Happy Halloween

The images seem right for the season, don't they?

I have not done much Halloween decorating this year. With no kids at home and no trick or treaters (really, no one comes to our house), I just never got around to it.


As I was hanging this lace from the clothesline I was reminded of cobwebs in school carnival haunted houses. Its as close to Halloween decorating as I got this year!


Have I mentioned the intense involvement I had in my kids' elementary school PTA? Maybe one day I will write about the joy (and frustration) I found in that full-time, unpaid position. Needless to say, I am very familiar with school carnival haunted houses!

The wind was picking up when I hung these pieces of lace.

Untangling lace is almost as difficult as untangling small necklace chains and much scarier!


Have a wonderful day & evening.
I'll be thinking of my kids and wondering, despite their 20-something-ness, are out there in great costumes, politely (or not) calling
"TRICK OR TREAT!"

So Fun!

Yesterday was a wonderful day!

Elyse and her sister visited my shop.
They showed up just as I was turning on the lights and we had a really fun visit.


This is one of her beautiful soup can pencil holders. It is sitting out on my desk as I type this!

Elyse and her sister.
In real life, they are in much sharper focus!


Elyse & me.
When Elyse posts her pictures at cottage, they may be in better focus. She has a new camera and I forgot to turn my flash on.

After Elyse left to visit Vintage Lizzie, down the road, I had other delightful people in. It was like a ray of appreciation came in with Elyse and her sister and brightened up everyone who stopped by -- another sister duo from NJ and Washington state and a mom & daughter from around the corner. It was really fun to spend the day in the shop with like minded women who enjoyed my taste and were friendly.



Knowing the sun would be out, and I had linens to clean & sun bleach, I left a load in the washing machine to soak overnight. This morning I wiped the clothesline clean -- I do not know how a thin piece of plastic covered wire can get so dirty. 45 minutes, a bleach soaked rag & some coriander scented all purpose clearer later, I could hang out these pretties.

A square piece to put over one's bed pillow.

Just beyond the clothes line are plants that always remind me of Autumn.


Bittersweet.
They are invasive plants in the northeast and my son has worked hard to eradicate them.
Sorry Ter, they are back.

Its All About Me

To see Natasha's post and the other participants, CLICK here!

When I signed up for this blog party, I had no idea what I would do. I just knew it would be good to do something for me.

Then my local scrapbooking store sent an email telling me about a day long crafting event called "Stamptoberfest." The projects looked terrific, and I signed up, realizing it was the perfect "all about me" day! For more about fun activities, check out {creative chick headquarters} These are some of the wonderful ladies behind the day.

My schedule.

It was a great day. There were 5 teachers/5 classes. The students were divided into groups and went from one table to the next.


There were signs for each station, but I'm afraid this is the only one I snapped. Once we got going it was fast & intense and I was just glad to keep up.

My Tin Woman


We used plastic templates and rubbed the metal over them to add designs, then sand papered it to bring out the details. Because each class section was just 45 minutes, the teachers did a lot of prep work, including covering the legs with dictionary pages & painting the boots, arms, wings.


This is Erin & Melissa M.
Melissa taught my next class. We made a very wonderful pin out of a stamped image and swarovski crystals. You notice there is no photo? I gave the pin to my daughter and forgot to take a snap. I'm pretty sure she likes it, as it is a paisley shape and autumnal colors.
I loved how it turned out.

Erin took lots of photos of the day, staffed the register & rang the bell to keep us all on track.
She teaches at Colorful Creations for other events.


I always thought making charms was difficult. You had to solder and probably burn yourself (I have worked with glue guns and know about burns) and maybe have 2-handed coordination (I'm so awfully right handed).
NOT SO!

We got 3 kits for charms. We had time to make 2 and the one above is awaiting me.

These are the charms we made.
I learned how to use distress stamp pads to color tags & how to put these charm pieces together (no soldering needed). The teachers are so creative. The little charm on the left has tiny beads, starfish & shell shaking around. The fishnet was a great touch.


The next class was twice the time so we could make a tag book.

My finished book

I'll tell you a secret. The metal pieces the ribbon is strung thru are one of those mothers of invention things. I made a mess punching the holes and ripped the cover. Those metal pieces were part of the kit, I string & glued them and viola, no tears showing!

Inside of Tag Book.

Tags in a row.


No drawing required!
This was all done with stamps, watercolor pens & brush.


Thank you Natasha for hosting this lovely party. I had such a good time at my day of art. I learned lots of new techniques. I discovered my ArtBin is useless for holding supplies at this kind of event, and if I can swing it, I want to get a better camera for Silver Bella. Who would guess so much great knowledge would come out of planning a day all about me?

The Road to Silver Bella

I am going to Silver Bella for the first time this year.
It's just so exciting, I can hardly stand it!

I started blogging last November, after seeing some amazing photographs in Artful Blogging magazine. Some of the featured blogs caught my imagination. I discovered Silver Bella 2008 from reading Heather, and Natasha's blogs. From there I discovered a whole slew of wonderful blogs and wonderful women. On my way to Silver Bella 2009 I am going to get to meet these lovely ladies: Lori, Mary, Beth and Karla. This is such a treat for me!


I feel really, really blessed. My daily life is richer because of the creative women whose blogs I visit, who visit my blog, who comment, who write such inspiring words and take such beautiful pictures that I am often in awe. I have discovered women who live near me and women who live on the other side of the globe. It is an amazing community and has probably been the biggest push in getting my antique shop open after years of saying I wanted to.


I am a terrible (or maybe I should say very good) procrastinator, so it feels like this is all last minute. But today I started in earnest. I made these button tags about 6 months ago. I always planned to sell them in a set of 4, but I only made 3. I do not know why I get 3/4 of the way into a project and then go off on another tangent. Today I finished the last pink one and made a complete set in turquoise. It was fun!


Last week when I was avoiding getting ready, I popped into a local antique mall. Mostly I go because one of the booths is fabulous! The packages of vintage paper and embellishments above are from her booth. I got to talking to the woman at the sales desk. I found out she is the owner of the booth I love so much. She found out I'm going to Silver Bella. Both of us were thrilled and I'm looking forward to spending more time with her.


I collected a whole bunch of cool things from the shop to put on my table at Vendor Night. -- vintage sewing items, millinery flowers, knitting books with great graphics & fun patterns too, monogrammed linens, etc.

I still need to put together vintage paper packets.

My newest Mini-Moo cards came last week.

A promotion tempted me to try something new. These are from photographs I took. The far right one is made up of things that have special meaning to me: a Shelley tea cup and a Whiting & Davis purse -- both from my mom; a reminder ("wish"), lace, buttons, millinery flowers, a compass to help me find my way and the pearls given to me by my husband when our daughter was born.

The cards are little, 1"x 2 3/4," and so much fun to share, specially cuz I designed them and the pictures and graphics mean something to me.

Thank You Elyse

I tend to get side-tracked. I have the best intentions but there are times when what I mean to do just doesn't get done or I lose track of time. So this is a long overdue thank you for my friend's kindness.

Elyse is a very sweet, generous woman, who loves Cape Cod. A couple weeks ... no, a month ago, she offered to make a button for my antique shop to put on this blog. She wanted folks to know I have a shop and she's really good at "buttons."

I thought maybe it should be a picture of my shop sign and sent her images. What she came up with was way better. Pretty and Pink. She even included the oval shape I have on the sign and use on my business cards.

If you like the image she created, do visit her blog, cottage, and tell her so. She really deserves a lot of kudos, even if it is a bit late!

More Bricks

Did you know sand & gravel yards have concrete piles?

Brick, concrete, pavers, etc all can be dumped for a fee.

However, if you want to take said brick, pavers, etc there is no cost.


We were able to salvage 50 of these stamped bricks.
The fancy brick is my favorite.

I found this cool, curved rock. It works great at the corner of the raised garden bed. The stamped bricks border the patio


The pathway from the front porch to where we park our cars.


The unexpected patio!
The bricks on top as waiting to be cut with the tile/brick saw.
The buckets hold stone dust.

I think it took my son an hour to get all the brick dust off the saw & table.

Covered in brick dust. He's usually a natural blond.
I was very sorry we don't have an outdoor shower, and one with hot & cold water. My son determined this much brick dust would play havoc with our drains, so he turned the hose on himself to rinse off.

For previous posts about this project, click here here, and here. I will share more pics of the finished path and patio (yes there are more!), but my son has asked for posts about bricks and I want to honor his request. He's off on a new adventure. I'll post about that soon too.
This is for you sweetie!