An announcement

A blog is supposed to be interactive. There is a way for people to post comments, negative or positive, and a way people can enroll as followers.

The blogwriter takes his/her cue from the feedback gained via comments. With good feedback it becomes clear what readers enjoy - and just as important, what they don't.

When there is no feedback it's impossible to know for sure if a blog is providing readers with entertainment or inspiration. It's like talking to a brick wall, without feedback. No response.

Something went mechanically wrong with this blog several weeks ago. Most people couldn't get on to comment(people who know me personally alerted me to this). One person could get on sometimes but only after trying over and over again until it finally worked. This is not normal.

I have reported this several times to the site owners who faciliate all the blogs, but have had no response other than robo-messages. The messages never fit the situation. They also have a "no reply" feature so I can't argue with them!

It was sad to me that after much preparation and interest, when I ran my card giveaway contest through the month of October almost no one was able to participate.

I have to acknowledge the fact that for unknown reasons, this blog is clogged! It is not interactive as it's supposed to be. It's dead in the water. Nothing whatsoever informs me that it will ever be fixed.

Instead of posting here as usual, I am busy trying to find a blog site that works. I will then export my blog to that location and notify everyone here where it is relocated.

Meanwhile thank you so much to all those who have read my blog, who have tried to respond or follow, and who hoped to continue reading. I am very sorry for the technical problems but I did not create them and I have no way to fix them.

Day 31 - October Farewell

How could a month pass so quickly?

October is almost gone and Miss Scarecrow is wearing her somber burlap dress today. Her fierce looking jack-o-lantern candy bucket is slung over one arm. Though she is planted firmly in the ground and cannot go out on the trick-or-treat circuit, she's pretty sure somebody will wander by and leave her a caramel or a chocolate bar.

Miss Scarecrow is a little sad to bid adieu to Halloween fun, but the super-perky gingham bow on her card kind of hints at more festivities to come this fall. Thanksgiving is only a wink away.

It has been so much fun for me to host this handmade card giveaway during the month of October.

I am disappointed, however, that some kind of cyberspace glitch has been dogging my blog! Within a couple of days of starting the contest I began to receive email messages that people could not get on the blog to participate. A very few are always able to get on, but many can't ever get on at all and say they get error messages or "gobbledygook" when they try. My settings are all in compliance with google's cookies and security policies so I just don't know what's going on. Only about 18 readers have been able to access the blog, and some have emailed me that they couldn't register as Followers (no new Followers have appeared since last May, so that should have been a clue to me that something was up). I've tried to find out why these glitches are happening, but all I get are automated help messages that never fit the circumstances. The "help" forum is packed with other users who are having the same kinds of problems, but those problems never seem to be addressed. I apologize to everyone who couldn't get on here and I hope somehow the problems will be resolved. After all, a blog is supposed to be interactive!

The silver lining is, for those who could get on and participate, the odds of winning on any given day were astronomical because of so few being able to enter, and of course not everybody who could register came on each day, either.

I loved sending out cards to the winners! Your feedback was so good to hear and made me very grateful that you all took the time to participate and respond.

Thanks to all the viewers and contestants this past month - and I wish each of you a Happy Halloween today from october pumpkin rubber stamps!

Day 30 - The End Is Near

Last night was trick-or-treat night in our town and several surrounding towns. It's always a big production here in the midwest! After the first several hundred kids we ran out of candy. Each year there are more and more. Vanloads of kids are dropped off in our neighborhood and some of them circle around the loop several times.

I miss the fun Halloweens when our own two were young and we spent weeks working on their costumes so they would be just right. Our daughter, like most little girls, always wanted to wear a pretty costume. Our little boy wanted scary or wild outfits. Once we made a giant green papier mache froghead for him and he wore bright green pantihose for legs with swim fin feet. Oh yeah, it was scary!

When I shopped for candy yesterday (hoping for last-minute markdowns, but there were none)people were grabbing huge bags of it from one section of shelves while across the aisle at the very same time clerks were stocking those shelves with boxes of candy canes and marshmallow snowmen. Pretty weird!

Day 29 - Wichita's mischief

Oh No!!! I had gluestick-fingers when I put today's card on the scanner, and now the smears are visible in the photo (they are on the scanner, not on the card itself!)and I have an appointment this morning so I don't have time to clean the scanner and start all over!

It's almost Halloween and Wichita is already casting a spell, ruining my scan!

You get the general idea of what the card looks like - remember, the gluestick smears were on the scanner surface and will NOT be present on the card if you are its winner.

Remember how I already said buttons & ribbon were my favorite embellishments, but I forgot to say tags were too? Now I'm adding another fave - those tiny stick-on dots, used on shiny cardstock.

Doesn't Wichita look alot feistier surrounded by tiny explosions of metallic green on patent leather cardstock? I made her look so good. She should be ashamed of casting her evil spell on me. Bad Wichita! And it's not even Halloween yet!

Day 28 - Three more days!

When people are scared they turn "white as a ghost". So what do ghosts turn when they're scared?
Transparent!

Day 27: Make to Order

I'm posting tomorrow's card tonight because I won't be home tomorrow morning.

After seeing some cardstock letters I liked at the craft store, it was impossible to resist making the card you see here. It would have been a quick card except the letters were yellow and I wanted orange, so I had to color them with a felt tipped marker. The dots are stick-ons - easy, easy!

This month we have been celebrating the rubber stamp biz called october pumpkin! My daughter Stephanie runs this biz and I design the stamps. I've been giving away a handmade card each day via random drawings - it's not too late to jump in, so scroll back to the start of the month for the info on entering. You can enter here on the blog in the Comments box, or via my email:pelikanbeach@gmail.com - but you have only 5 days to get in on the fun!

Although the name Tara is on the card today, the winner will receive a duplicate card with her own name or any choice of names. That is, unless your name is Henrietta Elfreida Evangelina which wouldn't fit on a card this size.

You may wonder where the october pumpkin stamp images are on this card. The candy corn stamp is used to "pretty up the envelope" and a couple of pumpkins are stamped inside the card along with the message. There just wasn't room for one on the front!

Day 26: Tag addiction

Here is a true story. A few years ago when I found out about papercrafting I became addicted to tagmaking and ended up with hundreds of them before I realised it.

I have always done painting. So, you might say, artsy stuff is artsy stuff. No, it definitely isn't! When you paint it's two dimensional,flat. When you do papercrafts, it's dimensional. You are applying layers and small objects. You can very quickly stamp images, add embellishments, backgrounds and borders, change your composition, your color scheme, subtract embellishments, go crazy because after all it's just fun and very informal. There's no stress or tension because if you mess up you can immediately start over and in a few minutes have something completely different. There are lots of surprises, and ideas burst out like wildfire. Best of all, you're not waiting for the paint to dry!

I started in papercrafting by making tags and I was having so much fun, whipping them out eveery 5 to 10 minutes, that pretty soon I had 2 drawers filled with about 500 tags. Then I stopped myself. What do you do with that many tags? Actually, I started enclosing them in letters and cards. I gave tags away to friends in bundles of 25 at a time. They seemed to love getting them. People used them for bookmarks, package ties, place name IDs.

How about you? Have you tried your hand at this fun little project - making a tag?