Halloween Treats & Surprises

I had an early Halloween Treat yesterday. My Grand-daughter brought me lunch to work and ate with me. About 10 minutes after she arrived her mother walked in as a surprise to both of us. And guess what she came bearing. A whole bag of Hershey Nuggets with Almonds. My all time favorite candy. Can you believe all for me, I don't even have to share. Now that is showing love. Thanks, Jennifer and Amber for making yesterday such a special day.
8 more working hours, and the weekend starts. Well that is after all the little ghost and goblins come to visit tonight. I miss the homemade costumes. You know, the sheets with eye holes cut out. Little boys dressed as cowboys, little girls dressed as witches, not the action figures and stuff like that. One year my little grand-daughter was Dorothy from The Land of Oz. She even carried a little stuff dog. She sure was a baby doll in that. Things sure have changed since I went trick or treating. I really think we had more fun then the kids do today.

Tomorrow, (Saturday) will be my dear sister-in-laws 80th birthday. She sure don't look or act it. We are taking her out for lunch tomorrow, so I made this little card to give her. After I had it completed, I found out I had put everything on backwards. it opened from the wrong side. How many times have you all done that. I took everything back off and started all over.

Treasures

We all have Treasures, they may be material things, memories or treasures of your heart. This post is about some of those things.

A long time ago when my boys were little, my paternal grandfather would come to my house about once a week, to visit with my boys and to eat lunch with us. He was a widower, and had cancer. When I was only 12 my grandmother passed away and just a short time later he was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx. Back then they didn't have the know how like they do now. As young boys, my sons always called their great grandfather "Pa can't talk" when they were excited about his visit or whatever. To him, it was just Pa. He brought me several things during those visits. Back then I was so wrapped up in my family, that I didn't ask any questions about the history of the items. It was hard also to understand him, after his surgery. I guess with the anniversary of my Father's death, I was drawn to these items this week. Also I have a new blog friend: VINTAGE GIRL AT HEART. And I'm sure you can tell by her name, what her blog is about. I don't even know how I found her site, but so glad I did. I love to look at all her "pretties". I wanted her to see these things, that I was drawn to on Tuesday. Maybe her or someone she blogs with can tell me something interesting about these things.

Thanks for letting me share these Treasures of mine with you.

Early Trick or Treat

I probably will give my 2 youngest grand-daughter's treat bags to them today. These are just store bought bags with stickers, their names in foam letters, and then some ribbon tied at the top. To go in the bags, we have homemade marshmallow treats, Reese cups, rollups, gummy bears, suckers, trail mix, candy necklaces, crackers, pudding, glow sticks and little Halloween Pez. I am sure there are some I didn't name. I will have to get the 19 year old Grand-daughter, my grown sons, and DH, on Friday. Yes you heard me, they still get a treat bag. It's like on your Birthday, you should have a cake, well at Halloween, you should get a bag full of things, that the Mom usually ends up eating the good stuff herself, and rations out the rest to the kids at her discretion. That's what Moms do best. *wink*wink*

Daddy, Paint Me A Rainbow

Today is a sad day. It is the anniversary of my Dad's death.

My Dad was a painter, so now God lets him paint the rainbows, the sunsets, and the sunrises. How great is that.

I am trying to get some of my Christmas presents made. Here is another of the necklaces that I have been practicing on.

Has anyone seen the little card fairy. I need her to come to my house and work on my Christmas cards.

Pat's Saturday Night Challenge & Natalie's Ribbon

Can you believe I finished this on Sunday afternoon. Boy, that extra cup of coffee yesterday morning must have kicked in. The little almost 3 yr. old grand-daughter even visited a little while in that time frame. Before I show the Thank you card, that was the choice of Pat's challenge Saturday night. I want to tell you about my little grand-daughter, She was brushing Flossie Mae, and my DH said let Grandma brush your hair, Well she doesn't care for hair brushing all that much. But I said let's go look at all Grandma's ribbons and you can pick one out for your hair. After a little coaching she agreed and I brought her in to where I kept my ribbons. All my ribbons. She kept saying PINK, she wouldn't talk about any other color. But when I opened up the drawer where they were all stored, her eyes got big, and she said "OOH". I have all pinks together, and she touched and picked up several, then she saw a big 2" wide yellow polka dot. She said I want yellow. But before I could get it out, she said no, no, and grabbed the pink polka dot. That age is just so wonderful. But I believe she will take after me eventually, she will be in awe of all those "embellishments" that are out there.

OK, here is my entry:

Oh, I forgot to tell you the biggest challenge was keeping Flossie Mae, out of the pictures. Every time I would get ready to snap, she would try to get at the card. Any thing that is new or out of place, she has to investigate. Now to the actual pictures after about the 100th snap shot .

This is a shot of the final product. Now on to how I got there. On this card, the inside is more the vocal part of the card then the outside.

Notice the little closure to the die cut cards I found at Big Lots for $1.00. And they are ECO friendly too.

First of all I used a little leaf stamp and stamped a background all over the opened outside of the card. Then I used initial stamps to put my monogram on the piece that is used on the enclosure. Then progressed onto the inside, shown in picture below.

I layered some patterned paper on the inside, then added another layer of the same stock as the original purchased card. I had a scrap from a card that I goofed on earlier. Then I used a Stampendous Stamp for the sentiment. Also in the lower right hand corner, I put some little flocked dots. There is one missing in the very corner. Flossie probably ate that one. I didn't know it was even missing till I started posting the pictures.

Since this is going to be a hand delivered card. I dressed up the sealed flap just a touch.

The sentiment is for Pat and Dee. We met 2 years ago this month through a tragedy, and we have become the best of friends, through one of the toughest things that life could throw out at you. We still have so many unanswered questions, but will persevere till the end. Again, thanks Pat and Dee for believing in me and being patient with me till I knew the time was right.

Thinking Christmas

Well Pat started it all when she made a Christmas card last week. Now I think I need to start getting some of my Christmas gifts made. This is on of the necklaces that someone on my list will get. I plan on making several different ones, so I really don't know who this will actually get this one. I am new at this beading stuff, but thought I would take a stab at it. I still haven't decided on my Christmas card design. I know I have at least 100 to make, and that it is almost the first of November, maybe I need to play hooky from work several days *wink* I went to visit with my Mom today and really enjoyed my visit, but the traffic was terrible. My Mom lives in a college town, and the football game traffic was a nightmare. Here is a picture of my second attempt at beading. Hope everyone is enjoying theie weekend. I sure am.

Now the next project is to make a nifty little box or bag to put it in. Thanks for looking

Punkins

These are what a "Punkin" looks like, because they're not like any pumpkins I've ever see. My DH gave me a challenge when he handed me a empty 2 liter drink bottle, and said here do something for Halloween with this. He then preceeded to tell me he saw some pumkins made out of plastic bottles. He cut the 2 liter bottle down for me and the other one is a 16 oz drink bottle and a Miracle whip salad dressing bottle. I spray painted the bottles, used green chinelle pipe cleaners for the curlyques on the vine of the pumkin. I cut some preprinted faces out and adhered them to the bottles. This was a real fun project, and very frugal. ;)

Well the weekend is almost here, just 8 work hours left. Thanks for letting me share my "punkins" with you.

OH ME OH MY

I got my first award. YEAH Heather from Vanillahevn sent me this award today. She left me a comment and told me she had something for me. What a surprise it was. Thank you Heather for making me a happy person today. I read Heather's profile, and discovered though we are worlds apart, that her and I think alike. She just used the right words. I was talking to my friend Wanda, and I told her that I didn't really know who Shelia was anymore. I told her that to begin with I was some one's daughter, then some one's wife, then I was some one's mother, then some one's grandmother. And all these things have made me who I am today, and I am so thankful for each of these. But I still hadn't found Shelia. Wanda told me "Well you are now Shelia the one in the blog". Then Heather said in her profile that "she started the blog up with the intention of setting the inner fear free and show the world what I can do." Heather, I want to join you in that plan. I have never been self assured, never confident, that I could do anything as good as anyone else, always timid to try, afraid it wouldn't be good enough. But with the blogging and paper crafting, I have found a new person inside me, and so many many friends, that I have never even seen or talked too. By going to every one's blog it has showed me that there is no right or wrong way to do these projects, just do what makes you happy and what feels good. There will always be someone to criticize me, but more often, there will be compliments. Everyone has a different style, and there is no right or wrongs. Thanks Heather for the award, Wanda, for telling me where to find myself and Pat for urging me on, and making me see that I can do something. Also thanks to my followers. Now here is my award.

Now I am suppose to choose more people to share this with. Since Pat has already received it I will choose another in her place.

Heather One Little Spark

Jamie

Robyn

Lori

Vintage Girl

She went and did it again!

Pat started showing Christmas goodies on her blog and got me thinking again about my Christmas cards this year. So in other words she is to blame for this card. I found this MS punch a couple of weeks ago and thought I would use it to make a wreath. I just punched out a bunch of the branches from white card stock, and arranged them in a wreath shape. I also punched out one of the layer below. I wished I had not done that, because I do not like the way it looks. I will leave it off the next one. I added some stickles and little sparkle rhinestones to the wreath. That's it for this morning, except to thank my faithful followers, that always take the time to look and comment. It means a lot to me. Thanks again.

Survey

OK you guys and gals, I am taking a survey. My grand-daughter showed up at my house yesterday afternoon on her way to class with a new hair color. I am showing a before and after. Which do you all like the best. I told her I was going to do this, and her being the fun loving, good natured person she is consented. Let us know what you like the best.

I'll be back tomorrow, with some stuff I have been working on. Enjoy your Tuesday!

BBBRRRR and Azalea Blooms

First things first. Happy Birthday Dee

Well, It is 32 at my house this morning. I know it is the 20th of October and time for it to be cold, but I don't have to like it. I'll have to go start my car early to get the frost off of it this morning, before I can start off for work. I haven't gotten my warmer clothes out of the basement yet, so I'll have to find some kind of jacket to wear. Oh and don't forget socks. It was just this past Friday I was wearing capris and sandals. This was peak weekend for the fall leaves in the mountains. A lot of the leaves are falling before even changing. I guess it was the dry weather we had.

I took this picture yesterday as I was putting all my flowers in the basement that would get frost bit last night. I know there are varieties of azaleas that bloom more then once a year, but mine are not that kind. It was caused by the crazy weather we have had recently, I guess. But whatever the cause I enjoyed it. Have a good Monday. I'm off to find some warm clothes to wear to work.

It's 8 o'clock Somewhere

Time for Scrapbook Cafe's Saturday Night Challenge

What a nice surprise it was for Pat to ask me to do tonight's Scrapbook Cafe's challenge. She has really been busy this past week putting the final touches on "One Little Spark" the shop. Please visit here to see all the lovely pictures of the shop. all you guys that live up that way are so lucky to get to experience it first hand. I just sit around all day and thought about everyone having fun getting to look at all the goodies and SHOPPING. Perhaps some of you picked out something at the Grand Opening today that you can use on this challenge.

The challenge for this week's Scrapbook Cafe Saturday Night Challenge is to make a folder, book, box or what ever you like the best, to put recipes in. Last week at our family reunion, there was just too much good food. Everyone was asking each other for recipes and the such. I thought that I would compile some favorite recipes from family and friends that I personally know are good. Thus the name of my cook book Tried and True.

I purchased several of those little albums at the Dollar Tree that has the plastic sleeves in them that hold 4 x6 photos. The pages are not ring bound but glued at the spine of the book. The ones I got, have pages for 100 recipes.

The ones I found already had pretty covers on them, but you know how we are, we have to glue or embellish everything we get our hands on.

This is basically what I started out with, a album, pattern paper, and some recipes.

This is a shot of it after i had added some papers on the front and back of the book. I cut my paper smaller then the book because I wanted some of the original book to show.

Before covering the inside of the back cover, I adhered a length of ribbon to the lining that was already there. I then covered the lining and ribbon with the patterned paper. So now I have a length of ribbon I can use as a book marker. Then I moved on to the inside of the front cover.

I found these little scalloped bags by MS at Big Lots for $1.00, a long time ago, thinking I would use them for something sometime. Well the time had come. I cut off the bottom of it, used glue runner to put the bottom of it back together, and glued the back of it onto the inside cover. The above picture shows the pleating of the bag, that will allow it to hold bulky things.

I added a couple of embellishments on it, faux stitched around it, added a ribbon through the scalloped holes, and added a little note pad.

On the spine of the book, I attached some co-ordinating papers then added a little strip with eyelets that said Recipes. I popped this piece up with dimensional foam dots. Then to fancy up the front.

I used my nestabillities rectangular die to cut out two pieces in different sizes, attached those and then just added a simple iron on flower. Now we are about finished. The insides and finishing came next.

I made little tabs for the different categories. I chose, meats, vegetables, SWEETS, and the last was simply "everything else". I added some paper clips to the index pages, to have handy in case you need to mark extra pages of your favorites. All there was left to do is add the recipe cards that I had typed.
See how simple all of this was, Here is the final photo of the inside of the book. Notice that on the end of the ribbon marker, I added a little tab to the end to cover up the raw edges of the ribbon, this was added to both sides of the ribbon. Below is a photo of another one I have almost completed.
This was a solid green book to begin with, so I added the daisy print paper, added the title and a stick on daisy. I hope everyone will participate in the challenge and make a special little holder for those "SPECIAL" recipes. It can be elaborate or simple like mine, just make it fun for you. Thanks for letting me be a part of your Saturday night. You think Pat may be napping? *wink*wink*

Scrapbook Cafe's Saturday Night Challenge

Pat's challenge this week was a neat one. I have really grown to like this technique. Even though, I use it in the simplest manner. I'm still learning at it, but I do love the way it changes just a ordinary stamped image. So her challenge was:

Tonight's Challenge!! Make something using paper piecing!

I chose this cute little girl ready for a day on the beach. I know you all are wondering "this time of year" But we have had the nicest weather this past week. When the average temperature for this time of year should be around 72, the thermometer is hitting 85. The weathermen have promised us that it will change this weekend. I stamped her on white paper, then picked up the scrap on my desk to cut a piece for the little dress. I used chalk to color in her skin, and the little bit of sand. I used the Glaze pen to color her sand pail, shovel and flippies. The tiny little fake buttons on the shoulder seam of her little dress, was some I found in my little box of odds and ends. The little sparkle in her hair, on the sand dollar and her blue eyes came from some little embellishments that was in a kit for fingernails. They were just the tiny size I needed, to bring it all together. Thanks Pat for the neat challenge.

Thank You

Thanks to all that commented on Flossie Mae, she sure is a stinker. When I rub her belly, she takes her paw and combs my hair. I guess that is her way of thanking me.

Some have mentioned my new banner, I personally was touched by breast cancer on Sat. Oct 4th. A friend of 26 years, lost her battle with this ravaging disease, and as they say, these people are the most courageous women of the world. She battled for around 5 years.

Then there is a joyful story to tell you about, another long time friend, Melonie, is celebrating her 5th year cancer free, just this month.

Also, there is Debbie, Marilyn, Brenda, Sandra, & Gwen, all survivors, that I am close to that lives with the daily fear that it might reoccur. I have seen first hand how it affects the loved ones of the ones affected with this disease, dealing with their spouses, sisters, daughters & mother's illnesses and the helplessness that they must feel. Please have your mammograms, and keep the ones battling, the survivors and the families of the victims in your prayers.

Last week I posted little toppers for some Halloween treat bags. Karen mentioned that I should do the same with trail mix. So over the weekend I bought all the stuff I like in my "Gorp" or trail mix, or what ever your family may call it. I made mine with raisins, dried cherries, almonds, dried pineapple, dried apricots, peanuts, dates, white chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and sunflower and pumpkin seeds. And yes I have eaten enough of it to make me sick. It is one of those things you think you have to eat, every time you see it. Thanks Karen, for the inspiration and the 5 pounds. *wink*wink*

Busy Weekend

It was a busy week end for me, so I didn't really complete anything very creative. It has been beautiful fall weather the past 2 or 3 days. The leaves are not at their peak color yet, but are still beautiful. Next weekend should really be awesome. We went to the Mountains Saturday and the "leaf lookers" were already there.

Since nothing crafty to show, I will share with you the latest pictures of Flossie Mae. She sure is quite the handful now. So energetic and what a busy body she is. She is so inquisitive. I forgot what having a little kitten was like. We are guessing that she is about 12 or 13 weeks old. She has really grown in the 6 weeks that we have had her. I will start out with the two pictures when we first got her, then the next two will be from last week.

More Halloweenie Junk

I cased this little treat holder, off of Pat, I didn't use the same template, so we will say I didn't copy her. *wink*. I thought Pat's was so cute I just had to try one. I printed the whole thing out, It was already colored, so there was no way I could get the fold marks from showing. I decided to just add some more black dotted lines to the other details of it. I used the black dotted ribbon, and also free handed some little black marks on the white part of the tag. I am so much looking forward to the weekend. It can't get here soon enough. I really need to spend about 3 days non stop in my craft space, putting things away and giving it a good tidying up. Hope you enjoy your weekend. Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone could slip off from work a couple of ours early. Thanks for letting me share my candy corn treat holder.

Heather's Challenge

Can you believe that it is already almost Thursday. It has been raining and dreary all day today and the same forecast for tomorrow. We still are in a drought status, so as MS would say, "It's a Good Thing". This week has been a fast one for me. Saturday will soon be here. We have a family reunion this Saturday. It is the one that I made the little silverware pockets for. I have that part completed, but, have not got started on what I may take to eat. I am looking forward to seeing some family members that live away from here.

Heather's Saturday Spark over at One Little Spark, was to make some Halloween packaging.

I found these cute little candies in the cake decorating aisle. They are made by Wilton. You thread the candies and the big pumpkin onto a little piece of elastic string to make a "Candy Necklace". I have already strung my little grand-daughters for them, but left the rest unmade. That will be half the fun for the older little girls. I put them down in some of those little recloseable bags. Made a little topper for them, which I attached with a ribbon. 6 treat bags completed, just 100 to go. *wink*wink*

Reunion & Pat's Challenge

Pat's Challenge for this week:

It was suggested last week that in light of the gas problems in some areas and the overall economy, that I do a frugal challenge. When I sat down to figure out what to do with that idea I looked around and asked myself what could I make without having to drive anywhere or spend extra cash just for supplies.

My family is having a reunion this weekend so I thought I would combine a little project I had going on in my head with Pat's Challenge. I had so many scraps and pretties all over my work space from some earlier fall projects, that would fit right in with being frugal. I had planned on originally buying some paper that would make all of these silverware packets uniform in color. So instead this is what I came up with. I really think I like this better then them all being the same.

I took all the different sizes of scraps plus some colored card stock and made these little pockets for the silverware. There is over 50 of them. none of them are alike. some are pieces folded to make a pocket, others are two pieces glued together. I used my oval punch to cut out the occasion and the date. Then I used strips of scrap paper for the ribbon look, placed the oval on top of that, and then chose an embellishment from my desk top, where I had them from previous projects. I even punched some little flowers out of the scraps to use as embellishments. I made a little beaded embellishment for the basket that I was putting them all in. I just used fall colored tri beads and pipe cleaner. It is suppose to be indian corn, really it looks better then it does in the picture. I wrote a little note telling everyone to save their envelope to use as a holder for some little note or picture they might have left with. I sure am glad Pat had the frugal challenge, I used a bunch of my scraps and odds and ends up with this project. I saw something similar to this while blog hopping, and failed to save the sites's link. But thank you whomever it was.

Marigolds

Several post back I was telling you about the bag of seeds that our son had found when he was moving. They were in a little white bag, and his grandmother had written on it Marigolds. His grandmother had died in January of 2000, so we know they were at least 8 years old. I planted the seeds and the above is a picture of one of the beds with Mimi's marigolds in it.

Well the above picture is this year's seeds that I harvested from the flowers grown from her original little bag of seeds. I was thinking that I need to share these with the rest of the family, consisting of the grandchildren, the son's and their wife's, friends of hers, and nieces and nephews. Below is the little packet I came up with to put them in so I could add it to everyone in the family's Christmas cards this year. This is the front side of the packets. I used the oval die to cut the little pictures of marigolds out from a piece of card stock where I had printed the marigold clip art numerous times. This picture shows the back of the packets of seeds, where I cut ovals out with the words Mimi's marigold seeds. Mimi is what all the grandchildren called her. I used the oval to help seal the packets.

The template that I used was very simple. Just a few folds and a little glue and you are finished. I trimmed 12x12 patterned paper down to fit my printer to print the template on. So all I had to do was cut out, score. glue, fill with seeds, attach picture to front and back and the project is finished. I have a few more to go, before being completely finished. I do have everything printed and cut out, so it will not talk long to assemble them

Thanks for taking the time for me to ramble on and on.