Double Double, Toile and Trouble ~ We Have Winners!

Double the Birthdays, double the prizes and double the trouble for sure! Poor Mona, I really put her through the wringer on this one. She had never done a giveaway before but she came through with flying colors and once she got over the fright of it all she learned how to work her blogger magic! You can teach an old witch sweet lady new tricks! LOL! Used to be her friend indeed! Make sure you go by to meet her winner and see all that she went through to do it. I forgot to tell her about the random number generator!

 

 

As much as I would have like to be right there with Mona doing our drawings we're separated by half a state and millions of crazy drivers so I had to call upon my own little Witchie Poo to do the honors.

 

 

 

Only six entries so it's pretty good odds. Aren't the six of you glad I haven't been around visiting much lately? Mona had sixty something! And the winner is....

 

 

 

 

Congratulations! I will have your groovy witch in the mail Monday. I hope the kids have a great time with her!

 

If you haven't been by Arbor House Lane you should go and see the spells this great friend casts on old ugly furniture! It's amazing! And for a cackle or two stop by All the Girls Chit Chat where she's been known to hang out with a bunch of clowns like...um...me, not that I've been there much lately either, really I have been busy, catching toads and newts and such.

Thanks to my other five loyal followers! A few of you mentioned you have October birthdays. Next year you'll have to break out the brooms with us! My mom and cousin are also October girls so we get to celebrate all month long! As for Mona, she's really not a witch, at least I don't think so...

When I was looking for old postcards online I came across this poem.

October's child is born for woe,

And life's vicissitudes must know,

But lay on Opal on her breast,

And hope will lull those woes to rest.

No wonder Mona and I became friends, both up in the wee hours of the night blogging and worrying together! I'm putting an opal at the top of my Birthday list! I think I'd like a white one this time. Are you reading this hubby? I  have a pink opal ring from my aunt but I caught in on a card file drawer at the library in college and about ripped my finger off. It bent and I couldn't wear it any more. I should have put it on a chain so it could lay on my chest! Think of all the beauty rest I could have had since then!

I also found that the old postcards list Hops as October's flower. Did you know that Mona?

Well, I probably lost all the January through September girls, and the November and December ones too, so I'll end this tribute to October.

My daughter had to start decorating for Halloween tonight so we strung some fake cobwebs next to the real ones on the porch. The fake palm trees and parrots from last weekend's luau for my son's birthday are still up in the back yard. Can you imagine what my neighbors think? Doesn't matter, I've got all you! And I promise, promise, promise I will find time to visit this weekend, right after the tiki huts are packed away.

A Birthday Spooktacular

Mom and I both have birthdays in late October so we celebrated together on Halloween. We had perfect weather so she decorated her backyard and we had a great time with family and friends.

Mom's candle ring ~ a wagon wheel filled with jack-o-lanterns and big candles.

OH NO!

Only today and tomorrow left to enter my Fall Frenzy Give~away!

Click on the photo below to get all the details and enter!

Nightmares from Bad Takeout

Happy Halloween!

My daughter and I made these take-out box characters last year. We needed something for craft night while the boys were out doing sporty stuff so I went to Michael's and just grabbed a bunch of things that were Halloween colored. The Halloween stuff was already marked down so we got a good deal on the take-out boxes, package stuffing, pipe cleaners and pom poms. We had construction paper, googly eyes, and glue.

We had no plan, no pattern, no pretty picture from a magazine for inspiration. You never know witch way things will turn out when you're winging it. Sometimes it's like you get hit with a bolt of lightening and things just come to life. So don't be afraid to play around, even if you don't know jack about what your doing! Especially at Halloween when you're only limited by your imagination, and your internal fright meter. Like I said before, we only do cute!

I’ve been Boo-ed!!!

Imagine my surprise when I came home after a day shopping at my favorite haunt, WWSW, that's "World Wide Spider Web" for those not in the know, and found Sue from Sullivan and Murphy had just flown in on her broom to drop off this little spook!

Seems that the “spook” has “Boo-ed” me and I have to pass his greeting along.

Now Sue is usually a very nice lady

but today she has her tassels in a knot!

If I don't play along, she might just cast a spell and I'll wake up as a toad.

I don't want to be a toad!

So I'll play along in this little game of tag that was started by Toni @ The Tattered Cottage. When you get “Boo-ed,” you pass along your greetings to four friends, then link up with Toni on her blog. Here’s the poem she sent off to her friends….

The air is cool, the season is fall,
Soon Halloween will come to all.
Ghosts and goblins, spooks galore...
Tricky witches at your door.
The spooks are after things to do,
In fact, a spook brought this "BOO" to you.
The excitement comes when friends like you,
Copy this note and make it two.
We'll all have smiles on our faces,
When we see who Boo-ed whose places.

Daughter's big spook is all ready to take Boo's to:

Mrs. Magpie at The Quintessential Magpie: I'm sorry Mrs. Magpie, I know you don't like to be scared. But this is just for fun and I figured I better light a fire under your tail feathers so you'll be ready for Halloween and those cute little trick-or-treaters that I know will be knocking on your shiny door! I love to visit Mrs. Magpie because she has lots of pretty shiny things!

Leigh at Tales from Bloggeritaville: Leigh is a renowned thrifty shopper and hosts Thrifty Thursday in Bloggeritaville. She's got a fun personality that shines through the computer screen. She is a real sweety too. She's currently hosting a costume party so be sure to check it out!

Barb at Bella Vista: I'm sure many of my followers already know Barb from the Great Rooster Party. She has a beautiful blog and is a wonderful friend. Besides, I want you to go see her witch and tell me what famous person she reminds you of. (I'll give you a hint, her character existed long before cell phones)

and finally, we couldn't have a game of Halloween tag with inviting

the Olde Dame who hosts a wonderful free graphic site, Penniwigs. Olde Dame Penniwig loves vintage art and has a wonderfully fun selection for you to choose from. I just hope she doesn't flail me for this...hmm, flailing or eating flies for the rest of my life... I'll take the flailing. Pain goes away and I can't stand the thought of being turned into a toad.

Please keep the fun going by following these instructions.
1. You have 24 hours to work your spell.
2. Copy and post the Halloween Boo Poem with the instructions for playing.
3. Pick 4 blogs you enjoying visiting and tell why you enjoy visiting them. Add a link to their blog.
4. Go to the original BOO Party post at The Tattered Cottage and hook up to Mr. MckLinky. Make sure the link is to your current post and not your general blog address.
Let's see how fast and far this spreads between now and Halloween.
HAVE FUN AND BOO TO YOU!

Art therapy

These are our French doors to our little sun room. They are often covered with my daughter's art. Would you like to see behind them? Ha! Not on your life! It's the smallest room in the house but the one we all gravitate to. It's a craft room, extra kitchen storage, tool chest, teen hangout-video game central, and home to Buddy the hamster. In other words, it's not blog-ready and probably never will be. But it does make a great art gallery space!

Sweetie pie is a teen but she has difficulty with fine motor skills so we work a lot on drawing, cutting, pasting, and taping. The great thing is she loves arts and crafts so she doesn't even realize she is "working" on her skills as she does it.

I drew BOO! with white crayon on black construction paper. She cut it out and taped it to this ghost from Micheal's. We put inexpensive scrapbook paper behind the glass for color and she liked it so much we did all the sections this way.

This little happy pumpkin patch is just scrapbook paper with happy faces drawn on each pumpkin. I did the one in the top corner to show what we were doing and she did the rest. She has only recently started adding the pupils to the eyes and the the little wrinkles at the ends of the smiles. :) Her happy face drawings have always had such personality. I just love them. I don't think she thinks about the placement of the faces, she just puts her hand down and where ever it is she starts. It looks like she really does it on purpose.

Jack-o-lanterns are perfect for practicing teeth, and triangles!

She is a pretty prolific artist. It doesn't take much per page to make her happy so I get cheap supplies in bulk. I often find she has gotten up in the middle of the night and done 10 or 20 drawings then gone back to bed.

I made a simple template from a cereal box and had her trace around it onto construction paper then cut it out. She decided on her own that the bats needed happy faces. It looks like this guy even got eyebrows! It's hard to see but she also copied "boo" from the ghost onto the bats. It's so much fun to watch her progress. We're pulling out some stuff she made last year so I'll show you more during week.

Keep and eye out for my 100th Post/100th Follower/Birthday Giveaway coming soon. Whew! That was a mouth full. Since I'm so busy right now, lets just wing it and call it the Fall Frenzy Giveaway. Enjoy your weekend!

Doors of Welcome ~ Halloween

A friendly ghost welcomes you near

to see the pretty flowers here,

but the lights go out and you're unaware

of what frightful things might be lurking there.

A glowing orange light

grins in the night,

you don't dare twitch

or you'll face the wrath of

Pumpkwitch!

But wait! There's more

hanging on a shadowy door,

Halloween creatures howl with scorn

Because we've already eaten all the candy corn!

What? I told you we don't do scary. We do cute!


Now head on over to visit

Karen at Some Days are Diamonds

and see some really beautiful Doors of Welcome.