"Wish You Were Here!" Summer Charm Swap

OK, so here are the results from the most recent charm swap!
The theme was "Wish You Were Here!"
The premise was to think of a favorite summer memory and create a charm with that theme. We all made postcards to tell about the memory as well.

So here's mine:
Dear Friend,
Dyllan and I are having a wonderful time visiting family in Northern California!
Here we are collecting shells at Shelter Cove- a quiet little beach town.
Wish you were here!
~Michelle Cummings



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Hey Friend,
We are having such a great time down under. Wish you could be here. The weather is great and the Three Sisters Monument was amazing. The meat pies were great as well.
Ashani Samuel

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Dear Friend,
I am sitting on the beach right now. It is so peaceful here.
The ocean and the view is amazing here! This vacation is so much fun!
Wish you were here!
~Elizabeth Coffey


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Hey You!
I just got back from visiting the county fair! The pig races were cute,
so were the lumberjacks (hehe!) But by far, the hot air balloons flying over head were my favorite.
Wish you were here!!
Jessica Mount

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Hi!
Greetings from the boardwalk in Santa Cruz!
I'm having fun playing on the beach and going on rides!
I even had my first candy apple!
Wish you were here!
Mahala Elliot


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Dear Friend,
We are having so much fun!
We just love the beach.
Wish you were here!
~Victoria Sturdevant

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Dear Friend,
We are having a great time exploring with the gnomes
and fairy tale creatures here at story book forest!
Wish you were here!
Angela Hoffmann



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Sawadee Ka!
Hello from the place where time began.
It is so amazing....Just wish you were here too!
Hugs & Kisses...will see you soon, as they say:
Popganmai!
~ Carol Hoffmann

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Dear Friend,
Having a great time in Egypt touring the ancient cities,
pyramids and riding camels.
It's so hot here but keeping cool.
Wish you were here!
Marissa Wong

Count down to Christmas Matchbox Swap

The current theme over at "A Swap for all Seasons" is a matchbox swap.
The premise was to create 25 matchbox ornaments with a matching treat inside.
I made magnets. I used vintage reproductions of Christmas stamps, bottle caps, glitter glue and dimensional glaze. It took me near two months to complete these beauties, the hardest being the dry time of the glaze and making holes at the top of the little match boxes for the ribbon.


I made 25 for the swap and will receive 25 back, all from 25 individual artist!
Come December, I will have the most creative advent calendar in town!

Of course, I kept one for me. :)

If you visit the main swap site, you can see teasers of the
packages the host has been receiving. All so inspiring!

It's a Happy "Halloween" Party!

Thank you for coming to this wonderful event hosted by "A Fanciful Twist!"
My Halloween party takes place at Disneyland, CA.
Because we live so close, we have annual passes and visit as often as we like. :)

Here, my Son Dyllan (age 6) and I attended the Mickey's trick or treat party at Disneyland on October 12th. We have been attending the original event since day one when it used to be at Disney's California Adventure. This year they changed it over to D-land and I could not be more happier!
The party here was quite possible the best to date!
As usual the Haunted mansion looks delightfully spooky...

During the ride, I went to put my camera away and it accidentally turned on. The flash went off and I noticed this odd photo! I've never seen a purple trail like this one before...cool!

That's Dyllan and I. I'm a purple witch and I made my costume! I also made Dyllan's costume...he is "Alvin" the chipmunk. You can see more of his costume here!


Dyllan was really impressed with this "lego" costume and especially liked the hands.

Disneyland did a great job of special effects and I love how they made the fog "roll" in.

These are the "treat" stations all around the park. I read somewhere that there were 64 stations. I lost count at 24 and we had only done 2 lands! Now mind you, the park let us in as early as 4pm and the trick or treating started at 6-11pm. (we left at 10pm) They give you wrist bands and teeny tiny treat bags for your loot. From experience, we brought our own large treat bags but they were so generous in "giving" that at times my "bag' was to heavy to go on. :)



When we arrived at the park, we first had a nice sit down early dinner with a waitress and outside entertainment. It was nice. Also because we were there on a Tuesday (gasp a school night!- I know...but it's only once a year) the lines for the rides were ultra short, letting us ride most all we wanted at least twice! In between rides and getting candy, we stopped off at to dance! Here Dyllan is doing the "slide'...yes, that's a human tootsie roll... lol!

Loved the light effect....





I especially loved the effects on the castle!



We scored a great spot and planted ourselves to wait for the parade which was very charming. I delighted in the creativity of them adding characters that I was familiar with.



I just "love" these witches and their costumes!



Each mickey pumpkin that came out, was dressed to match the characters to follow....













Here are the bears from Country Bear jamboree and Jungle book.



It was a treat to see this costume. the platform shoes alone were just amazing!

I wish I could have taken photo's of all the costumes we saw, but there were just too many!
Here is my costume. I made the tutu dress and was inspired by this blog post.
Purple is my favorite color so this costume was a definite shoe in! I even wore it when I picked up my son from school. I'm pretty sure I stopped a Few parents dead in their tracks! And little girls at the school and Disneyland would come over to me and "pat" my skirt....I think it's a tutu thing.


Our feet pooped out before we had a chance to canvas the whole park! We did catch bits of the light show an dfireworks. Dyllan was so tired that he fell alsleep twice during the show.
I highly recommend this event if you have a chance to go.
You don't need a pass to purchase a ticket, although having one does give you a early bird discount.
Soooo much fun! bring a big bag for candy, water and wear comfortable shoes. I can't wait to attend again next year! This was quite possible the best Halloween party ever!


On the way out, I stopped to re-group my items and noticed Dyllan had stopped to rest on a bench too. :)

I hope you have enjoyed my Halloween party and that you'll visit the other party goers here.
If you are interested, I'm also having a giveaway!
Halloween is my favorite time of the year and I'm feeling EXTRA generous!
I'll be giving away 3 Halloween/Fall paper crafting kits!
Custom designed just for you!
Comment on any of my postings for all of October ( the month is not over yet! :)
on my Scrapbooking/Craft Tutorial blog here.
and on this blog (Faerie Dust Dreams)

I will choose one winner per each blog the first week of November.
To be entered in the 3rd prize,
just "Follow" me ...found on the left side of my blog.

Happy Halloween and Good Luck!

Dyllan's Haunted House

Dyllan begged for a Haunted House in his room this year.
So, (being the "I can't stop creating, MOM)..I said sure.
I cleared a space in the corner of his room and used a kids sized hula hoop and green bean garden lattice.
I zip tied the hoop to the book case (I had eye screws on there already) and then to the lattice. For extra support I taped the bottom of the lattice to Dyllan's school clothes dresser. Which I acquired for free on Free Cycle.

I double checked that he could stand inside with out hitting his noggin.


Then I covered the top and back with a black bed sheet.
The left side with the eyes is a remnant from my Halloween past,
when Brian and I were just dating.
I cut the eyes from black landscaping plastic and taped layers of yellow tissue paper on the negative side. The we would place these in every window of the house and position torch lamps near the windows to make the eyes glow. It looked very very spooky.
I'll try to dig up some of those old photo's.... :)


For the door way, I used a portion of a black plastic table skirt and cut the bottom into shreds for the pass through. Having the hoop inside at the top makes a great place to hang orange lights and decorations. The lattice also helps for mounting the flickering strobe light and other spooky finds.



Inside we added a foam piece for resting on, some spooky props, Halloween themed books and stuck cut out eyes everywhere so they would glow under the strobe light.


And because we put it on a timer, it's like the best night light ever!