Happy Thanksgiving Day!

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

Blogger's not letting me post any photos today, 

so I'll have to figure out what's wrong. 

Boo Hoo! Had a cute photo too.

Back soon, I hope!

p.s. I posted some of today's photos on my other blog: www.aralialane.blogspot.com

Christmas is coming!

Christmas is coming...

but I'm still loving Fall!

Cold one day..... warm the next ... a few colorful leaves .... blue skies .... almost the end of Hurricane Season .... hard to believe Thanksgiving's next week! 

The Dogwood tree actually has yellow and red leaves,
but they don't show up so well in this photo.

Love my Turkey Gourds, especially their facial expressions!

Recently received some lovely tags from Dawn Blackstead's 

FALL Tag Swap! 

Thanks so much, Ladies! I just love all the tags - see another detail every time I look at them!  And thank you, Dawn, for hosting this swap!  Really enjoyed it! You were a wonderful hostess!

Dawn really spoiled us - with her darling tags 
and a bag full of "goodies"!

Dawn let us choose: Fall or Halloween - so we have some of each!

My tag

Laurie M. Jackson

Indulgeyourshelf.blogspot.com

Lisa Stanton

Apeacefulplacetobe.blogspot.com

Nora Neeley

 Deidre Kidder

Robin Weins
www.myglitteredlife.blogspot.com 

I think the little extra packet might belong with Tamatha's tag, but I have it in both photos so not sure :(    --- The sweets were delicious, though, and much-appreciated!

Garna Barker

Tami Hacker

Vintageconnections.blogspot.com

Tamatha Kaplan

Snipsandthreads.blogspot.com

I think this packet of sweets belong's with Tamatha's tag, but I'm sorry to say I'm not sure since I have it in Tamatha's and Robin's photos. Such a lovely gesture too!

We're enjoying a little patch of Sunflowers that sprouted from birdseed displaced during one of the tropical storms. Small, but bright and cheerful! 

Happy Fall!

I Love October!

Why do I love October?

Fall!

Not nearly as showy as in the northern states, but even here in Florida there's a little Fall color and a definite change in the temperature! Loving these cool mornings!!! Fall is in the air!

Family

Cupcake Decorating Contest

We have an October Halloween-Birthday-OctoberFest to celebrate the many October family birthdays. That's always fun!

The invitations were sent

in their own special envelopes!

Friends

Aren't blog friends amazing? When I didn't receive one of her tags in Kimberly (ArtJoyStuff)'s recent Halloween Tag Swap, my friend Sherry of Createology sent me one.  Just look at this wonderfully creative wrapping!

And here's Sherry's oh-so-cleverly creative tag! Can you guess what that little item with the spider web on it really is? Go here to find out!

Sherry didn't receive one of my tags either, so I sent her one -

in a special envelope  - propped up here by one of my cats - looks like the party invitations!

 The tag I sent to Sherry - a little different from the others I made for the swap. I usually make several before deciding what to make for a swap.

Of course there are many other reasons for loving October - these are just a few!

Happy October!

October Fun.....

October is...

Birthday Month for our family - almost too many to count!  

We often have one big Halloween/Birthday/October Fest towards the end of the month to celebrate all the local birthdays - and that's what we'll do this year - if I can recover from these dratted Shingles in time to prepare!

  

October brings Fall weather, a welcome relief after all the hot and humid months of summer. Always enjoy the Fall and Halloween swaps too!  Such fun to see what everyone's making and swapping - so much creativity - Wow!

Kimberly's ArtJoyStuff swaps are always so much fun! This time we made 5 tags and received 5 back, along with some really special Kimberly 'goodies'.

Halloween Goodies Galore!

Look at the wonderful tags I received!

Carol Pohl - Front

and Back - EEK! HaHa!

Lululizinlalaland

Kelly Deal

Constantina

Michele Murray

Look what Kimberly added - this cute clip 

and

this spectacular wooden "witchy" tag!

Oh, Kimberly, you did it again - what a wonderful swap!  Go check out ArtJoyStuff to see all the other tags - over 20 swappers in all!

Such Beautiful Fairies!

Karla's Faerie Book Swap

Karla Nathan comes up with really wonderful swap ideas - like this one! We sent in 8 fairy pages and received 8 different pages bound into a book.  Karla made the covers, selected the best pages for each book, and decorated the binding ring with lovely ribbons and charms. 

Warning: Lots of Photos Ahead!

Karla's Front Cover - she hand-painted the beautiful little fairy, then decorated the copies differently with flower petals or leaves for the fairy's wings and added other embellishments too. Probably no two covers are exactly alike.

Flower Fairies - Tami Hacker - the arms and legs move so she can dance!

Tami digitally created the back of her page

Suzie Button - blue satin, lace, jewels, butterflies, and more!

The back of Suzie's page - how dreamy!

Beautiful Fairy in a forest of green velvet leaves - Ruth Flowers

A younger fairy on the back of Ruth's page - and dream by Nancy Collins

The back of Nancy's page - and Kathy Kathy Cabble's Blue Flower Fairy - the dewdrops don't show in my photo

The Blue Flower Fairy's back page - and Lynn Legge's Sleeping Fairy - so elegant

The back of Lynne's Sleeping Fairy. I think this might've been the front of the page - so beautiful - but the other side looked better with the Blue Fairy page.  Karla selected pages that looked good together for each book.  Here the Fairy Whispers page by Myrna Ernst looks good with Lynne's page. Of course, they're both beautiful on their own too!

The back of Fairy Whispers - and this sweet Pink Fairy leaning over to smell the flower by Carol Pohl.  She makes me think of a Hummel girl!

The back of Carol's Pink Fairy page - the really dramatic background doesn't show so well in my photo! Karla used vintage wallpaper for the inside front and back covers, as well as the back cover.

I'm so happy that I was able to join this swap! Love my book!!! When I made my pages to send to Karla, I made an extra to keep for my own book.  I'll show it along with the others I made in my next post - soon, I hope!

It's a LONG Story!

Whooomp! There Goes Another Tree!

Just when I thought I was all set to post some craft photos - a swap here, a swap there, gifts sent, gifts received ..... all that fun stuff .... I  once again woke up to the dreaded "tree falling" sound in the middle of the night! 

This is always pretty scary since it's a very distinctive sound and, of course, it's pitch black outside - 20 or so wooded acres with no street lights or close neighbors. The first thought is always, "Am I sleeping in the safest room? Is it going to land on the house - and on me?!"  

Our telephone pole is under there somewhere! No telephone - no dsl - no email - no Internet - no Facebook - no Pinterest - no Words With  Friends! Just a plain little cell phone for my lifeline - not even an iPhone! 

This isn't even an entire tree, just one "branch" or section! That's the remains of our old tool shed in the foreground and my parents' house (unoccupied) in the background.The house was not damaged. 

It extended quite a ways and actually knocked down two smaller trees as well as the telephone pole.

The smaller branches of the large "branch" seemed to just keep on going! 

Lopping off the remaining branches of the tree 

Here you can see where the piece broke off the tree. That was the second piece of that tree to fall, so we decided to have the rest cut off since it extended so far towards our house. Very expensive week!  

The Bobcat pulled the smaller logs to the truck but they used a crane for some of the larger pieces.  

There's another tree directly behind. See how tiny the men look!

It's so sad to see these huge old oaks go! They've been here so long - at least 60 or 70 years.

This all started way back (!) when Tropical Storm/Hurricane Isaac was heading up the other coast of Florida and on towards New Orleans. We had no wind but quite a lot of rain over here on the Atlantic side.  

A few days after the pole was knocked down, a telephone man came and temporarily hooked us up, but the tree people came the next day and unhooked the temporary line. Then they came back a couple of days later to finish the rest of the tree so we didn't call AT&T until they were all through. Now today AT&T put in another temporary line and said another crew will come by the end of this week to bury it. Yay! Love those buried cables!

Enough tree talk! I usually post things like this on my Aralia Lane blog (which I've also used for the 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge this year), but this has consumed my time for the past two  weeks or so. Have posted so little this summer that I wanted to show something!

Time to get back to my crafts and swaps!