#541...boo

Tyler was shopping with me a few weeks ago in JoAnn fabrics and he picked out some wooden Halloween masks that looked like this unpainted.

I think he thought he'd have time to decorate them himself, but he didn't, so I ended up painting them up this past weekend. Now we are ready for Halloween night.

#540...AIA Home Tour

This weekend we took the American Institute of Architects Home Tour here in Houston, featuring 8 homes, in various near town neighborhoods. We were not allowed to take photos, so I've been looking online at the architects websites to help me remember the clean, modern, pretty spaces I toured.

The first house was the Bleyzer House by Stern and Bucek Architects. I don't know very much about local architecture firms, but they do commercial and residential and have an impressive portfolio. Here is their design rendering of the home, which features a green roof.

Here it is under construction last year.

Here are a few shots of the finished house. It has the most beautiful view of the bayou and a really impressive gym.

(These pics are all from the Chronicle's article about the house)

#539...childproofing my dog

I just bought this book...

While Tyler and I do not have any children, we do have a Border Collie who loves us (and any other willing adult who will pet her) to death. However, as sweet and obedient as she is, we noticed that she has started herding young visitors who come to our house. She seems to think that anyone under 4ft tall is a sheep, and needs to be corralled. She does not bite, but merely runs behind them, or next to them nipping at the air to move the child in the direction that she wants them to go. The first time I saw her do it, it was startling, but I have googled the bejeezus out of "border collie nipping" and came up with some books that I hope can help me teach her that children are not sheep. Wish me luck....at least she loves her crate, and I can always just put her in there if I fail at this endeavor. Here are some of my favorite pics of Mazie.

...and to be fair, I have two other pets who are absolutely perfect around children. My 9 year-old, Lab-mix Speedy will stand still while a toddler lovingly whacks her head with their baby hand, and take the energetic petting like a champ. She is the best.

Gig'em mostly hides from small kids...can you blame him?

#538...pesto

The potted basil I planted by my front porch has really taken off.

So I gave it a haircut.

Picked and washed the leaves,

and made this pesto

#537...bleached leather skirt

I got inspired by Christopher Palu's bleached leather collection on Project Runway Season 10, and decided to try bleaching leather for myself.

(This is Christopher)

(This is one of his subtly bleached leather ensembles)

For my own leather bleaching experiment, I started with this thrifted brown leather skirt from The Gap.

First, I decided the skirt was way to long for me, so I cut the hem into an asymmetrical shape. The nice thing about leather is that you can just cut in and not worry about hemming. (I did reinforce the seams I cut through with my machine.)

I got out my bleach and tried using a brush to flick some bleach droplet patterns onto the skirt. 

The pattern looked really cool, but when the bleach dried it was not noticeable at all. (It is still wet in the photo below)

So, I moved onto dipping the skirt in a bucket of bleach. I put about half of it in, and left it for an hour or so. Then I pulled some of it out of the bleach and left the bottom edge in for another several hours. It created sort of an ombre effect on the leather......sort of like what bleach did to my hair.

Here's the finished, dried skirt front and back

I wore the skirt to brunch yesterday

#536...rats

I'm headed into my attic for an unpleasant task. While we were away, some scurrying residents moved in upstairs and they are making a ton of noise at night, not to mention it sounds like they are chewing on electrical wires...or the walls...whatever it is, it's loud!

I bought two traps and some poison packets. I'm going to start with the poison packets as the trap seems a little barbaric, and dying peacefully in your sleep after eating poison seems a very romantic Romeo and Juliet like way to go. Wish me luck with the poison, because if it does not work I'm going to have to snap their little necks!

#535...travels

Last Friday and Saturday we went to Austin for Austin City Limits Music Festival.

under the big Art sign

Andrew Bird

Alabama Shakes

Jovanotti

M. Ward

Sunday morning we took an early flight to New Hampshire for my Grampy's funeral. While there, we visited my Mom's cousin's farm down the street. She and her husband run a corn maze every fall for their local community. Getting through the maze was harder than it looked like it would be.

Also, we all got to try shooting corn from this homemade canon. We shot at some scarecrows set up across a lake.

The little kids took a ride in this homemade oil barrel cow train

The leaves are changing and offered some really pretty sights