Holy Crapola!

UPDATE: the winners have been chosen! Drumroll please............

Congratulations Jaclyn (anyone who would want 107 oreos is a friend of mine!) and BettyCrockerAss! (because I've got a lot of days I'd like to do over too)

I'll be contacting you to find out where to ship your pincushions to.

Thanks to everyone who commented. I loved them all but unfortunately I could only pick 2.

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A friend of mine pointed out the other day that I currently have 107 followers on this blog.

I’ve been flirting with the 100 mark for quite some time but to finally achieve it, and actually surpass it – well it feels like an accomplishment, even though all I do is randomly post some drivel about bears crapping in the woods.

107! Thanks everyone. It honestly means a lot to me that 107 of you find this place useful enough and entertaining enough to add it to what I’m sure is a long list of other internet stops in your busy lives. I mean Farmville isn’t going to play itself, am I right?

So to sufficiently express my gratitude I’m giving away two of these lovely funky pincushions.






All you have to do to win is tell me in the comments what you’d like to have 107 of. Consider this your thought provoking Thursday! (hey, I know it's Friday but Blogger was unavailable yesterday when I tried to post so cut me some slack)

Everybody wants 107 of something, right?

107 life sized Smurf figurines – sign me up!

107 vacation days from work - oh yeah!

107 freckles – what? I’ve got a lot more than that right now, 107 would be a reduction!

You get the idea. Now to be fair I should probably just choose a winner at random but I’ve never really been accused of being fair. So I’m just going to pick the two that make me smile the biggest and they will be the winners.

Be sure to leave some way for me to get in contact with you.

The Best Bingo Ever!

My birthday is coming up and while normally I might lament the addition of another year to my already downtrodden body, this year I've been anticipating it with tremendous zeal. Why? I'll tell you, because this year the anniversary of my birth coincides with the DVD release of New Moon!!

I was only able to see New Moon once in the theatre (I had hoped for at least twice) and so I'm quite thrilled at the opportunity to view it again and have it available for my viewing pleasure whenever my little heart desires. Well "whenever" is not really accurate. I'll have to wait until the kids are asleep, not that it's really that scary, but just because they'll complain the whole time about how they'd rather watch Scooby Doo. Plus it's March Madness so my husband will be watching basketball games and/or highlights from basketball games for the remainder of the month. But, the point is that theoretically it will be available if I can ever squeeze it in.

I'm certainly going to watch it on the 20th! What better way to celebrate the DVD release AND my birthday than with a New Moon DVD viewing party?!

I've spent the last two weeks preparing. I've got plates, napkins, streamers. I found an extremely cheesy New Moon card game on clearance and sacrificed some of the cards to decorate some straws. I'll be serving blood red daquiri's of course.

But the best part of all is going to be my New Moon Bingo!

I must give credit to my friend Shawna for spurring the idea. She suggested it as a way to make our movie viewing night more interactive. I found a New Moon Bingo game available for purchase online but all it consisted of was varied pictures of the cast.

I wanted something that would truly help us appreciate the New Moon experience, which is both wondrously fabulous and wondrously cheesy and disappointing at the same time. You see, as much as I love the Twilight movies and the books, I have to acknowledge that they're really just downright silly at times. So to really capture those moments and appreciate them, I tailored my Bingo game to accentuate them.

There are squares for things like "Carlisle is in a scene" or "Jacob has long hair" and then there are the more entertaining squares like:

-Jasper's hair is the most frightening thing in the scene

-Edward expresses his angst by looking like he smells something unpleasant

-Jacob has a shirt on but you're imagining him without one

-Bella runs through the forest duck-footed and dressed like someone from Little House on the Prairie.

It's all in good fun and I'm hoping it makes the night more enjoyable. Want a copy of your own to enhance your New Moon viewing pleasure? It's available here. I've removed the images from the Free square (I don't want to risk any copyright infringement or whatever) but other than that it's as pictured, with 6 varied game boards, just for you. Enjoy!

Embracing my inner 13 year old

I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but I’m a Twilighter. I know, it’s so incredibly juvenile, and trust me, I had no intention of ever becoming a Twilight fan. I went quite some time refusing to have anything to do with it. I mocked it, I turned my nose up at it and then I finally broke down and rented out the movie just to see what the fuss was about and . . . the acting was completely horrid and the storyline seemed less than stellar.

However, there was Robert Pattinson's incredibly square jaw to consider (I may have watched the rental more than once to study the beauty of that man’s face) and I figured there had to be more to the storyline that possibly just didn’t translate to the movie. So I borrowed the books from a friend and the rest is history.

So here I am, along with my other twenty and thirty-something friends anticipating the upcoming New Moon movie like a bunch of giddy schoolgirls. We decided we needed a physical marker of our obsession and what better thing than Twilight t-shirts!

Now, we might be pathetic grown women obsessing over fictional characters and actors who make the cover of Teen People, but we’re not so pathetic that we want to be seen in our nearest Hot Topic picking out generic Twilight shirts.

So since we’ve all got a crafty streak we’ve decided to make our own t-shirts. We’ve got big plans and since we’re not actually constructing them until next week I can’t show you the finished products. However, I wanted to share something I have planned for my shirt in case anyone else out there has a similar Edward fascination.

I give you the Edward silhouette.

Silhouette’s are big nowadays and I’ll admit that along with fictional vampires they are another one of my current obsessions. So I decided to do one of Edward (R. Patz).

I think it’s fitting since Edward is an immortal romantic type of guy and silhouettes invoke that old fashioned romantic feel. And I’m hoping it will be a cool sophisticated design for my T. I’ll show you the finished product next week and you can make your own judgment.

I created it by combing the web for some profile shots of Robert and tracing the outline of his chiseled features. I used this photo for his face and then had to find another one for the hair and meld them together, but I thought it came out pretty well.

I’m going to paint him on my T using the freezer paper method. I got to thinking that he’d be great on other things as well like on a pillowcase, or at the end of a simple scarf, or if you’re really obsessed you could frame him and put him on your wall, use him to make invitations to the Twilight party you throw when New Moon comes out on video – whatever! I just couldn’t keep him for myself.

So feel free to right click on the picture(s) above and save it to your files to do with as you will. All I ask is that if you use him that you share what you made. I’d love to see it! Shoot me an email (pinandpaper@q.com) or whatever.

Fall busy body - and a giveaway

I always seem to be more productive in the fall. I don't know if it's the invigorating chilly winds or the fact that we're forced inside more often, but I'm taking advantage and churning out some new items for the shop.
I recently listed some scarves in the shop. A special thanks to my friend Jessica for being my model. She's really much cuter than any woman has a right to be.

Also I find that I'm overrun with these recycled envelopes. I make them out of the pages of the kids' Highlights magazines. The artwork is really colorful and fun and it just breaks my heart to chuck their old magazines into the recycle bin when they start piling up around the house.

So I started out making them just for my own use but when my stack reached the 10 inch mark I figured it might be time to try and spread them around a bit. I've put some up for sale and I'd like to give some away.

Smack an address label on them and you can send them via snail mail. They're also great to house handmade cards, or to hold a special note.

This set of 6 is up for the taking. Just leave a comment on this post and I'll pick a random winner on Sat. Oct. 24th. Make sure your comment includes a way for me to contact you in case you're the lucky winner.

And stay tuned. I should have even more new stuff listed hopefully by the end of this week, and some other exciting news to share.

UPDATE 10/25/09: The winner of the envelope giveaway is Iiona! Thanks!

New Stuff! Flannel and Chenille - and a Giveaway!

Update: We have a winner. My random number generator (my 5 yr. old) has chosen our lucky winner. It's Michelle a.k.a Busym1. Congrats! and thanks to all who entered.

I scored some sweet cuddly flannel on sale a while back and I ran across it last week when trying to tidy up my craft room. A surprising thing happened. Instead of shoving it in a drawer somewhere, I actually took the initiative to use it in some projects.

I found some soft chenille hanging out in a corner too and ta-da! Some new inventory for the shop. Finally!

I've also been having some fun with my cricut and whipped out some cute little ladybug thank you notes as well.

And to say thank you to all of you for checking out my blog, I'm giving away a couple flannel and chenille washcloths. They're perfect for use as burp cloths, or for wiping runny noses, or even in the tub!

One lucky winner will get 2 washcloths. They look like these except they don't have the ribbon tags.

Just post a comment and I'll pick a random winner on Friday, June 19th. Be sure to include your email address or profile so I can contact you for your mailing address.