Life Outside the Fishbowl

Halloween Decor with Around the Block

I had fun decorating this spooky tree I found at a craft store. I took some Around The Block chipboard, Halloween brads, 7Gypsies paper, and the ATB Flocking & Glitter kit to help me put it together  --  now if it were only as easy to carve the pumpkins tonight....

Around the Block for Halloween!

I've got a couple fun projects up at the Around The Block Blog today.

For the pins, I found some 1 1/2" bar pins at the craft store. The brand I picked up already had an adhesive strip on the pin, which came in handy. I used Around The Block Halloween brads to dress them up. I also found that if I peeled the adhesive strip off I was left with a clear plastic strip.  So, I got out the alcohol ink and went to town!

October Layouts

In our Scrapbooks Plus kit for October we had several of these circular scalloped papers from Creative Imaginations. I took the black one and split it between two layouts. I also HAD to pick up one of these Fancy Pants Glitter Cut trees (well, I picked up several glitter cuts). Totally cool! 

Christmas Planner

 

Need a little holiday organization?  How about a fun planner filled with pockets and plenty of space for lists and photos? Lots of fun Teresa Collins paper and Making Memories embellishments!

I'll be teaching a class on Saturday, November 8th at Scrapbooks Plus.  You can get more info here.

Economics 101

I thought this was a good video.

Breast Cancer Fundraiser

 Scrapbooks Plus is hosting the Laura Mattox Breast Cancer Fundraising Crop tomorrow night -- Friday, October 24th -- from 6 pm to midnight. The cost is only $5. In addition they've got some fabulous raffles and the DT will be bringing some edible goodies. Come help us help Laura! If you can't attend but wish to donate, that's great too!

Method Playground - Layering it Up

We've got Wendy Rago, the owner of Bad Girls Kits as our guest host this week. And she'd come up with a great challenge. Dimension - and tons of it! How high can you go?? Well, pretty high it seems. Here's what I did for the challenge:

And a close-up shot. I made dimensional flowers by layering - a little Thickers, some paper flowers, buttons and beads.  I strung the beads using tagger tails from Around The Block's Paper Tagger. I stuck one end through a button, then through several pony beads before bending the strand and ahereing it to the button with a small glue dot.

Back on the Blog

It's been a wild couple of weeks over here, on all fronts. October is always a busy month -- lots to see and do with all the apple picking, pumpkin patches & Halloween activities. Add to that scrapbooking work, our 12th anniversary, school volunteering, cub scouts (camping no less!), and a family scare ... then suddenly almost three weeks have gone by.

I still need to choose & resize pictures, but here's one of the most important ones. And I'm couldn't be more thankful for that day.

Rachel

So, as I was picking her up from preschool the other day, she makes a beeline for the car (very unusual!) and we have this conversation:
        "Can I have lunch?"
        "Yes, Rachel."
        "How much lunch can I have?"

Guess she was pretty hungry!

Use Up Those Rub-Ons

Our next challenge is up at Method Playground -- and it's rub-on mania this time!  I'll bet like us you've got a pile of rub-on packages - some half-used, some unopened.  Well, it's time to break them out and work on your stash.  Here's the layout I did for the challenge - I used rub ons from Basic Grey (several packages), Cosmo Cricket, Doodlebug, Foofala, and American Crafts. And I probably could've used more.  The chipboard flower is from an Around the Block flocking kit -- you rub on the adhesive sheet (in cool patterns) then add the flocking. I also used the ATB Paper Tagger to attach the Making Memories epoxy charms - how fun!