I’ve posted already the Decor Elements’ Special, which ends October 31st.  I would say to be safe, tomorrow would be the last day to order them and know they’ll be here in time for Halloween.

Here’s my jar from Super Target and my Spooky Spider Decor Elements, in Black, size Large.  Again, it’s HUGE!  But so is the jar!

What’s funny about this, is that we will fill this at least 20 times.  We started keeping our candy in a contractor size garbage bag.  Right now there are 17 of those JUMBO bags of candy in my wine closet, instead of wine!  :-(  We will pick up a few more by next week, just because we run out every year even though we keep adding more and more.  All of our friends don’t understand it, because they spend about $20 in candy and their lights are out by 8pm.   It’s going on all night here in our neighborhood and if it’s a weekend night like this year, it’s even worse. 

The last time the holiday fell on a weekend night, we had someone ring the doorbell after 1am.  She apologized and asked if we would take a picture with her and her mother next to our witch under the patio.  I was shocked!  She said her mom had to work and she couldn’t pass up coming back to see it with her.  Halloween is a real treat (no pun intended) because there are so many kids anticipating our decorations and coming to visit, sometimes twice.  Even the little ones come, and I’m surprised because it’s pretty creepy.  Not that some of them haven’t run down the walk way screaming!  It wasn’t me!  It was probably my husband.  He really enjoys scaring everyone in his super gory grim reaper costume, especially the teenage girls who scream so loud and schrill, it reaches my spinal column.  But they drop all their candy and my son collects it all and high fives his dad!

So this is a last reminder to give me a call by tomorrow to order the Spooky Decor Element before it’s too late!

Thanks for stopping by…. again!  Today’s been exhausting.

Wouldn’t you love to give a custom made gift to your friends and family that they would treasure for all the years to come?  Something that they had never seen in any store or other home, and wouldn’t re-gift?  Something that they could proudly display iin their home throughout the entire year because it went with any season or holiday? 

What if I could teach you how to make this gift, and that it would be that much more special because it not only came from you but was made by you? 

This project entails a total of 10 round plate adornments, each of them themed for a major holiday and an extra one for a birthday too!  There are fasteners that make it easy to change in and out every month.  Each month/holiday is unique, and heavily embellished with all kinds of Stampin’ Up! accessories from about every collection. 

Take a look at January:

I can’t tell you how great these look in person, because you can’t tell from the pictures how much some of them sparkle and just how much they are all dressed up.  This January design’s main focal point is the beautiful die made with the Big Shot, cut from white glittered felt.  It also uses our Winter Flurries rub-ons.  In addition, the other embellishments include: 3 different kinds of brads, silver cording, brushed silver cardstock, silver embossing,  In this class you will use over a dozen of my stamp sets, pearls from our Pretties Kit, Hodgepodge Hardware, several collections of Designer Series Papers, rub-ons, embossing powder, glitter, Craft pigment ink and Versamark inks, Buttons, Hemp, Ribbons, Punches and more!

I picked two plates for my display purposes, but the class will entail either a smoked brown clear plate or a regular clear glass plate.  So you’d have to choose.

Here’s a peak at the others in smaller versions:

This will be a class offered on my next 3D class:  Wednesday, November 12th, both morning and evening as usual, and Saturday the 15th which follows.  Please see the class/events tab for more information.

I made a sign for my front door with our Decor Elements.  I painted the wooden plaque with a light tan acrylic paint, and the edges on the molding with the green acrylic, and added gold over the green with a dry brush to add highlights.  I have ribbons to hang it by once I get my picture hanging hardware kit out of the garage.  I’m waiting for dh to return from his 3 state trip so he can move all the Halloween bins out of the way of my drill gun and hardware! 

The WELCOME is a Decor Element in chocolate, size LARGE.  The wood piece is 23" long, to accomodate this size.  It’s great for a set of double doors or a front patio.  I thought about the olive because it would have matched my paint nicely, but I wasn’t sure if it would be dark enough to be seen.

All of the paint is from Making Memories, used for scrapbooking, so it’s acid free believe it or not!  You definitely don’t need to use this on the wood, because Michael’s has plenty of companies of acrylic paints.  Some were on sale for 2/$1 this week.  I like Folk Art brand personally.

You can see more Decor Elements here.  The new phase II just came out.  I really love the flowers and other ways of decorating a girl’s bedroom!  Too bad I don’t have any girls.   

Spooky is coming next!

The Decor Elements line is SOOO cool!  I have a bunch of things to show you, but I gotta tell ya, they are way more in real life than I can produce in a flat, reduced for the web photo. My usual sassy self would say, "Well, you could have seen it in person if you had come to my open house!"  But, I’m not bitter mind you. 

You know when the holidays come, and you have that awkward conversation with your spouse about whose family you and your family are going to spend time with on Thanksgiving, and then you repeat the same process at Christmas?  You know, you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your relatives!  Well, they whoever coined that phrase must have known my family well.  Anyway, one good thing about having a dysfunctional family makes it a no brainer to determine the answer to that question.  Even if the nearest one is 8 hours away!   Ooops, getting off topic. 

So, I made this as a gift to my brother and sister in law that always have us for Thanksgiving and they make a superb feast every year, although we can’t make the trek to Atlanta every year.  Now I love to cook, and I consider myself a foodie, so for me to think it and say this, is a huge compliment to my husband’s brother Paul who cooks most of the meal with his wife, Patty.  Actually the two brothers from GA are both descent cooks, and why that didn’t rub off onto my husband, I can’t understand.  GO figure.  Ooops off topic again.

Well, I bought this amazing shadow box frame at Ikea, which comes in black or white.  I like the black because it’s a little more sophisticated.  This frame is a lot bigger than you probably can determine from the picture - it’s 20×20, so it’s a descent size piece of wall art!  See that cut out in the center of the mat?  That’s a full sheet (only a 1/4" margin adhered to the mat with sticky tape) of our 12×12 designer series paper from the Autumn Vine collection found in the Winter mini-catty.  The decor element I used is called Season of Thanks, in chocolate brown, size small.  BTW- They are so much bigger than you’d expect, and  you need to use the measurements in the catalog in front of you on a yardstick and really try to envision them at the size you’re thinking, and then order the next size down.  lol

I filled this shadow box frame with "naturals", which is a collection of real dried  leaves and some other silk stems and fall elements, which  I picked up at Michael’s with my 20%purchase coupon.

I know that they’re going to love it and I can’t wait to give it to them.  I can’t wait for Thanksgiving!  The boys can’t wait until Halloween.  Enough of that family mushy cherish stuff that you girls like (my youngest actually said that today).  lol   Actually, he made me smile super big when I made this gift; he told me that this was the nicest scrapbooking thing I’ve ever made!  Awwwhhhh.  That deserved a big hug and kiss.

Well, stay tuned, got lots more decor elements to show you when I get all the pics downloaded, cropped, resized and watermarked. 

Hugs!