Don't forget!

Tellen's Place
3 Separate Blog Candy giveaways, 10/23, 10/26 and 10/31. Don't miss out!

The Play Date Cafe
Starts it's brand new challenge blog today! The design team has some awesome examples to get our creative juices flowing!

The Peachy Keen Stamps Challenge Blog Candy
Is good through October 23rd. Make sure you stop by their blog, they have a great challenge going too. Look at my side bar the candy looks awesome! Click on Sonia for the current challenge.

Paper Arts
Blog is celebrating 30,000 hits mark. Congratulations! Carole!

Twinkles Glow with Stamps
Is giving blog candy to 2 of her followers! Wish her a
Happy Birthday, awesome candy too! Ends October 30th.
Good Luck! ~Diane

Having fun

I bought this digital image to show support for my friend Kristen at Kards and Klay. She is a really sweet and sincere blog sister whose blog I love. I love this paper, DCWV Glitter Collection, along with my Spellbinders labels 8, and as I was working with my Christmas Candelabra cards, I thought her image would look perfect! Definitely for someone with a great sense of humor I know, but guess what? It is getting more views in my Etsy shop than my Candelabra cards! I am not the only one who needs some humor in their life! This image actually has a cow and a bull, now that I think about that, I realize I called the bull a cow! I'll have to change that in the listing for all my farm friends. Stop by Kristens Kards and Klay. She has a free Tom the Turkey digi image on her site and there is a link to her Kahwinkedink shop also. Thanks for looking. ~Diane

Fun stuff to share

So much to share today. I received my Pay It Forward Gift from Amanda at Crafty Paper Girl. I signed up for this at Amanda's site. I believe the premise is to post this on your blog to encourage generosity within the blogging community. Amanda offered to send something she made to the first 5 people to sign up, requesting only that we Pay it Forward and do the same on our blogs. So last night I received this lovely set of note cards personalized with my name. I also received one of her beautiful felt apple embellishments. (She sells these beautiful embellishments at her Etsy store) Crafty Paper Girl. I love the way she packaged this gift,right on down to the sweet little embellished note, it made it so much fun to receive! Thank you Amanda, this is really sweet.
BTW, if anyone is interested, I have only received 2 responses to my request to pay it forward, I would be happy to have 3 more. So anyone interested can view my post here and still sign up.

And on to more good things to share. I also received some lovely blog candy from Michele at Thoughts of a Cardmaking Scrapbooker. Her blog is engaging, and her work is awesome!
I found Michele's blog by following a blog hop sponsored by the Bitten By The Bug blog. I love to follow blog hops because you can find the most interesting blogs along the way. I am so happy I found your blog Michele, I love to follow you. Thank you for all of these generous goodies! I can't wait to try them out! I have never seen the cute little self inking stampers from Just Rite, I can't wait to try them out! The flowers are awesome and I am excited to try the new Peachy Keen stamp too. All the goodies were great, thank you so much Michele.

Christmas Cards and gift tags

These are some Christmas cards I worked on this weekend. I bought the lovely digital image of the chandelier from Kaboodle doodles, it is called Pink and Black. It also comes with some lovely designer paper, not shown here. This is some of my card stock stash from DCWV. I printed the image onto the designer paper, then I cut and embossed it with my Spellbinders Labels 8 Nestabilities, the matching gift tags were cut and embossed with my Deckled Mega Rectangles Nestabilities. The green and red metallic foil card stock I used for the holly leaves was a find from last year at the Dollar store. I cut them with the Cricut Stretch Your Imagination cartridge. The leaves came out so nicely, I ran back on Sunday to see if I could grab some more. Luckily I was able to snatch up a few sheets, the green is now gone. I also bought some blue and red. Not sure yet what I will do with the blue, but I'm sure you will see it here when I do. I decided to try to be more creative in my photography, so I added the branch of berries to make it look more festive. I like the way it came out. I am also working with a homemade light box so I think my photo's are a bit brighter. Thanks for looking and thanks for all of your kind comments. I sincerely do appreciate it. ~Diane