway, my oldest has graduated to Bakugan, but my little one still likes Wubbzy, so we made him a Wubbzy costume for Halloween.
I sewed the jacket and pants, and my husband made the bendy tail out of some tubing, and the shoe covers.

Alex doesn't have school on Fridays so his costume parade was this morning. The teachers also dressed up and the kids trick-or-treated afterward, I think they had a lot of fun :D

Stay tuned for a giveaway next week!

Shutterfly Holiday Cards!

It's that time of year, when I start obsessing over Christmas cards and figuring out what I'm going to send to friends and family. Given the variety of people we send to, and how we like to make everything with do very, very "us" - the choice for us this year is Shutterfly.

Or rather, the choices, because Shutterfly has hundreds of designs available - let me show you the finalists for our cards these year:

I love this one from Heifer International - it's an organization that sets up programs for people so they can grow their own food and end the cycle of poverty. One of their programs helped people living in rural parts of my homeland, Peru, so I am happy to support Heifer International by using their cards. And if I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me if, because I am from Peru, I had a pet llama when I was little, I would be rich!

This one is also a must, because about half my Christmas list is Spanish-speaking!!!

And of course, I like to remember the meaning of Christmas - I love the silhouette of the Nativity!

I can't really choose, so I might have to go with all three!

To make it easier on your wallet, Shutterfly is offering 20% off all holiday cards - go check them out!

Wanna find out how to win 50 cards from Shutterfly? Go read about it on my Twitter page!

Easy ribbon candle mat

I've seen various examples of gorgeous ribbon loop wreaths throughout the blogosphere and since, I have to be honest here, my attention span does not extend to making a wreath, I thought I would make something smaller with ribbon loops.

The technique is pretty simple - find a few coordinating ribbons and cut into similar lengths, depending how big you want the loops to be.


Then, you begin sewing the loops together, one next to the other, forming a long chain:


Once the chain is long enough for your project, take a paper plate and begin attaching the ribbon chain to the edge. I cut off the raised edge off my plate so I would have a flat circle to work with and started at the outer edge, then layered inward. I left the center circle bare for my candle:


I love that you can do this craft for any theme, all you need to do is change the ribbons, I have a feeling I will be making a few Christmas candle mats next month!

More makeup goodies!

This time, it is one of my favorite stores for accessories and jewelry - H&M. I found some great glosses during my last visit, and at $1.95, you really can't beat the price, can you?

Here it is compared to my $14.50 MAC Lustreglass.

I am planning on another trip to H&M soon, they only had a few shades and this was the only one I liked, but maybe next time I'll find some other ones ;D

Payless for cute nails!

Oh my gosh, I go into Payless because they're having one of their great BOGO 50% sales and what do I spy?

Beauty products!

Apparently I am the last person to find out about this but take it from me, Latey McLaterson, it's better late than never. I snagged two colors - since their sale extends to everything in the store - and I have to say they look really nice. You will have to take my word for it because a) I only did one nail of each color - b) my hands are dry, peeling, so I am not posting pics that may scar you for life, and c) I will be communing with nature soon so I didn't want to do all my nails just to have them ruined so soon after.

But, here is a photo of the shades I got - Sugar Plum, a delicious deep purple red, and Precious Metal, a pretty, bronze-y metallic.
Aren't they lovely for Fall and Winter? And I got both for less than $5.