And the Winners are...

Congratulations to the winners of my two Halloween Blog Party Give Aways

Incipient wings who won the Cookie Cutter Package at my Haunted Halloween Tea Party and

Plum Field House Gardens who won the Voodoo Doll from my Broomsticks on the Bayou party.

Email me with you mailing information and I will get you gifts mailed out to you.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by for a visit. I'll be having another give away soon, in celebration of my 250th post - which should be sometime in November!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!

Be sure to stop by later this evening. I'll be announcing the winners of my two give-aways tonight. To enter you can visit the post or this post. Be sure to leave a comment and also follow my blog. I'll be drawing around 8:00 PM Pacific time!

A special thanks to The Graphics Fairy for this amazing graphic!

Haunted Halloween Tea Party and a Give Away!

Thank you to Vanessa at aFancifulTwist.com for hosting this wonderful event. Be sure to click HERE to see all the blogs that are hosting tea today

Welcome to my home, I am so glad you were able to stop by, it is such a lovely day for a Haunted Halloween Tea Party!

The beautiful colors of the season are in abundance here so I had to share but before you come inside make sure you check behind you, we don't want anything to follow you in!

                                     

                                               

The table is set...

The tea has been brewed, and...

The snacks are ready, so please sit for a spell and join me for tea. 

 I made these lovely cookies myself using this fabulous recipe I found on eHow.com

Best Soft Sugar Cookies

4 Cups Flour

1 Teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1/8 Teaspoon Nutmeg

2 Dashes of Cinnamon

1/4 Teaspoon Cream of Tarter

1 Cup Butter - Softened

1 1/2 Cups White Sugar

1 Egg

1 Teaspoon Vanilla

1/2 Cup Sour Cream

Frosting

Directions:

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon and cream of tater in a bowl and set aside.

In another bowl, cream butter and sugar until smooth. Add egg, vanilla and sour cream, mix until blended. Add dry ingredients and mix until combined. Wrap dough in plastic warp and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll dough to a 1/4 inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the BOTTOM of the cookie starts to brown. Do not over bake or the cookies will crumble. Allow to cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes then move to wire rack and cool completely.

Ice with frosting of your choice. Click the eHow link above or HERE for a link to the recipe. For the recipe I used to frost my cookies click HERE.

These cookies are really yummy. They are soft yet held their shape well when baked. I hope y ou enjoy them while you are visiting today!

To celebrate this lovely Haunted Tea Party I am giving away a Brand New Set of these Awesome Cookies Cutters, a Haunted Recipe Card with the Above recipe and one for the Icing as well as an Altered Tea Tin complete with an assortment of 12 tea bags...

Here are the cookie cutters, the winners will be in the original package... these are mine :0)

To enter the Give Away all you have to do is follow my blog (if you don't already) and leave me a comment. Really, that is it!

Thanks for stopping by, I'll be visiting everyone tomorrow!

Here is the number of the comment that was picked as the winner...

And the winner is... Incipient Wings :0) Congratulations. Email me with you mailing address and I will mail you your goodies! 

** Note** I am not sure that the email link is working correctly so please email me at AutumnWindReno at Aol.com 

It's almost time for a Haunted Halloween Tea Party!

This is a quickie post since I am at work and only have a minute but I wanted to say that I am so excited to be a part of this year's Haunted Halloween Tea Party being hosted by A Fanciful Twist. Check back on Saturday to join in on the fun and to enter to win in another giveaway!

For more information on the party you can click the picture above or click here.

See you then!

Broomsticks on the Bayou Blog Party and a Giveaway!!

Welcome to my Broomsticks on the Bayou blog party. Thanks to Frosted Petunias and Incipient Wings for hosting such a fun party!

Recently I did a swap over at Yarnigras Swapper Spot for a Voodoo Doll Pincushion. Whenever I create something new I have to do a wee bit of research. Research for me is one of the easiest ways to get my creative fires lit. During my research I found Voodoo Dolls on Etsy and Ebay, in Voodoo shops and in the Louvre!

 Here is the amazing Voodoo doll pincushion I received in that swap. You can read more about that here.

Here is the other pincushion I received in that swap. 

Notice the Voodoo doll that is attached to the front! So cute!

Researching the Voodoo dolls was not only informative; it was just plain old fun! I was amazed to see the variety of Voodoo dolls currently available. I am not going to discuss the practice of Voodoo, I am just going to show you some of the stunning Voodoo Dolls that I saw!

Here are some of the most interesting Voodoo Dolls I found, click on the image to be taken to the shop that sells that particular doll:

From Bijoux Bayou on Etsy

From Michalinaeisenberg on Etsy

From BehindTheRowsStudio on Etsy

From - From Grams House on Etsy

Here is a fun little guy that was given to me by a friend. These wrapped string dolls seem to be everywhere right now!

From a friend

While the above are mainly (but not only) artistic and/or fun, I also found a Voodoo shop that is located in the heart of New Orleans and has an amazing variety of Voodoo Dolls, Gris Gris, Potions and so much more available. The shop is called, what else, The Voodoo Shop. Here is one set of dolls from the many they have available. 

Aren't these lovely. Click on the picture to visit the site and learn more about them.

The one Voodoo doll that I came across that I was most intrigued with was a 4^th century AD, historical Voodoo doll found in Egypt and currently housed in the Louvre in Paris. This particular doll was found in a terracotta vase along with a binding spell. When I first saw this picture I thought that the person represented by the doll sure did make someone angry! Can you imagine finding yourself represented as a Voodoo doll! Yikes! If you click on this picture it will take you to the Wiki site with information on the picture and the doll  itself.

Now, how about a giveaway… As those of you who follow me know, I have a really spectacular embroidery sewing machine and one of my favorite places to get embroidery designs – Urban Threads just happens to have an awesome Voodoo doll pattern. Here is the one that I made...

 

Since I am celebrating the art of the Voodoo doll I will be giving away this awesome doll (along with a couple of silly surprises) to a randomly drawn person on Halloween!

To enter the giveaway all you need to do is follow my blog (if you don’t already that is) and leave me a comment.  You must be a follower to win.

For additional entries you can:
Post about my give away on your blog linking back to this post
and/or

Tweet about it, linking back to this post

If you post on your blog or tweet, post the info in the comments or click here to email me so that I can add your additional entries to the drawing.

Thanks for stopping by, don't forget to check out the Broomsticks on the Bayou page to see who else is celebrating with us today!

***Update***
And the comment chosen as the winner is...

The winner is PlumFieldHouseGardens. Congratulations!! Email me with your mailing information and I will get you VooDoo doll mailed off to you! Thank you for stopping by my party!

**NOTE** I am not sure if the email link is working correctly so please email me at AutumnWindReno at Aol. com

Altered Witch Shoe Challenge

When I read about the altered witch shoe challenge being hosted by Celia of The Adventures of the Striped Stockings I knew I had the perfect shoes to work with. I bought them at my local Goodwill Thrift store to use with my witch costume a year or so ago and they have been sitting in my closet waiting, obviously for this challenge!

This is the boot I started with. Not bad, it works really well with a black dress and hat, throw in a black cat and a broom and BAM I have a grade A costume. BUT... check out the altered boot...

Altered Boot!

Side 2

Back View

Front

Another View

I had such fun making this shoe, of course now I have to do the other one. The cool thing about these is that they will fit me! I CAN WEAR THEM! Now when someone asks to see my witchy clothes I can pull these bad boys out and shoe, I mean show them! 

I used standard acrylic paint on the leather type parts of the shoe and then covered it with a gloss Mod Podge to make it shiny. The dots on the bands were done with Orange Peel Stickles. Easy Peasy! I may have to glitter the heel with purple or orange glitter. If I do I'll post a picture here!

Thank you Celia for hosting such a fun challenge. Be sure to visit her site to find the links to other fun altered witch shoes!

Don't forget to stop by tomorrow for the Broomsticks on the Bayou party!

Voodoo Doll Pincushion Swap Gift - WOW

When I wrote about the package I received from Kerry I was so overwhelmed with things going on in my life that all I could do was love the beautiful Voodoo doll and the other amazing gifts included with it. The week that I received it my boss's mother was hospitalized and my co-worker was stricken with a kidney stone which she will finally be having removed tomorrow! I have been holding down the fort at work, worrying about my boss, her amazing mom, my co-worker and to make it ever worse, I found out (that same week) that my Dad has cancer again and he began chemotherapy last week. Needless to say I was a bit frazzled! After two long weeks I am happy to say that there is good news on most fronts. My boss's mom continues to improve,  my co-worker will hopefully be back to work by Thursday and my dad is not suffering from any side effects from the treatments.

This weekend is the first time in over 2 weeks that I could sit and be hopeful. So, today I was finally able to relax a bit and I realized that not only is the tote bag I received hand painted and embroidered, it was completely hand made by Kerry. When I realized that I had to post about it again!

As you can imagine, the package truly made my week and now that I am able to sit down and enjoy it I am just in awe of the beautiful work that went into my gift!! Kerry, thank you again. I really, truly appreciate the amount of hard work and skill that went into the gift you sent me!!

Altered Witch Shoe Challenge

Celia from Adventures of the Striped Stockings is hosting the Altered Witch Shoe Challenge. Doesn't this sound like fun... altered witch shoes. The challenge is to make an altered witch shoe of any type and post it on October 18th, the day before the Broomsticks on the Bayou party. Since I love shoes and altering anything for Halloween is fun I had to join the challenge. Check back on the 18th to see what I've created!

Next up...

I had such a great time researching Voodoo doll art for my pincushion project! I found Voodoo dolls that were cute, scary, ancient, wood, felt, bone and so much more. I can't wait until next weekend when Frosted Petunias and Incipient Wings host their Broomsticks on the Bayou blog party and I can share some more of the fun with you. How can anyone resist a New Orleans themed Halloween Party?? I sure can't! Soooo, here is a peek of one of the amazingly cute Voodoo dolls I found during my research. Check back next week to see how my research fun translates into a cool blog party for you to visit!

This adorable Voodoo ornament is from the Etsy shop From Grams House. 

Click on the picture or the name to visit her shop. 

Voodoo Doll Pincushion Swap ... My Creation

Here she is. She's being a little dramatic, but then she's been that way during the entire process. I'll admit, it was all my fault. Originally I thought she was going to be a boy, she absolutely refused that and insisted that I immediately add a bow to what was left of her hair. She hated the first outfit that I so lovingly created so I made a second, and then a third :0) She is a very particular pincushion. I hope her new mom enjoys her. She is really looking forward to helping her with all projects that require pins and needles. She is filled with a mixture of fiberfill and crushed walnut shells which will sharpen the pins and needles. Her arms and legs are fully bendable and if you position her just right she'll stand on her own but I recommend sitting her down when in use.

Here is a look at the package that is going to my partner

Once again I had a great time creating for this swap!! A big thanks to Val from Yarnigras Swapper Spot for hosting and organizing these great swaps for us!!!

Voodoo Doll Pincushion

My Voodoo Doll Pincushion package from the Yarnigras Swapper Spot swap arrived this week and all I can say is WOW!! Kerry from Tales of a Needle and Thread had my name and she really went all out! 

After a terrible week at work, this package sure made my day! I can honestly say I will smile every time I look at this amazing work of pincushion art! 

Here are some better pictures...

How cool is this! A mason jar pincushion full of goodies!

I'll be using this guy. He is awesome and the tote also has a little bag inside with needles and thread. Emergency Voodoo kit! 

Kerry, thank you again, I just love everything! You made my week!

I k now I have said it before but I have to say it again, if you like to create and enjoy swapping your creations with other talented artists, check out Yarnigras Swapper Spot. She hosts these amazing swaps and I have had such a great time with them.

This weekend I'll be posting some sneak peek pictures of the Voodoo Doll Pincushion I am working on for my partner.