Happy Halloween 2015!

Happy Halloween, everyone!  I held my annual pumpkin carving party last night and wanted to share the results, so here they are:

Groot, Boo, and the Nightmare Before Christmas pumpkins were carved from patterns by Zombie Pumpkins.  All others were carved by friends without a pattern.

Painting: Rainy Path

The girls and I decided it was time for a much needed painting outing.  Sadly, Palettes and Pairings Kirkland location (where I got engaged) will be closing soon due to the whole shopping center being torn down in favor of tall fancy buildings like those in Bellevue.  They have temporarily relocated to the old Borders at Redmond Town Center until their new space is remodeled.  They've also changed the business name to the Painted Palace to reflect that they now offer kids parties as well.

Even with all the change, we had a great time painting Rainy Path with Liz.  It was my first time using the palette knife and it turned out pretty well, especially since I did mine in blue as opposed to red like most everyone else.  Hoping to do more paintings with the ladies very soon!

Christmas Tree Testing

Mom suggested I crochet a Christmas tree for this year's Silent Auction, so I dug into the patterns available on Ravelry to find the perfect tree.  After a lot of reading and evaluating, I came down to two patterns:  Christmas Tree by sarisue and Crochet Christmas Tree by Michael Sellick of The Crochet Crowd.  Neither was exactly what I wanted, so I came up with this small mock up using inspiration from both patterns (and lots of leftover green yarns):

I'm pretty happy with it, so a big version will be coming soon!