Halloween Countdown.

We are loving our 13 Nights 'Til Halloween Countdown. This is a cross between the countdown in CK Magazine and Ali E.'s advent calendar last year.

I had a great time making the boxes and I love love love the way they turned out. Obviously, I painted them three different colors. Then I heat embossed the edges with black. As a final touch, I added black number stickers. I used several different fonts to give it an eclectic feel.

Each box has a different thing for us to do as a family. Tonight was: Carve pumpkins and cackle like a witch or howl after dark. It was quite fun! It's been a great way to add a little extra fun to family time. As an added bonus, the kids rush to get their shoes on each morning in order to open a box before we leave.

still picking --

I'm still picking glue off of my fingers from this week's project -- Getting Punchie. I wasn't too cracked up on using multiple punches, but figured, What the heck, and went with it.

I ended up breaking out the star punch that my mom bought me ten years ago when we set our wedding date near the 4th of July. I don't think I've used it for nearly 8 years now.

I'm not all that thrilled with the end result, but I was quite happy to be scrapping Christmas in July. Quite happy, indeed. I had a good time sewing the swirls. And I love the title. :)

When I pulled down my Christmas basket in search of the papers, I found my December Daily album. I only completed half of the pages (though I did blog daily, and have the printed photos to match the words) and I'm now inspired to complete it. I got goosebumps as I read the words and remember my thinking throughout my favorite season. Looking back, I can see how the Lord was preparing us for adopting the girls, even though it seemed out of the blue back in March.

I'm becoming more unabashed about the fact that I totally love this hobby. It's almost like I keep it a secret from people. I'm not sure why, but the more I blog and the more I photograph and the more I scrap, the more these things define how I live.