CLEAN UP DAY

Whoa, I do believe you can see my studio again!

Yep, I finally got it cleaned up......and just in time for my family from Washington to arrive this Saturday. We are so excited to have our daughter, Bre and her husband, Kyle and their boys, Cole and Cade coming to stay with us for a week. Since I have put bunk beds in my studio the boys will be sleeping in there. Hope those little fingers can stay out of all my goodies! I spent the major part of today cleaning an organizing the studio. I had almost forgotten how nice it looks when everything is back in it's place. I just have a couple little things to finish up tomorrow and then Frank and I will spend the rest of the day cleaning the rest of the house...UGH! I went to the grocery store and filled my cart with a ton of food to feed the troops and then had to come home and re-arrange my freezer and refrigerator in order to get everything in there. Then I spent an hour and a half doing all the laundry and ironing. So needless to say, Frank is eating heated up leftovers for dinner tonight while I crunch down a bowl of cereal. It doesn't hurt us though since we went with 8 of our friends to Bolero's at Seville (that's a beautiful private golf club by us that has the most outstanding Wed. night all-you-can-eat pasta) for a wonderful dinner. I get so excited when I know that we are going for Pasta Night. Everything is so fresh and they cook it right in front of you while you pick out your own ingredients. Yummy!!
I did manage to make a special something for my granddaughter, Hanna but I can't show it to you until later since it is a surprise for her.

Here's a picture of part of our front entry. It really looks
much better in the dark when you can see all the
purple lights and spiders!

Don't know why this one is so blurry, sorry.

Of course, what's Halloween without all the candy??? I know our little Caden will have his hands in those jars! How do you like my jar of eyeballs..........SPOOKY!
(I have a glasstop coffee table and so you can also see my books showing through)

Our big orange pumpkin has twinkling lights in it.

"Mr. Skeltie" has red eyes that light up when he's in the mood to scare someone!
"Harry" his spider friend just loves hanging around.

Have a few things out in the backyard around the pool and on the patio. As you can see I still don't have my orange lights up on the plants. Hopefully, tomorrow!!

HOME DAY

Couldn't resist posting this picture of my granddaughter, Hanna. She's a bit of a ham, but such a cute one!

Mike and Jami haven't wasted any time training Hanna to be a Sun Devil "Sparky" fan.

This is one of my newest hobbies (like I needed another one!). Soldering. I took a class from Beth Quinn of Bethquinndesigns.com and have been hooked ever since. She was an excellent teacher, not to mention incredibly creative and talented. I am still mastering some of the finer touches.....like getting that stupid hanger thing to get soldered on tight. But I love the creative part of putting the picture and the appropriate wording together for each piece. This picture really doesn't show the pieces well. All of them have a sprinkling of iridescent glitter in them along with a Swarovski crystal on them. The only drawback is that the silver and the soldering tool are EXTREMELY hot and I have already managed to burn myself on my finger which left me with a big 'ole blister! I have also been working on some other new things, but you will have to wait until after Nov. 1st to see them. Hee,hee....

This is typical Rosie....always HAPPY!

Gosh, how time flies when your working in your studio all day. I didn't even leave the house all day today. I think that might be a first for me. Oh, wait, I take that back. I did leave the house this morning at 5:30 to go exercise at Curves with my wonderful friend, Rosie.

Here we are trying to figure out who's stomach is bigger!

This is why we are going to Curves!!!!!

This is Rosie and her sweet husband, Chuck

We go together on Mon., Wed. and Fri. We know we would never keep it up if we didn't have to pick each other up. Besides, I wouldn't miss the ride to and from with Rosie and all her hysterical daily antics. She is a true character. This morning she picked me up going the opposite way as usual....only because she over-shot my road and had to turn around and come back to get me!! And with sunglasses on no less!!! It's dark at 5:30 in the morning, who needs sunglasses??

DECORATING---YIPPEE!!!

I am so happy to get to put up all this fun Halloween stuff! I always enjoy a good "scare". My grandsons, Coleman (5 1/2) and Caden (3) along with their parents, will be here the week of Halloween and will join our granddaughter, Hanna (4) to go trick-or-treating. After I got my diningroom table all decorated, Frank told me he thought it might be too scary for the kids. But Hanna has seen it and she survived, so I'm sure the boys will love it. Lot's of spiders and mice! I also got my outside decorations up and will finish the lights tomorrow. I just realized that I forgot to take pictures of the rest of my decorations, sorry. I still have a long way to go to get this picture/blogging thing in sync. I could keep adding decorations daily, but we have a definite lack of storage here, so that's not going to happen. Bummer..... anyway, I could scare the hair off a horse just by the way I look right out of bed in the morning!! BOOOooooo!!!!

After working hard all week on my projects, I treated myself to a wonderful day at Blissfest in Mesa. This was put on by Domestic Bliss (a fantastic decor store). It featured most of the artists that teach classes in their Blissful Living Studio, where I have taken several classes. There were many other great vendors there too and I wanted to buy from all of them! The one special purchase I made was this darling mosiac cupcake made by local artist, Michelle Legler. This is a treat for myself and is sitting in my studio where I can admire it daily.

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY!!!

Whew!!!! As you can see by the mess on the card table set up in my office that I have spent this past week getting all the loose ends done for my daughter, Jami's baby shower on Nov. 1st, working on the upcoming Christmas Boutique on Nov. 7 & 8, making our Halloween costumes, getting my mom's fall decorations up in her house down here (for her arrival on Oct. 25th), and finishing up all the gifts for Jami's shower.

WORKING ON IT!

Okay, I'm a little behind in getting some pictures posted. But I have taken the pictures now I just need to get them on by blog. I spent the morning at knitting/crochet club and then ran way out in Queen Creek to pick up an awesome ring made for me by Beth Quinn. I got home in time to read my emails, change clothes and am now leaving for dinner out with friends. But I promise to work on getting my pictures posted tomorrow.