Bits and Bobs

As I am focused on getting a final project together for one of my photography classes (more about this another time) and we seem to have spent the best part of the past three weeks succumbing to, enduring and getting over a persistent sort of cold (not flu), there has not been much crafting or blogging over the past few weeks. Just about the only things (of very minor note) that have taken place recently are my birthday and Halloween (not on the same day).

My birthday was very quiet. I received some greeting cards, an Amazon voucher, some photography related presents from the Fella and two very fabulous bunches of flowers:

They have really made a lovely splash of colour at home and brightened my sprits while it has been pouring down with rain outside over the past two weeks. The flowers on the left are from some of my younger siblings and the flowers on the right are from my in-laws.

Just as an aside, I'd like to highlight the little tablecloth under the vase. Click if you would like to see bigger images. This was a wedding present from my Italian host family's Albanian foster daughter (which is a connection that is far too complicated for me to explain). It was handmade for us by her grandmother in Albania. I do not think that I have never been given anything handmade like this before, so it is really special - I love how well it goes with the cherry dining table that the Fella made last year.

Not that I can see myself risking this gift being on our table during meals - in fact it was time for a family meal with the Kid shortly after I took these pictures, so I plucked it away to safety:

Oops! In a flash, I was taken back to my childhood and visits to my grandmother's house. I am sure that I remember things like this draped over armrests plus the back of her sofa and armchairs. Ngg.

Here are my photography presents from the Fella in action:

As a hint, these pictures of my September sewing club output (isn't it sweet?) were taken in my North facing studio with the lights switched off! Yup, photography lights - very useful for Vancouver's dark, damp, grey winters.

As the Kid was here for the Hallow'een weekend, we held our annual pumpkin carving contest:

However, no winner could be announced as we were all far too biased towards our own pumpkins!

See what I mean? Mind you, I guess that it is just as well that that no prize was awarded as our pumpkins were just not scary enough to keep away the Trick or Treaters. We had an endless stream of children at our front door between 5pm - 9pm. Last year, I think that we were still eating the left-over Halloween candy at Christmas. This year we almost ran out of sweets to give away. We were down to doling it out, one fun sized bar at a time.

It was a bit nerve racking. The children all looked to be very sweet in their Halloween outfits but who knows what tricks they might have had up their costumed sleeves!