Merry Christmas!

My First Giveaway WINNER!

Congratulations to commenter #14: Christel (onescrappinsista)!

She said:

Congrats!!! Man...your sponsorship is awesome. LOL!!! I would have to say my most favoritest tool is my Cricut. I love being able to cut so many different shapes with it. Thanks for the chance to win. Merry Christmas if I don't get to talk to you before then.

Christel
onescrappinsista.blogspot.com

I'll be contacting you on your blog to get your information and I'll ship sometime next week! :-)

If I don't hear from the winner by Dec 31st, I'll pick another winner!

Thank you all for the comments and to my new followers: WELCOME and I hope you'll stick with me on my crafting adventures!

Merry Christmas EVE! & Last Call for Giveaway Entries

I hope that everyone is having a beautiful and relaxing day before Christmas! Me? Well, it certainly is a beautiful day here in Florida, but no relaxing for me! Hubby just left for work so I have to make a run to a few stores for some last minute gifts and then the rest of my day will be spent BAKING ... and then perhaps making a nice dinner for the two of us to celebrate the Eve!

Just a little reminder that I will be choosing and announcing the winner to my giveaway tonight around 8pm, so there's still a few hours to enter! :-) Pass the word!

Is this really my crafting blog? (And the giveaway is still open!)

Because I'm not sure anymore. LOL! I haven't had ANY time to do ANY crafting since Thanksgiving! I really had every intention of getting in my room this week and going to town, but of course................ that didn't happen.

You see, I am still not done Christmas shopping. That's right. I have 3 gifts for my stepdaughter. I need many more. But... she decided that this was a good week to stay at our house for the whole week (which she never does!), so I can't just leave her here and go, so I have to go tomorrow after she goes with my husband for the day (so he can finish HIS shopping!). So it's been a week of some good bonding time between the two of us, but no holiday productivity or crafting or baking! I have been making notes of all of the projects that have come to mind and have set up several pages on my Gypsy, but that's about it.

I fear, however, that my love of crafting may be taking a back seat for a while longer because.... *drum roll please* I GOT A JOB!! Yes folks, that's right. I have finally been hired! I have been out of work since June of 2009 and got called for an interview back around Thanksgiving and I got hired!! :-) I'll be a "remote typist" (aka, working from home) for a company based out of central Florida. I will be going there for two or three weeks starting Jan 3 for training, so of course, unless I take my Cricut with me and set up shop in my hotel room (which isn't a bad idea actually...), there won't be any finished projects until at least the end of January, BUT... that's the price I have to pay for FINALLY GETTING A JOB!

Can you tell I'm excited? The pay is MUCH lower than what I had been making in my previous job, but the fact that I will finally be off unemployment is enough for me!

But.... the love that I have found for all things paper-crafting will not go away and once I am able to find the balance of family and WORK, I will certainly be going back at it full force! I love how crafting makes me feel and I love sharing my work with others, so it's definately something that I want to stick with... it just may take a little while to find that happy balance.

Question for the masses:

FOR THOSE WHO WORK/HAVE FAMILIES/CRAFT... HOW DO YOU BALANCE IT ALL? I need some suggestions from those who have mastered it. :-)

Even though I will not be participating as much as I'd like, I will still be around, lingering, and reading as much as I can! So thanks for sticking it out with me!

Oh! And don't forget! My giveaway is still open! I'll be choosing a winner on Friday. It's for a pink ATG! Go here to enter!

Christmas Week & Giveaway!

Hello everyone! I hope that you are all having a wonderful week and that if you celebrate Christmas that you are prepared and relaxing until Saturday. Unfortunately, that's not me this week. LOL! Still shopping to do. More wrapping. And I have yet to begin any baking. I'm a procrastinator this year!

I just wanted to pop on a little reminder about my FIRST giveaway that's going on over HERE (click for the link to the post). I'll be drawing a winner on Friday, so you still have time. Please share my giveaway with anyone who you think might want to win an ATG!

:-)

Time for my Giveaway!

I know that I posted a while back that once I hit 50 followers, I'd be doing a little giveaway. The holidays and such have gotten the best of me and I figured, "Well... it's time I follow through, eh?"

So.. my giveaway for hitting 50 followers, sponsored by my HUSBAND is..... *drumroll please*

One of my favorite crafting tools: the Pink Scotch Advanced Tape Glider (ATG)!

Here's some info from their website for those who don't know what this product is:

3M-Scotch Advanced Tape Glider Susan G. Komen For the Cure Pink. The Scotch ATG applies a thin; strong line of adhesive that bonds instantly and goes on easily while removing and rewinding the liner. Perfect for scrapbooking; card-making and other paper projects. It features covered gears to minimize applicator jams; a transparent cover that shows remaining tape; and it holds up to 36yds of adhesive tape. This package contains one ATG with clear cover and pink handle (9-1/2x9x2in); two 36yd rolls of 1/4in wide acid free/photo safe tape; and instructions for use.

To win this giveaway, all you have to do is

1) Be a follower!

2) Leave me a comment on this post telling me what YOUR favorite crafting tool is and leave me a way to contact you in case you win!!

Please feel free to share my giveaway with your friends! It's not necessary, but appreciated!

I will use Random.org to pick a winner on Dec. 24th!

Non Crafting Related Post

I posted on Thursday night, in a fit of HAPPINESS, that my husband and stepdaughter and I got to go to see Trans Siberian Orchestra in concert here in Jacksonville. I have been wanting to see them perform live for 10 years or more and I finally got to!

I cannot tell you how AMAZING this show was! If you like Christmas music, Classical music, and Rock and Roll (and fireworks and fire and lasers and all that good stuff), this is the concert to go to!!!!! It was over 3 hours long and worth EVERY penny of it!

Here is a short 1 minute video of it that JaxEvents posted on their YouTube channel... it'll give you a great snapshot of what this show is.

This made my whole holiday season complete!!

Thank you, Jon, for making this dream of mine FINALLY come true! I love you!

Quick Unedited Video from the Other Day & Some Photos

Before cleaning and organizing:

After cleaning and organizing:

Now I'm ready to get back in there! HOPEFULLY this week. If not, it'll be after the 17th when my Great Grandmother heads back to PA!

Finally getting to see Trans Siberian Orchestra!! I've been waiting almost 10 years for this!!! Thank you, hubby!!! Merry Christmas to me!!!

Cards and Photos

Hello again, friends! Grammy went to bed and I'm not tired, so I have a few more minutes than I thought I did to update, so here's some photos!!

This is a photo of the invitations that I made and sent to our families for Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone was sooo excited to get a hand made card! I made 8 of them in total, but this is just two of them. I used a leaf die-cut and embossing folder in my Cuttlebug, inked them up, cut out a tag from Plantin Schoolbook (I think), stamped the sentiment on them, inked the edges of the tags and the card, and then tied them on with ribbon and pop-dotted everything!

This is a card that I made for no real reason other than I wanted to. LOL! Actually, I was playing with flocking on this one. I used it on Santa's hat to make if fluffy-like! It was my first time trying to use it and I like it, but I think I need different adhesive for it, so if anyone has any suggestions of good adhesive to use with flocking, I'd appreciate a comment!!!

I made this one to try the flocking again and to play with glitter and embossing powder as well! I flocked Rudolph's antlers, glittered his nose, and embossed the stamp "Oh Deer!" I love this card!!

This card was originally made for my entry for InkingItUpCrazy's call for her Winter Design Team. This is my all-time favorite card that I have made and that I am the most proud of!! The gingerbread man is from Winter Frolic. I embossed the bottom piece of paper before adhering, used buttons for embellishments, and Stickle'd him up really well! :-) Isn't he CUTE!?!?

Finally, here is a photo of some of our Thanksgiving dinner guests. :-) Obviously, I'm not in the photo, dear hubby is in front of me, so he wasn't in the photo either, and 2 of our guests hadn't arrived yet, but this is the crowd! It was certainly a day that I will not forget!!!

I suppose it's time to get off of here, but thanks for stopping by!

Thanksgiving Mini-Recap

I'm back!

Kind of.

First, let me wish everyone a Happy beginning to the Holiday season!! My holiday season started out with a bang! My first holiday dinner hosting went VERY well! We ended up with 17 guests at our house for dinner on Thursday! Nothing but rave reviews and compliments (though I'm sure family would NEVER say a negative thing to my face... we'll see what's said behind my back! LOL!). It was so nice to have my family and my husband's family all together for the first time since our wedding in 2008! Besides dinner, we have had 6 house guests staying with us since the week before last, plus hubby and I and his daughter, so my life has been quite different than my typical alone time! It was wonderful though! Went to Disney, the zoo, many great restaurants, to see the new Harry Potter movie, the beach, some craft shows... so much to do when family is around! I have so much to scrapbook now!!!

My sister, BIL, and niece left to return to PA on Saturday. My mother and her husband left today to continue their vacation/late honeymoon to TN (Dollywood and Gatlinburg). My great-grandmother, who is 92 (will be 93 at the end of December) was supposed to go back to PA with my sister on Saturday, but she decided that she wasn't ready to go home yet, so she's staying..... until DECEMBER 17th! LOL! My uncle is coming to Florida for work for a few months and is going to be taking her home with him when he flies home for Christmas. It should be interesting though because she has never flown! So I get to hang out with one of my favorite family members for the next three weeks. I think I'm going to take the time that I have with her here and work on some family genealogy and history and get some of her stories on video! She has soooo many and what better time to get them than now! Perhaps I'll have to introduce her to the Cricut while she's here too! She is staying in my "craft room"/guest room, so I know she's been looking through my scrapbooks and card projects because she keeps commenting on how talented she thinks I am. :-) That's why I love her so much!

I digress!

Hopefully, sometime in the next week I will get some projects done and posted. I also need to post the giveaway for hitting 50 before Thanksgiving! I want to do a video of all of our Thanksgiving Day & Black Friday sales, and of course, the photos from my holiday!! :-) Stay tuned! And I hope everyone is doing well!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone has a wonderful day of happiness, laughter, and giving thanks for all that is good in our lives!!

No crafting for me. :-(

Tomorrow morning, my sister, brother-in-law, and 2 year old niece will be arriving! They left PA this afternoon and are driving all through the night and we expect that they'll arrive here in northeastern Florida sometime tomorrow morning, so I have spent the past few days CLEANING CLEANING CLEANING and organizing, so I've had no time for the fun stuff!!!

I am so excited to see my family though because 1) I haven't seen them since September when we went "home" for my mom's wedding and 2) we will be celebrating the first Thanksgiving in my house! Nervous about that, but so excited about it! I even made invitations to send to everyone that we are inviting. Hubby and I counted 21 people that will be eating dinner at our house on Thanksgiving (that's if everyone that said yes to the preliminary invite come). EEK! :-p

Regardless..... with 3 house guests coming to stay for the next two weeks, and then another 3 or 4 coming next week to stay for a week... plus the local family coming and going, I fear that I won't have much time to craft. In fact, with my 2 year old niece being SUCH a busybody, we actually packed up most of my craft room (which doubles as a spare room and I think will be where she will stay!) LOL! I have had so many nightmares in the past week about her staying in there and us walking in to find her covered in Stickles, glitter, and Pop-Dots that I had to!!!!!

I will try to pop in and out to post photos of family events and whatnot, but probably no craft updates until after Thanksgiving. :-( Don't hate me!

I will be doing a giveaway the week after Thanksgiving for hitting 50 followers, so make sure to come back and check out my blog for that!!

:-) Happy Crafting, everyone!!!

Weekends and Houseguests

I'm learning that weekends are not my high-point for creative productivity. LOL! Especially the weekends that my stepdaughter is here with us. But I am OKAY with that because I love family time! That's what we've had lots of this weekend, so no scrapping got done after Friday night.

Friday, I made the CUTEST card that I am most proud of, but I used it for my entry for Kassidy's Winter Design Team (over at inkingitupcrazy)! The entry time ends today, so I have been working on some projects until I finally got one that I thought was good enough, so I sent that to her today! I don't want to share it just yet, so look for that in the future!

I have to say though... the next couple of weeks might be kind of quiet from my end. The first part of my family (my sister, brother in law, and 2 year old niece) is coming into town on Wednesday to stay for two weeks! Then next week, my mother and her husband and my 95 year old great-grandmother are coming in right before Thanksgiving! Then my uncle will be joining us right after Thanksgiving. I will have a VERY full house for a few days!!!! I'm hoping to get to sit with my sister and play in my craft room (she only has the Baby Bug and does not have the G or a Cuttlebug), but we'll see how that works out. Plans are already in the works for a visit to Disney, Universal, St. Augustine, and who knows where else! PLUS I will be cooking my first Thanksgiving dinner for (I think) 21 people! EEK! Pray for me (and my guests! LOL!)

I hope to get some things posted, but if not, I'll at least try to stop by and catch up on the blogs that I follow periodically! And I'm still looking for one more follower and then a little first giveaway!!!

Limited Edition Stickles at Michaels

First, I have to say that I don't work for Michaels. LOL! There's just one 2 minutes from my house.

Hubby and I went there today and found limited edition 1 oz size Stickles! $11.99 (minus what I got off with coupons!) for 3 bottles!

Here's how they compare to the "normal" size bottle of Stickles.

Limited = 1 oz. "Normal" = .5 oz.

Recent Projects, Great Find at Michaels, and a Mini Haul from Michaels

Hello, friends! And welcome new followers/friends!!!

I wanted to share some of the projects I have actually managed to start AND finish recently.

There are a bunch of birthdays coming up in my close circle in November, so I made a bunch of Birthday cards to be ready to send out! Here's three of them.

I posted some of these little people while I was working on them, but I actually got them all completed! These are made from clearanced coasters at Michaels (ended up being $.30 for 8 of them( and Paper Dolls made with Paper Doll Dress Up. I am going to give them as take-home gifts for our Thanksgiving dinner guests!

This is a box that I made to keep index cards of planned projects or pages that I want to make. I see so many great ideas in magazines or blogs, so I needed a place to keep track of them. I made it by covering a recipe box (that was $1.00 at Michaels) with paper and ribbon and welded and cut out the word "Projects" with my Gypsy for the front. It's not perfect, but I'm quite proud of how it turned out!!!

This is a card I made for my stepdaughter to celebrate her good report card! She just got her first HIGH SCHOOL report card and she did very well in all (but one) of her classes and managed to bring up the one low grade within a week to an A! I made it using the new Smiley downloaded cart on my Gypsy.

This is a random Christmas card that I made as a trial run to see how it would turn out. The Santa is from Winter Frolic (I think). Don't ask why it's missing two edges. LOL! I said it was a trial, right???

Here is a sort of "get well" card that I made for my brother-in-law's father. He had to have an emergency quadruple bypass the other day and is finally home and recovering. He's a really nice guy and will get a kick out of the sentiment on this card!

Here is a photo of my haul from Michaels today. Some great coupons and great sales there this week (if this is stuff that you need!) The thin ribbon is 5 for $1.00. The jingle bells were $5.99 and then 40% off. The Christmas stamps is actually a set of two sheets of stamps for $9.99 and I used a 50% off coupon. The googly eyes weren't on sale, but I needed them. The punch was 40% off! I will be going back on Thursday or Friday because I have a coupon for 20% off the whole order including sale items!! There's some really cute holiday-themed DCWV stacks that I want, but when I can save another $3.00 on them, I can wait 2 more days!!

And while browsing around Michael's, I literally ran into something new and exciting! I struggled to find the Pink ATG when I first wanted one and finally found one (purely luck). Many of my online blogging friends are still struggling to find them, BUT if all Michaels stores are doing this, look no further!

It was an entire end cap of Scotch adhesives and more ATG guns than I have ever seen in one place!!! It was along the wall, not along the main aisle, so check your local stores if you're looking for one!!!

I hope that everyone is doing well! I'm off to work on some more projects and layouts!

Michael's

I'm off to Michaels with some great coupons!!

Halloween Photos

I know I'm a week late with the photos of our Halloween, but I tend to be a few days behind all the time!

Each year, we decorate the whole outside of our house. This year, I decided we needed to dress up to hand out candy! I even downloaded some great Halloween tunes and had them playing through the dining room window for everyone to hear as they came up the street! Unfortunately, we are one of only three or so houses in our development that REALLY go all out for the holiday and decorate and dress up and everything. In fact, we were more dressed up than some of the trick-or-treaters that came to our house! Kinda disappointing!

I was the Wicked Witch... or Elphaba for those who know "Wicked". :-) I was so afraid that green paint wouldn't come off!!! LOL!

And in this story, "Toto" is actually "Princess" and I had her from the beginning! Princess was also a witch for Halloween!

Jon was a creepy pumpkin-headed guy. He even made a little girl cry!

Kelly was Lady Ga Ga, but I don't have any good photos of her costume. :-(

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've been in a funky mood for the past few days, so very little crafting has been done, but I have some new projects that I finished last week that I will be posting probably tomorrow! For now, I am going to read some more of the blogs and try to find some inspiration and motivation to get back in there! :-)

Oh! And one more thing: I am very close to 50 followers (I know... that's measly compared to SOME bloggers, but for me, that's great!) and Jon said once I get to 50, he will support me doing a little giveaway!! So stay tuned for if/when that happens!

Great Blog Candy at DawnsCrafts

Dawn, over at her beautiful blog Dawn's Craft Place is doing a GREAT giveaway!!! Go check it out and tell her that I sent you!!! (You can click on the photo of her giveaway item to go to her post, as well!)

Lesson From the Craft Room

Don't sneeze while working with embossing powder. Especially powder with glitter in it.

Personal Note and Gypsy Update

What a long day it's been............

To keep the personal part short, but necessary: Today, DH and I went to Georgia to attend funeral services for his great-grandmother. She was 95 years old and surrounded by family to say farewell. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful ceremony. Unfortunately, her passing hit Grandma (DH's father's mom) very hard and she has been in ill- health as it is. She had been hospitalized the day she learned of her mother's passing and was released only to attend services. Needless to say, the emotion and heat of the day caught up to her again at the church and she became unresponsive. 911 was called and she was rushed to the hospital with a diastolic blood pressure around 42. They are keeping her for observation this evening, but they have ruled out any stroke or heart attack, which is good.... now we have to wait to see what else it could be.

I ask that anyone who reads this who prays to keep her in your thoughts. She is being kept at a hospital that is 4 hours away from home, so I'm sure she is scared and she doesn't like to be fussed over.

--------------------

On a more crafty note:: I had been reading various things on my phone on the 4 hour ride back this evening and saw some nightmare stories about the G update today! I was so anxious to get home to see if my update would work. I was a bit disheartened to see that Mac users were being put off for the updates a bit longer, but decided that I'd try to use DH's PC to update... and it worked the first try! Less than 30 minutes and I have all 6 of the free carts! I also linked Simply Charmed this weekend, so while I catch up on a gazillion loads of laundry tomorrow, I will be spending some much needed time in my craft room with my G!! What a beautiful love affair G and I have! LOL!

I hope that you are all well and that my fellow G users had pain-free updates as well!!! For now... good night!

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!







.

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! :-)