This ought to make my husband happy. Though not a Star Wars fan myself, I have to admit, this Yoda Hat from Dollar Store Crafts is cute. I might have to make my son one.

For those who associate Fall with Halloween and the Macabre, like I do, you should check out Skull-A-Day. This site posts, guess what, a skull-a-day. I just happened upon this great skull shirt on their site and had to include it.

NO SEW Ribbon Scarf from One Hour Craft, a new blog I'm loving. I think the title says it all.

I just love this sweater by The Devil Made Me Do It. I love the colors and how warm and comfortable it looks. It reminds me of a scrapbook page and that's awesome!

I've been pretty busy lately, but thought I'd share a couple more finds for my crafty readers out there.

For scrapbooker's:

I had mentioned in a previous post that Hewlett-Packard activity center actually has some pretty cool designs that are free to print. Among these designs are different patterned paper, but also tags, decorative photo corners, cool alphabets, borders, envelopes, and much more.

For Altered Artists:


Moldable Foam Stamps - Make anything into a stamp, I have got to test this out.

Dollar Store Crafts has a rubber stamp tutorial as well.



While I love to scrapbook, I also like altered art. Altered art allows me more freedom. With scrapbooking, I try to use photo safe materials and I usually like a certain order to things. With altered art, however, there are no rules. It goes against my nature and I like that. It's not about being a great artists or even so much about what you produce as the process of creating.

Here are a couple examples of one of my altered books:

PJ's album Backspacer came out today. I love it! It's been awhile since their last album, which I have to say holds a special place in my heart because it helped get me through some very hard times.

Oddly enough, Pearl Jam's albums seem to always speak to what I'm going through in my life at that time. This one is more upbeat than the last and I am hopeful for what that means for my future.

The song, Amongst the Waves, is especially uplifting. Here's just a piece of what I'm talking about:

Love ain't love until you feel it
Up riding high amongst the waves

I can feel like I
Have a soul that has been saved
I can see the light
Coming through the clouds in rays

I gotta say it now
Better loud than too late

The fixer is also very positive:

When something’s on let me shed a little light on it
When something’s cold let me put a little fire on it
If something’s old I wanna put a bit of shine on it
When something’s gone I wanna fight to get it back again

Of course their are some more melancholy songs but the whole album is awesome!!!

According to The Green Head, these Pumpkin Ottomans are only $25 at Macy's I think. They seem well worth it to me because I doubt I could make them for much less than that, considering the time involved.

Laundry Monster- I saw this on Dollar Store Crafts and thought it was fun. It doesn't have to be for Halloween, but why not use it as an excuse to make one.








Martha Stewart's Fun house Mirror. Okay, here's the deal, I would use this year round because I have always wanted a fun house mirror in my home. Anytime I see one, I think how nice it would be to look in a mirror and laugh from time to time.

Of course, Martha has tons of other very cool stuff. Here are a few of my other favorites:

Hanging Vellum Lanterns-She shows snakes and frogs, but this idea could be used for any pics.




Coffin Table- Why didn't I think of this?







Candy Wreath- To me, this might make more sense to make up some fake candies using colored cellophane and whatever you have a lot of to make the shape. If you made them bigger, it wouldn't take so many. It would still look like candy, but you could keep it around for years to come.

I've just been informed that Patrick Swayze has lost his battle with cancer. I say battle, but really cancer is a bigger adversary than most of us can take on.

Much like with Michael Jackson, when I was a young kid, too young to like someone so much older, I had a huge crush on Patrick Swayze. No, not from Dirty Dancing or even Ghost, but I started liking him after I saw North and South. I remember pasting my head over his wife's in pictures and telling kids at school he was my boyfriend. That's how young I was, so young I didn't even realize how stupid that was.

He just always struck me as a genuinely good person. He was one of only a handful of gentleman left in Hollywood. He will be missed.

The pumpkin Lady offers free pumpkin carving patterns. Just scroll down toward the bottom. She also has an instruction video!




I found these cute ladybug wings in Boutique Sophia's shop on Etsy. If you saw my post on fairy wings, then you probably see how these could be made.

Martha Stewart has also got a lot of great Halloween ideas, of course. The Victorian coffee Filter costume shown is one of her "No-Sew Costumes". Now, you know I like that!



You have got to check out costumes at Craftster
2008 ideas
2006 ideas

I am so excited! I just signed up at Dad Can Do, a very cool site dedicated to help dads connect with their children by offering tons of craft/project ideas that dads can do with their children.

More specifically, Chris Barnardo runs the site and, in his words:

Dadcando.com is intended to be a resource resource for all dads, but with a special emphasis on helping the single and or non-resident fathers who have contact with their children (non-resident fathers are those who are separated, divorced or widowed, who live apart from their partner and do not have their children to live with them).

Though I am a married mother, my father had children from a previous marriage that I know he wished he'd been closer to before he passed. So, I find this to be a site and a cause, if you will, that is well worth supporting.

Of course, that is not the only reason to love this site. From a crafter's point of view, the project ideas are awesome. I originally happened upon it while looking for ideas for my Harry Potter Party and was blown away by the originality. I, honestly, looked everywhere for ideas and found that the ideas here were on a whole other level. Here are a couple examples of what I'm talking about:

Lumos Wand

& Box

Of course, projects are not limited to Harry Potter theme, there's Prince Caspian's Sword from C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, a papier mâché robot head from the movie Robots, an alethiometer from Golden Compass. Then there's spaceships and rockets and all kinds of paper plane designs.

My newest project happens to be a dinosaur party for my son and there's some great dragon stuff that I think could easily be tweaked for dinosaurs. For example:




This is just a taste of what this site has to offer. Dad Can Do also has recipes and party planning tips. It really is a must see site. I promise you will end up bookmarking this one.