HAPPY HALLOWEEN WOYWW #178!

Good Morning, Wednesday!

 

I know it's not a happy day for everyone.  Wish I lived closer so I could help.

 

It's finally Halloween!  I hope you come by the Playhouse today and show me your costume!  I can't wait to see all the adorable little Tricker Treaters tonight!

 

But first, it's time for the Julia Dunnit Show over at What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday (WOYWW) where I show you my desk, then you show me yours, then you move to the right and down and I'll move to the left and up, and so on and so further.

 

Thus, here is mine:

 

You can see the Dee Breeze I created in making yesterday's cards, which were super fun to make using my new spider die.  Talk about waiting until the last minute.  It's all the usual stuff and puff I use to practice my witchcraft.

 

~~~

 

Oh, man, is it ever nice to be finished with my big project at work so I can go back to being on-call.  I suppose it wouldn't be polite to change my phone number.

 

Having said that, I am heading back to the office today, but only for the annual festive Halloweenie dressing up we do.  As a refresher, let me remind you that I have featured a small pillow in my costumes for the last couple of years.  Here is said ordinary pillow:

 

In 2010, it was used as a beer belly in my Paul Bunyan get-up:

 

 

In 2011, it was used as bazooms in my Dolly Parton get-up:



And here I am in 2012:

What am I?  An aged Glamour Girl?  A vampiress going to the Prom?  Where is the pillow?  Has she gone bonkers this time for reals?

 

 

Well, where else could the pillow go? 

In case you haven't figured it out, I'm Kim Kardashian's grandmama!  Now you can see who she inherited her "junk in the trunk" from!

 

Bwahaha!  That pillow has come in handy!  And, this year, so did the "Mother-of-the-Groom-Dress" I wore at DS and DDIL's wedding 11 years ago! 

 

Off I go to the office to see what everyone else has dressed up as.  Then I'll come back and see what you guys are doing.  Enjoy your tricks and treats today and your WOYWWing!  

As always, thank you for stopping by to visit.  Special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower or leave a comment.  I'll return the flavor!

 

 

DD #26 Mono Chrome Manic; Mojo Monday #265; Pixie's Crafty Snipperts #44

Best Wishes

 

First of all, I have to say that my thoughts and prayers are with everyone up and down the eastern coast of the United States and inland as far as the Great Lakes who have been devastated by this terrible storm.  I hope the waters recede, the power is restored, and the cleanup and restoration happens quickly and smoothly for you.

 

Happy Halloween

 

It won't be Halloween here until tomorrow, but tomorrow is WOYWW in Blogland and tomorrow I will show you my costume I'm wearing to work, so today we have the last of my Halloween cards for 2012.

 

We all have our favorite challenges and you know I have mine and that several of them just happen to be newish challenges.  So it became (or did for me) another sort of challenge to make sure I didn't miss a week.  Well, baboons and bladders, I did miss a few, but it's fun to be back today with three faves.

 

First, this week's Dynamic Duos Color Challenge #26, features "More Mustard" and "So Saffron."  (You know it's hard for me not to make a hot dog card every time the mustard color is used in a challenge!)

 

 

Second, this week's Mojo Monday Sketch Challenge #265, gives you the choice:  do you want to be a circle or a square.  Up to you!

 

 

Third, this is week 44 over at Di's Pixie's Crafty Workshop and since I used scraps and snipperts and This N. That, I get to play in the playground!

 

In honor of Halloween, which is not my favorite holiday, I made one last set of cards.  I made them because I received the Memory Box spider die (die, spider, die!) as a gift, and I couldn't let the only time of year I would use it pass by without using it.  You know?

 

So here is a circulating Halloween spider card for MM:

 

 

 

And since I hate to waste the negative, here is a card for DD:

 

 

~~~

 

Before you get back to making last minute touches on your costume and baking eyeballs for treats, let me introduce you to two new friends!  Please welcome Tilly of Tilly's Crafty Corner and Ginny C, who seems to have a blog profile, but no blog.  Is that right, Ginny?  We are happy to have you, either way.  My thanks to both of you!!

 

End of card talk.  TFL!  Mwah!  Stay high and dry.

 

 

~~~

 

A Mystery Sol Ved

 

First of all, this has been the sappiest Fall we have ever experienced in our 36 years on this street.  We have a beautiful huge maple tree in the front yard, as do all the houses on this street, which makes for a stunning long view in the colored Fall and in the brilliant greens of Spring.  All up and down the street this year, however, the houses, plants, sidewalks and cars (oh, the cars are a wretched mess!) are constantly covered in an ununusally heavy layer of maple sap. 

 

A couple of weeks ago, funny new bugs began to appear all over the front of the house and the door to the garage.  Given the sap, Mister and I determined they must be some kind of Sap-Suckers.  (We pride ourselves on our incredible ability to come up with unique bug names.)

Here they are on the wall of the garage.  There used to be dozens more.

They are tiny, which is good, because they aren't actually very cute bugs.  They don't fly, we have no idea how they suddenly just "appeared" overnight, and they move really slowly, if at all.  The only notable thing about them is that they are orange and black which happens to be Halloween colors.

 

 

So on Sunday, while I was at work, Mister and DS and the twins went on a Guys' Adventure, visiting a train museum, eating lunch at a restaurant that has gross big game animal heads mounted on the walls (from the early 1900s when, unbelievably, such things were all the rage), and taking a train, trolly, and ferry ride!

 

 

 

 

Henry, Dan, Adam

Are you still with me? 

 

Back to the bugs, when they returned to our house Sunday afternoon, Papa (Mister) stopped to show the twins the bugs on the house/garage door that were feasting on the maple tree sap.

 

"Aren't they strange?" asked Papa.

 

Adam shrugged his shoulders and said, matter-of-factly, "They're ladybug larvae."

 

 

Okay, yeah, whatever, Adam.  Like a 7-year-old is even going to know that or know the word "larvae" for that matter, which the Mister and I figured we heard for the first time maybe in 8th grade.  

 

But curious, Mister decided to look it up and he found this ladybug web site.  Needless to say, we were dazzlepated to find out the little twin was absolutely right!

 

I took a few more pictures today that actually show the process happening.

 

 

 

Carcusi on the sidewalk.

It's cool, huh?  We still don't know why we've never seen this happen before, but it's been a strange weather year everywhere, with resulting new discoveries.  Have you noticed oddities around your place? I mean besides your Uncle Jethbert.

 

 

One found its way onto the center of my spectacular flowering Camellia.

 

~~~

 

Enjoy!  As always, thank you for stopping by to visit. Special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower or leave a comment!

 

 

Paper:  PTI white; unknown black

  handmade mulberry paper; SU more

  mustard and so saffron

Stamp:  SU, unknown set

Ink:  PTI true black

Die:  Memory Box; Circle and

  Scalloped Circle Nesties

 

CAS(E) Sketch 3; CASology 16 ~ She's A Wild One!

And we're back around to Saturday!  Whoosh!

You sorta can tell I wasn't able to put a lot of coloring time into my card today, but I couldn't get these two challenges out of my head ~ I HAD to make something.  Sometimes you feel like that when it comes to your art, sometimes you feel like that when it comes to making homemade chocolate chip cookies, sometimes ... well, I can't top that!

 

This week is #3 at CAS(E) this Sketch!, designed by the fantastic Jackie Rockwell:

and at CASology, week #16, the cue word is WILD.  Oh so many, many ways to make a card for this challenges!  I adore these cue words.  They make me use my bean.  And my bean likes it!

 

Naturally, here's the way I went:

 

She's WILD and stylin' and shimmery and here's her whole shebang on the inside:

She's a red-hatted, red-wine-drinkin' cat lady!  Ya Hoot Yer Snozzle!  Apparently she's never heard of Playtex Extra Support foundation garments.  Or, more likely, she no longer gives a  ~  hey, the weather sure was nice today wasn't it?

I didn't put a sediment on the front because I thought Miss Glitter Puss really says it all with her eye peeking out, don't you think?

~~~

 

I have a new friend to introduce to you hooligans before I head off to work.  Her name is Anita and she lives in France and her blog is My Papercraft World!  Her adorable little face is not over there on my follower fingernails 'cause her cybermacallit won't let her follow, so she joined as a subscriber.  I don't know who all my subscribers are, since all I see is an email address, but Anita wrote to me to let me know she wanted to play with us. 

 

So please help me welcome Anita by visiting her brand-spanking-new blog!  You'll make her day, I promise, and if anyone else out there is a hidden subscriber and you'd like me to introduce you to the rest of the gang, give a holler!  You know I appreciate all of you, however you get here!

 

Enjoy your weak ends!   As always, thank you for stopping by to visit.  Special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower or leave a comment!

Paper:  PTI white; SU real red
Stamp:  Mostly Animals (OOB)
  "Cat Nip" (1201-S7)
Ink:  Memento tuxedo black;
  Prismacolor pencils; Sakura
  Gelly Roll "Clear Star"

Papertrey October Blog Hop Challenge; and Sarn's Rudolph Day Challenge

Hello Crafters!!

I don't know if there was less notice given in the past for the monthly PTI blog hops, or if I just paid more notice to my notice this time.  However it happened, I was really drawn to this challenge posted a few days ago by Nichole of {capture the moment}.  Nichole presented us with wonderful non-traditional holiday colors and picture inspirations for us to draw from in making our cards for the hoppity-hippity.

 

For zample, here's the one I chose for my inspiration:

{photo credit}

and here is the card I made.  We've been having our first rain in about six months(!).  I was happy to capture this during a brief late-afternoon break in the clouds.

 

I had a devil of a time using that framed stamp in a twin offset like that.  When the idea formed on the brain drawing board, I knew enough to try it out on scratch paper first.  And second, third, fourth, eighth.  There were a lot of choices in the stamp set (or others) for which words to use, where.  Even using the Stampamajig, it was all as fidgety and irregular as pantyhose from the Seconds Sale.  But practice makes (close enough to) perfect, and I think it was worth it!  I topped it off with some pretties and I may even try this layout again sometime.  I think it would be cute with cupcakes for a birthday card and so forth.

 

That was a O'lotta Fun challenge, Nichole ~ thank you! It was really a stretch for me to use those colors for a Christmas card!

Thanks to a head's up from another challenge hostess, Sandra ("Sarn") of Stamping For Pleasure, I'm also entering my card in her "Rudolph Day Challenge."  The winner will receive an adorable Penny Black Slapstick stamp!  Thanks for the invite, Sarn!

 

Enjoy!   I'm getting to the center of the volcano at work and will even be putting in some hours Saturday and Sunday.  Neverthepessimist, I'm hoping to manage a couple of my fave CAS challenges in the next few days, but energy may be flagging and I'm almost out of the Hugh Mongus second bag of candy we bought for the Halloween scallywags.  Chocolate rules! 

Do children still enjoy receiving a shiny penny in their treat bags, I wonder?

 

As always, thank you for stopping by to visit.  Special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower or leave a comment!

Paper:  PTI white, simply chartreuse, Hawaiian
  shores, and aqua mist; stocking trim from 
  "velvet" paper, unknown source
Stamp:  PTI Framed, vol. 4, no. 77
Die:  PTI Christmas Stockings
Twine:  doodlebug design, inc.
Button and bling from stash
Pop Dots

WOYWW #177 ~ Love Comes In, Love Goes Out . . . Pigs Play Pinochle on Your Snout!

Hey Hoe Dearies!

 

Lots of rakes seeing action this time of year, not so many hoes.  I'm still slaving at the gin mill (oh, would that that were true), so for today's WOYWW, I have a simple Show and Tell.

 

First, appropopo, is my desk,

 

where love has been received of late. 

 

My sister, Diana, who (hoom?) you have previously met through that window, wrote a little book called "Darnellisms."  It should have been called "Dianaisms" because it contains her own very clever way with words!  How about that; it must runneth in the family!  Diana is also an accomplished  photo grapher,

and put together, she's made an adorable little book!  Thank you, Sis!

After I admired it, my online friend, Virginia, sent me that beautiful pink butterfly card she made for Breast Cancer Awareness month, along with  the lovely tag!  She sent me loads of stickers, too, which were off to the side and which will be put to good use!  Thank you, Virginia!

My online friend, Annie, sent me (in delightful British tissue paper) the gorgeous blue butterfly card and mouth-gaping wall hanging (below) after I admired it.  Remember I gave Jerry my dried flower framed art and then I was left with an empty space on the wall?  Well, Annie's Art has filled it stunningly!  You see how that worked out?

I wish you could feel it.  It is so tactile and so lushable in person!  Thank you, Annie!

I sent out some love, too, by way of a surprise card to my online friend Di.  She's received it, so I can post it.  I think she's amazing and she loves pink!  (I love the silver embossed elephant with that embossing folder background that looks so perfect with it.)

 

~~~

 

I think we all appreciate how the World Wide Cobweb provides us with the opportunity to befriend each other and show off our work, but we still haven't forgotten how much fun it is to use the old-fashioned postal service, have we?  There's nothing like email in your Inbox and there's nothing like touchable mail in your mailbox!

~~~
 

We've had a flurry of activity at the front door of the Playhouse this week!  My goodness, I am so smack-walloped!!  Please make room and help me welcome Michelle from My Passion for Crafting, Mara from Love Your Mother, Jenny from Crafting in the Country, and Claire from My Life on the Scrap Heap.  Thank you so much ladies!  You all have such great talent and it's wonderful to have you along for the journey!

~~~

Since my brain cells are being destroyed deployed in the service of my employer, I thought you might enjoy this amusing excerpt which I did not write, but which I can relate to ~ and I'll bet a lot of you can relate to it as well!!
 

Eyes Wide Open

Marriage changes passion.  . . .

This is not 1973, I remind myself . . . this is not my sister lying next to me in the same bed, hogging all the blankets, breathing on me and periodically slamming her leg against the mattress so hard the entire bed shakes.  No, this is my husband.  The man that I love, the man that I voluntarily chose to spend the next one hundred years sleeping beside, which right now, at three in the morning, seems like a very bad choice, but what did I know?  Who can predict these things?  He slept like a dead person (and so did I) until our early thirties, at which point I stopped sleeping and he started driving his pigs to market in the middle of the night.

~Paraphrased from The Slippery Year:  A Meditation on Happily Ever After by Melanie Gideon

~~~

Okay, I'll be honest.  In all fairness to the Mister, I have also driven my share of pigs to market in the middle of the night.  But only during a blue moon, you understand.

Enjoy the days and nights of your life, snoring and all, and enjoy the WOYWW train ride through Blogland!   I hope you'll click HERE to join our delightful hostess Ms. Julia and her What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday hit parade!

As always, thank you for stopping by and leaving me some love.  You know I'll return the flavor, even if it takes me all week! 

CTS #2; CFC #75 ~ The Edge; LIM #90 ~ Autumn; Pixie's Crafty Snipperts #43; *A Hand Turkey*

And we're back around to Sunday Funday ~ Whoosh!

You might say Moe Joe came calling yesterday carrying a basket tied with a big plaid bow, filled with apple cider and pumpkin pie, fresh-shelled walnuts, and yellow leaves as big as your head.  That's how nice it felt when four of my favorite card challenges all lined up like stars this week just when I was short of time.  Check it:

We have the brand-new and already populated CAS(E) this Sketch! #2.  

We have the busting-with-news CASual Fridays #75 "over the edge" challenge.

 

Both of these CAS (clean and simple) challenges are womened by extremely talented teams who create loads of spectacular card ideas for you!

~~~



And we have the Less Is More challenge where the theme for week #90 is:

AUTUMN

Chrissie is hosting by herself this week, with stunning inspirational cards on display.  I wish her pal and former co-host, Mandi, all the best as she opens her new wedding services business, Finishing Touches!  You can visit her personal blog and she'll be back playing with Chrissie at LIM whenever she can.

~~~

At work on Friday, the office manager handed out a doohinkey the marketing department had made up for clients and staff.  The firm name is on the other side.  Apparently they couldn't afford to have it printed on both sides.

Is it:

1. a pacifier for quints?
2. a blown-up surgical glove?
3. a turkey?
4. a new-age harmonica?

It's a turkey!  It's made of tiny highlighters!

How cute is that?  I was going to grab two of them and give them to the twins, but I'm not sure DDIL would approve since the colors might not wash off things they might be inclined to color with the adorable weedle highlighters.  Myself, I wanted badly to color the light switch covers in the house, but Mister sent over Will Power to put a curtail on my fun.

Howover, being child-like, as some of my kinder friends would say, I still love my crayons.  I no longer cut with the little baby skissors with no points, but only because my big fat fingers don't fit in the holes nomo. 

Seeing the turkey highlighter brought back memories of making turkeys from the outline of my hand.  Do you remember doing that?  Not with my hand, of course, with yours.

My hand turkey looks a bit anemic with those pastel colored feathers.  Obviously, I had better upper body strength when I was five. 

I bet I can do better on a card!

I'm sorry the shadow makes it look like it's a three-legged bird.  It snot, see:

I used a flower petal die to cut the turkey feathers and a teeny portion of the PTI Harvest Berries die for the feeties, which I snipped.  Ewch.  Thanksgiving is still a few weeks away, but Turkey isn't taking any chances.  He lined up per the sketch and took off running "over the edge" in his "autumn" colors, grateful to get away!

And cuz he's all made from scrapz, I'm taking him to show the playmates at Di's Pixie's Crafty Workshop! for the next class on 4N holidays!

~~~

I'm humbled and delighted to have received another Liebster Award.  Thank you so much to Tracey McNeely of In My Creative Opinion!  It's an honor, indeed, to receive this from Tracey.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!  As always, thank you for stopping by to visit.  Special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower or leave a comment!

Paper:  Bazzill swiss dots; SU! DSP
Stamp:  SU! unknown sentiment set
Ink:   Kaleidacolor
Cuttlebug flower petal
PTI Harvest Berries die
Corner Chomper

ColourQ #159; CASology #15 ~ Fun in the Night!

Good Morning Kids!  Happy Friday!

Don't tell my boss, but I was a very bad girl and stayed up too late last night making an UBERCAS card and writing my product review below.  I'm wearing two heads now, working and carding, and I'll be honest, it feels funny on my neck. 

My "need" to play led me to this week's ColourQ Challenge:

That is one tipsy-lookin' owl!

What perfect Halloween colors for more Halloween card fun with Halloween still down the road apiece, but I went in a different directory with the colors to hook up with the theme cue card this week at another fave:  CASology.  This is week #15 and the cue word is NIGHT. 

Besides the stars and the moon, which are the very best artistic things about the night, what popped in my head was a lone wolf howling at the moon:

I waited until this morning to post this so I could take a quick picture of the card in the sun, but it's time I trundled off to work and Mr. Sun hasn't yet come out from behind the clouds, so this will just have to do.

I hope you get a chance to join in the challenges and satisfy your need to play!

~~~

That's the end of card talk, but before we get to today's story, please do celebrate with me the addition of two new followers!  Everyone please welcome Suzanne of Tales From My Craft Room and Zeffy of I Am Zeffy and I Love 2 Scrap!  Please give these talented crafters a visit when you can and thank you, ladies, for joining the party!!

~~~

So, okay, speaking of the night.

A.

I've been a side sleeper my whole long life, and only on my right side. We all have our "way" of falling off to sleep and that's my way. The last couple of years, however, my knee points are wearing down, and I've developed the very annoying habit of turning onto my stomach at some point around dawn o'clock. 

So now when I wake up I find myself face down in my pillow, with my arms under me, crossed at the wrist. Think of a body in coffin.  Turn it over.  How dopey is that?  Both of my hands and my fourarms are completely numb. My face is bloated and wrinkled. (How I manage to breath in that position is a good question and I've been asked to be part of a Stanford study on Involuntarily Smothering Oneself.)

B.

 

I keep throwing my back out and it keeps coming home, but each time it seems to stay out longer and longer.   And I seem to be getting klutzier and klutzier.   No sooner did I get over a recent bad spell, but I missed the step going down to the garage and wrenched the shebang all over again. The same damn step that's been there, in the same damn spot, for the last 36 years!   And, no, your Honors, I had not been drinking. 

 

C.

 

I have Fibromyagony. It's a silent killer of sunny dispositions, but if you fall down often enough and throw your back out, it takes your mind off it.

Put them all together and one day you discover online that some genius has designed a Total Body Pillow (TBP)!!  What??!!

source

(I used the company website picture, because of obvious issues I would have from being stalked by handsome men day in and day out if I used a picture of meself in my jams and jellies.)

~~~

I think everyone is familiar with the "boyfriend pillow," which is a long bolster pillow you hug to help with back issues.  This TBP pillow was originally designed to help Fibro sufferers and you might could say it is a "Siamese boyfriend pillow" what with a bolster to hug and a bolster to spoon.  It covers all the bases.  Oh, hahaha, I didn't even realize for a second what I said.  Remember "bases" from school days?  But I digress.

I ordered one.  It seamingly was made just for me and I thought it would improve the quality of my life in more ways than one.  Not to mention my face.  It's puffy and wrinkled enough from the wear and tear of life (and Snickers), thank you very much.  It certainly doesn't need to be regularly smooshed into a pillow.  I'm thinking with this new contramption, I can break that offensive and life-threatening habit.

~~~

The Mister was very encouraging and pleased that something might help me sleep better, even though it seemed designed to have the opposite affect on the quality of his life.   What a sweetie. 

Still, it was a bit larger than we expected!  When the box was cut open and the TBP popped out like a jack-in-the-box, Mister raised an eyebrow and said, sardonically:

"Are the four of us going to be able to fit in the bed?"

~~~

He forgot about Mr. Froggie.  Here are Froggie, Fric, and Frac:
 

 

Not a lot of room for Mister!

 

Hmmm.

 

The first night was no fun, I won't lie. I woke up with a headache. I may be too old for this sort of thing. Mister said I was flailing around a lot and at one point I said out loud, in my sleep, "Did you keep the box?!"

We both agreed I should give it a week to be fair. The second night was no problem at all.  The third night was so-so, the fourth night was a total wrestling nightmare.  I woke up to find Mister on the floor with his little pillow. Oops.

Just kidding about the Mister, but not about the sleep experience with the Siamese Boyfriend Pillow.  That sucker is ridiculously huge and I can't give it a week!  It's going back.  I am going to see if there is a smaller one made in this style 'cause I do like the concept.  Even though we fought a lot, I never once tried to smoother myself!

Smoother myself?  Ladies, I'd be a bazillionnaire if I designed a pillow that would smoother us, wouldn't I?

~~~

Enjoy your TGIFriday!   I know, you forgot all about my card by now, so I'll put a copy here to keep you from getting car pool tunnel, scrolling up and down.  As always, thank you for stopping by for a visit.   Special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower or leave a comment!

 

Paper:  SU! white, pear pizzaz

Stamp:  Nature Silhouettes

Ink:  SU! black, tangerine tango,

  and only orange
Nesties circle, cotton balls

SU! Simply Scored

Corner Chomper