A little Halloween Inspiration

WOW.... can we believe it's September already? the little ones (and not so little) are back in school, the nights are getting cooler and sleeping is ahhhhhhhh so wonderful, mums are in bloom, our summer flowers are starting to die off and in the stores..... Halloween and Christmas decorations. Yes I said it, Christmas too...... I can remember when you couldn't find Christmas decorations in stores until the day after Thanksgiving.. Not any more.... Soon they'll be in the isles right along side the 4th of July decor.......

So while I'm in my stamp room crafting away for a few upcoming events I wanted to share with you all a little Halloween inspiration...

HALLOWEEN TREAT HOLDERS W/ CHOCOLATE COVERED PRETZELS

CLIPBOARD ADVENT CALENDARS

CARDS

Happy Stamping :)

Remarkable Safari Retreat Take 5

And now what many of you have been anxiously anticipating... My swaps... and a little something I made at the retreat....

Here is my swap card... I apologize that this first picture is a bit blurrrrrry... :( This was a joy fold card which I really like. You can also turn this card vertically and have it flip open from top to bottom instead of right to left.. I tried to use many different techniques and accessories on this card...

For the dies I Sizzix dies I used the beautiful butterflies die, the flower burst embossing die and the harlequin background embossing die...

Just an FYI with the flower burst, not only does it emboss but it also cuts out the flower... so you don't need to use your circle punch with it (like I thought I was going to need to do...).

The cardstock used was...... Chocolate Chip, Sahara Sand, Not Quite Navy and Bella Bleu DS paper..

Ink... Sahara Sand, Soft Suede and Not Quite Navy..






Accessories... 1/2 pearls from the SUP pretties kit.

And finally, the stamp sets include... Friends/ 24 7, Hope Happens and Herbed Expressions.

I also made this ornament for the Christmas Party on Friday night. I really wanted to do something with Shell-a-bration.. So for this I stamped the fish on acetate in black stazon, cut out the circle and colored with permanent markers. When I tried coloring with SUP or Copic markers, the colors were very light and tended to remove the black stazon. I then added some sand and very small shells (I picked up in the craft department of Walmart). Before closing the can I cut a small hole for the twine with my crop-a-dile and added the twine for hanging. Because of the sand and the shells I did glue the can when closing it. Finally I added the bow and small shells on the twine for a little extra bling..





And finally... Friday night my roomie Nicole and I made a quick trip to Walmart. (quick.... right Nicole... LOL) ok, so it took us a couple hours to find the Walmart that was only 10 minutes away.. But it was fun anyway. And we did find the Joann Fabric store that we needed to find and a Starbucks... LOL

While pursuing Walmart we came across these large green clothes pins... Ohw awesome. I decorated these using My minds eye paper that I picked up in Michael's. The flowers were cut out using the Flower Fold Big Diezzzzzzzz, embossed with Glassy Glaze to add a little extra umph...... and then a chocolate chip corduroy brad was added to the center.. How cute are these.

That's it for now....

Happy Stamping... Come back soon.. I feel some blog candy coming your way..

Happy Stamping !!!

Remarkable Safari Retreat Take 4

Take 1... Swaps....

I participated in a swap at the retreat. Of the one's I received here were my favorite's.

Take 2... Secret Santa Gift...

My secret Santa gift was "Peace" blocks... I love them and can't wait to put them out for the holidays...

Remarkable Safari Retreat Take 3

I'm bad... Here I thought I had all of my pictures uploaded. But when I went to upload my favorite from my swaps.... Low and Behold there were the pictures I knew I had taken. WHOOOPS.... The good news is.. You all get to see more of my favorite's from the retreat... Here goes. Enjoy :)

Remarkable Safari Retreat Take 2

Ok so I lied....... I still need to upload a picture of my swap before I can post them..... So in the mean time I thought I would show you an awesome clear scrapbook from the retreat.... This was the 25 days of Christmas... I just love all of the different pages. What's so awesome about this scrapbook is that you don't need a book with pages, you can create your own using the clear acrylic pages as your front and back covers. The crop-a-dile is great for punching holes...

Remarkable Safari Retreat Take 1

Howdy........ I'm just starting to catch my bearings after last weekend. Between mandatory ot, catching up on laundry etc. I just started unpacking my stamping supplies last night. In the mean time... here's some pictures of my favorite share projects from last weekend. I have no idea who made these but their great for ideas and looking at. Tomorrow I'll share the projects I made for the retreat.... Hugs,

Where have I been.... and what have I been doing?

Hey everyone.. I'm here, You may have wondered (or you may not have... but I'll tell you anyway) why I haven't been blogging. As you all know, Gram passed away New Years morning and since then I had zero creative spirit, zero mojo, zero energy to stamp.... zero zero zero... I still had a love for stamping, still filled my stamp room with new stamps, accessories and fun do-dad's, but when I sat down to stamp I was blank.

Last weekend I attended the Remarkable Stampers Safari Retreat in southern PA for an entire weekend of stamping and comrodery. I had a blast, met some wonderful stampers, cuddled with the most adorable baby on earth and re-found my creative inner spirit. So now I'm back. Different than I was before, wiser, I think funnier and definitely skinnier. Here I was..... the fall of '07....

And this was me just last weekend.

Some days my brain still has yet to catch up with my new body. I feel wonderful and most days I feel like an entirely different person. But some days I still feel like the old me. When I walk by a mirror I usually have to do a double take because I don't recognize myself.

So what else have I been up to. Well, as most of you know I have a soft spot in my heart for animals, especially those that well, are not perfect. We have Oreo our deaf dalmatian who was beaten and abused as a puppy and had her tail broken.

Carter who was from a dalmatian rescue in PA who is Oreo's ears and mama's little buddy. AND........ WELL...... now.... I guess you'll have to see for yourself.......

Meet Isabella..... formerly Patty... But Patty isn't a Princess name.. Isabella is a 5 year old cocker spaniel who spent the first 5 years of her life in a 'puppy mill' cage in TN mak'in babies. A local cocker rescue was looking for a foster family that could spend the time with her to teach her how to be a puppy. Since I work from home and have Carter & Oreo I said, we could do it. So here she came... When we got her a few months ago she knew nothing... she didn't know what grass was, wasn't potty trained (as a matter of fact when she arrived at the rescue her paws were so encrusted with feces and urine that the vet had to soak them to get it off), didn't know how to go up and down stairs, all she knew was the inside of her small confined cage. OMG has she learned what the good life is.

This is now how Princess Isabella spends her days while mama is at the 'puter working.... lying in the cushy recliner in front of the air conditioner.

Here she is snuggling with Oreo. Puppy Mill puppies feel more comfortable being confined... so she loves to sleep under the spiral staircase next to my desk. Oreo has taken to sleeping there too.... so now the two of them snuggle up together and sleep their days away.

Now don't get me wrong, it hasn't been as 'easy' as I make it out to be. Carter had his nose bent a little and wandered around acting like no one loved him anymore and wanted nothing to do with Bella.... But now, they love each other. Carter has been teaching Bella his bold tricks.... Like they are here.... begging for da'da's popcorn....

And if this wasn't luck.. here it is actually caught on camera..... Carter kissing Bella... And he says he doesn't like her... LOL

So where do I go from here........ How will my stamping be different? Last weekend I came to realize that part of the reason why I haven't stamped is because cards just got too boring. Unless I needed a card for a special occasion what would I ever do with the 100's of cards I already have in my stamp room? I have a new 'energized' stamping focus... thanks to my roomie Nicole and Chloe.. My creative spirit will now be focused outside that stamping box. What can I do with everything I've been hording in my stamp room... All those stamps, the piles of cardstock, those sizzix dies that have been collecting dust..... and espicially those little accessory do-dad's and do-hickies that are shoved in the plastic containers on my shelves. They probably won't find themselves being made into cards, but I can guarantee to you that I'm going to find a fun, decorative way to use them.....

So stay tuned and keep watching for fun new ideas from me....