Jack-O-Lantern 2013

Over the last few years I have found how fun it is to carve Jack-)-Lanterns.  This year I decided to do something fairly easy, since I still haven't found my Dremel tool, nor bought a new one, and didn't want to spend all day carving.  So, here it is!

It's pretty cute, but not too fancy.  Since I just did it with a sharp paring knife, it only took me about an hour to carve.

I had seen a Pin telling how to preserve your pumpkin carving so it would last longer.  It states to spray a mixture of bleach and water on the inside and outside of the pumpkin daily to prevent mold.  It also suggested petroleum jelly to prevent dehydration.  I didn't do that part.

I didn't have a spray bottle available, so instead just used a sponge, wet it with a mixture of bleach and water (I did about half and half, since I was just using a little bit), and just wet the pumpkin inside and out with the sponge.  I did it almost every day, just missing the very first day I carved it and one in the middle somewhere. 

Here's what my pumpkin looks like now after 10 days:

You can see it has dehydrated a little bit, but I actually think it looks pretty cool!  The lines between the shoes and in the broom can be seen quite nicely during the day, and not just when it's dark and lit up.  The bat is getting quite small, though. :-)

I had planned on just keeping this up every day to see how long it would last, but I'm kind of tired of it, so will now be stopping my daily sponging.  I believe it did show that the bleach water helps a lot, and that means that next year I can carve my pumpkin earlier, and not have to wait until right before Halloween to have it look good on Halloween!

Here are some pumpkins from the last few years (didn't do one in 2011.):

2010 pumpkin

 

 

2012 pumpkin, haunted house

So much to talk about....

I've done a LOT since I posted last: canned 95 bottles of apricot-pineapple jam, 9 quarts of white grape juice, went on a 10 day vacation back East, (my photos are still in the camera!), etc., etc.  But yesterday I decided I wanted to graph a filet crochet chart from a photo of an old, gorgeous tablecloth.

I saw a photo of the tablecloth here: http://tarragonnthyme.blogspot.com/2011/10/crochet-table-cloth.html
"Pattypan" picked up the tablecloth at a charity store for 4 pounds.  Wow!!!

Anyway, I really loved the pattern, so decided to graph it. First, I used my own graph paper and drew out the design.  This took a couple of hours!  Longer than I thought, for sure.  Then I used my Gimp program (free program like Photoshop), and pasted in 1/4 inch graph paper.  Pasted 2 pages together, then started filling in the blocks, with "bucket fill."  For the lacet stitch, I used a pattern bucket fill instead of drawing the lines with "pencil", so it's not quite perfect, but it was a lot easier.

Here is the motif, with 4 copies:

 I may find that there was an easier way to do it, but I am pleased with the results!

Utila, Above the Water!

Most of our time in Utila was under the water, but since I want to include photos, and those are going to take a longer time to go through, I'm going to do a post of ABOVE the water, and later I'll do a post of BELOW the water.  Easier for you to read, anyway!

 Here's our first look at Honduras from the plane.  We landed in Roatan.

 

It was a very small airport.  The flights to the U.S. are only on Saturdays.

 

Then we had to take two ferries to get to Utila, then a small boat to get to the resort.  Quite a journey. Here's one of our ferries.  (There were private airplane charters available, but we didn't trust them!)

That was the larger ferry, from Roatan to Ciepa.  A smaller ferry took us to Utila.  The waves were big that day, and I got very green.

When we took it back, it was much better, BUT the sea was rough for the larger ferry.  Several little kids lost their lunch.

Here's a few photos taken around the resort.  The owner's son worked there, and he had a dog, Coco.  She is 2 years old, and loves everyone.  If we went on a walk, Coco was there!  She took naps on our porch several times.  She was really fun.

Lots of these!

The "whale" pool.

The main beach of the resort.

Main beach, looking the opposite direction.

Coco, on our porch.

See Coco?

Just a little farther from the main part of the resort, looking from the beach.

Some of the building at the resort.  The one on the left is the dining room and kitchen.

The Dive Shop!  Met our group out back at the dock every morning at 8 a.m.

Pathway in-between cabins.

Our cabin!

We had a great group!  There were 10 of us all together.  But we can't forget our dive master and boat captain!

Our last meal together.  One couple had already gone home.

Our dive master and boat captain.  They were great!

Our group on the boat.

On Sundays we went to church in the "city."  It was a small branch.  We enjoyed it very much.

Church from the street: it's on the 2nd floor.

Decorations for Mother's Day!  We each were given a little basket with Hershey's kisses.  Yum!

The "front door", after you climb about 15 stairs!

 That's all for today!  Next time it will be dive pictures!

Our own little island, Sandy Cay

It has been too long since I've written, and now that we are back from our vacation, I thought it would be good to add something about that.

We spent 8 days at Laguna Beach Resort, on Utila. (Off the coast of Honduras.) Great food, great dives, great company.  It was a slow week (in-between busy seasons), and there were only 10 in our group.  It was a great group, and we really enjoyed the time we had there.  We logged 22 dives- the most we've ever done in one week!  And we had our first night dives ever.  So fun!



After the week+ at Laguna Beach Resort, we went to our island, Sandy Cay.  We rented it for 5 nights, and had a ball.  We had to bring all our own food, so we went to the grocery store with a very detailed list.  John cooked most of the time, which was really fun for me. :-)





 This was definitely not a 5 star hotel, but it was exactly what we expected it to be.  The cabin was actually divided into two: one part was 2 bedrooms and a bathroom, the second part was the living room, a bathroom and the kitchen.   The table was outside. 







The fun part was the ocean!  We went snorkeling every day (I skipped one day, and read my book, but John went in the shallows where I could see him.)  One day we spent 3 1/2 hours and snorkeled around the whole island!  It was so much fun!









The snorkeling was as good as the diving was in Utila.  Absolutely beautiful.



But, it was kind of like camping.  Like Young Women's Camp.  There's a cabin, flush bathrooms, gas cooking, BUT there were bugs!  Flies, mosquitoes, ants and roaches.  We found that if we were out of the kitchen by sunset, we missed most of the bugs.

Sunrise: 5 a.m.  Sunset: 6:15 p.m.  Pitch dark: 6:30 p.m.

Never had to set an alarm.  Read, walked on the beach, did a puzzle, watched a movie every night on John's computer, snorkeled.

So we were camping!  But camping in paradise!  And with the one you love!  Fantastic!

New skirt!

I like bargains.  Well, maybe I should say I love bargains!  Therefore, when I have time, I like to browse through my favorite thrift store, Deseret Industries, or D.I., for short.  The kids used to say it was my favorite store!

Anyway, several weeks ago I had finished running my errands, and had nothing else on my "to do" list, so I stopped by D.I. and went through practically every isle in the whole store.  I had so much fun!  I found 2 really cute summer button front blouses.  Just what I've been looking for!  One is an "Hawaiian" type, which I love taking those on vacation, and I only had one!  I have been jealous of John, because he has about four. 

I got a couple of other little things besides the blouses, but my find of the day was some beautiful rayon type fabric.  Hawaiian style.  Gorgeous.  $3 for three yards.  Wonderful!  I picked it up!

I went home with my wonderful new blouses and material and showed them off to John.  (He really liked them!)  Then I looked through my patterns to find a good skirt pattern for my new material.  Didn't really like the choices, at least of the ones that were my size.  Sigh. 

When I visited my mom, we stopped by JoAnn's one day, and some of the patterns were $1.25.  Love those bargains!   I couldn't decide on which of two patterns would be best for my skirt, so I got them both, plus another that I just really liked!  One pattern would be super easy, no zippers, but also no pockets.  The other pattern had both a zipper and pockets. 

I decided to use the pattern with the pockets and zipper, but I altered it a little.  I still put the zipper in the back, but I also made the top back straight (instead of fitted) and put elastic in it.  That way if I gain or lose a few pounds it will still fit.

I cut out the pieces last week, and finished sewing it this week, putting on the hook and eye just a couple of hours ago.  It is really cute.  At least I think so!

In other news.....  John and I have hiked the Y twice so far this year! 

Here's my skirt:

The picture isn't the best, but you can still see what it's like.  I'm going to enjoy wearing it!

PinTesting, once more!

PinTesting once more.

Over the last almost 2 months, I have had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas, and have had a hard time counting my many blessings!  I have tried many new recipes that I on my "Pinterest" board, "Recipes I've Tried," but have not done much with Pinterest except recipes.  But one came along that I just HAD to try!  It looked so fun!  It was how to make a "Scratch-Off" Valentine's card.
http://patandlindsay.blogspot.com/2012/02/diy-scratch-off-valentine-cards.html?m=1

I didn't actually make a card.  Yet!  I wanted to test this out to see if it would work!













I looked in my pile of scrap paper to see if I had any scrap cardstock.  I did!  It was from a genealogy chart I put up at a family reunion!   It had nice little squares on it that would be perfect for testing.

I made 4 test squares.  After I wrote in each box, I then did the "fun" part: painting over the crayon!  I chose a light blue and when I opened it up I realized it was a bit thick.  Ended up being perfect for this project, as I only needed to apply one coat.

I waited a long time, probably 2 hours, before I tried scratching the paint off.

Here's the outcome:

Test 1: 
In the first box I wrote "Hello" in the box then immediately drew over it with a white crayon. The ink was pretty blurred.  But I was thrilled that I could read it!

Test 2:  In the second box, I wrote "Test 2", waited at least 30 minutes before coloring over it with a white crayon.  Not sure how long I would have had to wait for the ink to dry, but was surprised that the ink smeared on this one, too.





Test 3 and 4:  In the 3rd and 4th boxes I colored over the words with a blue and green crayon after waiting at least 1/2 hour to let the ink dry.The other colors of crayon work, but you'd want to make sure they were a light color.  I tested these because I wanted to know if the crayon part scraped off, too, or just the paint.  The crayon protected the words pretty good.

 

Verdict:  It works!  BUT, if I were to make cards myself, I would have the words I wanted in the boxes printed on the computer, not by my ink pen.  You notice the names of my relatives didn't smear and are very readable!  I would probably use a white crayon, but the design possibilities are many if you chose a different, very light colored crayon.  Oh, really lay down a lot of crayon!  My thin spots weren't as nice and the paper got scratched.  Plus, I'd make sure I used nice, thick paint!