National Cruise Vacation Week

Welcome back to my little blog.  I hope you all had fun hopping around to all the different blogs and websites during our “All Treats, No Tricks Blog Hop.”  We had lots of visitors over the last few days, and several new people have joined our followers.  I’m so glad to have you, and I hope you’ll stick around and see what other goodies I might have in store for you.

One very important bit of business we need to take care of before I move on to today’s project is our prize winner.  Can I get a drumroll, please?  The winner of a

$50 Gift Certificate

and an

Embellishment Grab Bag

is

Susan Ahern!

Susan, if you will please send me an email, I will make arrangements to get that prize to you.  As for the winners on the other blogs, you will find a complete list on the The Little Blue House, of if you have time, hop on through the blogs one more time – I’m sure everyone has new projects up for you to enjoy!

Many of you may know that I also happen to be a travel agent, and I host scrapbooking cruises.  I’ve been very busy this week because Sunday was the start of National Cruise Vacation Week, which is the world’s largest cruise sale.  Agents all over North America are hosting Cruise Night events, and selling lots of cruises.  For my own part, I am hosting an Open House and a Cocktail Party, so planning that has kept me very busy.  I am also hosting a virtual Cruise Night event through the end of the month.  If you are interested in cruising, you can find out more about it here.

So in honor of NCVW, I thought I’d treat you to a fun little layout I did a while back for one of my cruises.  It’s a very simple color-blocking technique.  I made the banner using Stampin’ Up’s banner punch.  The banner for the title is strung between multiple brads and I used some plastic letters, some of which I colored with Copic markers.  You can’t read it because of the flash reflection, but the block on the right reads, “Where’s the Shuffleboard?” – my reference to the fact that we looked all over the ship and never found the shuffleboard.

That’s it for today.  I hope you’ll come back soon!  I’ll be participating the the Linked In Blog Hop in November, and of course, I’ll have more cards, layouts and craft projects as often as I can post!

Now go create something!

All Treats, No Tricks!

Welcome to Crafty Neighbor’s “Neighborhood Gossip” blog, a proud participant in the “All Treats, No Tricks Blog Hop”!  To start at the beginning of the hop, please visit The Little Blue House where you can learn how you can win one of 11 FABULOUS PRIZES.

For those of you visiting my little blog for the first time, please allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Cindy Murray, and I am the owner of Crafty Neighbor and Crafty Neighbor Travel.

I often call myself an event organizer, but really, Crafty Neighbor is so much more than that.  I host crops, retreats, classes, workshops, and even scrapbooking cruises and garage sales, but my real mission is to bring crafters together and support the scrapbooking and paper-crafting industries by providing fun and unique opportunities to learn new techniques, scrapbook at different venues, and meet new friends.  I also run this blog, which I like to view as a source of news, tips, tricks, and inspiration for scrapbooking and paper-crafting of all kinds. 

Since the topic of this blog hop is “All Treats, No Tricks”, I thought I would share a couple of Halloween treat holders with you today.  These are both really simple projects, and require very little supplies.  They’re great for party favors or to surprise your coworkers.  I filled them with my favorite treat, Reese’s Cups.

The small holder is super simple and made from a 6” x 6” square of double-sided paper using Stampin’ Up’s Simply Scored Diagonal Plate.  The instructions are available for download by clicking here.

The other two boxes are variations of the Criss-Cross Box created by Nicole Heady for PaperTrey Ink.  You can find Nicole’s box on her blog, and you can download her template there as well. 

For the spider box, I just put my treats directly inside the box, but I also wanted to show you how to make the box work for smaller candies, too, by using a clear cellophane treat bag.  Just put the bag in the box, fill with your favorite candies, and close with a pull-tab or twist tie.

Tip: I used Stampin' Up's Tiny Tag punch to make my "Boo" tag.
It's easier to punch the hole for your string before you punch your tag!

I hope you liked my projects.  If you would like to see some of my previous posts and projects, scroll down to the “Blog Archives” on the left, or you can search for posts by specific topics just below that.  Feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think!  You can also find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/craftyneighbor, on Pinterest at http://www.pinterest.com/c1ndyluhu/, or on the web at http://www.craftyneighbor.com.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today!  Be sure to subscribe using one of the links on the left to be eligible to win one of our awesome prizes!  My contribution will be a

$50 gift certificate
and a grab-bag of embellishments!

Now, hop on over to the Very Vintage Retreat, to collect your next treat!

Hop Local and Win Oct. 17th - 20th!

If you like winning FaBuLouS prizes...You better mark your calendar for this Hop Local Event! 

Prizes are being given away from some of your favorite Paper Crafting Stores, Retreat Destinations, and other Local Event Sponsors!!!

Check out this list of Give-Aways...

  The Little Blue House - Paper Arts Store & Studio:

 $60 Gift Certificate 

Whitworth RanchRetreat:

 2 Complimentary spots at a Mixed Group Retreat valued at $370

 Cat's CreationsScrapbooks: $60 Gift Certificate

  Craft Coach: Scraptastic Prize Basket valued at $50

Crafty CreationsRetreat: 

Vintage Altered Train Case and a $50 Little Blue House Gift Certificate

  ScrapbookCelebrations: $75 Gift Certificate

 Crafty Neighbor: $50 Gift Certificate and Embellishment Grab Bag

   Very Vintage Retreat: Half Price Weekend for 5 guests valued at $250

  The Crafty Scrapper: $60 Gift Certificate

Dallas Crafter's Marathon: 2 spots at a DCM event to use by 4/30/14

 Craft-Inn Retreat:

 2 complimentary spots when you book a minimum of 6 guests

HOW to WIN:

Beginning Oct.17th through Oct.20th, simply visit each of the above listed sites, become a follower of their blog or sign up for their newsletter. Read the post and look for a Treat (a different treat will be mentioned at each destination). As you hop from site to site, you must collect ALL the TREATS! When you are done, you will send your name and treat List to: 

     alltreatsnotricks2013@gmail.com

Your email becomes your entry for the FaBuLouS

 All Treats No Tricks Prize Drawing!!!  

Great thing about this Hop Local Event...You never have to leave your home or office to WIN...You could hop in your jammies, on your lunch hour, or while the kiddos are napping...YoU can HoP anytime from 7am (central) on Oct. 17th through 12am (midnight) on Oct. 20th. 

ALL TREATS WINNERS will be announced on Wed. 10/23!

Good Luck to you ALL and 

THANK YOU for supporting Small Business

 and shopping (and hopping) local!

Thrifty Thursday

Sometimes I come across a thrifty idea for budget-minded scrappers like me, so I thought I might start up a “Thrifty Thursday” post now and then.  This week, I stumbled across an unusual place to purchase “bling”…the grocery store!

Yep, you read that right, I bought bling for my scrapbooks at the grocery store.  What I actually found was this cute Halloween pumpkin decoration.  Priced at just $3.99, it’s a lot cheaper than anything equivalent I could get at a local craft or hobby store. 

This got me to thinking…maybe there are some hidden scrapbooking gems in the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day decorations, too!

Do you have an idea for Thrifty Thursday?  Send me an email at Thrifty@craftyneighbor.com.  If your tip is used on my blog, I’ll reach into my prize vault and send you a little goodie.

Sunday News

This is just going to be a very short blog entry today. I just can't keep my eyes open because I just got in last night from a week in Cancun inspecting 7 different Palace Resorts.  Oh my!  I am so ready to go back there, and I'm actually thinking about trying to put together a scrapbooking event there for next year.  I just wanted to pass on some little tidbits of information before I go fall out and take a long nap!

As you may have noticed, we have not held our annual Think Pink (aka Pam's Pals) event this year.  I'm sorry, but there was no availability at our usual location and it has also been a very busy fall so far this year.  I am working on putting something together for January, so I will keep you posted!

Events that are coming up in the next few months are:

• Weekly Mother's Day Out crops most Thursdays 
• 3rd Wednesday Stamp Club
• 6th Annual Scrapbooking Cruise

Information about these and other events can be found on our Meetup.com website.

Here on the blog, we'll be having a few events, too.  For October, look for two different blog hops.  We'll be participating in our monthly Team LinkedIn blog hop and also the All Treats, No Tricks blog hop with Dallas/Fort Worth area stores and retreats.  Be sure to check out all the blogs for a chance to win a prize on each one.

And speaking of winning prizes, our September blog hop winner is Cheryl Albee.  Cheryl is the winner of a $25+ bag of embellishments.  Cheryl, you have 1 week to contact us to claim your prize!

Last, but not least, I want to talk a little more about Cancun.  As you may know, I am a travel agent, and I host scrapbooking cruises.  Sometimes these cruises are easy to put together, and sometimes they just don't work.  For instance, our 2013 cruise has undergone many changes.  We started out with a September departure on Carnival Cruise Line, and now we are on a Royal Caribbean cruise departing in December.  It all comes down to logistics -- finding the right dates, going to the right destination, at the right price with a conference room or other space available for our use 24/7.  I've already run into some difficulties trying to set up next year's cruise, and it looks like we may have to opt for a higher-priced cruise in order to get a date that will work for us.  So that leads me to another question...how do you feel about doing a land-based premium retreat?  I'm talking about a vacation destination get-away to some awesome place where you can choose to scrapbook or just soak up some sun.  I have several destinations in mind, but they would all require flying, which would limit the amount of scrapbooking equipment you could bring along.  What do you think?  Comment below to share your thoughts on going to a destination retreat, and be sure to find us on facebook and take our poll on this subject.  You never know...we might have a great destination that's just right for you.