What a Year!!

How should I end this year? It's supposed to be a monumental day, a time for reflection over this past year and all the years past. It's also supposed to be the start of something new. The day you spend planning for the coming year - new goals, new resolutions, new dreams.Yet, it doesn't feel like it has been a whole year. Everything has rushed by so fast.
I've been considering what to post for a few days and even have made a few lists of the blog posts of mine that have received the most attention and the keywords that have brought visitors here. I've got those lists, if you want to know. But, how boring is that?Instead - to commemorate the year, here are my favorite posts for each month. Let me know if you had any favorites.

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

While the world had its big events this year: the Olympics in China, the official start of the recession, the 'historic' election of Obama (aren't all elections historic?), the national disasters, and the deaths of some really great famous individuals; I found that my year in the blogoverse also had some highlights of it's own. Here's my top 10 - in NO particular order:
1. The creation of an official household "Shit to Do List" and the subsequent forgetting about the list.
2. The loads of time I was able to spend at the beach over the course of the year, including several overnight stays there.3. The death of two of my family members in the same week (my sweet Great Uncle Guy and my cousin Tommy)
4. The amount of time I spent stressing over and venting about not being pregnant.
5. The many trips I took: Hunts-vegas for Grand Assembly, Killeen for Grand Tea, aforementioned beach trips, camping in the RV, a cruise to Cozumel, and my recent trip to Disney World.6. The creation of and little interest in a new blog.
7. The fact that I did more crafting and organizing than I thought.8. Several attempts to change my blog into something more enjoyable to read, including a poll.
9. Lots and lots of rambling about my weekends, craft bags and obsessions, visits with my nieces, and time spent with my husband - Pat.10. And mostly, lots of introspection outloud about life, dreams, and goals. Usually, these were vague and undecipherable to anyone but me. Yet, many of you read through it as I trudged on through the year. Thank you!!

2008 has been one heck of a year.
2009 promises to follow it up with some excitement and disappointments of its own.
I'm not ready to set goals for the year yet, I didn't do so well on my previous ones. So, I'll just wait to see where the start of the year takes me.

Have fun celebrating the New Year. Let me know what you're doing. Be safe!!
See ya next year!

Catching up in Pictures

I want to keep the blog up, so I'm doing a quick picture dump

Mostly, I have pictures from the Disney trip that I want to share.

Here's me on our first day

Here's the reason we went to Disney - for the oldest niece to dance in the parade

The youngest had a good time too. She even turned Bambi into a reindeer, but she's a fairy - she can do that.

They got to design their own ears.

And see Cinderella's castle get covered in ice.

We had a really good time.

Oh, and here's some of the fusing I did with my new kiln. It's not great I know - but I'm still new at this.
Alrighty, that's all for now. I've got TONS more pictures, so I'll try to share those later.
I'm working on a big end of the year post for tomorrow. Hopefully it'll get done.

Christmas Unwrapped (MMSM)

Sooooo - how was your Christmas or other holiday celebration?
Mine was pretty darn good. It seems that everyone liked the gifts I found for them. Plus, it was a fairly relaxing day. Since my brother-in-law had the nieces, they just came over to my mom's for the present-exchange frenzy and then LEFT!! It was quiet, it was calm, it was awesome. I got to spend some time with them, but then got to really enjoy the company of my mom, step-dad, grandmother, and husband. How lovely!!
As well, both LOML* and my mom gifted me with some crafty tools - a microwave kiln for fusing glass and a mini craft sewing machine. I haven't tested out the sewing machine yet, but am LOVING the kiln.

Besides having all you shopping done and a New Year to look forward to, I've got some other topics to make you smile. It's "Made Me Smile Monday" at last!!

• I haven't watched all of this, only the first 10-15 seconds or so, but I was in tears over the music, just watch:
  
• QUOTE - "before they invented drawing boards, what did they go back to?" - Unknown
• 
• I think LOML* and I have shared this video with all of our family and most of our friends. The beginning is a little slow, but just keep watching.
• Now that the new year is almost upon us, it's time to think about what calendar you will be using in the upcoming year. This bubble calendar looks like it would be so much fun to mark off the days.

Hopefully, I'm back on a roll and you'll be seeing more of me (or more posts at least) now that the shopping craziness has ended. Happy Monday to you all!!

Christmas Morning

Christmas Morning
Originally uploaded by CraftyHope

Here's what a white Christmas in Southern Alabama looks like.

Christmas Spirit

I guess it's about time for a blog post, huh?
My Christmas craziness has calmed down a bit. Yes, it is Christmas Eve, but I'm done. It's all over but my favorite part - the giving. I love the look on my family and friends' faces when they open the gift I've selected just for them. I've spent almost every evening and lunch hour over the past week and a half to get my shopping done. Now, I'm bored and fidgety. I can't wait to start handing out the presents.
And, I know that it's not all about that - see there was this baby. Nevermind, you've heard the story.

Oh, and I got the biggest laugh today when I was listening to the radio and they were doing a report on the tourism in Bethlehem. Apparently, "all the hotels are full."
He, he - get it - there was no room at the inn.

Anyway, I guess now the best time to send you all my greetings.

Wishing you and yours a Very Merry Christmas!!

Tonight's the night all the magic happens. Remember to believe in the wonder that is the holidays and really cherish the time you have with your loved ones. I'll be back soon!

Catching-Up

Okay, okay - I have not fallen off the face of the Earth and am not that slow of a reader. I've just been. . . busy.
I have so much to say, it's overwhelming. So, I keep waiting for time to cover it all. That's not going to happen. Instead of going in to too much detail, lemmie just do a bullet list for you.

• Disney was great but exhausting. So exhausting, I lost TEN POUNDS!! I'll get some pictures up later of the experience (being in Disney, not the weight loss.)
  
• I haven't had much holiday spirit until this week. It's probably the almost 80 degree weather that's doing it. But I'm finally getting some shopping done and it's taking forever to do it.
  
• I did finish the Twilight series and loved every bit of it. I really want to sneak off and go see the movie (as LOML* will not go), but am kinda afraid it will lose the magic of the book. Hmmm.
• While I was in Disney LOML* bought a MacBook. Other than our iPhones, it's the first Apple in our lives. I've only gotten to play with it on a limited basis, but it's pretty cool.
• Several of you asked about "rick roll." Here's the Wikipedia explanation: Rick Roll. Basically, it's an internet prank where you click on something and instead, get this rather than what you thought you were getting.
• I'm a little disappointed that I haven't gotten much crafting done this Holiday Season. It's the perfect time of year for making stuff. Instead, I've been vacationing, READING, catching up with LOML*, and shopping. Instead of posting yesterday, I did sneak into the craft room for a few hours to decorate some glass ornaments. I felt so much better after that. I want to make a few other ornaments/jewelry items to use as package embellishments, but we'll see how that goes in time.
  

Okay, I hope I've at least covered everything for now. To help with my holiday spirit and yours, take a few minutes to enjoy this video. It spans generations and gives me goose-bumps. I hope you enjoy it too!!

I Exist

Real quick - I AM back from Disney.
I have not fully recovered AND am trying to finish the last book of the Twilight series.
My head is not in the real world right now.
I know some of you want to know about rick roll and some Disney details.
I'll get to that. Just - not right now.

I'll get back to regular blogging real soon.
Sorry for the pause.

You Were Right!! (& MMSM)

Oh my, oh my!! I HAVE to admit that I was WRONG (I hope you're reading today, because this hardly ever happens ;) ) I read Twilight over the holiday and LOVED it. I twittered earlier today that I was emerging from a turkey-induce coma, but really - it was a Twilight-induced coma. I read and read. After finishing the first book, I searched frantically at bookstores and Wal-mart for the second. I finally found it yesterday afternoon in Mobile. I read until two in the morning and had a hard time leaving it at the house when I left for work this morning. As I'm leaving for Orlando on Wednesday morning, I can't decide whether to go ahead and buy the next two to take with me (if I can find them) or to take a break from the frenzy. It kills me to think about not reading them, but I'm also not sure that I will be able to pull my head from the pages if I take them. I've already made some rules for myself about when I get home tonight - no reading until I get dinner done and laundry started (I need clean clothes to pack.) I can get a little obsessive about books (I read each of the last several Harry Potter books in a matter of hours after they came out- no sleeping.) So, those of you who recommended Twilight to me - THANK YOU (and damn you for not letting me get anything done this weekend.)

Other than that - How was your Holiday? Did you see the parade? Were you falling off the couch when Macy's Rick Rolled all of us? I sooooo was. It was great. The parade is always worth it, but that just made it even more awesome. Of course, you should have seen me at the dinner table trying to explain what rick roll means to my grandmother. That was pretty amusing as well (especially since I had just finished off several glasses of wine.)

Since I had a rockin', reading holiday weekend that made me smile, let me share the wealth with you with some of the other things that made me happy on this "Made Me Smile Monday"

• Octoberfest parking sign (look at the rules)
• I had no idea chickens were such peacemakers - too funny
  
• While you've got some time in the bathroom, you might as well out it to a creative use: paint by numbers TP
• Muggle quiddich - AWESOME! I wish I was still in college and brave enough to start this up.
  
  
• A pirate church??

Okay, I've got to get back to focusing on what needs to get done.
Happy Monday all!!

Gobble, Gobble

For several reasons I write again today:
1. I doubt that I will get any time to post tomorrow (with the Macy's Parade, lunch with the in-laws, and dinner with my family)
2. I've been saving Thanksgiving links and have forgotten to share them (and need to get it over with before it gets too late)
3. I just love you guys

While this isn't a very long list - I wanna share. So here are some Thanksgiving links (from me to you)

• For the kiddos in your life, One Pretty Thing has offered a list of a variety of Thanksgiving crafts, just for the younger set.
  
• While most of us don't get the opportunity to go out and kill our own Thanksgiving meal, here's a tame turkey shoot game. It's really pretty fun and I'm not usually up for shooting games.
  
• Lastly, Popular Mechanics made this list of practical ways to prepare your home for the holidays. It seems pretty useful, if I actually had people coming to my house during the holiday season.

Now go out and enjoy your Turkey Day.
Happy Thanksgiving!!

A Prelude to the Feast (& WWWW)

Can you believe there are only like 28 days left until Christmas? I haven't bought a singe present yet. I've got running lists in my head but need to put it all down on paper before I lose any more of it.

I'm just trying to get past Thanksgiving first. Of course, after that I leave for Disneyworld with my mom and nieces. I don't know when I'll get all of it done.

I don't participate in all that "Black Friday" mania as I have problems with crowds and crazy traffic people. I love sales and bargains, but I would much rather pay full price for something than lose my shit in public.

Speaking of going wild, here's to your "Wild, Wild Web Wednesday" before the Thanksgiving festivities begin:

• Check out this list of 40 creative lamps. There are just so many cool ones, here are two of my favorites (it was hard to narrow it down to two.)
• Check out this tool for finding similar pictures in Flickr, Yahoo, and Google. I couldn't get it to work great yet, but plan on playing around with it a bit more.
  
• Speaking of pictures, there are so many cool groups and sets of images in Flickr, it's amazing. Take, for instance, this New York in the 1930's set.

Since you don't have to work tomorrow, have some fun tonight and GO WILD!!

Creative Endeavors

I know I've already posted once today, but am here to urge you to head over to my Fairy Creative site to see the collage madness in which I've been involved. Here's a peek at what you'll find there.

Simple Notes (& TT)

I kinda let loose yesterday, huh? Sorry about that.
How about today I just do a simple list of what's going on:
-I'm getting to work from home today. That means that I'll take some short (5 min) breaks every 45 minutes or so to get the laundry, dishes, and house picked up.
-I put a roast in the crockpot earlier and now that's all I can think about. It better be good.
-My cat (Asia) is driving us crazy. She walks around the house just meowing over and OVER and over and OVER.
-The dang laptop keeps losing internet connection and makes it hard for me to get any work accomplished. Grrrrrr.
-It's really nice to have Twitter on days like today. That way, I can still feel connected to other people, without having to actually interact with them. (Yes, I know I'm a tad antisocial.)
-I use three feed readers to manage the blogs I read: one for work, one personal that I read daily, and one for blogs I just want to remember to check in on from time to time. Is this obsessive? I do want to mention that my daily personal one includes 222 blogs, divided into 14 different categories.
-I may have an internet addiction.

It's 'Techie Tuesday," when I share some of the geeky-interest items from the internet and elsewhere:

• Here's a font-like movie-geek quiz. See if you can recognize the movie from just a single letter of the font from the movie poster. I didn't do great, but I did get a few of them. Now, you try.
  
• And for some more fun, try this little game - Switch. There is a tutorial. Beware, it can be addictive.
  
• I really enjoy those "I Love the World" commercials from the Discovery Channel. Here's one a group did on their own:
  
• This online tool will help you oldify your pictures. It's all in chinese or japanese, but it's pretty self-explanatory. I did it with a picture from my nieces' birthday party in April.

Let me know if Tuesday's topics don't interest you at all. I've been thinking of doing something else on Tuesdays. Lemmie know!!

Movies and Food and Some Questions (plus MMSM)

Let me admit, I LOVE anything to do with vampires. However, the movie I saw this weekend was Bolt, NOT Twilight. I haven't read the book either. I know, that's pretty bad for a self-proclaimed vampire-fetish girl. Yet, something about this particular series does not appeal to me. I will not say why, for fear of offending anyone. I've got tons of friends, bloggers I read, and twitters I follow that are fairly obsessed with Edward and Bella (see, I know their names.) I just haven't jumped on that train yet. Because of the overwhelming fan-base of this and the recommendations I have received, I may go ahead and take the leap. Perhaps I'll read the first book over the Thanksgiving holiday (I've been told it's an easy read) and make it to the movies before it leaves the theater (if I like it enough.) What do you think? Have you read it? Did you see the movie? Will I like it?

I've got another question for you. What was the worst service at a restaurant you've ever received? LOML* and I have gotten some pretty bad service in our time. Our waitress last night at a personal favorite dining establishment has made our short list of the worst service. After seeing the movie with the nieces and visiting with my fam, we headed out for some grub on the way home. Since the two of us rarely ever go into the "big city" (Mobile, AL) together, we wanted to jump at the chance to eat at a restaurant that's not always an option. We started to head for a Thai restaurant, but passed Carrabba's and changed our minds. It was all downhill from there. Don't get me wrong, the food was EXCELLENT. In short, we waited excessive amounts of time for all of our food and drinks. We watched as the waitress talked to another customer across the room for 20 minutes while we waited. I was served a salad other than the one I ordered. The waitress talked to the other customer for another 10 minutes. Instead of iced tea, our refill was watered-down, oversweetened, iced COFFEE. (Apparently, there was some mix-up with the tea and coffee bags.) We watched as other servers corrected and explained this mistake to their customers, and our waitress gabbed across the room. When we informed her of the iced-coffee, she seemed surprised, laughed it off, and never offered more tea. It was disastrous. Again, the food was great. It looked as though other tables received fine service, we just got a bad one. It was not our ideal way to end the weekend. Oh, we'll go back there - with prayers of not being seated in her section. In any case. . .what's your worst experience at a restaurant?

Moving on to happier thoughts. . .It's "Made Me Smile Monday." Let's get to it:

• Now there's a whole blog dedicated to funny newspaper articles (like Jay Leno's "headlines")

• If you liked the video of cell phones in movies, here's another one from the same people - metaphor free radio. Amazingly, I knew ALL the real songs so this really amused me.

• In case of emergency. . . Do What?
• Even the queen of craft makes mistakes.
  
• On your next trip to wal-mart, take this card and play along - Wal-mart bingo

I'm sorry this is so lengthy, but I had to get it all out. Have a great Monday.

*LOML=Love of My Life

A Meme for Real

Tagged by Julie

The rules? Answer the following questions in one word and then pass it on to seven others.

Where is your cell phone? charging
Where is your significant other? beside
Your hair color? blah
Your mother? wacky
Your father? deceased
Your favorite thing? fun
Your dream last night? weird
Your dream/goal? undecided
The room you’re in? living
Your hobby? crafting
Your fear? spiders
Where do you want to be in 6 years? decided
Where were you last night? margarita
What you’re not? content
One of your wish-list items? time
Where you grew up? military
Last thing you did? changed
What are you wearing? jeans
Your TV? on
Your pet? CRAZY
Your computer? tablet
Your mood? anxious
Missing someone? always
Your car? dirty
Something you’re not wearing? shoes
Favorite store? thrift
Your summer? beach
Love someone? completely
Your favorite color? blue
When is the last time you laughed? hours
Last time you cried? days

Tag (the only person I know for sure who hasn't done this yet): Heather

Of course, if any of you want to be tagged or do include this on your blog from here - lemmie know and I'll link to you too.

I'm A Grown-Up?? (& FGF)

As an adult, doesn't it seem like the weeks and months just fly by? Of course the work days drag along. But, as you go to write down a date; you think, "Holy cow! Where has the year gone?" I remember being a kid and the eternity it would take for each holiday, birthday, and summer vacation to finally hit the calendar. Now, each year that I age, I deny. I cannot be that old. I was just a teenager. It's these feelings that make me know that I am "for real" an adult. I've always professed that I'll never grow up, no matter how much I age. And, now I ponder why I am not more mature, more organized, more 'together'. I can still be a fun-loving, kid-like, mature adult. Right?
As I think about all the things I want to get done. I think about how much I could accomplish each morning - IF I could just get out of the bed. I've always had an issue with waking in the morning. Just ask my college roommates and friends. They know. They were in charge of making sure I made it to class on time. I don't know how I would have made it through college without them. I was a MESS!! (Thank you guys!!)
Now, I consider what an early rise would mean - seeing the sun come up, sipping on coffee, some exercise, breakfast, and a little time in the craft room. Instead, I either wake just in time to get out the door for work OR the warmth (esp this time of the year) of the bed paralyzes me from emerging from under the covers. I need to find some motivation, something more than my desire to get things done - that's not enough. Any suggestions?

The desire to better myself, my habits, my environment fuels this "Feel Good Friday." I think it's some of the links I've found lately that have really put me in this contemplative mood. I hope you like them too.

• The home of Jennifer Perkins (of Naughty Secretary Club fame) was featured on Apartment Therapy. I love how completely decorated her house looks. I am personally obsessed with design shows, but can't seem to get my house to look like it has style. Jennifer has so much stuff, but it works. My stuff just looks like junk and clutter. How does she do it? She's a creative, crafty, style genius.
  
• Here are 100 everyday habits for your health and wealth. I like this list a lot. It contains all those things that I constantly ask - how are we to get this all done. For some reason, this list makes those tasks seem less intimidating and overwhelming. It may well become my go-to list.
  
• And for some mind-power, check out these 7 tips to keep your brain young.

Lastly, since this post is rather 'heavy' - I want to share this picture of the trailer parked behind the building at work. It makes me giggle a little every time I see it. Now you can confirm that I'm not willing to grow up.

Hee, hee. With that said, I'm off to get some other stuff done as I prepare for Margarita Friday and the weekend ahead. Looks like it'll be a good one since one of my BFFs is in town this week for Thanksgiving. How exciting!!
Have a great one.

Made Me Smile Thursday? Using what I've got

I don't have much to say today.
It's Thrifty Thursday and I must confess that I was able to go thrifting this week. I was mostly looking for collage materials. I liked what I was able to score, some books and whatnot. However, it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Oh well, better luck next time.

Since I've run out of "Thrifty Thursday" links and have an abundance of Monday ones, I'll be a little thrifty and use what I have. How's that for a little switch-eroo? Check it out - these were saved for a made me smile Monday post, so they are happy, silly things.

• Good Reason
• Did you know that Paris Hilton is immune to zombies? It's true.
  

• Here's a video that explores the idea of if all movies had cell phones in them. It would def. change a few.
  
• 
• How perfect is it that Tim Burton is doing Alice in Wonderland? It's even more perfect that he cast Johnny Depp as the mad hatter. How awesome is that? It makes me happy!!

So go on with your bad selves and see what you can "use what you have" on this Thrifty Thursday. I did - with some creative license - that's why I'm the "Crafty Hope"

Mike Check (& WWWW)

Tap, tap, tap - is this thing on?
I haven't heard much from any of you lately. As such, I haven't been real motivated to post as often. (For me, it's all about the attention.) Just kidding (kinda), I will continue to post so I have some place to vent from time to time and a place to put and find all the amazing and fun links I discover.
I do know that SOME of you are actually reading my current posts. Though, I see that the majority of my traffic is directed to a post I did several months ago.
Whatever.

It's "Wild, Wild Web Wednesday" and I'll move on to that - it's more encouraging.

• Here's what it would look like if advertisements were truthful. (Caution - some adult language and references.)
  
• Sleep safe tape lets you sneak in a sleep without getting in trouble.
  
• Check out this cool tool that gives you movie, book, and music recommendations based on and related to what you like. It is not completely accurate and I question how some are similar, but overall does a great job. It's called Taste Kid.
  
• Shame on this guy and OUCH!!
  
• If you love Harry Potter like I do, you'll get a kick out of these Harry Potter-related license plates.

On an even more personal preference:
MICKEY MOUSE IS 80 - and still more dashing than any other "older" actor I can recall, Check out this sideshow tribute to him and his creator. Happy Birthday Mickey!!!

I will note that with my absence has also come more crafting. I've really been into collage lately and collecting ephemera for such. Fun Fun!!

That's all for now. Please let me know if you stopped by. I wanna know!!

Better Late Than Never (ThTh)

There's no excuse for my behavior, but let's just say that I've gotten a lot accomplished at home since I've been gone.

I had a busy weekend: enjoying Margarita Friday, spending all of Saturday with my mom, and running errands and stuff with LOML* on Sunday (squeezing in some crafty time late in the day.)
Monday was a bummer for me as I wasn't feeling well and left work early (that wasn't the bummer part.) On Tuesday, I was supposed to work, but a quick check of my e-mail confirmed that I didn't have anything pressing to handle. As such, I cleaned, cleaned, cleaned my house. It's a great relief to have the majority of the house in a resonable state. Yesterday, was work then off to help with the nieces. Busy, busy me. I'm back now.

Since it's "Thrifty Thursday", I'll admit that I did have one thrift store excursion this week. I checked out a place I saw recommended online. It was packed to the gills with stuff, but fairly well organized. I found a large wicker basket FULL of sandwich baggies of buttons. The baggies were only about half full, and they wanted $5 a bag. I thought that was a little steep, so I passed (they were marked "collectibles", and I didn't see anything special about them. They looked to be from the 80's or even more recent) I may go back at a later time and see if they'd be willing to part with them at a lower cost. I need to be in a "haggling mood" for that endeavor.

Oh well, I'm now going to exhaust the rest of my saved "Thrifty Thurday" links with this post. We'll have to wait and see what BS I come up with for next week:

• I love this clip scoop (scoop clip?) for coffee. First, it serves more than one purpose AND you can use this for so many products (flour, sugar, shoveling jellybeans into my mouth - whatever.) It's just cool. At $5 each from Pampered Chef - it's a deal.
• Here's a link to some natural remedies and helpful hints.
  
• Now's the time to be thinking about the holidays (dangit) and all the gifts you need to get (double-dangit). For some relief, check out these suggestions from Thrifty Mommy on prepping and packaging for thrifty gift giving.
  

There - I did it - a blog post. What more do you want from me? No, really - what do you want? What have I missed telling you? How can I inspire you? Please let me know. I wanna hear from you guys too!

Conflicted (& FGF)

So, today's supposedly "Feel Good Friday" and "Margarita Friday".
I was. . .am. . .was. . .whatever feeling pretty good about today. UNTIL, I got to work.
I guess, I'm feeling good about my home life - not so much about work.

I made a really basic list of items to get done yesterday, and DID them. I also was actually able to wake up this morning (with a good 45 minutes before I had to leave for work) and get some tasks (from the running list in my head) done. GO ME!!
However, when I got to work I was able to confirm that one of the clients I have been working closely with canceled their services. What a bummer!! This has me worried about my position here. I'd rather go ahead and leave to pursue my dream of crafting full time, but there are so many incidentals to consider. Ugh, I've got some heavy thinking to do. I'm so neurotic, it takes me forever to make any kind of leap because I worry 'what if.'

In any case, let's move on to some "Feel Good Friday" links

• This is fairly old, but here are 50 ways to help the planet. There are quite a few of these that I already do and a few that surprised me.
• While I was on the cruise, I really could have used this list of how to come up with good conversation topics for the Captain's Dinner. I'm no good with smalltalk and was grasping at straws with my dining companions. There are also links on the page for starting a conversation, joining a conversation, etc.
  
• This article really touched my heart. A girl with down syndrome was named homecoming queen. It brings tears to my eyes and helps me realize that there had to be some good people in high school, maybe.
  

And I'll leave you with this because it's just awesome!!

I'm Baaaaaack!! (& ThTh)

I apologize for being so quiet over here in my corner of the blogosphere. I have many reasons. I had full intentions of posting on Halloween. However, I ended up getting sick and laying on the couch all afternoon and then went to my mama's to see my nieces and other family and kids for the holiday.

I also know that with the election going on, y'all had more important issues to attend to than my lil' ole blog. I've always been a peace-keeper. I had my own views about how the election should go, but because many people that are close to me had other views, I decided to leave the election out of my blog posts, rather than starting debates. I am glad that the election is over and look forward to what awaits the country with our new president.

I want to make sure this post gets up, so let me go ahead and share just a few things. Do you remember the contest I won? Here's how my prize was packaged (too cute!)
And, here's my awesome winter dove bead. I LOVE it!!
It is "Thrifty Thursday" so let me share a few links before I get out of here:

• Here are some tips in how to clean your house on the cheap.
  
• Want to repurpose your Halloween candy? Check out these ideas. The advent calendar one is my fave.
  

Lastly is something I REALLY have been wanting to share. Here's the completed Halloween Pin-Up necklace I made (remember the hint?)
For complete details on how I made it, head over to my Fairy Creative site.

That's all for now. I hope I can make it back tomorrow. And, I hope you do too!!

My Thrifty Finds (& ThTh) Plus More Halloween Goodies

Ah yeah, I'm on a roll!! Three days in a row - go me!

I finally took some pictures of the yard sale finds I procured the other weekend. Check it out!!This is a cool shelf/ spice rack thing I got for $3. It's got some tacky 70's contact paper on the back that seems to be coming off fairly easy. I hope to paint it, distress it, and then use it for extra storage in the craft room.

Here are some of the craft items I was able to purchase. The sequined appliques are for my mom, but all the rest is for me. These were my favorite craft items from the previous picture. They are simple wood block pieces that come with pin backs. They seem to be fairly old and many of the pin backs were a little grungy. But, they were only a dime each and I've got plenty of pin backs in my stash. These are going to be a lot of fun.

Here's an older needlepoint kit. I haven't opened it or inspected it very well, but it has the larger image, all the smaller 'ornaments', and all the sequins that go with it.

Lastly, this is just some jewelry and some hair combs that I got. I figured I could alter the jewelry in some way and add some feathers, flowers, ribbons, and fru-fru whatevers to the combs. We'll see.

Now - wasn't that worth waiting for?
Well, if that didn't satisfy your thrift tastebuds, here are a few links for you on this "Thrifty Thursday"

• Here are 16 creative ways to upcyscle before you recycle.
  
• How about a list of the best free stuff on the web. This is mostly web and technology based 'stuff'.
  

And with Halloween looming tomorrow, let me throw some more related links at ya'

• I know you're growing tired of the pumpkins, but here are some no-carve pumpkin ideas and finally, a complete list of pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns. Now, I promise NO MORE.
  
• Check out these 19 creative Halloween ads. They're just magazine-type ads, but really cool.
  
• How about some "bones of the dead" cookies. Creepy and yummy looking!!
• Now, if you are running out time to get a costume, this link will give some ideas for making your own Halloween costume. Most of these are really easily made from items you should have on hand or that are inexpensive and available. Oh, my personal favorites are: bubblegum, babysitter, and identity crisis. This is such a cute reference.
• Lastly, here's how to make a head in a jar spooky decoration.
  

Alrighty, this may be too much of a good thing to continue - but I'll try to be back tomorrow. See ya' then!!!