BFF Open House Link Party #74 Wrap Up and Features

Thanks once again for a wonderful party. I love seeing what everyone’s been up to and you all have been as busy as ever. Here are just a few fun ideas I wanted to highlight.

How about we start with this batty-licious headband from Bev over at Flamingo Toes? How cute is this and what a fun and stylish way to dress up for Halloween?

You could wear that while whipping up some of these scary Halloween jars like the ones Carolyn at homework shows us how to make:

What’s Halloween without candy corn? Doreen from Altered Artworks shows us how to make these sweet candy corn themed terra cotta pots ( filled with even more goodies) :

You could make some of these and use as a way to present some of these decadent caramel Oreo pops from Hailey over at The Morris Mojo:

Or, you could tuck some of these incredible Mocha Shortbread bites into some of these pots as great neighbor gifts. Assuming there are any left after you make them. Visit Lemons For Lulu for the recipe:

This week I have a special feature. My BFF’s daughter is becoming quite the cook and crafter. I’ve dubbed myself her Fairy Craftmother since her mom runs from Michaels as fast as I run to Michaels. I was so proud of her for her first big crafting project, I just had to feature it!

“Boo” has been recovering from getting her wisdom teeth out, and here’s what she’s been up to:

Banana “muffins” with cream cheese frosting. Yum. I think someone may need to start a blog.

Thanks again to everyone who linked up. Make it a creative week!

Fangtastic Treat Bags

I still can’t believe College Boy is a Sophomore but he is. And if I’ve learned one thing as a parent of a college student, even though they’re all “grown up” they still love to get treats from home.

At my son’s college, freshmen are assigned to small groups of 12-14 called Sponsor Groups based on their housing forms which puts them as closely together with people who share similar interests etc. He loved this so much as a freshman, that he applied and was accepted to be a Sponsor this year.He and his “Co-Spo”  have a group of 14 freshmen they help get acclimated, used to college life, are a resource for questions etc.

Last year I decided that I could still have fun with the kinds of things I used to do before he left for college and sent goodies to his “Spiblings” as they’re called. So why should this year be any different?

It’s also mid-term time for them so I included some things to lighten the intense mood and remind them to be silly. Jumping frogs and glow in the dark Vampire fangs.

I made the graphic for these labels in PicMonkey, imported to my graphics program,  and printed them on card stock.

Got some double chocolate and salted caramel hot cocoa packets.

And of course candy…all chocolate of course. I used black and white polka dot paper bags by Whisker Graphics, placed one of each thing in the bag and sealed with red and white dotted Washi tape.

Finished off each bag with one of the tags and off to school! Here’s the card I made to go along with the goody bags,  also using my label :

I used some red crepe paper to make a ribbon for the card, mounted the label on red glittered cardstock and went over the letters with red Stickles glitter glue.

BFF Open House Link Party #74

Another week, another party! If it's your first time linking up, Welcome. If you're a regular, thanks for making this party so much fun. Let’s see what everyone’s been up to this week. Will the craft world ever run out of amazing Halloween and Fall ideas? I think not.

Vampire Coffin Boxes

I know a couple of people who love all things Vampire. Even though I’m not that into them, Vampires do give me an excuse to play with my signature colors: black and white. And what’s a Vampire without a little red?

Started with one of these from Michaels. Painted the sides with Martha Stewart red craft paint, over which I painted Martha's  red glitter paint.

Mod Podged a black and white patterned paper to the top and bottom and then went around the edges with some black and white washi tape.

Do your family members send you random things when they clean out their junk drawers? Mine do. The Mumster sent me a bag of keys. I don’t know that Vampires use keys but they seemed to fit. I also used some keyholes from a pack by Tim Holtz . 

Embellished the top with red rhinestones and black pearls. Vampires have to be glam right?

Since they sleep during the day, do they say “day day” instead of “night night”?

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BFF Open House Link Party #73 Wrap Up and Features

How is it Monday again already? Thanks to everyone for making Friday’s party another fantastic one. As always, so many amazing ideas that it’s hard to highlight just a few but here we go:

Carolyn at homework shared this elegant cornhusk pumpkin. Gorgeous!  Definitely something to display now through Thanksgiving.

Speaking of which, who wouldn’t look like the hostess with the mostest wearing this incredible Anthropologie knockoff cuff by Bev at Flamingo Toes?

But before we get to Thanksgiving, we still have Halloween ! Megan from Polish The Stars shared this fun printable:

Which would go perfectly with this fun pumpkin from Fonda at Southern Scraps:

Houndstooth Duck Tape! How cool is that?

Finally, this week’s chocolate feature is so appropriately named I felt my blood sugar go up just looking at it:

Butter Toffee Fudge {a.k.a. Badonk-a-donk fudge} because if you eat too much of the former, you will definitely have the latter,  but  all things in moderation right? You can thank Lori Ann over at Lori Ann’s Food and Fam for this one!

Thanks to all who linked up and can’t wait to see what you’re up to this week. Make it a creative one!

BFF Open House Link Party #73

TGI(almost)F! It has been a crazy week and that’s not likely to end any time soon. So, with mixed emotions , I’m going to accept some realities and limitations and discontinue the “Blog Feature” part of the BFF Open House Link party.

Please note:

WE WILL CONTINUE TO HAVE THE FRIDAY PARTY!

And it will continue to go up Thus night. When I started my weekly link party I featured a new blog each week but with the party having grown and my blog having grown, I don’t have the bandwidth to keep up that part of it.

I absolutely still love discovering new and emerging blogs, and will continue to pay it forward in the blogosphere by sharing and promoting new blogs I discover, Just more likely on FB or Twitter and more randomly. I hope that won’t change anyone’s mind about visiting each week and linking up.

Again, I have NO plans to discontinue the party part! Thank you for understanding. With that, let’s see what everyone’s been up to this week. I’m seeing such amazing Halloween and Fall ideas. My work schedule hasn’t left me as much time or energy for crafting as I”d like and you all sharing your links here feeds that hole in my creative soul so thank you for choosing to link up each week.

Glitter Frame and PicMonkey Halloween Printables

I’ve mentioned before that I love PicMonkey. That was before Halloween decorating started. and they added a whole bunch of new effects. Yowza. They have got quite the collection. No matter your Halloween decorating style…from gothic, to ghoulish, to scary, creepy, funny, zombie you name it.

What fun is a printable without a great frame though? I started with an unpainted filigree frame I picked up at Michaels:

and painted it black. After which I had the Rolling Stones stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

Once the paint was dry, I used a spray adhesive and alternated sprinkling black and clear glitter like a madwoman.

Then I just printed my printable,  adhered it to the back of the frame, and added a few rhinestones.
So here’s the printable I made completely in PicMonkey which I’m happy to share with you. Click on to bring to full resolution then right click to save as.

Of course with all of the fun effects, I couldn’t stop at just one printable:

And now for something truly frightening:

Mwaaaahhhh…It’s me in Witch Hat, crackle and zombie effect applied.

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