Unfortunately, my artistic/patient/inner-know-how skills are not quite ready.
I have this urge to nest. No, I am NOT pregnant – I'm pretty sure it comes with recently becoming a wife. And it’s definitely not for my husband’s benefit. Nor am I returning to the 1950’s land of perfect housekeeping. It stems from NOT being able to plan a wedding anymore!
I need somewhere to focus these skills I have acquired that involved planning pretty things. Where else to turn if not my house?
And we have a perfect front porch in Toronto for decorating the seasons. My plan for this fall was to make adorable burlap bunting like so:
However, I never got around to it. Not yet anyways, and the husband says it doesn’t make sense for me to have bunting that says ‘autumn’ in November. Silly man, if we were still in Brooklyn (which we are not – I will keep reminding you of this sad fact), he would know that the ‘autumn’ holidays (i.e. Pumpkin décor) extend all through November, as the Americans don’t celebrate Thanksgiving until the end of the month. ALSO, as I pointed out, so far November in Toronto has been sunshiny loveliness with leaves still on the trees. Therefore, I feel an autumn bunting is still appropriate.
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| Etsy.com: Funkyshique |
Cute right? I wanted to make this myselt, I just can’t figure out how the heck to do it. So I ordered the Christmas version.
Let’s focus on the subject of the day: pumpkins. Namely, Jack-O-Lanterns.
I purchased several lovely and perfect pumpkins for the season. They even have these white pumpkins here! So nice! I didn’t have to spray paint them like I was planning to, in order to make said craft:
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Not that I got to those stenciled letters either. I am not that lazy – it’s more that the Toronto craft store (Michaels) appears to only be in hard to reach places – like the other side of the 401 (for my Vancouver/Calgary readers: the 401 is this evil freeway in which all time stands still and your GPS thinks you are a pedestrian). Therefore, I missed most of my craft list that I wanted to hit before the actual autumn holiday.
Back to my pumpkins. Six to be exact. And four little ones. My plan was to carve super cool and intricate pumpkins. My first choice was Martha Stewart’s Victorian themed pumpkins:
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| Martha Stewart |
But after disaster struck on my first few pumpkins, that plan was scrapped. Literally. In the compost bin.
Pumpkin #1. Using my pumpkin carving tools a la Williams Sonoma (thank you wedding gift cards!) we went carving at our little cousin’s house. I did the bat and used stencils. It turned out great! I am carving marvel! Hurrah!!!
Stupidly, I gave this to said child. Ugh, why do I give things to children? I Note: I also carved his little pumpkin with the initial ‘J’ for his name.
It turned out super cute. It gave me hope for my next project:
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| Martha Stewart |
Pumpkin #2: See how nice those initials are? So pretty! I wanted to do that for us. I turned to a white pumpkin (whose flesh is a bit softer than the orange cousin – I think this was my downfall). My other downfall? Listening to the husband’s advice to not use a stencil. He couldn’t understand why I needed a stencil for a simple “J” so therefore I thought I could handle the “L” – boy was I wrong.
This was my attempt at a cursive “L”. It got out of control! The flesh was too soft, my carving device went crazy and the pumpkin was probably too small. Also, I did not have a stencil. The “L’ looked incredibly bad – so then I decided to carve out an ‘a’ and a ‘w’ to finish of our name. Obviously the result was definitely not Martha Stewart.
Pumpkin #3: I decided to stick with the stencils from the Williams Sonoma box, as the bat had been very successful. I opted for the slightly difficult spider/full-moon/ scene. All was going well, until I got to the spider legs. Then all hell broke loose. I started to loose legs. After the fourth leg, I decided this would no longer look like a spider. It didn’t matter. I MUST FINISH. But then something happened between the spider and the moon and I ended up with a big gaping hole.
I should have remained calm like Martha Stewart. Instead, I yelled at the husband for no reason (who was fiddling on his computer and not harnessing his inner-domestic goddess like me) and told him to help me. His reply was to not do something so hard. Maybe he was right.
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| It's the one on the top left |
Pumpkin 3 ended up in the compost bin.
Pumpkin #4: I opted for a witch’s profile in a moon. It looked simple enough and was rated 3 out of 5 pumpkins for difficulty. Things were going just swell (thanks to my intricate carving tools!) until the nose fell out of the moon. I believed I could still salvage her face somehow but then her head fell out. I ended up with a half-moon that looked like it had a horn and an erection.
This was my breaking point. I lost my temper, whipped the pumpkin across the room and smooshed pumpkin guts into the compost bin. The husband looked up from his computer, looked at the pumpkin and then looked at me. “I told you”. If the husband had been a pumpkin I would have carved him a new one. Instead, I burst into tears.
My first Halloween as a wife, my first Halloween with actual trick-or-treaters (we are used to living in apartments) and my first Halloween with my super fancy pumpkin carving tools. All ruined!
I cursed myself for being a nice ‘auntie’ and letting J keep the bat pumpkin that was the only proof I could be somewhat crafty. I then took our last pumpkin and carved two triangles for eyes, an upside down triangle for the nose, and a toothless grin. Screw it! I was not a craft queen. I had to embrace my limitations.
And the husband had to embrace the fact he may have a crazy wife and that his job in life was to calm me down and not tell me I should have tried something easier. His other job is to take out the compost. Our bin was a jack-o-lantern graveyard.
Definitely spooky.
Now for your viewing pleasure:
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| Brooklyn (the flower) looks thrilled |
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