Not Fade Away

Went for a crisp Fall walk in the park after Dad's talk the other day...

Wildwood Preserve in Toledo is a lovely place - walked the trails and visited the Ellen Biddel Shipman Garden near the Manor House.

But even with the beauty, I can see that Summer is over and winter is approaching

You do get the splendor of the colors

yet Winter is whispering that her turn is coming.

Took Miss Roxy for one more spin before she sleeps,

Had one more barbecue before it is too dark and too cold to enjoy it.

I guess though that you need to look for hidden wonder.

But, it snowed the other day - along with lovely hail balls

...I'm just not ready yet!

I suppose we'll just need to slide into this slowly and see where the path takes us.

A Close Shave

Last week I had the pleasure of listening to a very special guy talk about a hobby he enjoys... My Dad!

He has collected razors and shaving tools for many years...

Some items have special histories

and many of them were given to him by friends from all over.

Some of his artifacts cover all the mysteries of grooming!

He demonstrated the idiosyncrasies of the straight razor - safety first!

Discussed how the razors were sharpened

and told how the Gillette Company wanted to increase sales by switching to a new kind of razor with a replaceable blade... why sell one straight razor when you can sell blades over and over again!

So many styles of shaver were born once the blades were invented...

...and new ways to sharpen the blades for the frugal!

a plethora of honing devices!

(And did I mention my Mom dressed him and added the fake mustache to complete the ensemble? He's a good sport my Dad - ever ready to play along with the theme dressing!)

Know those fancy vibrating Fusion Razors that are all the rage? Here's an old school one that plugged in. Some where in the display is a wind-up one that is even older! Every thing old is new again...

Every Christmas we bought Dad a new bottle of Mennen aftershave - each year a new design some were pretty cool!

And here is a photo of a real live barber shop belonging to a cousin from Southern Ohio.

Hope you enjoyed our little tour through shaving history! Wish you could have heard it first hand!

Halloweenie Happeneenie

Wrapped up the month of October with a visit to Larry's Tavern to listen to Custard Pie and join the masquerade madness...

Lots of Festive Halloween Happenings here!

Some clever costumes: Garden Gnome (wearing a shirt that said, "I kicked the lawn jockey's ass") and of course his companion said beat ass Lawn Jockey, Three Blind Mice, an Egyptian pharaoh and his queen, a bat, a geisha, Pocahontas, a zombie (that was The Boy), Janis Joplin (that was me), a Black Sabbath fan (The Husband), a bee in a tu-tu, a witch, and a few more I'm a little fuzzy on!

A good evening over all. Good music, good times - "swear to God..."

Last year I "posted spooky" all month along with Laume over at Beach Treasure. She was all about the spooky again, but this year, I devoted myself to the Scrapfest Recap posts. Which if you think about it, considering I had a post for each day of the month - that is pretty spooky all in itself! Anyway - if you didn't get enough Hallowe'en yet - pop over to her place and see what she and the other spooky posters have been up to.

I will leave you with one spooky thing...

My car turned to all sixes this month.

The Husband's van did too.

Freaky!

Scrapfest 2009: My Little Yellow Bicycle

Little Yellow Bicycle is another favorite of mine (I haven't said that for EVERY vendor have I? I do have a lot of favorites, I know!)

Their booth had some fun items displayed. I do not really have a photo of the make and take because I kind of did just the "take" part! We we're running out of time, and it is really hard to keep a finished 12" x 12" project intact while running through the mall cramming stuff in your bag! They did a different spread each day and gave enough supplies so that you had plenty to work with when you were finished with what they suggested. The day we picked up was Halloween themed featuring their "Trick or Treat" line.

We did however attend their "25 Days of Christmas" memory book class. I love Christmas and Edwina loves Hallowe'en, so between the two of us this year we were both happy with our class choices!

We got a ton of stuff to work with - I haven't finished the project (this fall has been crazy busy as usual - all these posts in a row was more than I imagined I could do!) but even still - there will be mega left overs!

The book is really cute - it is a sturdy chip board album and it coordinates exactly with precut paper provided in tablet form... you punch out the pages and some extra embellishments and simply glue them down. The base is pre-designed and no trimming or sanding is necessary. Very cool.

As I mentioned - this one isn't done yet either. I want to spend some time picking the right photos from The Boy's childhood and mine. None the less, you can see the bones of the book and imagine how it will turn out!

...and lastly, the back cover.

And what could be in this bag? Was I the lucky winner of the door prize drawing?

Yes I was! Yea me!

Oh my golly! It's the ENTIRE TRICK OR TREAT LINE! Yup! Every single item! The whole enchilada! What an amazing prize... it includes another chipboard album similar to the one above and another pack of precut paper to adorn it not to mention all those embellishments. I cannot wait to put it all together! I plan to share some of this with Edwina - Halloween is her favorite after all... and she's a great travel buddy!

Thank you again Little Yellow Bicycle Folks!

Scrapfest 2009: Creative Imaginations

I was sad to find out that Creative Imaginations did not have a vendor make and take booth this year - their's was the "go to booth" the last few visits to Scrapfest.

Luckily, we signed up for their "Box Full of Love" Class in advance! It is a beautiful project which I will finish up soon... as soon as I select the rest of the photos I want to use (and scan them in and print them out!). Meanwhile, here is what Cheryl Mazzetti designed for us!

Above is a view of the completed box from the outside. We used the "Corina" book as the base. This shot shows a closeup of the butterfly and swarovski crystal we added.

Inside the box is a fold out book which we embellished with a variety of things from the "Narratives" line by Karen Russell.

You can see the stickles we added to enhance the already beautiful paper and rub ons.

The book is an accordion style - you can see how it looks all together here.

Here is the first page. A photo of me and The Boy. Probably the rest of the photos will be of us as well.

We used a neat technique here, folding paper to make it look like ribbon - very simple, but very cool. We added the faux stiching to complete the effect.

Page two...

Page three...

Another fun and easy technique - we punched a few evenly spaced holes with our quarter inch punch, and threaded through a thinly cut piece of paper.

Page four... Page five...

Page six...

And finally, the back cover.

I know I still have some finish work to do - but check out all the extras I'll have for another project! And these are some truly lovely items!

I have the class curriculm sheet for this project since they were kind enough to provide them, they include all the individual items we used as well as assembly instructions. I feel funny simply posting them here, but if you send me an email, I will shoot them back to you.