BFF Open House Link Party #125: Chocoholics Unite Edition

Happy First Friday in October! Our weather here in the PNW is a little confused and it's been more like late November with torrential rain and windstorms. Hopefully, not a sign of things to come. Given that I have a blog with chocolate in the title, I thought I'd focus on chocolate this week so all of this week's features are, you guessed it: CHOCOLATE!  Get your pin finger ready. 

So last week I featured truffles by Karyn from The Dieter's Downfall. They were dangerous enough on their own but not content to make us drool over just the truffles, she went and put them on a cake. ON A CAKE! 

Then, along came these Oreo coconut cheesecake bars from Mary Frances at The Sweet-Tooth Life. Chocolate and coconut oh my and yes please!

True confession time. I don't love pumpkin. There I said it. How College Boy ended up in love with Pumpkin Spice Lattes is beyond me. BUT, these Pumpkin Spice Fudge Brownies from Stephanie at Back for Seconds, may just win me over. 

Fall is the perfect time for oatmeal raisin cookies. But these Oatmeal Raisinett cookies from Life With the Crust Cut Off, bring them to another delicious level.  I have a thing for Raisinetts so there might not be any left for the cookies. 

Finally, you know how your family will want hot cocoa and you may or may not feel like making it from scratch and you may or may not have some packets of mix leftover from last year because it hasn't been hot cocoa season yet this year and you haven't bought any and oh...go make this now to have it on hand! You can thank The Pin Junkie

Still with me or are you in a chocolate sugar induced coma? On to this week's party. 

Bewitchingly Vintage Witch Hats and A Giveway From Oriental Trading Company!

I continue to be drawn to more muted and vintage Halloween décor. I mentioned earlier that I was planning on switching up my mantle this year from Poe inspired to Shakespeare. It was the Three Witches from Macbeth that inspired this project.

It was perfect timing when the folks from Oriental Trading Company gave me the opportunity to review and play with some of their Halloween crafting goodies. This post is sponsored by Oriental Trading Company. Project idea and opinions are mine.

If you're not familiar with Oriental Trading Company or haven't been there in a while, in addition to a great selection of party supplies and project kids that are great for kids, they have really really expanded their crafting supply section. I was able to go through the ordering process which was straightforward and easy, and my shipment arrived quickly.

The hats themselves are not actually hats. They started out as these:

Plain paper mache cones. I covered them using torn and twisted kraft colored butcher paper and Mod Podge  and glued them to a cardboard circle base.

Since I knew I wanted them to be old looking, I wasn’t precise and just kind of went over the form until it looked like a witch’s hat. When dry, painted with black paint. Now for the fun stuff!

I chose some of the Halloween papers from Oriental Trading Company along with epoxy poison labels. I used the papers to make layered flowers that I scrunched and crumbled. After all, the witches from Macbeth would not be seen in pristine new hats.

Using some of the die cuts and stickers I also received, I made accessories for my hats, keeping with a poison potion theme.

Waste not want not, so I used from of the scraps of paper to embellish the hats going around one of the cones, and one of the brims.

I had so much fun with these and cannot wait to play with some more of the goodies that were sent to me so check back!

The best part is,  one of you will get to play with some goodies of your own because the awesome folks at Oriental Trading Company are offering one of my readers the chance to win a $25 gift card to their site! It's easy to enter (using Rafflecopter) and winner will be announced next Tues ( 10/8). Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


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Birthday Present Idea: Card Kit In An Altered Box

Not only am I luck enough to share a birthday month with two of my oldest and bestest friends, as fate would have it, they share the same date! They both get to remind me that I am in one case, a few days older and in another, a year older, but September is our month. They also share the date with another friend of mine from work. 

Like me, one of my besties also celebrated her 32nd birthday for the 18th time. Every year when we get together to celebrate, she tells me that she re-purposes many of the cards I send her throughout the year into her own ( fabulous) cards. So I decided last year, I would make her a "card kit in a box" to include all kinds of goodies she could use to make her own cards, re-purpose mine etc. 

I started with a cigar box and for no reason other than I did, went over all of the edges with silver tape before I Mod Podged on the paper. Michaels recently had paper stacks on sale for $5 and I picked up a great one by Crate Paper in pinks, oranges, neutrals and browns. 

Since all of the papers coordinated, I just randomly chose patterns and tore pieces, used scraps did whatever felt right. Then I added some black and clear stickers in a vintage theme. 

To finish it off, I cut layers of flowers using a Tim Holtz die, and then used a scrap of the paper along with a Tim Holtz "Ornate Plate" and Glossy Accents to make a faux closure for the box. 

I filled the box with blank cards, embellishments, baker's twine and papers so she can play. I made her birthday card using some of the same papers and some KandCo 3D birthday stickers:

She and I celebrated on Saturday by going to one of my favorite places, Shipwreck Beads.  which is a creative person's candy store. Since we were celebrating a milestone birthday. I picked up these mini glittered top hats for us to wear ( and yes, we did wear them and no, I'm not showing you!) 

I used the same colors and papers to make birthday cards for my two other special birthday buddies.

BFF Open House Link Party #124 and Features

Hope the first official week of Fall was a good one for you. Here we are on the cusp of October which is hard to believe. The crafterverse is in full creative mode so here are a few features from last week's party that inspired me. 

You all know I have a slight paper addiction. I'm looking forward to using some of mine up making a big bouquet of these paper flowers from Artsy VaVa

Can't even tell you how much I love these confetti pumpkins from Kim at Made In A Day. Oh. Em. Gee. 

If you need an easy way to bring some fall into your home, check out this idea from Fonda at Southern Scraps. Wouldn't this look great next to some confetti pumpkins?

This week's chocolate feature speaks for itself. Chocolate truffles from the aptly named blog Dieter's Downfall. Resistance is futile. 

OK let's see what you all have been up to this week !

A Shakespeare Halloween: Toil and Trouble Printable

I'm planning on swapping out my Edgar Allen Poe themed mantle for another guy this year. Bill. Will. The Bard. You know "that Shakespeare dude".  It occurred to me that Shakespeare has a lot of quotes and themes that are perfect for Halloween. Some are obvious like Macbeth, which was the inspiration for this printable. A quote from the Three Witches. 

I created this one in PicMonkey. You should be able to click on to bring to full resolution, then right click to save as. If you use, I'd love to see how! 

BFF Open House # 123 Happy Fall Features!

Can you believe it's time for Summer to come to an end this weekend? Doesn't it seem like it just started? Truthfully, I am really ready for Fall. I love the crispness of the air, the changing of the leaves, sweaters, boots...

You all are gearing up for Fall if last week's party is any indication. Lots of wonderful Fall and Halloween ideas. Let's see a few:

Antonella from Quilling, Art and Expression shared this delightfully spooky spider card. I just love the dimension on the spider and of course the black and white! I can't wait to get started on some Halloween cards. 

You have to check out these DIY Felt Halloween Pillows from Christine at I Dig Pinterest. Love how simple yet bold they are. 

Wouldn't Christine's pillows work perfectly with this Fall wreath shared by Laura at The Shed? You will have to go visit to find out the secret for making these flowers. Can't wait to try. 

And after you're done making these great projects or before you sit down to pin them on Pinterest, be sure to whip up a batch of these Caramel Milky Way brownies from Danielle at Busy Mom's Helper.  When I think Fall, I think caramel. Of course chocolate is year round. YUM!

Now on to this week's party. What tricks and treats do you have up your sleeve this week? 

Back to School for College Kids: Coffee Run Card

Those of you who are coffee drinkers, remember when you weren’t? Remember when you thought it tasted gross and wondered how and why anyone would ever drink the stuff?  I do. And I think I was about the same age as College Boy when that changed forever. Is there a coffee switch that clicks on in College?


Now that coffee is a major food group, we usually help him out with a Starbucks card to cover Pumpkin Spice Lattes and supplement the dining hall coffee. Funny how the frequency of Starbucks trips is in direct proportion to who's paying for the Lattes isn't it? Mom and Dad pay...frequency goes up. College kid pays? Dining hall coffee YUM!

I remembered this Canvas Corp paper I had in my stash. PERFECT!

For this project you will need:

• Cardstock ( I used kraft to match my patterned paper and because it reminded me of the Starbucks “sleeves”) and matching envelope
• Coffee themed paper (Canvas Corp “Coffee Words on Kraft”)
• Gift card
• Coordinating theme stamps

Cut cardstock to make 5.25 x 5.25 card. Cut patterned paper to cover front and back. Cover front of card. On inside of card, cut a slit to fit your gift card. I used an XActo knife and cut down the short side of the GC:

Slide GC through slit; cover back of card with remaining panel and use a scrap of the paper to line the inside of the card as shown.

I debated about just leaving the card alone but me? Leave something alone? So I stamped a coffee stamp on a kraft scrap using watermark ink, finished with some decorative pearls, trimmed the image and mounted with foam dots.

I liked how the watermark ink looked on the kraft paper so I stamped the back of the envelope too!

So who else went from “coffee is the grossest thing ever” to “is there life before coffee”?