2010 Annual Halloween Pumpkin Carving Party!!

What a great time we all had at this year's Annual Halloween Pumpkin Carving Party!

There must have been 50 or more people and enough pumpkins and food for all.  We were especially happy to have Nga Reh and his family, transportation courtesy of Simon Khin! 

Nga Reh and his mother have been in the U.S. for about a year.  His sister arrived with her four daughters only six months ago.  Ngh Reh is our Karenni language teacher and happens to be a student of one of our former students in Thailand, Hser Coo.  Talk about what goes around, comes around!  Simon asked us to help teach English to the older generation of refugees who now get together once a month for field trips.

November trip: a ferry ride and lunch on one of the islands!

Other guests included a ton of new and not so new friends and neighbors from the Seattle-Bellevue-Edmonds-Lynnwood area, former medical student friends, and current medical colleagues.  There must have been as many young kids as adults and at least 8 babies who were 6 months or younger...lots of future carvers for future parties.  Michael, Dominique & kids (family) were able to join us from Portland.  Yea!

This front window greeted people arriving at the party!

The kids got Poison Punch (rated G) hidden under the fog of dry ice. 

(The adult punch was less accessible and rated XXX, 

courtesy of a recipe from our favorite Thai bartender,

Nathan who came dressed as himself and who brought along his wonderful family.)

Behind it the kids punch, Scary Sea Squid Dogs are stuck on skewers into a giant cabbage head.

(1/2 hotdogs poked with spaghetti, boiled, and served with blood...er-r-r catsup)

 Of course, we had the obligatory fruit and veggie trays but along with them were:

Witch Charmed Chili, 
Brittle Bones with Mystery Meat (BBQ drumsticks),
Spooky Ghost Pockets (yummy potato & pea samosas),  

Burmese Boo Balls (potatoes in Burmese curry) &

Juicy Jack-o-Lantern (Burmese pumpkin curry)

Our three party helpers were gymnasts from the local club. 

They did a wonderful job keeping the little kids engaged in crafts, games, and badmitton (outside) and passing out prizes to all the winners.  (Everyone was a winner!)

Raggedy Ann and Andy (aka Travis and Ryan) were the true hosts of the party!

I almost wore my "I just had a hip replacement 10 days ago recovery costume" but opted, instead to attend as a red headed skeleton with weird, fun socks

...a birthday gift from my grandkids: Mason, Kaylin, and Lainey!  

Notice my right leg is still a bit swollen from the surgery...

...but I was still able to get around without a walker!  Hooray!

That's Travis (back) dressed as Raggedy Ann and me in my skeleton outfit!

Our front door greeter!

Oooooo!  Scary black lights!

Norb was the Mad Hatter and our official photographer!

What's Halloween without an altar for Dias de los Muertos! 

My fun craft creation found its place on top of the bookcase

Oh yes!  And we had chips with spinach-artichoke dip, hummus, cheese balls,

5 different torts and cakes, plus vegan pumpkin muffins!

Scary cats above the mantle watched over the festivities.

 Nga Reh's neices wanted to know why everyone was cutting faces on the pumpkins.
Simon explained the holiday custom to Nga Reh in Burmese. Nga Reh explained it to the girls in Karenni.

Did they understand?  Who knows?  But clearly everyone enjoyed doing it.

BTW, why do we cut faces into pumpkins?

Grown-ups helped the little carvers use small knives to cut and clean their pumpkins.

Of course, the guys had to pull out the big weapons.

Dominique and Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, Wilderness, and Young Girls

 (aka Sophia) tooks a moment to share a smile.

 There are "doers" and there are "watchers".  At this party, Simon was a watcher.

In the throws of pumpkin madness!

Nga Reh and family:  Is this how it works??

And at the end of it all, these were the great creations...

and the artists who created them!

Time to get ready for next year!

Halloween Here We Come!

My Dia de los Muertos alter is finished.  Spider webs hang from every nook and cranny.  The front window is eerie with shadow images cut from black poster board and backed with a cheap, translucent orange, plastic tablecloth.  We're almost ready for the annual Pumpkin Carving Party!!

Halloweens Past!

I was digging through old files and had fun discovering some creations from Halloweens past.  Thought you might like to see them.  The last image is one I put together from images and embellished papers created by my daughter Angela  http://geminiangelsart.blogspot.com/.  She is truly my art inspiration!

Dia de los Muertos Fiesta!

This has been a busy week.  I've been trying to finish up my Dia de los Muertos alter...or sort of alter...for our annual Halloween party.   My inspiration came from last year's Halloween charm swap hosted by Michelle Cummings' Witches Cupboard Charm Swap at  http://faeriedustdreams-michelle.blogspot.com/.    I decided to use some of the charms in this year's creation and will post photos of those items once I receive permission from the artists who created them.

For now, here is a sneak peak:

These are my collection of skulls and skeletons grabbed from the sale tables after last year's Halloween season was over.   I used some of the skeletons whole and just added clothes to them.   For the disembodied skulls, I created bodies using clothes pins, pipe cleaners, wire, glue, and sticky bandage tape from my local drug store. 

The base of the alter is constructed from two scraps of inexpensive fencing wood, insulating foam, foam board and that thin, hard, board-like material with a name I can never remember.  It is like peg board without the holes!   Using my handy, dandy Ryobi scroll saw, I cut the shapes for my alter background and used a combination of Elmer's spray glue and E-6000  keep the layers together. 

Once the base was finished, it received a layer of sheetrock joint compound followed by sanding, a coat of gesso, and a layer of adobe colored acrylic paint.  Hardest of all was for me to keep my hands away from everything while each layer dried!

In the niche above the doorway, I placed an image of Our Lady of Guadelupe Modge Podged on to a foam board backing.  Of course, my old nemisis, impatience, raised its ugly head again when I tried to use the scroll saw to cut out the form before everything was dry.  All ended up a globby mess!

Second time around I decided to use an Exacto knife to cut out the layered image before mounting it to a turquoise, star embellished background and placing it in the niche.



Two of the skulls remained without bodies, so I mounted one on each side of Our Lady.

FROGWARTS FREEBIE!   Be sure to check out and download Graveyard I posted a few weeks ago.  Click on it to bring up the large format image and HAPPY SPOOKING!