I am the Pumpkin King!

*Any excuse to use a Nightmare before Christmas quote*

Perhaps not the king, but a runner up maybe... I am very happy with my pumpkin this year! I felt like I've learned new pumpkin carving skills over the last years and this one is actually combining many of them. This year I wanted to bring back my so far favorite pumpkin, Evil-Bob, who my long-time readers might remember from 2012.

I'm pleased to introduce to you:

Evil-Bob 2.0

He's back and meaner than ever! This year's model comes with pointy teeth, carved out eyes and an exceptionally sinister vibe!

I also wanted to share with you guys my costume and pumpkin from last year. I dressed up as Pam from Archer and my pumpkin... Well, see for yourselves:

I am sharing some Halloween photos at least on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, so remember to follow me there!

Do you guys have something fun planned for tonight or for the weekend? Please share!

Monday Mail

My October has not been what I expected it to be. In the last month I have been to a bachelorette party, a wedding and a baptism. I have also driven to Montreal twice and spent a week in Finland. All the things I planned on doing didn't quite pan out, but they were replaced with other things. So I guess I still ended up on the positive.

I am enjoying the Halloween feel you get when you walk around the neighborhood. I saw glimpses of it driving back last night, and I think I might just go out for a walk with a camera today to capture some of the awesome decorations! I'll share the highlights with you this week!

To keep even a little shred of consistency, here's some mail from the last few weeks:

Outgoing

This is the prize package going out to Eva. She won the Halloween giveaway last week!

The next one is a pretty fun one! It's an order from my shop going out to Katherine. I really like the envelope! I picked it up on my travels and added some extras with the washitape decorations and a ton of vintage stamps. I really like how it turned out!

This is another order from the shop. A handmade envelope, washitape and a mix of new and vintage stamps. Fairly standard, but I really like seeing them come together, because the results are always different, even if the components are often the same.

I've actually sent a few more, but since it has been a crazy couple of weeks, I've had to send things out without taking photos. *Le gasp*

Incoming 


I wanted to share this incoming letter, since I really like the decorations. It's from Susanne. Just look how awesome it is!

How are you guys doing? Getting excited for Halloween?

And the Winner is...

Yes, it is finally time to announce the winner!

Congratulations to:

That's right, it's EVA!

I've e-mailed you asking for your mailing details!

And, as I mentioned, I wanted to send another small Halloween surprise for the best costume story! Since I really liked two, I am sending Halloween mail for Mary and Caddi! Mary's getting mail because of that amazing Edward Scissorhands costume and Caddi for the fun story about a Colombian couples costume! Watch your e-mails ladies!

Thanks for all your stories and entries!

Mail Monday - Win a Halloween surprise!

That's right guys! Instead of sharing mail I've sent out last week, I am doing a Halloween themed mail giveaway instead!

Woohoo! Let's start with the actual prize and the instructions on how to participate are below.

I've put together a large package of all sorts of Halloween goodies! Since I love sending out mail, you will get a whole bunch of Halloween themed stationery as well as some other Halloween awesomeness.

The winner will get at least the following

- Miniature Ouija board
- Roll of Halloween washi tape
- Black letter paper
- Miniature Dia de los Muertos flag
- Stickers
- Envelopes
- Candy
- Halloween themed paper cutouts 
- And a few little surprised too...

I don't want to reveal all the specifics since I think it'll be a nice surprise to receive a package in the mail... But I will basically send you a large trick or treat bag full of halloweenie goodies! (teehee, weenie)

To enter:

You can enter this giveaway in four ways, each giving you one entry!

a Rafflecopter giveaway  

Leave a message to this post about a great Halloween costume! It can be something amazing you've worn or seen someone else wear. It can be something you'd like to wear if you got the chance. It can be an idea for a kids costume or a couples costume or a phenomenal group costume! It can be about any kind of a costume, but let's keep the stories positive!

Follow Brinner on Facebook

Follow Brinner on Twitter

Tweet about the Giveaway 

This giveaway is open to everyone, anywhere in the world.

I will draw the winner of the prize at random, but please put some effort into your answer. I will reward at least one great costume-related story with an additional small Halloween snailmail surprise!

Entries to this giveaway will close on midnight on Sunday October 19th.

Good luck everyone! I'm really looking forward to hearing your costume stories!

Halloween DIY - Simple foldable Bat Cards 2.0

Since I already saw the Halloween sign, it's time to get a move on with the preparations!

I've been busy dying paper for some brand new tutorials and assembling some really nifty Halloween goodies for a giveaway! I'm also experimenting with some Halloween mail, which, of course, has put me in the snailmailing mood!

Over the last year or so, the readership of this blog has been steadily increasing, so I wanted to share a few improved tutorials from the Brinner past...It's time to fix some past wrongs that have been bugging me!

First up:

...Halloween bat cards!

I still love these! One of my all-time favorite Brinner tutorials!

This was the first one that was pinned multiple times on Pinterest and I actually got some feedback on. It was the one that kind of proved I was on the right track.

It was, however, way too complicated. I tracked my own process step-by-step but it didn't really translate into simple instructions. Now I feel like I am much better at this, so I re-wrote (and photographed) a new, much simpler way to make these!

(If you want to see the original CLICK HERE)

You'll need

- Pen or pencil

- Scissors

- Ruler

- Two rectangle or square shaped items, one a bit smaller than the other. I used two postcards, but anything in that shape works, books, coasters, notepads, etc.

- Cardboard. I used a cereal box, like I often do. Any sturdier paper/cardboard works.

The above are for a template (you know how I like those, right?)

For the cards you'll also need

- Black card or paper (I used poster board which is a really nice, sturdy cardboard. Also, very cheap!)

- White (or other light/bright colored) pen (I like using a gel pen for this)

Start by placing the larger rectangle in the middle of your cardboard, leaving enough space on both sides to fit the smaller rectangle.

Trace the large rectangle in the middle and the smaller one on both sides. Make sure the larger and the smaller rectangles are connected from one side. 

I traced them with a black pen so you can see exactly what I mean. 

Use the ruler to draw a line across all three rectangles about a half inch (or one centimeter) below the top of the smaller rectangles. Do this on the top and bottom. Check the photo below how your rectangles should look now.

The reason for the line is to help draw the extremities of the bat and keep everything in an easily foldable and manageable size. Don't draw anything outside the newly drawn lines, except for the bats ears and feet. Those are coming up next.

Now for some simple freehand drawing.

On the top of the middle rectangle, draw two pointy ears and a small dip from both ears to the side of the rectangle (this will be the bats head).

At the bottom of the middle rectangle, draw two feet. As you can see, this is not an exact science. I screwed up the first one, so I just made the foot bigger. I felt my bat needed cankles.

To draw the wings, round out the tops of the smaller rectangles.

This is what your template should look like right now. If it doesn't, don't worry, just go back and adjust anything you feel like doesn't look right. Remember, this is your template, you can redraw bat-canckles until the cows come home if you feel like it and your cards will still look super-impressive!

Finally, the last step of your bat-drawing adventures is at hand. Finish off the bottoms of the wings with some arches. These can be as steep or shallow as you like. I felt like making a slightly meaner looking bat with some pointier wings. Totally up to you.

Honestly, if you're not sure about this step, you can just leave the bottoms of the wings totally straight. Anyone seeing the shape will know it's a bat, no matter how pointy or flat the wings are!

(Seriously! Don't give in on the "real bats have curves" hype! Your bats are perfect the way they are!)

And, you have a bat! Now, cut out that sucker!

(Get it? Bat? Sucker? Man, I'm so hilarious*!)

Here's your bat template! You can obviously round out some edges or fine-tune your bat still if you want. I actually quite like this guy...

Once your template is finished, it's pretty simple from this point onwards. Even the old tutorial got this part right...

Place the template on your black paper and trace the outline of the bat. Repeat as many times as needed or as fits on your paper.

Cut out your bats and fold the wings towards the middle. Fold them along the line where the larger and smaller rectangles meet.

And you're done! Just write away!

If you make these cards, I would love to see them! Please link your versions to this post!

As always, any comments are welcome! Did you feel this tutorial is better than the old one? Would you like more photos? More great jokes? Please let me know!

*) Ok, I'm sleep-deprived

Mail Monday

It feels like I've been gone for a long time... I know it's only been since last Wednesday, but it has been a busy few days. I actually went to Montreal for a few days. It was a quick visit, but very much needed.

I attended a dear friend's bachelorette party, including some quality time with some lovely ladies and karaoke (I don't sing, but I jam along). I got to finally meet my niece, 

...

[stunned silence]

GUYS! I have to interrupt the regular post-writing for this important announcement: A BAT just flew by the window. I shit you not. A bat. I was writing the previous sentence, paused to think, looked up and all casually, like it's no big deal, a bat.

It's a sign! HALLOWEEN IS PRACTICALLY HERE!

I was already thinking of halloween, since I am working on a decoration tutorial. I've been playing around with black ink and my project is looking very promising.

You know what? Let's just look at last week's mail and I go back into crafting things as black as my soul... MuahahahaaHAAAA!

Outgoing

I finally took a little time last week and made some larger envelopes. I've been meaning to do that for a while, I even had the materials just waiting, but I constantly had about fifteen other things to do. As I mentioned in the last Monday Mail post, I had a super stressful few days, so one day I just sat down and made some envelopes. It wasn't the most important thing on my to-do list, but I needed a break from everything.

Even though the decorations are similar, thin washitape and simple address labels, these two envelopes still look distinctly different(-ish). 

I'm also exceptionally happy about the stamps. I recently managed to find a fairly large lot of vintage stamps and have been mixing them with some of the newer ones from my collections. I love the multiple stamps look and I'm really excited to fully sort through the pile (ok, a ziploc bag. But it's at least a medium-sized one!) I just purchased.

So guys, please share: any cool bat-sightings or awesome mail in your life right now?

Beautiful October

I love October!

It's one of the best months! It's the one true Autumn month, the one which shows you the leaves turning, darker nights and, if you're lucky, those Silent Hill-ish foggy evenings. I don't even particularly care for all the pumpkin-flavored things that are everywhere, but once they start popping up on the coffee shop menus, you know things are about to get good.

Fall is my favorite season (Duh! Obviously, I'm pretty sure you could tell already), but you know what the absolute best part of October is, right?

That's right, kids*, it's Halloween!

Halloween kicks all the other holidays ass. (Well, Christmas is up there too)

To celebrate this awesomemest of holidays, I am doing my first ever Halloween theme month here at Brinner! There will be a few Halloween tutorials, some Halloween related posts, there will be an opportunity to get some Halloween mail from me... Oh yes, it'll be glorious!

I'm working on some of the plans as we speak, but now you have an opportunity as well to ask for any Halloween related posts, tutorials or ideas. Please let me know if there's anything you'd like to read about, history of Halloween, costume ideas, how to carve a pumpkin, decorations, etc, etc...

The floor is yours, please leave any and all comments below. (Even if it's just saying how awesome Halloween is!)

*) Did you say that in a Ted Mosby voice? 'Cuz I totally did.

The Year in Review - part 2 of 2012

You can see the first half of 2012 in the post below. Here's the recap of the second half:

July

In July we had visitors staying with us and we were wandering around town all times of the day. We went to see fireworks and spent a lot of time at Jean Talon Market. Brinner made an appearance at the McGill university and I made some great finds at the thrift stores again.

July was a month of bridal showers, I attended one and helped organizing another. I made shower favors for the second one. I suffered an identity crisis and saw the Muppets live.

August

In August I spent a lot more time with wedding related activities. I was asked to photograph a Nikkah ceremony, I showed some details from the shower I helped organize, a few of us girls took the bride to be to a relaxing spa getaway in lieu of a bachelorette party and I went dress shopping, but came home with the most beautiful shoes in the world.

Chris and I spend a weekend in Quebec City, walking around and eating well. I fell in love with books (again!), learned how to make granola bars and went bonkers ordering Korean stickers from eBay.

September

September felt long and scattered. There were exciting things like being featured in 365 magazine and finally finding that one elusive item I've been looking for a long time. It was also the month were George got sick and I lost my creative groove. I tried different approaches to creating, starting from painting the bedroom and trying my hand at collages. I baked cookies, killed zombies, watched an amazing documentary and talked about books. A lot.

When September was coming to a close I geeked out with friends and finally started getting creative again.

October

October was a month of big days. It started right off the bat with my nephew Ryan being born on October 1st. Then the second of the weddings for this year got under way on Thanksgiving weekend, this is the one where both Chris and I were in the wedding party. And the party just continued on October 10th where Hipstercurious turned 1. I also discovered some ancient Egyptian artifacts and started employing complex vernacular to substantiate my intelligence.

As all the celebrations were done, I started preparing for Halloween. We carved a pumpkin that became Evil-Bob, I discussed costumes and made a bat card tutorial.

November

 [I think this is my favourite photo of the year]

I started November with a better plan for the blog, followed by an unsuccesful hunt for discounted Halloween candy. I was over the moon to be featured in the Discover Paper Holiday guide and that fueled my creative endeavors. I started making a ton of one of a kind ornaments for the December fairs. I found some beautiful vintage ornaments and made a DIY advent calendar tutorial that I know at least one person found inspiring.

I enjoyed the dark nights, said goodbye to fall and welcomed winter.

Chris and I set a new high score and celebrated the second anniversary of getting hitched in Vegas.

December

December was awesome in more ways than one. Obviously because of Christmas, but also because of two crafts fairs, Old Skool Crafts and Puces Pop. Besides that, my work was featured in two major places; Urban Expressions and my first print magazine feature, Koto Living.

We got a bit of snow first and then a whole lot more, which really allowed me to stay in and make some awesome DIY projects, such as a vintage ornament wreath, a winter scene complete with a plastic deer and of course some marshmallow chocolate pops, all with tutorials of course.  I shared some details about my tree and a peek at my home.

2012 was an awesome year. On a more personal note, it was unexpected in many ways, but definitely fulfilling in others. Thanks to my blog, I learned new skills and made some new friends in Laura, Jess and Mary. I had a successful year with Brinner and developed in leaps and bounds when it come to running my own business.

I'm still not quite done with finishing off this year and I have tons and tons of ideas and plan for the next. Stay tuned!

What were the highlights of your 2012?

Lovely Letters - Task 3

With mail craziness going on over here, I realized I didn't post the third task for the Lovely Letters project.

Source: kittyandbuck.com via Katri on Pinterest

The third task is fairly easy with 10 things you like. It's nice though, this allows room for creativity. I've already started working on mine and have a few ideas what to add to it. Again, I'll show you a peek once I've given it enough time to reach my partner.


The last task was to send ten questions to your partner. As the letters were due just around Halloween, I really wanted to incorporate something halloweenie into my next piece of mail. I used the same format from my regular Halloween mail and sent the questions to my parter carried by a bat.

How are you letter exchanges going?

The candy hunt

Let me tell you a little story about holidays and how early the season starts...

So, Chris and I went to the store a few days ago to buy some Halloween candy. 

- For those not familiar with the concept, Halloween candy is regular candy, but packed in small portions. You can buy big boxes with (usually) four different types of candy, like four different types of chocolate bars or different Maynards candies like Swedish berries, the boxes have 50 to 100 of these tiny portions of candies. So, you basically get snack-sizes of sevral different types. What could better? -

We walk in the closest place to sell this stuff which is a Pharmaprix (Shopper's Drug Mart for you non-Quebecoise North Americans, a pharmacy for the rest)

- For those looking confused right now, pharmacies here are not like European pharmacies where you just buy medicines and maybe some coughdrops. Here pharmacies are practically like convenience stores. We have places that are 'just' pharmacies but the bigger chains carry a ton of other stuff too. For example, I would always buy shampoo and conditioner from a pharmacy.

We walk in at around 9:30pm on November 1st. To clarify, that is the DAY AFTER Halloween. The reason why we went in the day after is the fact that Halloween candy is discounted after Halloween. I actually had uses for the small portions of candy (perfect to send with a letter, among other things), so it just makes sense. 

- There's two different ways to think about this. There's Chris's way "Small portions of candy makes sense. You can eat one, which won't make it that unhealthy and a box like that will last you a long time. Perfect for when you feel like for something sweet but this way you won't have too much". Then there's my way "F* YEAH! CANDY! NOMS! This way I can have more AND I don't have to just pick one. I can have them all! Screw eating healthy, it's practically Christmas anyway! SQUEEEE!" *sugar high jitters*

[too much info? Well, it's the truth!]

Anyhow, back to the store. We walk in and there is Not. One. Single. Piece. Of. Halloween. Candy! The shelves and the floors are filled with brown cardboard boxes and there are two employees unpacking them. And what are they uncovering?

You guessed it! Christmas candy and ornaments.

So, my question is; when is it too early?

After Halloween

As much as I love Halloween, it is now done for a year. Certainly there will be some stragglers left behind and some parties going on next weekend, but, no matter if we want it or not, it's now November.

Ah, November. The month of moustaches and when it really starts getting darker (not necessarily related, yet I guess they could be). Most people don't really like November.

Contrary to popular beliefs, I think November is awesome!

I have so many fun things planned for this month! There's a whole lot of Christmas related things, but many, many seasonal ones too! There's ideas how to celebrate the fall through snailmail and how to make waiting for the holidays even more fun! I have a whole lot of new things to share with you guys and hopefully some exciting news too! (I don't know about the news yet either, I'm waiting too. Not trying to be mysterious here)


Look at this! I even made a daily plan for HipsterCurious for the entire month of November. I took a photo just when I started filling it up with the topics to write about so you'll see them as we get there.

Aren't you impressed?

As a final goodbye to October, here's what a halloween pumpkin looks afterwards (pumpkin hangover of sorts)

EWWW! tee-hee *snort*

Happy Haunting

Happy Halloween everyone!

Evil-Bob and I wish you a spine-tingling night!

Be safe and remember...

... Halloween candy goes on sale tomorrow!

The costume

Being the elementary school kid at heart that I am, I love dressing up for Halloween. I've never been one for the "sexy" costumes, although I guess I can see the appeal... One day a year you can wear whatever crazy things you can think of. I do that too, but in a completely opposite from the idea of looking... well, attractive.

I want to make my costume recognizable, that's the main priority. I would love to do something witty, but I can rarely come up with anything good. I find most of the costumes for women are more revealing than I'm comfortable with. Besides, who would want to wear a ready made costume when this is a prime occasion for large scale crafting? I'm all for wearing whatever it is that you want, go as crazy as you feel like, I personally just prefer to err on the side of more covered and lean towards pop culture references and movie quotes.

Random side comment: I have thousands of photos I've taken. Key word being "I". Turns out there's very few of me. The only ones I have of me are usually with a number of other people, so not something I am comfortable publishing... I wanted to show you some photos of all my costumes, but this is becoming a little difficult. I'll do what I can.

*after a lot of rummaging through the photos files* I can't really find many photos... Looks like I'm missing photos from entire Halloweens. I found two photos of pumpkins and now this. Quite peculiar.

Well, this post didn't quite turn out the way I hoped, but the good news is that I found a photo of the costume I was the happiest with.

I dressed up as Billy, the puppet from the movie series Saw. This was by far my best costume to date. Seriously, it was so good people actually stopped me on the street to take photos with me. I was really proud of this one.

Chris dressed up as Kato, which was also such a great costume. He generally has really great costumes, I have a harder time coming up with something good. But, I guess the next best thing to coming up with a great costume for yourself is to have a husband who has great ideas for his costumes. That means I get to do all the crafting for his outfits. I'm especially proud of this Kato jacket that started out as a long sleeved t-shirt. In the end it had a pretty impressive and complicated looking front completed with buttons. It even had a high collar (cardboard covered in fabric).

I did come up with a really good idea for this year. However, for the first time since I've been living in Montreal, we didn't host a Halloween party. So, I won't tell you of the idea and hopefully get to use it next year. (How much do you want to bet I'll forget it? When I start talking about not having ideas next year, just point me back to this post, ok?)

So, did you dress up? What did you wear?

He's evil!

He eats trick-or-treaters and hunts dark alleyways

He is...

...Evil-Bob!

Pumpkin carving

Last night, as was planned, we finally got working on the pumpkin.

I'm glad we found a huge one. The bigger the pumpkin, the more space you have for the face (obviously) or whatever it is you're making. This guy's so big I can just barely get my arms around him.



This is the first year we had "real" pumpkin carving tools. So far it's been a regular knife and a couple of spoons to scoop out pumpkin brains (if you've never craved a pumpkin, they are filled with this stringy, goopy substance and seeds. Emptying one out is a messy job). I have to say that these things were a gazillion times better than what we've used in the past!

(If you remember, I found this kit at a charity shop a little while ago for $2. Money well spent)

I take my pumpkin carving seriously. This took me a long while and a few glasses of wine. I was naturally listening to the soundtrack of "Nightmare before Christmas", which is the best Halloween movie ever.

Chris and I split the work, I carved the mouth of the pumpkin and he carved the eyes. We took turns with the miniature saw-thingy that came with the set. The tools do not look impressive at all, but work like a charm. Even the messy scooping of the pumpkin was super fast!

I will introduce you to him later...

He's pretty scary...

Jack is back!

Today we're going to go buy some pumpkins that will become the next ones in a long line of carved out awesomeness!

[in reality, I could only find photos of our pumpkins from two halloweens, so the line is a tad short. In fact what is the definition of 'line'? (Yes, I checked. And Yes, I started writing this long explanation how these might still be a line per definition assuming they are in fact, organized at...)

...

...never mind]

So, let's start over!

I only found photos from our pumpkins from two halloweens. There's the ones from last year and then from 2007.



The two from 2007 were pretty classic. Mine is (obviously) the Jack Skellington look-a-like and Chris took a traditional Jack O'lantern and made it a little extra evil.



Last year we got a little more ambitious. The guy with the vampire-ish smile is actually quite small as you can see in the first photo. The cannibal pumpkin was pretty massive. I am a tad annoyed that I only have a few photos from this angle. I snapped the photos just before people were showing up, so I forgot to take more. I have to say these were my favourites.

We'll see what happens this year. I'll let you know!

What's the awesomest pumpkin you've carved or seen?