Never too early for Halloween...

I swear we are like little kids around here when it comes to Halloween...and it's not just over the Reece's cups and bite size snickers bars.

My husband and I got the fever to start "Spooky"ing up the house this weekend for the holiday...

Some black and white goodness...

I just love the vintage die-cuts, this one is a reproduction I picked up at a gift shop in Pittsburgh...I just love his wink!

He looks perfect atop this shelf-which I picked up at Country Living Fair a couple

years ago. I added the paper scalloped edging, an idea I "borrowed" from Jenny over at Everyday is a Holiday. This little beauty hangs above our television set-up.

Way prettier than electronics...

And this is my husbands' corner..he is way into blood and gore and old horror movies.

I have kinda "guided" him into not making it too over-the-top.

If he had his way there

would be severed heads, zombie brains,

and scary werewolf masks all over the house this time of year. LOL.

Don't worry, I don't curtail him too much~ after all there is a life-size zombie hanging outside on my front porch LOL.

Dracula bust- has red light-up eyes. We picked this up at the After-Halloween sale at Target last year..awesome.

And last but not least- I picked these pretty jacks' up this year at Ragon House.

I love, love, love them!!!!



More to come...

Happy Halloween!!!!

My Favorite CL Fair Find...

I love Cheryl Kuhn's collages.

This year Cheryl was at the Country Living Fair

with Earth Angels Toys. And I must admit, her work was the reason

why I splurged and bought the early bird tickets!

I literally ran to The Earth Angels tent in search of one of Cheryl's pieces.

(God, I hope no one saw that! lol)

I just adore all of her work, but as I browsed her display this piece just sang to me.

I absolutely adore it, I could picture it sitting on top of these old hat boxes in our living room. And I am enjoying it everyday now, it is lovely.

Also, I got a chance to meet Cheryl again. She is so down-to-earth and we had a nice conversation about junking and crafting.

It's always important to me to not only admire some one's work,

but also actually like the person that has made it.

I believe that when we make something, we leave a little of ourselves with it.

Good karma, Good energy..all that jazz.

Country Living Fair 2009

Last weekend, we headed down to the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus, OH where the annual Country Living Magazine Fair was being held.

This was our third trip to The CL Fair, and boy has it grown!
Not only in vendors, but I think word-of-mouth has spread because it was super packed with ladies on the hunt just like me..hunting for that perfect treasure...




I took pretty pictures along the way of my hunt...here's some of the sites..enjoy!

As I am a paper lover~

I just adore ephemera..and there was lots to be had...treasures galore!

I just thought this was so sweet.

I see these lanterns at post-summer sales all around

and I never thought to do something like this.

(Kicking myself- think outside of the box! Or in this case fancy lantern candle holder thingy!lol)

Paint it pink, add a sweet porcelain dollie and an old picture-voila! Super sweet.

more pretties...

This year at the CL Fair there was an explosion of french-inspired goodies.

It seems every booth was going for the "french flea market" look...

These bags and pillows~wow!

And maybe it was because I was a show choir geek in high school

(Are you watching Glee? It's amazing!) but I loved these old weird choir angel heads.

The price was a bit out of my league but wow...

I am having a love affair with numbers lately...

everything I gravitate towards has a number on it.

And not even that the number particularly means something.

It's just I love numbers and this shelf was like the

creme De la creme' of numbers...what a neat idea.

and as always vendors at the CL Fair always serve up the best Halloween goodies...seeing all the neat Halloween treats got me so excited that we decorated our house this weekend!

I know, I know it's not even October yet...am I one of those people? apparently yes, I am.

After our CL Fair fun we headed down to spend the weekend with our friends Joe and Erin...what a whirlwind fun weekend!

Treasure hunting and good friends...

Here we are, two witchy women...at Big Lots no less..lol

See You next Year at the CL Fair!!!!

Let's make some Crafts!!! Shop Update!

SHOP UPDATE!!!!

What?

Seriously????

Yes!!!!

Kitsch Bachelorette Party Tags

I finally loaded my etsy shop up with some goodies!

I have been busy trying to set up my craft studio downstairs so that I can start

to craft again..God, I miss it! Especially with the nights getting colder..and all the Halloween decorations already out in the stores...I can't wait to get started!!!

Cottage Style German Dollhead Gift Tag

So I went through some cabinets and found some gems...I have relisted them for clearance prices...

Also I found some Halloween goodies that I am pretty sure I never had in my etsy shop before...

Cottage Style Halloween Prize Ribbon

Cottage Style Halloween Ornament Trio

Cottage Style Halloween Prize Ribbon

So my plan is...I am going to start crafting again...and I will be putting new things in my etsy shop often! So please check back...I know I have been out-of-commission for awhile...but some times you have to walk away from something you love..and let yourself miss it for awhile so that you can truly appreciate again...and boy oh boy, do I miss it.

I have all kinds of ideas for new crafts...I have kept a journal of crafty ideas during my hiatus..I can't wait to take them from the paper to reality!!!

Brand New Stuff...Coming Soon!!!

What I did on my Summer Vacation by Jenelle O'Malley

So I thought I would write a little and share some of my travels from this summer.

Yes, I actually left my house! I know-shocking! I left my glue gun and glitter behind and set out to see old friends, new places, and lots of long-overdue concerts!

So this summer...my oh my, what a long strange trip it's been...

Me and Matthew all in love in Yellow Springs, OH.
Moment captured by Erin.

Over the July 4th Weekend we went to visit an old college friend of mine, Erin.
I haven't talked to her in 10 years!!!!
But through the miracle of facebook we reconnected and made plans for a visit.

Erin and Jenelle in Yellow Springs, OH
July 2009

It was so wonderful to spend time with Erin and her boyfriend, Joe, again.
Erin being "Julie the cruise director" made many plans for our short visit, which included a trip to Yellow Springs, OH. This little town, which is home to Antioch College, Dave Chappelle, and some of the neatest little shops in Ohio, has been a long time favorite weekend-getaway for her and I.
I remember going there many,many times during our college days.
How surreal to go back with our bf/husbands recapturing some of those memories and making new ones too.
We had the best time visiting Sam and Eddies Open Books, Darkstar Comics, and of course
The Import House.
It is such a quaint, beautiful little town full of older hippie-types and lots of cats and dogs.
I guess those go hand in hand. lol


And no trip to the Cinncinatti/Dayton area for a flea market freek like me would be complete without a trip to Traders World...quite possibly the neatest place on earth!

Traders World...is like if Chucky Cheese and Disneyland got together for a one night stand and made a flea market baby. Seriously all of these animal-robot thingys talk..and make sounds!!!

Check out the ginormous giraffes on the roof behind the buffallo....awesome.

There are so many great things to see and do here...and seriously you could find anything in this place! And did I mention it is friggin' huge??? We were there from open to close...and I'm not sure we saw everything!

I made some amazing purchases! Including a giant Marilyn Monroe print...it was a must-have.

Joe, looking adorable.

Joe and Matthew had a great time hunting in the gazillion comic book and collectible booths...that's not what he's doing here..but that giant gorilla stuffed animal so would have had to been mine when I was a kid..oh yea, my dad would have been hulling that to the car. lol

Since I couldn't buy everything I truly wanted I snapped alot of photos of just all the great stuff...

including this wall of pinups. How wonderful would these look framed and hanging in my house? I know...

I think Matthew wanted this giant gorilla for our B-movie themed office at home.

We all vamped it up taking 1920'sesque photos with him. I thought Matthew's was particularly cute.

And did I mention the food at Traders World is out-of-this-world?

These yummy cupcakes were just too pretty not to capture. But they also have a huge dining area where you can buy everything from the typical hotdog and nachos to fried chicken dinners!!!

So yea, I guess you can tell, Traders World was awesome. I highly suggest if you are heading to Ohio- you gotta make a stop there. Coincidentally, for those of you who are also going to

Country Living Fair this year,

Traders World is probabaly only a little over an hour away from the CL Fair!


In early August I headed to Boston with my dear friend Kalena and her sweet mom, Gloria.

We went to see Depeche Mode at the Comcast Center, just outside of Capecod.

The concert was truly amazing! I have seen them 2 other times...but what is it about seeing concerts out-of-town that is just so super fun?

It poured rain-like cats and dogs...but being a late-twenty something and a thirty something- we came prepared with panchos, vinyl tablecloths to sit on and wore sensible shoes. lol

I could have sold my $10 Walgreens pancho for a hundred dollars a hundred times over...oh to be 16 and unprepared again...lol.

Kalena and Jenelle outside one of the super-neat old buildings in Salem, Mass.

And we couldn't be so close to Salem, Mass without stopping by and getting in touch with our inner-witches.

Even though it was blazing hot, I couldn't help but start to get into the Halloween spirit!

We spent the day strolling the beautiful town and all the witchtastic shops...

and what trip to Salem is complete without heading to the Memorial and graveyard...spooky!

It was actually very peaceful and sweet. If one could describe a graveyard in that way. lol

The headstones and trees...and many little benches...were just other-worldly.

Speaking of other-worldly, I was invited by my sweet friend Jenny to go see THE Goddess.

Tori Amos.

Now I have seen Tori probably close to a dozen times over the years.

Her concerts are like church for me.

It's her, and the music, and the lyrics...and her voice. It's truly something to experience.

And she was AMAZING!!!!

Jenny had gotten great floor seats..and in truly unorthodox-for-a-Tori-show fashion the secutiry actually invited us out of seats to go stand around the small stage.

Does that ever happen? No.

So I decided not to ruin the amazingness of this once-in-a-lifetime experience by worrying about snapping tons of pics...but the few I did take are near and dear to my heart.

Tori in Detroit, MI 8/8/09.

Jenelle and Erin

Amish Country

August 2009

And then last weekend my dear friend Erin came to stay with Matthew and I!

We spent the day in Berlin, Ohio or as us locals call it "Amish Country."

We shopped till we dropped and ate lots of good country cookin' and talked and talked...making new memories.

I hope this summer is just the beginning of a new phase for me- my -leaving the house-phase.

It sounds silly, but I seriously didn't go much of anywhere for a long, long time. And now I got the bug~ the bug to go out and just...do :)

Do stuff...make memories..live, laugh and love.

Here's to a terrific Summer spent doing neat things...

SO, what did you do on your summer vacation???

My Twilight Birthday Party!!!!

Yes, that's right! I am that much of a dork..and though I won't mention exactly how old I am (trust me..it's too old to be having a tween novel-themed party) but like I said, I'm all into Twilight and it's my Birthday... so I can "Twi" if I want to (did I mention I'm a dork?

Bad pun intended lol)

So My friend, and fellow Twigirl, Kalena and I had a joint Twilight party...(that's what friends are for, right? To share in dorkdom and have Twilight B-day parties together~ we would have never had the courage to throw one on our own..so we did it together..it was less embarassing if we did it together? maybe not..)

Between the two of us we have had way too many years of Martha Stewart Living subscriptions and with my crafty blogging..the decorations got kinda out of hand..but I loved it all!!!!

We framed favorite quotes from the books...and used satin red ribbons ala New Moon for deocrations...

Me and My Edward Cullen a.k.a Matthew, the bestest husband in the universe and all around Super hero...He loves and accepts my crazy twilight obsession...gotta love him.

Kalena's gf's brought her Edward for her birthday...well he's two-dimensional...but it was AMAZING!!! I can't even post the pics of the things that happened to him throughout the night...let's just say~ bringing a bunch of women together and giving them a safe space to share their love and devotion of all things Edward Cullen lead to some inhibitions being let loose...lol

Kalena's so damn clever! She used the cards from her Borders DVD set to make a banner for her mantle...and we set the books out to tie in the theme...

and here's me, I finally got the New Moon tshirt!!! I also got a LOAD of twilight gifts~ amazing!!! I can't wait for the movie to come out..Nov.20th!!!

and since we went everywhere begging for someone to make us a twilight cake..and no one would- (somethng about copyright laws.. I looked online and saw tons of people with twilight pics on cakes??? In NE Ohio- I guess they take copyright laws seriously as I swear the lady at the Giant Eagle bakery almost screamed at us...lol)

We decided to make twilight cupcakes.and honestly, I think they came out better than any store-bought cake!

They were Red velvet cupcakes~ with red and black dyed butter cream frosting..I got the silver glitter edible sprinkles and silver cups at Michaels...

I made the cupcake pics with popsicle sticks, some of my favorite twilight pics and little black satin bows..I loved the way they came out..and they tasted as good as they looked :)

and last but not least..the presents! We got so many neat things..and Kalena and I made each other twilight gifts...and yes, those are pics we framed and put out from our trip to the twilight convention in Chicago..We got "professional" pics with Ashely Green and Peter Facenelli (Alice and Carlisle)...at the time we were psyched, but upon receiveing them we were both too embarassed to put them out in our homes(see, we do have some boundaries...lol) so we used them for our party!!!

So, I hope I didn't embarass myself too much by posting my obsession all over the place here..I guess that's the advantage of getting older..you kinda just don't care what other peole think as much lol

I suffer from O.C.D. (Obsessive Cullen Disorder) ...I admit it.

I'm Still Around...

I liked this outoffocus picture of us best of all.

April 5, 2009.

Many of you sweethearts have written me in the last few months asking if I was okay. And here's the proof! Sorry for being so MIA.

I am alive and doing well. I don't know what happened really~ I never made a conscience decision to stop blogging.

I just sort of got burned-out crafting ...etsy sorta took over my life and I found myself totally unbalanced and not really even enjoying the things I was making~ pouring all my creativity and energy into stuff and not even really feeling good about it.

So I took a break.

And on my self-induced seclusion from all things crafty and etsy. I found myself completely taken over by a new Obsession, Twilight.

As I have read on some other crafty girls' blogs, I know alot of you have found a little slice of heaven in Edward and Bella as well.

My sweet husband and I, in the absence of crafting have found a ton of time to do stuff together. Which is awesome~ missing him was part of the issue. So instead of being holed up in my craft studio all weekend burning myself with my glue gun~ now I spend the weekends doing things with him. And I of course wanted to see Twilight~ and he of course obliged. And then I hungrily read all 4 of the books...Well, and that's all She wrote(well what Stephanie Meyer wrote) lol

I made some new girlfriends also during my time away. And I am even taking a few trips this summer to go and visit with some old girlfriends that I haven't seen in forever.

This time my friends and family has meant the most to me in these past several months. I didn't realize what a hermit I had become. I do enjoy crafting, but at heart, I am a people person. I missed having other people in my life to go out and do things with.

All the glitter, pretty vintage wallpaper and ribbon in the world can't make up for good girlfriends. I am right now in the process of moving my craft studio from upstairs to the basement...I really want the space to make a guest room. I can't believe I am packing away all my most precious craft supplies, but I am doing it with love and care. And extreme organization. I plan on crafting for me, just for me, like the good ol' days once I decide to pick up my gluegun again...it still calls to me everytime I see it.

Anyhow, just thought I would peek my head out of the blog-door and let you know what I have been up to lately...

So just a few recommendations of things that make me smile lately too....

1. Robert Pattinson~ no need for an explanation, just look.

2. Ray LaMontagne's music....

3. and a local Kent, Ohio girl~ with the voice of an angel...alt-country heaven.

Jessica Lea Mayfield

So, that's it for now.

Oh and for all of you that commented forever-ago on my New Kids on the Block post~ my friend Kelly are going to see them YET AGAIN on June 23d...I'm so freekin' excited!!!!

Catch you on the Flipside....