The Caged Raven Necklace

It's a Halloween giveaway!!!! This handmade necklace is made out of leather, yes leather! The cage, the raven, the background, all leather.  The metal chain measures 19 inches long and there are 4 glass and lava beads dangling from the bottom.  The cage measures about 2 inches long.  The necklace would look great with a black turtleneck!

So how do you win this baby? Just leave a comment for this post about the craziest Halloween costume you've ever worn.  I'll pick a winner on Wednesday and send it right out to you after I contact you for your address.  Happy Halloween!

Decorated mantel with a little help...........

Today was a gift from the snow-god, Blizzardacus, in which he dropped enough snow last night for school to be cancelled. Tonight we are expecting anywhere from 5 to 16 inches of snow, depending upon the how the lake effect snow machine fires up. Isn't it funny how the weather man gives such a wide span to cover his butt? I could be a weather person in that case...."today folks we are going to have anywhere from 3 inches to 29 feet of snow, so get the shovels out". Well I used the time wisely late this afternoon and finished decorating......I had a little assistance, if you can call it that. This guy was very helpful with his super long arms, he could easily hold onto the bead garland. This dude was no help what so ever, he kept giving everyone this shy sideways glance and kept wishing then "Happy Holidays!". These snowmen are a hard bunch to work with, they are VERY unfocused.Ok so I, by myself got the greens on the matel and started to place the dark green glass balls and large metal jingle bells when this guy started to poke me in the nose with his aluminum tree.

Well, I finally just finished but not without somebody getting stuck in the gumbal machine.....

Sunshine climbed into the gumball machine and got stuck. He then yelled out for me to bring him his snow, bottle brush tree and red and silver balls. I think he's planning on hanging out there until after the holidays.

Todays giveaway is a set of 3 original Christmas postcards I created. These are actually the ones I will be sending out myself this year. Leave a comment and I'll draw a winner on Thursday. Sorry the pictures of them are a little blurry but then again I'm a little blurry after deal with those snowmen for a few hours!

Winner Announced and Snowman Popcorn Wrapper

Winners announced: the winner of the Tussie Mussie is Roc and the winner of the bird pendant is Saskia! Congrats girls, thanks for following my blog and a special thanks to Tracey for providing the Tussie Mussie.

Ok, so my crafty BFF, Tracey, said that I was crazy for trying to do 30 days of give aways in a row and I have to admit she's RIGHT! I'm finding that I'm not having enough time to get everything I need to get done for Christmas such as decorating, washing underwear & socks (yes that can fall into this category), baking Christmas cookies and pizzelles, etc., as well as work on a new project every night sooooooooo, I'm renaming my little Holiday endeavor 18.524 Days of Holiday Giveaways! It has a certain ring to it, doesn't it? So that means there will be a give away a day for this week & Saturday and Sunday will be the last day. Next year will be different.....I've got a plan.....I'll make everything in the summer for a proper 30 Days of Holiday Giveaways!

Alrighty then, let's get to it. I wish I could say that I came up with this clever little gift but I got the idea from Mary Jane over at The Bee Hive Cottage blog. She got the idea from Laurie Furnell. You know, these blogging artists have become so touchy with giving credit and following the provenance of the creation that I'm almost afraid to make anything that looks remotely like something somebody else made. I don't think anybody has the copyright on the circle shape and the triangle shape so I made my own face with Photoshop. LOL! It's a popcorn wrapper snowman...........


It's really very easy. Here's what you need. A sheet of white cardstock with the face printed on it in the center, a package of microwave popcorn, a pair of the magic gloves (you know the little ones that stretch out when you put your hands in them), tape and a piece of 7 ribbon about 7 inches long.

This is the face I made with Photoshop, you can use it, lick it, sell it for a gizillion dollars, eat chicken off of it, give it away, put in on a shirt or the back of a pair of boxers, shoot, I really don't care how you use it because I'M GIVING IT TO YOU. Insert it into a Word document, set the margins to zero for the top and the bottom. Center the face, you will be able to get 2 onto an 8.5 by 11 inches piece of paper. Cut the paper in between the two faces. Wrap one of the papers with the face around the popcorn packet overlapping the edges and tape it in the back. Stuff one of the gloves up into the other glove, slide it onto the top of the snowman's head and tie a piece of ribbon right below the fingers. Attach a tag to it and ta-da.....Christmas munches for the chow-hound! I was thinking that you could also tape together a few packets of hot chocolate and put the snowman face wrapper around them.

Leave a comment if you'd like, you know I like hearing from you all! I also like visiting your blogs and getting ideas and inspiration and sometimes a chuckle.

12 Days of Christmas Gum!

So Day #5 in the 30 Days of Holiday Give Aways was suppose to be a template for this sleeve to go over the pack of gum, however my scanner was not cooperating the way it should so I'll just give you the easy instructions. You know they just estimated how much the 12 presents from the 12 Days of Christmas song would cost this year and it was a whopping $97,000 dollars. I have a much cheaper version...........the 12 Days of Christmas Gum which will cost you all of $1.19!
Take a pack of Dentyne Ice gum and slide the sleeve off of it. Carefully pry it apart at the seam, flatten it out onto a piece of colored cardstock and trace around it. Cut it out and score the lines where you would fold it. Glue some colorful snowmen on the front. Fold and using a scrapbooking tape runner, tape up the side tabs by overlapping them. Using a thick Sharpie marker write the numbers 1-12 on the back of the gum. Tuck the pack of gum into the sleeve and write "to" and "from" on the back of the sleeve and ta-da, you are done! Now you can whip up a bunch of these babies for your friends, your kid's teachers (they chew a lot of gum, it helps with their jaw clenching), etc.....
You know you could even stick 2 sleeves together and turn it into "Advent Gum"!

To the FLEA!

OH BOY! I'm off tomorrow to Hartville, Ohio to the big flea market to meet my friend Tracey (you may know her from Glitterbug Studios. I'm looking for vintage egg timers, rusty square nails and vintage bloomers to collage on...... not really, I was just seeing if you were paying attention! Hopefully I'll have something interesting to post tomorrow after I return from the flea but until then here is something interesting for you to look at......LOL!.....



Circa 1974 from a catalogue!!! There is not a natural fiber on these two dudes and look at how the bartender is looking at them with a look of such utter disgust! Please feel free to leave a comment about what they are saying to each other. My friends and I have had a great time with this picture. In fact leave a comment about what they are saying to each other and I'll pick the one I think is the funniest....the winner will win one of my Beachy Bohemian necklaces!