This is Halloween!!

Yay! October is finally here! I love October because I love Fall and I love Halloween! But, we've already had our first snow!! Yesterday, the last day of September is snowed up in the mountains and it even snowed down in the valley (it didn't stick of course). I'm hoping winter doesn't come too soon because I really want to enjoy the fall colors! This weekend we're going to try and do family pictures up in the mountains with the colors everywhere - hopefully the weather will cooperate for us!

Last weekend was crazy busy but super fun! Jill and I headed up to Idaho to do a photo shoot for our friend Niki and her new salon! If you haven't already seen them, visit the Atmina Blog to see how awesome the model portraits turned out! I really hope we can do that some more because it was so much fun! But it was exhausting too - a 3.5 hour drive EACH WAY! But it was well worth it :) We also got to do pictures of Niki's little family as well and lemme tell you, her daughter is SERIOUSLY cute! Hopefully I'll get those pictures posted by Friday evening or something.

Anyway, as is the custom, here are pictures of this year's Halloween decorations. I actually have some new stuff this year!! I didn't buy anything new last year and this year I bought a few things and my mom gave me stuff as well. Super cute!

I also threw in a picture of my blooming delphenium and some pics of Lady and Belle ;)

More Craft Rooms

I've decided two things while searching for inspirational ideas for my craft room:

1. I love Pottery Barn style
2. I love craft organization by Making Memories

If I can combine those 2 elements like I want I'd be very happy. Here are some examples I've found that incorporate BOTH!

(All images came from Scrapbook.com)

Give-Away by Papaya & TomKat

I'm an avid blogger these days (as if you didn't know) and I visit some really cute sites. One of my FAVORITEs is TomKat studio. She makes the cutest paper items for parties and all sorts of other things. She posted about this give-away from Papaya Art and I'm sharing it with everyone here. (hint: part of the give-away contest is to post about it on your own blog). Even if I don't win anything I think I'm gonna buy some stuff from Papaya, it's TOTALLY my style and I LOVE it. Be sure to check out their cute little address books, all of the pages so detailed! My favorite items are the Clover design office products. So whimsical!!

Here's how to get to TomKat's blog: Click HERE

Here's how to get to Papaya Art's site: Click HERE

And these are a few of my favorite things! I'm so glad they aren't terribly expensive cause I want to buy A LOT!

Organization & Planning

For part of this weekend I spent some time organizing my little "craft area" downstairs. This is technically supposed to be part of the portrait studio we set up in the empty area we have in the basement, but since the studio isn't getting much use I decided I actually needed to utilize the space better. I also decided that because I was sick of my dining room table always being messy with my scrapbook and crafty stuff! Anyway, here is the progression:

Started out as a mess of course

And here is the table after organization ;)

Ribbon and ink bins

Flowers and color swatches boxes

I absolutely LOVE my new paper organizer. I found this thing for $5 at Big Lots!

I started creating my idea books for my papery projects. Slowly but surely I'll build up my ideas and portfolio. For now, I have my favorite book (below) to drool over and flip through.

My handy storage cases.

And how would a craft room organization update be complete with some inspirational and wishful thinking?!?! These rooms are just AWESOME and I hope someday I'll be able to create a space like these. Having so much color in a place can really inspire you to be creative! These rooms are my ultimate dream!