And the Winner IS....

Oh wait. First I have to show you a picture of Eli who is dress like the Spartan cheerleader from Saturday Night Live. He even posed for me.

I put everyone's name on a slip of paper and put it in a bowl. If you linked me on your blog, I put your name in twice. My husband picked the winning name. Congratulations Wandering Nana! You are the winner of my Halloween banner. I decided to pick out a name too. Kristen...my sister...I picked you and I will send you yours soon. Kellykins...yours will be under the Christmas tree. HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone!

Tree House Update and Pumpkin Carving

Here is an update on the tree house. It's almost done. My handyman is going to add a stained glass window in that diamond shape. Oh, he has so much talent.
The red shutters open and close. You enter by climbing that ladder and going through the hatch. We still want to add a slide or zip line from off of there somewhere. All we need is grandkids closer to home to play in it. The boys at least got to spend one night in it before they went back to NYC.
I just took these pictures a day or two ago. The weather here has been fantastic!
Steph, Larry and Creed invited us over for a great dinner and pumpkin carving. Look at all the pumpkin guts in the bowls.
Eli's pumpkin was carved in honor of Grant and Cole who love Mario.
Brenna carved a cat silouette.
Of course the great pumpkin carver had to out do us all. I'm telling you the guy has talent.

I gave up on mine. Embarrassing. My pumpkin had gotten frost bite and was mushy. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. LOL
Hubby with his creation.
Here is our group with all our creations. It was like old times. Too bad I didn't have all my babies here carving pumpkins.

Steph also posted about our adventure if you want to check out more pictures on her blog.

One more day to enter my giveaway. It will close tomorrow at 10 pm when I stick all the names in a hat or do a random generator thingy to find a winner. (Don't worry...all those who linked to my giveaway will get an extra entry.) It has been great getting to know more of you out there in blog land.

Another Giveaway

Stacey at Primarily Primitives is having a giveaway. She entered my giveaway and invited all of you to enter hers.

Kim over at Simple-needs is also having a giveaway for her 100th post. Check that out too.

Halloween Decorations

A last picture of my Halloween Hat from the Witches Brew Party. It has been part of decor for several weeks now. Why not leave out your hat, broom, pointy shoes, cape, or feather boa? They can become a great vinette. (OK, I know that is spelled wrong but spell checker isn't helping me out.) I have mine on top of some old family trunks. An old wooden bobbin makes a great hat stand.
I love these funky pillows. Can't remember where I found them. I think I got them at TaiPan Trading in Draper. (Great place if you haven't been there.) This witch I made when I owned Heartland Manor. My kids think it is creepy but I like it.
See she has a skeleton key, vintage buttons, a buffalo wooden nickel, an old nickel. Who do you side with...me or my kids?
Little Halloween scenes fill my downstairs. Here's one.
A close up of my fire place.
My fireplace without my "All Hallow's Eve" garland. Candice ended up with hers and mine and was supposed to mail it back to me. Doesn't it look naked without it? Hint, hint, Candice.
Another scene in the window.
My gourd collection from my friend Jeni.

Isn't she amazingly talented?
My kitchen window. It's a bit backlit. I love setting up holiday decorations in my window. It gives me something to look at while I am standing there washing those ever present dishes.
Of course all the pictures in your house should join in the holiday spirit. Doesn't Marissa look remarkable in a wedding dress and mask? What a beautiful bride!
Here is a view out the living room window. See my little graveyard out there? I'm not too crazy about the witch silouette. (Another French word I don't know how to spell.) I like things that are original and unique.
My little crows in the window sill.
Something new that my friend a Jeni made this year. I just love these things. She decided to see how well stacking pumpkins would sell. They lasted for all of two seconds.
I even decorate the chandeliers. This is eat in kitchen area.
The dining room chandelier. I didn't show you the chandelier itself. My kids say it has to go. One of these days I guess.
The dining room center piece for this year.
I know these are massed produced but they make me laugh. I add one or two to my collection every year. I think that will be all I am adding to the collection. My house can't hold any more and I don't know where else I would put anything anyway. Sad isn't it?



The napkins from the witches brew party. Love those. Found them in NYC.
These are the soup bowls and some of the dishes I used that night. We ate dinner on the white square plates. I love dishes. My mom passed that trait on to me. You should see all the dishes she has.
Of course I just happen to have a few flag garlands. They are hanging around the doors and windows. I still have 9 for sale. Any takers? Oh look, now you can see the top of the chandelier. Maybe chandelier is too grand a name for that beauty. (It seem I know how to spell that French word.)
A card left over from my store and a frame from the dollar store.
This also is on top of the piano. Taipan Trading had those great signs for a very inexpensive price. The store is already packed with Christmas decorations and it's a hugggge store.
A close up of my cat. I'm not a huge cat fan but it works for Halloween.
The top of the living room armoire. (Spell checker doesn't like that French word either.) You can see my spider web reflected in the mirror. It hangs across the door. I am a crow fan.

I'm not sure why I didn't think to move this out of the hallway so I could take a better picture of this. Candice and I finished this some time this year. It was published in this October's Creating Keepsake magazine. She gives you close ups and tells you how to make them. It's our 13 days to Halloween countdown. Each number has an activity...go pumpkin hunting, carve a pumpkin, pick out a character you want to be for Halloween, etc.
#1 was one of my grandmother's shoe buckles. Number 13 is our gypsie fortune teller box. That is a picture of my grandmother in there. She was dressed up for a dance recital. I love making things that have memory.
The jewels you see here and there are family heirlooms too. Don't worry...it's just costume jewelry.
#10 is howl to the moon. We just won't be able to do it very late at night. We don't want to wake the neighbors after all.

Last but not least. This is what was inside my little crackers. Don't forget to leave a comment to enter into my drawing for one of my Halloween Garlands.

A Halloween Giveaway!

Would you like to win a Halloween Garland? I'm going to pick the winner on Halloween. (I know that you won't receive it in time for Halloween this year but it will still work for next year and the next and the next. Also, it probably won't be this exact garland. They are all good though.)

Post this on your blog and link it back to me and you will be given an extra chance to win. I love making new friends out there in blog land. If you don't have a blog, make sure to leave me some way to contact you in case you win.


The pickled pepper patch is also having a giveaway that will end on November 1st. She is giving away a primative toaster cover. Check it out.

What other giveaways are you seeing out there? Bloggers are very generous in their giveaways so I thought I would join in in honor of my 100th post.

I will also try and post pictures of my Halloween decor tomorrow. Hope to see you soon.

P.S. The BYU cougars beat UNLV in football today 42-35. Go Cougars!!

Witches Brew Party Continued

The party began at 7 pm. The house with lit with candles, pumpkins. We started with dinner of tomato basil soup, a vegetable platter with dip, crackers and cheese, and grapes. The next thing on the agenda was making a caramel apple you could take home to your family. Then it was on to visiting and judging the wonderful witch hat creations. Sorry, I didn't take pictures of the awards. Oh, believe me, you would have wanted to win. My husband took the wonderful witch portraits whenever he could grab someone. I loved the portraits. I think I will have everyone's printed as a special memory of our evening together.

Speaking of pictures...I did my best on these. I really MUST take Candice online photography class. I swiped my husband's Nikon to take most of these. I put the camera on a tripod and held the flash down so it couldn't flash. It seemed to work in most cases.
Above: soup bowls and other dishes. I love those Halloween plate I bought at a garage sale at Lake Tahoe this summer. (Honestly, they have the best garage sales. It is a must to garage sale when we visit my parents cabin. I also bought a big silver tray and a huge thick glass serving platter. I'm thinking I'll underlight it in a table center piece.)

Spooky napkins. I bought the crow napkins in NYC. Candice talked me in to it. It wasn't very hard to convince me though. LOL








Halloween bowls filled with caramel apple toppings. Mini M&M's, toffee crunch stuff you buy in the baking section by the chocolate chips, chopped walnuts, 4 kinds of sprinkles (Michaels has a set for Halloween I bought with my 40% off coupon), graham cracker crumbs, melted white chocolate, chocolate chips, crushed oreo cookies. Hmmm, I think that was it.
Steph's caramel apple. Just to give you an idea. Really I didn't take any pictures at the party. I was too busy being the hostess with the mostess. I'm not really good at hosting parties but I do like to make invitations, do displays, and decorate.
I used granny smith apples and another red apple. Most people picked red apples although the sour taste of granny smith apples goes great with the sweet caramel. I love the apple sticks I cut from the apple tree in the back yard. Hey, I washed them really well and even though it wasn't my apple tree, the branches were hanging way over into my yard. Oh besides, my neighbor is great she wouldn't mind at all.
I made some of these. I love vintage. I bought the vintage halloween digital downloads from Etsy. They were very reasonable. I forgot to post the picture of what was inside...candy, a Halloween colored super ball, and a sticky eye ball. I made a bowl full and gave them to bring home to my friends kids. (I still have a bunch because I didn't quite finish them all. I didn't even get any sent off to my grandkids. It was amazing how many toilet paper and paper towel tubes I was able to save in a short amount of time. I just cut flat fold crate paper to fit around the paper roll and glued with a glue stick, glued on a vintageish label, tied one end, filled the roll, and tied the other end. You probably had this all figured out without the explanation. Hey, I don't do rocket science. LOL)
This was the bucket with the judging sheets and wild pens. If you didn't win a prize in one of the hat catagories, you got to take home a pen for participating. (These are what I had left.) Someone asked me to list the catagories: most ornate, most unique, creepiest, hat most likely to belong to Glenda in "The Wizard of Oz," hat you are most likely to steal. I made those up all my myself. Not sure how long it took me to stretch my brain that much.
Oh, here is my graveyard during the day. It looked great with all the lanterns lit that night. I was going to make tombstone but they had these great ones at the Halloween store...buy one get one free and then some creepy dressed up guy in the store gave me a coupon for $5 off a $20 purchase. All 8 of those tombstones were about $20. So much easier than making them and much more authenic than the ones I've made in the past. The fence is from my neighbor. They redid their yard and had a couple of sections behind their shed. Have I told you how much I love rod iron? Wish I had some in my yard for reals!
Hey, where's that picture of the black and white stationary everyone got to take home? I guess I'll have to show you that in the next post. I found it at Michaels and just HAD to get some for everyone.

Thanks for stopping in to find out the details of my little party. Steph did take pictures during the party so see people in action. And, thank you for all your comments. I really just wanted to meet a few of you who are reading my blog.

Laurel, I still owe you my icing recipe for cupcakes. I'll get around to posting it soon. I hope you didn't need it right away.

I also took lots of pictures today of my Halloween decorations. I'm pretty sure there will be more pictures than you really want to see but just in case you DOOO really want to see lots of pics, I'll post them soon.

I hope you all checked out October's issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. Candice showed how to make a crow garland (very cute if I don't say so myself), taught how to take spooky Halloween pictures, and showed how to make our Halloween countdown advent calendar. She even included some "downloads." I hope you were able to see a copy. AHHH, not bragging (OK- well just a little), but I love and miss my talented, extremely creative, girls. I'm off now to do something productive. The laundry is calling my name...Kim where are you? And while your add it don't forget to do the ironing. ;)