Crazy for candy

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crazy-for-candy

So if you did or didn’t know, I absolutely LOVE Halloween and it’s my favorite holiday. Christmas follows closely in 2nd place. I love Christmas…the lights, the colors, the baked goods, and the music. Here’s the thing, though: Halloween is supposed to be campy/scary/anything goes. Christmas on the other hand is interpreted in so many ways. I love the traditional and religious side and the elegance that goes with it. One of the trees I decorate is in reds and golds and it is quite lovely. While, there is no set rule on how to decorate or what style to make your home or rooms (I personally would like to have a house someday to be decorated in different styles with trees in every room), my heart naturally sways to wild and colorful, an outlandish/almost gaudy feast for the eyes! I love rainbows of color and if I do plan on buying Christmas decorations in the near future, I really want them to be sugary sweet and candylicious!

I have an affinity in particular for starlight mint swirls, gumdrops, and gingerbread men! I don’t know what it is, I just love red and white swirled together…actually, a lollipop I saw at Target last year prompted this picture:

festive me

OK, keep with me in my randomness here…I used to make gingerbread houses with my mom and sister as a child and every year I intend on making another one (a homeade one, not the Wilton/storebought kind), and I never get the chance. Maybe that’s why I’m fond of gingerbread men! I think I like gingerbread men, too, because they have so much personality and they are just plain sweet! I remember printing out a card in middle school that I attached to a homeaade gingerbread man for my friends that read:

I hope you like this little man,
I made it just for you.
And if you don’t that’s too sad,
it’s off his head I’ll chew!

I remember it having a candyland look to the card, now that I think about it! Ha. I totally forgot about that little saying just until now!

Actually, I never really played Candyland as a kid. I always wanted it, Chutes and Ladders, and Hi Ho Cherry Oh, but I never got them. Oh well! I think I only liked them cause of their visual appeal. I mean, how could I have not?

Oh, and I love this glittery/sweet necklace that Stoopidgerl made. It makes me happy!

I really love what my friend Carey did with this chair for the DecoArt home page too!
Naughty or Nice chair
Click here for instructions!

I also really love these adorable lollipops and cupcakes my friend Donna crafted for the site! Photographing them was a lot of fun!
Terra cotta lollipops and candy

Cupcake ornaments

So now that I’ve shared my holiday style love, what’s yours? Is there any certain style that you just drool over? I’d love to hear about it!

Oh, by the way, I’m going to be on Trivial Thursday on WRFL on Thursday. I’ll be hanging out with host Mick Jeffries! You can even listen live online, so be sure to check in!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

Pumpkin Painting Idea Center

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The pumpkin bunch

Hello all. I don’t don’t know if I officially told you about this, but I wanted to direct you over to my work’s web site to check out the bevy of fun and inspiring pumpkin painting ideas! This is a little graphic I whipped up for the home page. Our designers are super talented and come up with the best ideas for transforming painted pumpkins, so it’s never hard for me to create a graphic with a lot of personality!

The site features over 40 pumpkin painting ideas as well as other fun Halloween craft projects, from wearables to accessories to décor! There really is a style of pumpkin or craft for everyone! Also on the site is a section of tips and techniques, telling you exactly how to prepare your pumpkin. Other sections are “How to throw a pumpkin painting party” and “how to display your painted pumpkins”. The creative departments really worked hard to bring you these fun ideas, so check it out today!

Click here to check out the site! Please stop by and paint a spell, won’t you?

Do you have a fun painted pumpkin idea? I’d love to see it. Leave a link in my comment box and I’d love to share!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

A long slumber

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I just woke up. Meaning I just woke up from a long slumber where I forgot to post all about my Terrorific Tuesday and all that goodness. Oh well. Such is life. I didn’t have the most terrific day yesterday and you know the kind…you just want to go to sleep and wake up anew.

In other news, check out something I helped work on at work…the DecoArt Pumpkin Painting Idea Center. There are ALOT of really great ideas for pumpkin painting. It is the most extensive resource on the net for such ideas. There’s so much on there, you’ll just have to see for yourself!

Until next time Swellions! Gotta go check on the bath water, it may have ran over in the amount of time it took to write this (but I really doubt it).

Alexa

Terrorific Tuesday: Halloween cup labels

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I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starting to really get pumped for fall, y’all. I love, love, love all things Halloween from decorations to party planning to Halloween food. I guess if you’ve been reading my blog, you already knew that!

Anyway, today, I wanted to present an idea that I came up with a couple of years ago for a Halloween Bridal Shower. Now I realize that it’s a bit early to have a Halloween party, but it is never too early to start planning and getting ideas and plans in order so you are ready for the big event!!! For this project, I wanted to have fun cup labels (they can also double as name badges if you’d rather do that) for the guests to get them talking and mingling. It turned out to be a hit and everyone had fun picking out their very own label. Here’s a quick photo I shot of the ones from that party (not my best photo ever, but it shows the basic idea)…

coaster and personalized cup

The ones I made for that party were done on the fly, but I decided to offer you, my swell blog readers, some cool designed ones that I made up this evening in Quark. Click on the picture to be directed to my flickr stream and to download it at it’s biggest size for best resolution. Then print it out on your home printer and cut. It’s easy as pumpkin pie!

halloween name tags-cup markers

halloween name tags - cup markers 2

I wanted them to reflect classic Halloween characters and movie horror classic icons. I think they are fun!

One of the other major reasons I’m getting psyched about Halloween is that this arrived today at the office:

halloween bhg mag

I even noticed our products being used in a photo article about having a kid’s halloween craft party (I designed the label on the Foam Paint bottle):

decoart foam paint

Whee! I also wanted to share today a few of my favorite Halloween site discoveries for you to check out…

This Christmas Traditions site is the most fabulous site if you love vintage Halloween decorations! It will make your mouth water!

My friend Lorilyn directed me to this fabulous site called Fancy Flours. There are so many ideas for making funky Halloween sweets and treats! Check it out!

Over at DecoArt, we are gearing up for a great season of crafting with great projects like these (click on the title above the photo to go to the project page)…

Bone Appetit Tray
Bone Appetit Tray

Celebrate Halloween Frame using Laurie Speltz’s Instant ImagesCelebrate Halloween Frame

Egg-Shaped Mummy
egg-shaped mummy

I’ll try to feature atleast one project each week now until Halloween from the DecoArt site on here. The DecoArt designers are the best and do such a great job coming up with innovative ideas!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

All content/photos of cup labels copyright, © Alexa L. Westerfield, 2008