And the winner is….

It was so fun to read all the comments on the give-away post and hear what everyone enjoys doing for Halloween. And the winner of the Heidi Swapp stamp set is…comment #37!!

*** Lesa #5200 on October 29, 2008 11:08 am ***

Thank you to everyone who entered. Have a wonderful weekend. XOOXO

Friday Freebie - Be free!

Happy Halloween!! These goodies from Digital Scrapbooking Freebies caught my eye and I thought would be great for today’s find. I love these papers, there’s also a gorgeous overlay, a very cool collage and ribbon frame and a fun tag alpha.

Get the Friday Freebies

• Papers
• Elements
• Alpha

Have a safe and fun Halloween! XOOXO ~ Cathy

Look who’s here!!

I’m so excited my horse Parker is finally living at home with us!! My honey went and picked her up this morning. We’ve always had her boarded since we’ve had her so I’m just so excited she’s here. Nika is super excited too as she loves horses and always enjoyed visiting Parker at the farm. Parker is just settling in, mostly concerned with eating all the grass. I took this photo just after she arrived. I’ll share more Parker pics and updates with you later. Have a great day!!

A few stats about Parker

• She’s a registered Paint horse
• 8 years old
• Very smart and bossy (usually the alpha with other horses)
• Adores kitties and loves chasing cows
• Favorite treat: carrots

Show & Tell - Christmas inchies

Have you ever made inchies? They are similar to ATCs but are only 1 inch square. I just finished my 1st batch for the Christmas inchie swap. These were so fun to make and super quick. For the inchies I stamped my image on watercolor paper using black StazOn. Used watercolor pencils and and a blending pen to color. I also added stickles for a bit of sparkle. Once the glitter was dry I used the Fiskars 1″ square punch to cut out and then finished off the edges with black chalk.

I’m a big fan of packaging and presentation so I decided to make little inchie envelopes too. I just love the little size and look forward to seeing what everyone made. I have some ideas for making a home decor piece with all the ones I get back. Thanks for visiting me today! XOOXO

How about a treat for you…RAK

I picked up these Heidi Swapp clock stamps this weekend and also got an extra set for one of you! Thought it would be fun to give something away to help celebrate Halloween. Leave a comment on this post and let me know one of your favorite Halloween traditions. I’ll pick a winner after we go trick or treating on the 31st.

Please only 1 comment per person, open to US and Canadian mailing addresses. Good luck!! XOOXO

Halloween ATC swap cards

I got back all the ATCs from the Halloween swap I participated in and love them all!! Check out all these fabulous cards.

All of these were made by fellow fisk-a-teers. This was my 1st swap and I really enjoyed it. I signed up for a few more swaps. Here’s the upcoming swaps I’m working on…I’ll have the inchies to share with you this week. Hope you had a great weekend! XOOXO ~ Cathy

• Christmas House ATC
• 12 Days of Christmas ATC
• Christmas inchies

Friday Freebie - it’s so good I can’t believe it!!

Today’s freebie find is so good, I can’t believe it!! I blogged the other day about the free online class Jessica Sprague is offering. She also has a bunch of freebies for you to download too. If you are not familiar with her work you should definitely check it out. Really awesome stuff. Here’s some previews of all the great free downloads you’ll find on her site. You’ll find papers, tons of elements, journaling spots, brushes, frames, word art, alphas, overlays and even a great box template in these freebies. Wow, so much goodness I can’t believe it. Thanks JS!!

To download the freebies follow the links below.

LivEdesigns kits can be found here

Echoes of Asia kit by Jessica Sprague - this kit is so beautiful…I just love it!!

Home Away from Home kit by Jessica Sprague

Want more Jessica Sprague? You can check out her free digi tutorials and also download her free mini albums here. There is a beautiful “so thankful” album that would be perfect for Thanksgiving. Happy Friday everyone! XOOXO

Show & Tell - Altered seashells

I’ve been putting together a little care package for my nieces and made these altered seashells for them. When they were here visiting over the summer we stayed at the beach. The girls had collected a whole bunch of shells. I thought it would be a fun to alter a couple and send to them as a reminder of our fun summer together.

This was super easy to do and I think this would be a really awesome project to do with kids. For these I painted on 2 coats of gold metallic paint and used white tacky glue to adhere all the embellishments. I also used a Sharpie fine-tip marker to write on the inside of the shells. Thanks for stopping by today and checking out my altered seashells. XOOXO

Products used

• Seashells
• Gold Paint
• Ribbon
• Felt flowers
• Gemstones
• Butterfly punch
• Sharpie

Show & Tell - Game Haven layout

It’s been a while since I’ve done any scrapbook pages. Gosh, I’ve missed making layouts!! Here’s a fun quick and simple layout that I just finished. This past weekend we took Nika to Game Haven Farm to pick pumpkins. Vlad snapped this photo of us when we got there.

Products used

• Patterned paper {Basic Grey & My Minds Eye}
• Cardstock {Stampin Up!}
• Journaling spot {Jessica Sprague}
• Lace {Purchased at Joanns}
• Mesh {FibaTape}
• Wood letters {Woodsies}
• Felt flowers {Stampin Up!}
• Brads {Making Memories & Kimberly Polson}
• Adhesive {Scrapbook Adhesives & Aleene’s Tacky Glue}

Free Jessica Sprague class…capture those stories!

I just signed up for the FREE Jessica Sprague, Stories In Hand online class. You might be interested in taking this too. The class is about capturing stories you want to share. You can read more about the class on Jessica’s blog here and to register go here.

I’m a big fan of Jessica’s work and hear her classes are amazing. Come join me in this free class. Sounds like fun!!

In class, you’ll learn:

• Techniques for capturing memories from our own lives and from others
• Dozens of prompts for stories you might have forgotten
• A cool system for capturing the stories happening in your life right now, AND for listing the stories you have yet to tell
• Printable goodies that will make your “capture” system work, AND keep it cute! (you know we gotta keep it cute - there’s nothing in life that’s not better with a great design)
• “Next steps” video tutorials for turning your stories into pages
• Technologies you can use to help you gather your stories together with photos, video, your blog, or any other media you have that gives a peek into your life

This class isn’t just for scrapbookers, it’s for everyone who has stories to tell. There is also a cute project too and you don’t need PhotoShop to complete it. Let me know if you sign-up. XOOXO ~ Cathy

7 weird random facts about me

My sweet friend Michelle tagged me a few weeks ago. With the move and no Internet at the new house I’m just getting back to replying, bad me! It’s always fun to get tagged as you get to learn weird random things about me you’d probably never know.

Here’s the scoop…

1. Every morning I eat Peace Cereal (Golden Honey Granola) and add blueberries to it. I add a ton of milk and always have to refill my bowl with more milk at least twice. Yogurt Burst Cheerios used to be my thing.
2. Ok, don’t tell anyone but I’m not really a blonde. I’ve been one for over 5 years now and love being one. My hair is actually dark brown. I endure a painful bleaching process to get it blonde and I only wash my hair once a week to help keep it healthy from the harsh color treatment.
3. I love horses and didn’t start riding until just 4 1/2 years ago. My horse Parker will be coming to live with us in just a couple weeks too! Shown in the photo is me and Parker at the Sand Dunes in Eastern Washington, taken March 2006.
4. I played the flute in Junior High and was pretty good at it. I also used to play the organ too. Do people still play those? I played at home for fun. My songs of choice were Elvis tunes and Christmas Carols. I played up until my early 20s until I gave my organ away.
5. I’m half Chinese. Yes, really!!
6. I come from a family of women crafters. My mother is a really good stamper and general crafter. Her mother was an excellent ceramic painter and taught painting classes. My great grandmother was also crafty and did bead work. I have a really cool beaded purse she made. My dads mom was probably the craftiest person I’ve ever known. She could make anything from dolls, clothes, ornaments, to home decor. One of my favorite things she made was a Christmas tree collage. The entire piece is made from costume jewelry. I will have to take a photo and share that with you. Oh, I also have 2 sisters and neither of them are crafty…boo!! I also have a brother he is not crafty either.
7. Favorite DQ treat: small or medium size (depending on how hungry I am) Recess Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard with only half the normal amount of candy.

You can read more random weird things about me here. Want to know even more about me?? Check out this post on the Queen Kat Blogger site.

Now - I get to pass this tag to seven fabulous people. The rules of the tag are simple.

1. Link your tagger and list the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I’m tagging these 7 super creative ladies. Their work is very inspiring. Be sure to stop by their blogs lots of good eye candy at these places.

• Lindsay
• Maddy
• Latharia
• Tanis
• Lea
• Julie

Show & Tell - Spooktacular night card

I made this Halloween card for my cute crafty nieces. I’m putting together some Halloween goodies and treats to send them. I used up all of my orange cardstock while making the Halloween ATCs. For the card below I used a Gymboree box instead of cardstock. I’ve used these to make cards before and they work great, you can see my other re-purposed Gymboree gift box cards here. I’ll have to stock up on these for future orange cardstock needs, LOL.

Products used

• Orange cardstock {re-purposed Gymboree gift box}
• Purple cardstock {Stampin Up!}
• Patterned paper {Cosmo Cricket}
• Die cut tag {K&Co}
• Blackboard crow {Cosmo Cricket}
• Ribbon {Purchased from Target in the $1 bin}
• Spooktacular night sticker {Cloud 9}
• Black glitter glue {Stickles}
• Scallop border punch {Stampin Up!}
• Adhesive {Creative Memories, Aleene’s Tacky Glue}

Friday Freebie - 12 papers, 48 elements & cute tag book

I have 2 places for you to get freebies from today. Over at the Scrap’ Folies de Kalinoux blog there is a big Halloween freebie kit. 12 papers and 48 elements in this one…lots of great stuff. The preview pic doesn’t do it justice as not everything is shown.

Get the Friday Freebie

At the Just so Scrappy blog, there are 10 super cute Halloween tags for you to get. These would be adorable on treat bags or I’m thinking about making a little tag mini album with them.

I really like this designers style. Her digi kits are HUGE and each them are only $1.50!! Oh, she also has the cutest Disney kits I’ve ever seen!! Click the links below to get the free Halloween tags.

Tag 10

Tag 9

Tag 8

Tag 7

Tag 6

Tag 5

Tag 4

Tag 3

Tag 2

Tag 1

Have a great weekend! XOOXO ~ MamaSheg

Show & Tell - Altered craft pumpkin

I’d been wanting to make an altered pumpkin for a while and picked up this pumpkin on clearance at the local craft store. It was in pretty bad shape. Looked like it had been dropped in some spackle paste, the paint was nearly all chipped off the stem and there was a funky crease around it. I should have taken a before photo. I totally forgot as I was just excited to finally do this project. Here’s my creation.

I really didn’t have any idea on how I wanted to embellish this pumpkin, other than I wanted to use glitter. I started with some cheapy glitter glue and ran it down the creases. From there I decided ribbon would be the best thing to use to cover up the weird crease. Then I grabbed my felt flowers and some cute Heidi Grace stick pins that my friend sent me and went to it.

To adhere the wide pink polka dot ribbon I used my Xyron 150 and then a tacky glue for the green velvet ribbon. The “Boo” letters are wood with pink chalk, I ran them through the Xyron 150 face down and then glittered. To adhere the letters I used Gorilla Glue. For the large felt flowers the Heidi Grace stick pins worked perfectly to attach the embellishments. The smaller flowers I used a white tacky glue. This was super fun to make. XOOXO

Products used

• Craft pumpkin
• Lime green glitter glue {Stickles}
• Patterned paper {My Minds Eye}
• Felt flowers {Stampin Up!}
• Decorative stick pins {Heidi Grace}
• Polka dot ribbon {SEI}
• Velvet ribbon {Heidi Grace}
• Gold brads {Making Memories}
• Wood letters {Woodsies}
• Pink Chalk {Powder Puffs}
• Vintage pumpkin image {Vintage Image Craft}
• Adhesive {Xyron 150, Aileen’s Tacky Glue & Gorilla Glue}

Friday Freebie - Osa Honey!

Check out the cuteness from Osa Honey! My oh my, lots of good stuff…Halloween goodies, birthday cakes, dolls, and some adorable winter penguins.

Get the Friday Freebies

• Birthday cakes
• Penguin winter kit
• Halloween kit
• Dolls
• Halloween candies