HALLOWED HALLS OF HALLOWEEN!

Greetings, dear reader!

As promised, I am beginning the autumn madness that is decorating for Halloween and the fall season! Progress is a bit slow this year (due to the fact that I am incredibly busy with my "real" job) BUT I promised to let you in on the "decking of the halls" so here we go:

Ooooooooooooooooooh...spooky...

The making of the crafts shown can be seen on a previous post here and here and here. Or type in "Halloween" in the blogger search bar in the upper left of your screen...and all the crafts highlighted in my new Flickr badge will magically appear for your perusal!

Oh! I wanted to show you one more thing that I always look forward to getting out each fall:



A dear friend of mine made this pillow for me. Isn't it WONDERFUL?! I just LOVE his crazy eyes! lol It reminds me of these Halloween papers from last year's Cosmo Cricket "Haunted" line:



See the wacky eyes of the pumpkins? I just LOVE them! And here's FABulous news...you can buy the whole Haunted paper pack and stickers DIGITALLY this year at Jessica Sprague! An easy download...WOOT! I couldn't resist!

AND "THE" most adorable Halloween award goes to: Crafty Secrets!






For adorably clever ideas on what to do with the above sweetness, check out Julie's blog: A Vintage Chic on my sidebar...she ALWAYS has the most wonderful ideas!

ALL WE ARE SAYING...

21 September is the International Day of Peace. This year the UN is asking: What are YOU doing for peace?



For the children (my niece Sonya) give peace a chance.

United Nations International Day of Peace

RED-FACED CONFESSION...

Greetings, dear reader!

It is with much embarrassment that I share with you the following...AGAIN. However I have spent as much time as I am willing to commit (no fewer than 5 days and 4+ hours per day) searching over every kilobyte and file in this computer for the list of blog/tag swapper addresses that I compiled and committed to the ether (via storage data).

Intelligent and organized souls, like Elizabeth of Creative Breathing and Sandy of 521 Lake Street have not relied on technology but, instead, have created a Rolodex of their bloggy friends. BRILLIANT! Have *I* done so? No. SHOULD I have done so? YES! Instead, I relied (once again) on technology which (once again) has failed me. My email file where I was keeping said addresses sent to me was in a happy subfolder under my Website file. During our last tag swap (The Happy Camper Camporee Swap) the subfolder vanished from my Thunderbird email but was still on my Gmail server. (a bullet dodged to be sure)

HOWEVER, when going to retrieve the subfolder from my gmail account, I have discovered, that, much to my chagrin, the folder is GONE...AGAIN!




OH TECHNOLOGY! WHY DO YOU MOCK ME?!?!



I try and try to be a good hostess...to keep my "ducks in a row" as it were...however I fear technology has again (to stay with the "duck metaphor") hidden in the duck blind and duly BLASTED my subfolder with a shotgun...leaving feathers flying, but tags STILL unmailed and yours truly red-faced and forced to, once again PLEAD with all you Wild West Swappers to send to me again, via email, your snail mail addresses.

I DID have the foresight to snag the return address from a few scavenged envelopes as your tags came to me via post...however, I did NOT do so with ALL (because I was just so excited I tore into them like a kid on Christmas morning...leaving shreds of paper, envelopes, and (sadly) addresses lying in a heap on the floor).

And yes, it's true you can choose to turn a deaf ear to the inane ramblings of this swap hostess (duly self-dubbed "Faily McFailerson")...

But if you would like your Wild West Tags, and other swappy goodness, won't you please send me an email with your address? YET AGAIN? And I WILL (oh yes I WILL) make a NON-technological Rolodex with all addresses included, never to bother you with such trivia again.



Really. I'll do it. Elizabeth and Sandy, feel free to ask me occasionally, "Why Paula Clare, how is that Rolodex coming along?"

Yours in Technologically Induced Shame,
Paula Clare

A HALLOWEEN GIFT FOR YOU!

Greetings, dear reader!

As you can see, I've changed the look of my blog to celebrate the upcoming Ghouls Day...you likee?

While scouring my THOUSANDS of Halloween images, I came upon these dear owls, and thought I'd make us all something useful:

Simply click on the image to enlarge, right click then save! These little darlings would also look good sticking out of a tag book or album!

Tomorrow I drag out the many MANY tubs of fallish goodies to begin the annual decking of the Halloween Halls! I'll photograph as I go...how are YOU decorating this fall? Check out my new Flickr badge to see decorations and creations from previous year's events!

Talk to you again soon!

Hugs,
Paula Clare

RED LEAD'S POSTCARD TAG HALLOWEEN SWAP!

Greetings, dear reader!

In the midst of the Wild West madness, I have been creating my tags for the Postcard Tag Halloween Swap! (Red Lead has THE BEST swaps...you can get in on them here!)

I decided to go with sweet and happy Halloween instead of spooky. We were to make 3 tags using Red Lead's Postcard tags, images and stamps. Here is my contribution...

To color the tags, I used a wash of Ranger alcohol inks (denim, terra cotta and walnut stain), and then adding Twinkling H2Os to add a bit of sheen!

Then, using StayzOn ink, I stamped images onto unbleached muslin. I then glued down vintage wallpaper, buttons, trims and of course, Stickles! (The little moon "shaker" was made with a clear, dome shaped button, a vintage moon image, and 3 tiny bat brads (with the prongs removed) I just LOVE how they turned out!)

I added little "bandit" masks to the sweet puppy stamps to ready them for the Halloween party!

So much fun creating with things you have laying around!

More soon!