My Busy October

I always think of October as the official start of the Holiday Season.  I tend to get busy with holiday-ish activities and projects around this time, and this is one of the reasons why my blog posts have been sporadic.  I looked back and saw that there was just a single blog entry from me for October.  I've been keeping busy with lots of forum stuff, so my online time hasn't been as free.  I volunteered to be a judge for the Dalicious! photo contest on Dolly Market Forum.  It's almost over, and I can't wait to see who actually ends up as top winner.  I do know that the top 3 finishers in the contest will each take home a full-size Dal doll (Tina, Vendettina, or 6th Anniversary Jouet ), donated by PullipStyle and JPGroove.  Seriously, had I known those were the prizes, I probably would have signed up to participate instead of serving as a judge.  Although I have to admit, my photos cannot hold a candle to the players in this round of Dalicious!  Competition is fierce and the bar has been raised!

The Dal House forum is seeing a resurgence in popularity thanks to True Fan's efforts in reviving the forum.  For the month of October, members would visit the forum daily and make a post to earn an entry to win a full-size NRFB Dal.  If you started a thread/topic, you would earn an extra entry for the day.  There were a few bonus days where if you posted on the forum, you would earn 5 extra entries.  The Dals that the winner willl choose from are Monomono, Gloomy Bear, Kanaria, Lipoca and Pinocchio.  The Dals are generously supplied by True Fan.  The drawing will be in a couple of days, so it's interesting to see which Dal House member will snag a brand new Dal!  Is it selfish to hope it will be me? 

Another contest going on at The Dal House is the quarterly photo contest.  It used to be a monthly contest, but since participation had been dwindling, the contest was changed to 4x a year rather than 12x a year.  And since it took place in October, it benefitted from the recent Dal House resurgence.  There were 12 entries this time.  The theme of the photo was "Fall".  It's Fall here in Hawaii, but you'd never guess that because it's so hot and muggy.  It feels like summer, so I had to create Fall for the photo.  Here's what I went with...

 

I put Moe the Dal in the most Fall-appropriate outfit I could find.  The plaid top is a Moxie Boyz shirt and I found tiny fall leaves confetti at the craft store.  I made the rake out of floral wire, and the trash bag full of leaves is a little jewelry gift bag.  The mini pumpkin is from Pier 1, I think it was an old napkin ring--I just pulled the pumpkin off.

And then we have the newest forum that I'm a part of--Dollchemy!  Dollchemy also hosted a contest during the month of October.  This one was a Halloween doll costume contest.  Members would submit the photo via email to the organizer of the contest, and then the entries would be posted anonymously for Dollchemy to vote on.  The one with the most votes would win two packs of unopened, mysterious Rement.  This was my entry...

It's Akari the Spider Queen!

 

Akari is my pullip with a face-up by Buffdolls.  Akari rarely gets any photos, and spiders aren't her thing, but they sure are mine!  I'm happy to say that Akari's costume got the most votes, and I won!

 

At work, my co-worker organized a pumpkin decorating contest.  It could be any type of pumpkin used as a base--but you had to have done something to it for it to be eligible.  The finished entries were put out on display and the library patrons would vote for the ones they liked the best.  The entry with the most votes would win.  Here's what I did...

 

I basically got two smallish artificial pumpkins.  I had wanted two black ones, but could only find the one.  I suppose I could have painted the orange pumpkin black, but that would have required another trip to the store and I really wasn't feeling like it.  I used floral wire, tons of chenille stems, hot glue, embroidery floss and some eyes from my reject stash.  And my pumpkin spider took 1st place! 

 

While winning certainly is nice, to me, it's more important to participate.  I don't take these things very seriously, it's more fun for me than anything else, and if I win, then that's cool, but similarly, I would be totally fine with not winning.

 

Halloween was overall very quiet.  Not many trick-or-treaters showed up for candy--I think my son said there were about 25 kids.  I brought my daughter to the mall for trick-or-treating.  She was the only Princess Bubblegum there.  Tons of Queen Elsas from Frozen, though.  Here's a little shot of my two monsters in costume:

And lastly...I managed to snag these two cuties on ebay for a song--$62.99.  I always wanted a Drta and Monomono.  I put in a lowball offer expecting to be outbid by the auction's end, but it didn't happen.  The Drta is almost full stock--she's missing just her card & school bag.  The Monomono came without her monkey hat, but another boardie sold me one, so she's totally complete.

 

 

I hope October has been good to you.  I can't believe how fast the time is flying.