one last look for a mosaic monday

A few more pictures from Oktoberfest, with a broader view of the experience. Click on the images for a closer look. I was a zombie even before the end of church yesterday, so I begged off my shift and stayed home to nap. Even with a mid-day nap I slept a full eight hours last night! I was one worn out puppy. It looks like we cleared $1000 on the baskets. My stinkin' cute pails were a non-seller. At $5 they seemed steep, I guess, but no one realizes that the pails themselves cost more than $2, the candy filling $1.50-2 each, and then add the ribbon and stickers. There was no money to make on these suckers, no matter how cute! Ken and I will buy some of them to give to a few folks: our physical therapists top the list!

This should conclude posts about Oktoberfest until next year. I'll warn you now, however, that our second annual spaghetti dinner and silent auction is around the corner, so no doubt I'll be posting about that here and there. Have a great Monday, and a greater week!

I am taking this week off, sort of. There are a handful of things that need to be done because they are time-sensitive, but then Wednesday afternoon we will head to Melrose for a very short break. We would have left this morning, except that Ken has a mandatory election training session for poll-workers Wednesday morning. We return Saturday for a Halloween activity for the kids at church.

pictures from oktoberfest

It was a great opening day of Oktoberfest yesterday. The day started cool and clear, and then the sun burned off the chill to bring the temperature up to a perfect 73 with a light breeze. We sold two baskets outright before the day began, then two more before noon. Another was sold before we left. The spirit of the place was good, the food smelled fab, and we all had fun. We arrived at 8:30 to unload church cookbooks and bring the change to the first shift folks, and ended up staying until 2:00. Don't ask. All is well.

Here are a few pictures from the day. Enjoy! Don't you wish you could come bid on some of our baskets?

The first shift in front of our booth of baskets

The much touted pretzel sticks in their packaging

stinkin' cute pails of candy

a favorite basket: devotional

the Blackhawk helicopter: watched it land: awesome!

 A quilter and her winning work (there were multiple categories, maybe more tomorrow)

prelude to oktoberfest

The annual Oktoberfest celebration in our community is this weekend. It is hosted by the local bank and held on the grounds of their main branch. It's full of everything: fair food (smell the grease?), live music, play space for kids, handcrafted items, local businesses and nonprofits, churches, the local hospital, and more. And for some reason, my favorite, a Blackhawk helicopter. I guess that has to do with my fascination with planes and such, and the fact that this is the kind of apparatus that ferries Kenneth around when he is deployed. It helps me picture him, even though that makes it a bit harder, if you know what I mean.

Look closely at the mug with the cat snacks. 

Do you not love those little mice sticking their faces up?

Anyway, you've heard about the themed gift baskets that the church is doing. They are all done, bowed, and ready for bid. I also got it into my head some time ago that I wanted to make chocolate-covered pretzels to sell. So make them I did! It's very easy, but doing it alone it was a bit time consuming. Still, they look great, and the first batch was sold in its entirety last night when we were setting up the booth! I made 11 more packs last night and then ran out of chocolate. I documented the process, below, minus the actual "dipping" and the finished, packaged look. I also filled these cute little pails (the ones Jayne shipped from Utah) with candy and tied them with ribbon, securing the ribbon with a sticker. Let me tell you, Martha Stewart's adhesive sticker border was the perfect accomplice for the latter. Pictures later of those.

My absolute favorite basket isn't a basket at all. My wonderful friend Nancy Rue, author of great kids, tween and adult books, donated some books from her "Sophie" series. I found a backpack to use as the basket, so they are assembled in the backpack, with some of the books in the bottom to act as counterweight to the books arranged above. There's also a hat, some bookmarks, and bracelets from Nancy. I hope that this sells for a great price.

That's a wrap for now, as I'm headed to the shower and then to the 'fest for a bit. Have a wonderful fall day. It's absolutely gorgeous here! 

just call me the bow queen

We are less than 35 hours away from setting up the church's booth at the local Oktoberfest, which runs this weekend. We're auctioning themed gift baskets, like we did last year. And let me just tell you, they are so dang fun-looking! Pictures to come.

Last night I tolerated the western channel by keeping myself occupied creating bows for the baskets. The stash of ribbon we had left from last year's crop has gone missing (it's somewhere, I just don't remember where). Fortunately ribbon is on sale at Joann's, but one spool per bow is still pricey. Our florist ordered some stuff bulk, but it didn't work at all, so here we were, back at the drawing board. There are 15 bows here, and another 15 need to be fashioned. I have my work cut out for me! The challenge will be to find more ribbon--I felt like I was buying out the store, yesterday, and there's a limit to the use of Christmas colors at a fall event. Anyway...

There are still two baskets that need to be assembled, one needs to have a couple of items reinforced for packing, one more needs a couple of items added to give it more appeal (it's a "whodunit collection" of mysteries--what would you add to a basket of books to make it more sell-able?) and a couple of others need to be wrapped. Very doable, maybe even this morning.

I've also got some pretzel rods to dip in chocolate and roll in stuff to package for sale. I've never made these, but it's supposed to be easy, and I have fallen in love with chocolate-covered pretzel rods. These will be for sale.

And THEN, thanks to my blogging and crafting buddy Jayne, who saw my appeal on facebook a couple of weeks ago when I was looking for a source for these stinkin' cute pails and found them while she was out in Utah at a girlfest and then shipped them to me, we'll also have adorable, candy-filled pails decorated with ribbon to sell. I love doing this stuff!

And since there is obviously so much still to do, I guess I better get cracking. Stay tuned for further updates (or not). Have a great Thursday!