All Things New

Today was a great day! We had a great 9/11 service at church that reminded us that we have to be constantly in prayer for our leaders. We can't sit back as Christians and just hope for the best. We have to go after our leaders in prayer and lift our nation up! Seems basic and yet, how often do you really include President Obama and even our local leaders in your daily prayers? I know for me, it's not usually on the list. But it is now!!!

Today was a great day because the Hankses were ALL AT HOME! Wow! This never hardly ever happens anymore. For real. I actually wrote it on our fridge calendar. hehe!

I went to Michael's this afternoon to get some stuff for a little "Reid Project" I have been wanting to work on. And now that all the new Martha Stewart craft stuff is out, I just had to go. Had to. Is it weird that I LOVE the smell of craft stores??? I just walk in and smell that crafty smell and before I know it I am wandering in a crafty trance. Lol. Just kidding. But seriously. :) So anyway, all the fun, fall craft stuff was out and I just couldn't get over these wonderful, fake, carve-able, non-stinky, free of nasty seeds, foam pumpkins!!

Michael's had lots of examples of them all carved out and the one I loved had a typical jack-o-lantern face, but had a name carved into the mouth. Now, if you know me, you know I love all things monogrammed and personalized. You could get one of these pumpkins, put in an order with your name, and they would carve you one with your name in it....for $30 bucks. No way. Yes, theirs are perfect and done with some kind of mechanical carving tool. BUT, I am not paying that much for something I could probably do by myself and make it semi-presentable. So, I bought one of the fun, foam pumpkins. They were on sale. I think it was $8.99. I also bought a couple of those really thin blade pumpkin carving tools. Super exciting! Here's how it all went down:

Sketch it out first. Clearly label what WON'T be cut. This is always where I always mess up!Then, I took an orange highlighter and sketched my sketch :) on the pumpkin and went over it with the tip of my carving tool so it looked like this.

Start carving...

Looks all messy when you're done, but use a fingernail file to get in there and smooth out all that foamy stuff, dust it off and...

Voila! Stick one of those FAKE candles in your FAKE pumpkin cause that bad boy will catch fire before you can say "boo!"

For 10ish bucks, I have this fun, personalized pumpkin that I can get out year after year. It's not PERFECT and I didn't have any carving power tools blah, blah blah, but I LOVE it and may just make another one or two. Happy Carving!