Steph's Pumpkin Carving Party

For my friend Stephanie's Birthday she had a pumpkin carving party. It was great--lots of treats, hot and tasty apple cider, smores, a campfire, and of course pumpkins!
These were our pumpkins after being carved--sitting on the table waiting for the judge to come along and choose the best one!
Here is Seth--Steph and Andys' Newphew who got to choose the best one. He actually picked the one done by Cesselly that was supposed to be like Charlie Brown's Ghost costume--although honestly it was a pumpkin completely covered with circular holes. It's been too long since I watched It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown for me to remember much about the ghost costume--but I'm sure some of you get the joke!

This was my pumpkin--kind of a vampire/pissed off girlfriend kind of look! Seth didn't really care for it--although he did try to put a stick in it's mouth so it had something to chew on!
Here are the pumpkins--let me tell you who was there and you can all try to figure out which pumpkin matches which person: Cesselly, Lewis, Stephanie, Andy, Seth, Michelle--you already know two of them anyway! :o) Happy Halloween!

Heirloom Rubber Stamp & Paper Arts Festival

October 18-19th, 2008 was the Fort Wayne Rubber Stamp and Paper Arts Festival at the Coliseum here in Fort Wayne, IN. I was really excited to go because I heard good things about the festival and also heard that they have an ATC swap that you could participate in. So I made only a few ATCs--a dozen that had fun little fairies and papers made from watercolored book pages and met up with friends to go.
It turns out the festival is really just a rubber stamp convention pretty much but I ended up having a lot of fun and got a couple of stamps and a lot of fun ideas for ATCs. This is one example from a place called Starving Artist Stamps--they have these great stamps that you can use to make mosaic looking images--it was awesome! Lesley and I ended up standing around watching for a few minutes because we just couldn't understand how it worked. It's so awesome though and I totally want to buy a stamp and try it out at my house! The picture below this gives examples of them--click on it to enlarge it and see how cool they really are!
I did buy this stamp while I was at the festival--it's an apron stamp and I have so many cute ideas that I want to try with it and see if they work out! Plus I love the card they made with it! It says, "Don't make me have to poison your food." I love that!
This was another cool idea--a lady used stamps and also some course brushes and painters tape to make these fun little cards. I really wish that I could just whip things up like they do--it's so awesome to see the people at these fairs and see what they can do--although I might not really want to do the same thing, it still gave me a lot of great ideas!
Here are some more ideas. Lots of them! Apparently the new thing is making your own cards. I thought there might be tons of scrapbookers--there were a few, but mostly these people were making their own cards and buying tons of fun stuff to do it with!

Guerilla Style Random Acts of Kindness--3

My third Random Act of Kindness was one that I wanted to be a bit more "pay it forward." It's actually a postcard that I made and then I asked someone to mail it to someone else that they know. I made the postcard and put a stamp on it so it would be ready to send in the mail.
This is where it was dropped off at--at the Ivy Tech Cafeteria. I hope that some college kid comes in for dinner and gets the post card and mails it home to tell his mom he loves her.

This is the cafeteria. We went for a movie there in the Cinema Center at Ivy Tech and the place was busy with all the tables full when we left, hopefully someone grabbed it instead of putting their food tray on it! :o) I remember those days!

~Best Wishes!~

Guerilla Style Random Acts of Kindness--2

For my second Guerilla Style Random Act of Kindness I decided to use a picture that I had taken of the Lakeside Rose Gardens. It's a photo of a pale pink rose that I enjoy. I made a copy of it and wrote a message on the back. I hope that it's owner is enjoying it right now!


This is the picture on the bench where I left it. This bench is absolutely my favorite spot in the whole park--it's kind of hidden and has a fun little stone path to walk back to it. The wind was out that day though so I had to put a little piece of chipped sidewalk on the picture to hold it down. I hope that it didn't blow away!
This is the bench with the picture on it.


This is what the bench area looks like, isn't it adorable? Many people have snuggled up on this bench. Maybe the person who went home with my photo actually was snuggling up, making out with their significant other and took the photo home to remember the day by! That's my dream atleast...

Guerrilla Style Random Acts of Kindness--1

This month I decided to participate in a swap on Swap-bot.com called Guerrilla Random Acts of Kindness. It's a fun swap in which you make three items and leave them in public places for other people to find. The items could be anything, but they had to be left in a public place and you had to document what you did.

For my first one I decided to use a scarf that I made last year. It's the softest, cuddly scarf. It's made of something that feels like a teddy bear and even though it's lovely, I never use it. It just seems like it goes with the fewest items of clothing in my closet and plus I have so many scarves that many of them don't get the love and attention that they deserve.










This scarf was left at the Lakeside Rose Gardens on Lake Avenue in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The gardens are beautiful and the weather was gorgeous that day. There are always people walking dogs and marriages taking place there, so I figured the scarf wouldn't have long to wait until someone would happen upon it and decide to do as the tag says and "Take me home".

Actually after placing the scarf down and taking a few pictures my friend and I walked around the park and by the time we returned to that side of the park, the scarf was gone. I think it might have been a woman with two small sons who took it. I hope so, maybe it will make her feel warm and snuggly this winter! Although ironically it was actually about 84 degrees that day, so it was not getting used at that time!

Mission Number One--Successful!!!

I'm in love with street art!

Can anyone tell me what genius is behind this piece of art? Seriously I was walking the dog and walked around the corner and saw on one of the dumpsters, this delicious little stencil of a goggled rat/mouse parachuting to earth. I'm in love!!! Anyone familiar with this guy/lady, because if so tell him/her I love it and that I want to get one on a piece of cardboard or wood and attach it to my art wall! I'm in love with street art!

P.S. Yep the neighbors think I'm crazy because I'm walking around the apartment complex taking pictures of the garbage dumpsters! :o)

Apron Christening!

My mother and I went to the Kendallville, Indiana Apple Festival a few weeks ago. I found a fun, quirky little apron and my mom ended up purchasing it for me. It's as cute as can be! The fabric is bright and bold with butterflies and fuscia flowers. Plus it has great big heart shaped buttons on the top and pretty little lacey pockets on the front. So here it is:

And of course since we went to the Apple Festival I had to christen the apron by using it to bake an apple pie! Completely from scratch by the way! Which was exciting for me. Although to be honest with you it did have one major issue... um, I kind of had a little accident when sprinkling the sugar on the top--instead of looking like beautiful glitter sparkling on the shiny, warm crust... well it looked like someone didn't put enough milk on the crust and then accidently dumped half a shaker of sugar on it. Really, I just don't understand how that could have happened! ;o)
But the good news was that it was delicious!!!

I ate 3/4 of it by myself and the rest went to my dad.

I should have shared more, but no one was around that week and

the pie was just too dang tempting!!!

~Best Wishes!~