fantastic weekend

We had a creative and fun-filled extra long weekend. Our BFF’s from Illinois, Jeff and Jen, flew in on Thursday.

After years of them playing hosts to us at their gorgeous Wisconsin log cabin and at their beautiful home in Illinois, we were finally able to play hosts to them….for the first time EVER!

I know, that’s crazy, isn’t it?  Well, it was an absolute joy and just makes me wish they would come back at least once a month until we could pay them back for their more than a decade of hospitality.  Even at that rate, it would take us a couple of years to catch up!

On Saturday morning, I held the burlap pumpkin class that I threatened to hold in THIS POST … several of you expressed interest.

Thankfully, Jen and Shelia were two of the participants, because those two girls are super artistic and they were able to help the other participants make some really pretty pumpkins.

Peggy and I showed everyone how to put the pumpkins together, but it was Sheila and Jen who really lead the way, helping one lady after another, bling out their fabric squash creations.

Everyone started out with a burlap pumpkin and from there, they could make another burlap or use any of the other fabric circles I had pre-cut for them.

Originally each participant was told they would be able to make and take home two pumpkins.  But once it was clear that we had enough beans to fill more and enough stems to top them with, I told everyone to make as many as they wanted … until the beans or the stems ran out.

Once most of the ladies were finishing up their beauties, we set up the lunch. In the days to come, I will provide the drink and one of the appetizer recipes. These easy and delicious chicken enchiladas were the main course.

I probably should have given Tram a head’s up before I snapped this photo. But it is proof positive that my sweet skinny friend loves food and loves to eat. That’s one of the many things I adore about her, even if she does weigh about 75 pounds, soaking wet!

I tried my best to take a picture of each of my creative friends with their pumpkins before they walked out the front door. Sadly, I did not succeed, but here are the ones I was able to snag.

Kim with her pretty velvet, large burlap, and fancy upholstery fabric pumpkins.

Shelia with her taffeta pumpkin (which she made a gorgeous velvet collar and rose for) along with a burlap pumpkin, and a velvet pumpkin.

They are gorgeous, just like her!

Tram with her four pumpkins – Red velvet with black velvet leaves, upholstery, burlap, and taffeta.

Sydney with her luxurious black and gold pumpkin to go along with her upholstery and embellished burlap beauties.

Peggy and I didn’t really have a chance to make any pumpkins during the class, but as you can see, she made up for it after everyone left and we’d cleaned up. It’s hard to see, but I think she went home with five lovelies.

During our “after-hours” pumpkin-making time, I delivered a serious burn to the tip of my right index finger with a hot glue gun. Please forgive any typos or other mistakes you see here. It is slow going and quite painful to type.

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing our pumpkin creations as much as I enjoyed holding the class. I leave you with Cheryl’s pretty pumpkins, she did not want to be in the photo with them. But just for ownership purposes, Cheryl is the center person in the seventh photo of this post, the last picture before the jump.

Lastly, thank you, Peggy and Jen. I couldn’t have done it without your help! Love you both! xoxo