Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone who celebrates it had a great Halloween!! We had a great night at our house! Husband, Stepdaughter, Dog, and I all dressed up and sat outside of our beautifully decorated home waiting for the trick or treaters! Had about 50 little (and not so little) ones come by! I'll post photos of some of our celebration later!

Unfortunately, not much time to spend on here tonight.... hubby and I have to get up super early to head to Georgia tomorrow for a funeral. His great-grandmother who was 95 years old passed on Friday, so we'll be heading north to attend services. I expect that I will be home tomorrow evening sometime, so I'll hopefully have enough energy to catch up on the blogs, some personal updates, AND MY GYPSY UPDATE!!

Find me on Facebook!

So..... many of you have added me/I have added you to Facebook under my normal/personal page. I am having a difficult time keeping up with everything on that one... mostly my family. With that, I have decided to make a Cricuting Carol Facebook page to follow everything crafty there!

Come find me!

http://www.facebook.com/cricutingcarol

Thanks!!!

I love the 80s Blog Hop!

I wanted to share a great Blog Hop for anyone looking for some great projects from some great bloggers!

Raven over at Love 4 Stamps is doing an "I love the 80s" themed hop! SO COOL DUDE!

Go check it out by clicking on the I Love the 80s icon!

Great Blog Candy at FelinePlayful

Karen over at FelinePlayful is giving away some MEGA Blog candy for hitting 500 follower! Here's what she's giving away:

"As for the blog candy, you will get all this plus a $10 USD gift certificate to a place of the winner's choice:

• 300 sheets 6x6 designer paper (not shown)
• Sweet Shapes stamp set by Stampin' Up
• Good Friend stamp set by Stampin' Up
• Send A Celebration stamp set by Stampin' Up
• Birthday Best stamp set by Stampin' Up
• Wee Watercolors stamp set by Stampin' Up
• Tags and More stamp set by Stampin' Up
• Paint Prints stamp set by Stampin' Up
• Holiday Minis stamp set by Stampin' Up
• Small Script stamp set by Stampin' Up
• Polka Dots and Paisley stamp set by Stampin' Up
• Painted Posies stamp set by Stampin' Up
• Tag Alphabet stamp set by Stampin' Up
• Everyday Flexible Phrases stamp set by Stampin' Up
• Abstract Impressions Fancy Notes stamp set by Hero Arts
• Shaded Circles stamp set by Endless Creations
• Simplicity Corner Slot Punch by Stampin' Up
• Wrought Iron Corner Slot Punch by Stampin' Up
• Eyelet setter kit
• Tim Holtz ruler
• 5 sets of eyelets"

Go check it out!

I love eBay!

I caved in tonight. I bought something on eBay.

I SWORE that since I had gotten my Gypsy, I was done for a while.....

I lied.

:-)

I won Simply Charmed (the link is for the handbook. You have to see how CUTE this cart is, if you haven't already!!)! This is the one cartridge that I have been drooooooling over since I saw it as an HSN exclusive. And now that I have my Gypsy, my idea notebook was crying out to allow me to finish some projects that I want to do with their images. So, I got it! Not a bad price either. I've been stalking watching some eBay auctions of this particular cartridge and was not going to pay the amount that it's been going for. $45. $47. $50. And more! I don't think so.

So tonight, auction has 4 minutes remaining and it's only at $27. So I present that idea to DH. He said go for it. Max of $35. I wait until the last minute, put my bid in, and won it for $34! :-) NOT TOO SHABBY!

The seller claims that I'll have it before Friday, which would totally rock! Can't wait to play with it and post the projects I do with THAT cartridge... the one I've been wanting so much!

I'm starting to worry about myself. Is there a 12 step program for people like me? And most of you? ;-) Love you all anyways!

The weeks sure do fly by, don't they....

...And I haven't posted anything!

Where have I been and what have I been up to? Well, I'd love to say LOTS OF CRAFTING, but I have to be honest and say a little crafting, a little laziness, and a LOT of job hunting!

Since my last post more than a week ago, I have spent some time revamping my blog, figuring out how to post via my phone, and organizing my scrapping room a little more. On the more personal side of my life, my cell phone was dying so I had to get a new one (hellllooo iPhone4 heaven! Thank you, dear husband!), sold my old one on eBay, decorated my house for Halloween, and have been spending lots of time talking to my family and catching up with everyone. It's been quite nice!

My aunt was visiting Florida a few weeks ago and I spent some wonderful time with her in St. Augustine and got some great hands-on time with my camera! Some photos from that day are below:

The Old City Gate

Castillo de San Marcos, The Fort

Mission of Nombre de Dios, Statue of Father Francisco Lopez and The Great Cross

I also debated going back to PA for a crafts festival that my sister has at the store that she inherited from my grandmother, but that also fell on the one year anniversary of that grandmother's passing, so I spent a few days here a little under the weather thinking about her and missing her.

And as for the job search, still no bites and no successes, but I am still trying to remain optimistic that the right thing will come along for me when the time is right!

Now, on to the happiness of life that is CRAFTING!

I have obtained a few new toys and accessories to play with in the past few days as Christmas came early to Carol's house! With the promotion that Provocraft is running currently for the Gypsy, and dearest husband knowing that I have been itching to get my hands on one of these for a few months now, he decided that Santa would have to deliver this gift a little early, so the other night, we went out and got it at my neighborhood Michael's. And can I tell you..... it's WONDERFUL!!! It truly is so much more than I ever thought it would be! I have already designed and made more since I've gotten this than I have in a couple of months! I love sitting in the living room or laying in bed and setting up my page to be cut and then going in the scrap room for a few hours and actually getting SO much done! I think I was slowing down on my pages and cards due to frustration of having to change paper on the mat so many times for one little project. Now it seems SO simple! And I can't wait to get the 6 free carts on November 1st!!!!

So Gypsy was #1!

The same night we got the G at Michael's, I found a 50% off MS products coupon that was still good in my purse, so I picked up the Pink Martha Stewart Bone Folder and got it for around $4! It's so pretty and it has little bling on it!!!

I thought that's about all I'd be getting for a little while, but.... I'd be fibbing!

Today, I had to run some errands and decided to wander around Ross for a while since I haven't been in that store for some time. I didn't know they had any scrapbooking supplies, but they DO! I picked up a box of stuff and I'll have to do a video to show you all the stuff that was inside of it for $9.99! I was ecstatic with that and after reading some more of the blogs that I follow, apparently, each box has different stuff in it, sooooo, I might be going out for a few more this week! Video to follow!

After I got home, I started to work on some more projects and came up with a very cute idea for some take-homes for my Thanksgiving guests! I made some Pilgrims and Indians from the Paperdoll Dress Up cartridge and then covered the coasters that we had picked up at M's back on October 11th with some harvest-theme colored paper and Modge Podged the figures on them! They turned out so cute! I have some more to make, but I like how they are turning out so far, so I will have to go get more coasters this week. (Maybe I should inquire about working at Michael's? LOL!) Here's what they look like:

And then I finished up the Halloween cards that I needed to send this week. They were both made using Happy Hauntings, the MS Drippy Goo Punch, the MS Halloween stamps, and the MS Embossing powders. This was my first time playing with embossing powders and a heat gun, but I love the effect and how they turned out! Here they are:

I need to be better about posting my projects as I go! This is a lot for one post, isn't it?

Well, I hope no one fell asleep while reading and I promise I'll try to be better about posting more regularly!

Happy Crafting!

Great Blog Candy at The Stamping Boutique

Go check out The Stamping Boutique for a great giveaway! There's lots of really cool stuff, including 36 Copic Cioa's! The winner will be chosen on November 20!

My first project for a challenge!

I have never entered a project challenge before, so this is my first! I hope I do it right!

MyPinkStamper is having a "something cute" challenge from yesterday for a chance to win Simply Charmed which is the cart that I want soooooo much!!! So, I made a winter holiday card for it! (Yep, I'm skipping ahead on a few holidays a little bit!)

My "cute" card was made using Winter Frolic for my penguin. Not sure who will be the recipient for this yet, but I think it's really cute and I'm quite proud of how it turned out!

Hope you enjoy my first challenge project!!!

Haul Video

Here's the video I promised! I started to make one last night, but my computer was not happy with having to do that much work, so I had to re-do it today! Here it is!







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Haul Video: Coming soon!

Today, as I had hoped, was a great day out and about with my husband! Since I "tolerated" him watching football all day Saturday and Sunday, he let me pick where we went and what we did today. So where did we go? To scrapbooking stores, of course! :-)

I had heard of a store here in Jacksonville that I had never been to, so I drug him along with me to it! We found it and he actually walked around inside the store with me for over an hour and he didn't roll his eyes at me ONCE! :-) What a good man I have! After that, we went and had a yummy lunch at a nearby restaurant and then drove around to see what else was in the area. There was another scrapbook store right near there, but I decided to not put him through that again with me, so we kept driving.... until I saw a Michael's that I hadn't been to (yes, there are probably 8 different Michael's within a 30 mile radius of here and I have to go to ALL of them!). So we went in there. He doesn't mind M's as much because he looks at the Halloween decorations and stuff like that. Let me tell you! This M's has the BEST $1 bins I have ever seen!!! So while money is a little tight right now, he caved in and let me get a BUNCH of great stuff! With that, I will do a quick haul video later this evening hopefully to show you what I found!

I hope you all have had a great weekend and a beautiful Monday so far!

Packages in the Mail

This week has been such a fantastic week! Between Kelly's birthday, my birthday, great fellow-bloggers sharing inspirational projects to get me motivated, and BEAUTIFUL weather here in Jacksonville, I have nothing to complain about!

Then today it got even better!

On Monday, Cricut Chick Julie announced the winner of her first blog giveaway. And guess who was the winner!?! ME!!!!!

When I went to get the mail a bit ago, there was a big envelope stuffed in and YAY! My prize has arrived! I won the oh-so-cute Pink CGull Tool Set!

This was her first blog giveaway and my first blog win.. and it happened right around my birthday! How fantastic! I can't wait to use this great prize!

Go check out her blog, say hi and tell her I sent you!

The Birthday Party! Photo-heavy post!

I've eluded to a secret project that I had been working on for a little while, but now that the party is over, I can share the details!

My stepdaughter turned 15 on October 2nd and we decided to throw her a surprise party! She had been talking about wanting to do an Alice in Wonderland themed "something" for a while, so I recommended we try to do a Mad Hatter theme Tea Party for her birthday. Everyone thought it was a great idea! I volunteered to do the invitations and other crafty things since her mom will freely admit that she doesn't have a creative bone in her body. I poked around on some online message boards for some ideas and suggestions and came up with a plan for the invites and we sent them out to family and passed the word around to her friends via word-of-mouth. We were going with the surprise planning for almost a month.

Unfortunately, the surprise lasted until the night before her party. We had planned to have her come spend the night at our house on Friday night so her mother could set everything up at her house for the Saturday morning party. Well.... Kelly (being the good ROTC girl that she is), volunteered to work a double shift at her school's football game, which would make it impossible for her to come to our house (as she wouldn't get here until around midnight). So, we had to tell her what was going on. She was thrilled!

Friday night, dearest husband and I were up until almost 2am getting our stuff together to take over to her mother's house in the morning. When we arrived, I found that their neighbor (with all good intentions) had taken over essentially. Instead of the mish-mashed teacups, mish-mashed chairs, and whimsical decorations and food.... I found a very beautiful and elegant tea setup. Not what I had pictured, but beautiful nonetheless. My invitations, drinks, and snacks didn't fit in anymore. :-( I was a little disappointed, but Kelly loved it anyway!!!

We had tea-party foods (egg salad sandwiches, sans crusts; deviled eggs; banana bread; TastyCake cupcakes; breakfast casserole; fruit; etc), hot tea, cold tea, and mocktails (orange juice and gingerale).

I had also made whoopie pies as take away snacks...with the Alice in Wonderland theme mixed in!

And continued the theme on the drinks....

These are the invitations that I made (using A Child's Year for that hat image and the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug embossing folder for the inside; I changed the typical "10/6" that's on the Mad Hatter's hat to "10/2" for her birthday and found an Alice in Wonderland-type font for the inside wording).

I made the tags for the drinks and whoopie pies with Sentimentals and some stamps.

Overall, I was quite happy with how everything turned out... not a pro yet, but not bad for a beginner! :-)

Friday!

Hello followers! And WELCOME to all my new followers!!!! YAY!!

I hope that you all are having a beautiful Friday and getting ready for a fantastic weekend! I am having such a wonderful day today and am looking forward to at least three days of happy! My dearest husband (who typically has to work at some point over the weekend and on every holiday) found out that after his regular shift tonight and a little bit of work tomorrow morning, he will be OFF until TUESDAY! Hopefully we'll get to spend some real quality time together instead of quick meals and surface conversations.

Today, I am working on a few little trial projects here and there. I just tried to make my first shirt using freezer paper and my Expression. Let's just say.... it's not TERRIBLE, but it's definately not something I'd wear out in public. LOL! I may try to make another one with a different type of paint and see how that goes and then maybe I'll post it!

I'm also thinking about making a quick run to Michael's to see if there's anything that I want to use my 50% off MS products coupon on! I am really thinking I need to get a heat gun, but... not too sure yet. But 50% off makes it a little more possible!

Later today, I will be posting the story and photos of the "secret" projects that I had been working on for my stepdaughter's birthday party! I am so happy with how it all turned out and can't wait to share them with you!!

Wishing you all a happy and productive day!

Blog Candy!

What a great giveaway! To celebrate 650 followers, kandrewdesigns is giving away something that I've been eyeing for a few weeks now! An embosser kit for your Cricut!?! It doesn't get much cooler than that!

Go check it out by clicking on the image above or by visiting this link: Blog Candy ! Please let her know that I sent you!!!

Happy Birthday!

... to ME!

Today, I enter the last year of my 20s. I don't fear my next birthday because 30 doesn't seem so bad anymore! (If you'd asked me that 10 years ago, I may have cried! LOL!)

I'm just hanging low today, enjoy my lazy, task-free day! Husband dearest took me to lunch and we are going to have a big family birthday dinner at Outback this evening. I may go craft in a little bit... or maybe I'll nap instead!

Either way, probably nothing productive being posted on here again today, but I'm being selfish and having a ME ONLY day! :-)