In my defence.....

1) I had all the ingredients;
2) I comfort eat;
3) It will last me all day;
4) It's smaller than it looks....

A stack of waffles with maple syrup and 2 rashers of smoky bacon.  Mmm.  It really will last me all day, partly because there's not much else in the fridge of course.  Do you love my plate?  It's one of the last few pieces that I got for a wedding present.  I have one bowl, some cups, two side plates and a gravy boat - how old-fashioned does that sound?. I got married in 1982 and it was our everyday china.  Sadly I saw a cookery programme a little while ago where the chef used this as 'vintage' china. Cheek.

I've had three days off work this week (it's half term), so I have been doing more sewing than usual.  A quick trip to the dentist and the hairdresser was squeezed in.  I have been making some stockings for a workshop (and patterns for sale).  I have a book with sketches in for different ideas I have.  It also has lots of loose pieces where I have picked up a scrap of paper when an idea occurs.  The stockings are a conversion of the ideas on to fabric.  Trouble is once you start you just want to keep going. I'll put the pix on next week because they are not quite finished.

One of my favourite excuses for baking is Halloween. Steph bought me a biscuit cutter the shape a pumpkin last year.  These are vanilla crisp biscuits covered with orange flavoured candy melt and decorated with some black icing.  I also made some little chocolate and vanilla cupcakes.

These were destined for the ladies at the quilt class but I saved some for the family too. When I got home from the class I had a little bit of grown up Halloween celebration-

Actually it was a bit bitter even for me so I put a splash of lemonade in. Lush.

With the housework crying out to be done, I sat down to make some little Halloween bags.

I have a very useful roll of brown paper.  I stamped some letters, 

traced some shapes on to fusible web and used a block of wood to shape the bags.  I added some ribbon handles to match and filled them with a tiny oranges (which looked like a pumpkin) some little chocolates and a recipe for pumpkin soup.

I finished them off with some labels I had painted at the Crafts House a couple of weeks ago.  These are just ordinary little white tags, painted with Antique White and aged with a greeny-brown Tim Holtz stamp brushed lightly round the edges.

The recipe for the soup was one my mother used to make for the boys with the pumpkin flesh left from the carving.  The first time she made it the top came off the salt cellar and dumped about a tablespoon of salt in to the soup. She scooped out as much as she could before it dissolved.  It was lovely in the end, despite being really salty!

I have been making cinnamon buttons for one of my projects. I bought the little cutters ages ago at a show but this is the first time I have made them. They need to dry for 48 hours so I will report on how they are faring.

 Strange ingredients - apples, glue and cinnamon

 Mixed like scones

 rolled out and stamped

Drying on waxed paper.

Last thing on the agenda this weekend was a firework party - I walked down to John's house - fell over a paving stone, twisted my shoulder and bruised my knee.  I thought I had broken the camera but it still works! here are some sparkler displays.

I had to scrape the first frost of the year from my windscreen on Saturday. Hey ho. Whatever the weather I hope your week ahead is a good one.