WOW, I can't believe how fast the days go by.  I have been crafting almost every night after work since I had my surgery.  So... are you ready for a super long post?  Here we go....

I am so blessed to get to go to a scrapbook retreat about every 4 months.  The group that I go with are some of the most amazing women I have met.  They are kind, generous and an absolute hoot to be around.  Each retreat has a theme and we make small gifts to give to each other.  Our last retreat was in July and our theme was "Christmas in July".  I wasn't able to get one of my items completed, so I finished them for the October retreat.  I made some Christmas coasters.  I apologize for the pictures, I finally had to settle on these pictures after taking picture after picture.

I found the idea on Pinterest and then accidentally deleted the pin.  I used 4" bathroom tiles that I got at Home Depot for 16 cents a tile.  Then I modge podged some Christmas Scrapbook paper on the tile.  Once everything was dry, I put some poly-urethane sealer on top and cut some felt for the bottom of the coaster.

So, again keeping up with my scrapbook retreats... we always do a Halloween retreat.  I have been busy getting things ready for this retreat.  I made some "Treat" bags to put all of my goodies in.

There are 10 of us who go on these retreats, so I made 5 different boots.  The boots and the sentiment are from Happy Hauntings Cricut Cartridge and the paper was a Halloween pad I found at Michaels for $2.  It has some awesome papers!  I am working on one more little project to put in the bag.

Finally (are you bored yet?) I have been decorating our office for Halloween.  I have found so many ideas on Pinterest and various blogs.  Halloween has never really excited me before, but after cruising around the internet and Pinterest, I actually found a ton of stuff that looked fun.  Now that I work for a really small office, I can decorate and give goodies to my co-workers and enjoy the holiday.

I have been having fun with all the little pumpkins that are out in the stores.  This year our pumpkin crop is amazing.  The past few years, the pumpkins have been a little scrawny, but this year it looks like the pumpkin patches were doused with Miracle Grow.  They are HUGE!!!  I am actually thinking about picking up a couple for carving, but want to wait until it gets a little closer to Halloween.  In the meantime, I've been satisfying my craving for pumpkins by decorating the little ones.

I used my Silhouette to cut out a rhinestone flourish stencil on some heavy cardstock, then took the stencil and drew the flourishes onto the pumpkins.  I took a Pearl Pen and Stickles and filled in where I drew.  The other pumpkins were covered in modge podge, then covered in Martha Stewart glitter.  MS glitter is some of the best glitter I have ever used.  It is so fine and has so much shimmer.  Once they were dry, I sprayed them with a polyurethane to keep the glitter from shedding.  The picture I found on Craftaholics Anonymous.  She provided a link to a free fall printable.  I just loved the colors and felt this would work for Halloween and fall.  So I am going to keep this up until we decorate the lobby for Christmas.

My last project is probably my favorite.  I got the idea from Jen who blogs at Craft O Maniac.  She is really talented and such a nice person.

I loved her idea so much that I had to re-create it.  I found my plate at the DollarTree.  I used the Home Decor Cartridge, Lyrical Letters cartridge and Sentimentals cartridge.  I played in CCR for sizing, then took some scrapbook paper that I use for test cuts and played with sizes.  Once I figured out the sizes the would work on my plate, I cut them all out in black and orange vinyl.  This plate is going to go to the office as well and I am going to group them with the 3 pumpkins in our lobby.

I am working on quite a few other projects and have several birthday cards I need to make for all of the October birthdays.  Thanks for staying with me and my extra long post.