WINNER of the No Tricks . . .Only Treats! Give-Away

AND THE WINNER IS! . . . .(GO TO BOTTOM OF THIS POST)

Before you write or call to remind me that I don't do Halloween, let me explain . . .

I recently met a really sweet young lady by the name of Michelle Cummings. We met by way of a contest on her blog Faerie Dust Dreams. When I e-mailed Michelle with my snail mail address so she could send my winning bird nest with blue eggs necklace charm, she realized that we both lived in South Orange County - and really close to each other. So, we met for coffee one morning, and talked and talked and, well, you get the picture.

Michelle told me that she has hosted a few charm swaps on her blog before, and that she was going to be hosting one for Halloween. I told her that I didn't *d0* Halloween, but let me know anyway. She was just so nice - it was hard to say no.

Ok, so I joined. There were 30 of us when the swap was formed. Then it went down to 20. Ten have since dropped out due to various reasons. I have eight (8) charms left over, and would like to offer them all to one lucky blogger in a drawing here on my blog.

I'm going to make this easy. Just leave me a comment about what you like or dislike about Halloween, by midnight, Sunday, October 19th, and I will put your name in a pumpkin - oh wait, I don't have Halloween decorations!

I'll put your name in a bowl and have the teenage manchild pull a name out on Monday morning , October 20th. Check back here that evening, and if you see your name, well, YOU WIN! Send me your name and snail mail address, and the charms will be in the mail to you the next day. Now how easy is THAT?!

Teenage man-child randomly picking the winner

and the winner IS . . .

Thank you all for stopping by and entering my give-away. I enjoyed meeting new friends and visiting with not-so-new friends. Please stop by again, I've got another give-away up my sleeves!

33 comments:

KimisKanvas said...

I have always loved Halloween because with my creative streak AND tendancy for playing dress up anyway... Well you get the picture. THEN it happened. My child was born and I began to dress him up for Halloween. And he always or perhaps I'll say usually won the best costume contest where ever he was.That thrilled me of course. Then my godson came and I did the same, made costume for him and his older brothers and well... I just love dressing the kids up, dressing up with them and walking door to door and seeing all the little spooks come to my door. Sometimes I even take pictures of them!

That Girl Ang said...

Oooh I don't "do" Halloween either...

But as a child I did celebrate the season.. my fond memories are:

1. Trick Or Treating on Mystery Night (my mom)
2. Dad taking us to the Mom & Pop stores (malls weren't big then) to get the "good" candy
3.Pouring our candy out in a big pile to check the candy with my siblings
4.Plastic costumes with the plastic masks & the rubber band that always popped
5.School parades
6. "The Great Pumpkin" need I say more?

Dislikes:
1. The Black Van hoax
2. Urban Myths tales of missing kids & other horrible crimes
3. The story of Houdini's death
4. The feeling of "...something wicked this way comes"

Rachael Hutchings said...

My favorite thing about Halloween is candy corn, candy corn all the way. Usually I'm purely a chocolate girl . . . until Halloween time rolls around, and then I'm known to step out on my chocolate to spend time with my other love. :-)

Creatively Lisa said...

I was just blog hopping and wanted to say...I think your blog has some interesting stuff.
I love the Halloween charms. My Daughter would enjoy them.
Personally I'm not much of a Halloween person. I liked it as a kid and when my kids were little it was fun dressing them up and taking them out with friends.
Now that they are older I don't like the fact that they still want to trick or treat. I will usually just buy them candy and tell them to stay home.

Cottage Way of Life said...

Costuming, it's all about costuming for me. When I was a kid, my mom always made me the best, and most elaborate, costumes. When I had kids, I continued that tradition, designing and making costumes for them. It was so much fun. Even though everyone's all grown up now, I still make the costumes ... we start plotting what we will be in July (so Halloween really starts then for me). You know, it's so much more fun to hand out candy when you are costumed!

I also love the eerie part of Halloween. I love "costuming" my house with the antiques I have collected and trying to make it look like a haunted mansion. I don't like scary though, hate that. None of the bloody, nasty, killer, scary Halloween for me ... just creepy, eerie. Creepy, eerie ... it's a good thing.

-Sue
PS. Love Art Supply Warehouse too. I could literally move in and live there. I think maybe, that would be one version of heaven for me. Haha.

sf said...

Okay, when *I* was a kid, we weren't ALLOWED to "do" Halloween; trick or treating was "begging". It was hard in school (for creatively maxed me) watching everyone else have a crazy dress-up blast. So I instated (couldn't 'reinstate', since I'd never had it) Halloween into my own life when my oldest was 3 - 32 years ago. I have never looked back. I could go into all the philosophy pros and cons, but why? This is YOUR blog, not my soapbox!!
xxo
sarah

sf said...

PS Love the current soundtrack.
s

Connie said...

what fun i had visiting your blog! I can't believe we didn't get together when I was in LA!
Halloween was my mother's favorite holiday. she decorated with life size witches that she flew from 100 foot pine trees in the front yard, and she borrowed coffin boxes from the local mortuary and dressed up like a zombie and hid inside and scared tricker treaters....and, she took all of us downtown cruising in the old station wagon to throw tomatoes and eggs (yes, this is true, 1968,San Jose, Calif, and lots of kids, driven by their mothers did it - it wasn't vandalism, no one got hurt, and it was a tradition - messy, but harmless - no one ever got arrested or stopped by the police).
my mom was a blast. i guess i love halloween because of her, although I have never done the wild things with my children that she did with me.

Anonymous said...

I enjoy Halloween because I love to see the creativity people use to make costumes! (I also love candy!!) I just participated in a Halloween charm swap and got some wonderful charms to start a collection. I would love to add yours to it!! Thanks for the chance to win.

donna h.

Francine Cronos said...

I love your blog. Like you, I'm not much into Halloween - I don't decorate. When my kids were younger, about the only thing we did was to carve pumpkins. When I was a child, I used to love making a costume from old clothes that we had in a big trunk. I lived in a very small town, so trick or treating was safe because everyone knew everyone else. Now I'm a product of Weight Watchers, so my candy consumption is sadly limited.

Renée James said...

I love it because it is the one time of the year that people dont look at you if you look odd. I am a little out there at times with my hair or clothes and it is looked down on by my conservative job so I love Halloween.

Just-Kim said...

Your charms are beautiful! So why do I love Halloween? I just love everything about it... helping my 5and 7 year old pick out a costume, going to the local pumpkin patch earlier in the month so that on Halloween we can carve them to funny or spooky or cute faces, watching my kids have fun as they play dress up and try 'scaring' us, walking my kids around to the neighbors trick or treating and saying Hi!, seeing all my neighbors kids come to my house with their costumes, some home made, some bought (one year I had two kids show up on my doorstep dressed as a washer and a dryer - how clever!). It's such a wonderful 'kids' holiday to me. In some ways better than Christmas as there's not much expectation for 'presents' and people are usually more generous on Halloween than Christmas. Your neighbor will gladly hand out candy to your child on Halloween but you probably won't see your neighbor give your kid a toy for Christmas. I think in some ways, Halloween is a more relaxed and giving Holiday than some of the others. Ohhh.. and I have a thing for vampires - spooky! :-)

Charmingdesigns said...

Thanks for letting me know where to find the bird cages, shes going to let me know when she gets more in!! Laurie

Amy Wing said...

OOh! Those charms are juicy and lovely!

Halloween - loved it when I was a kid, but my parents were Halloween-scrooges. Didn't like us trick or treating once we were past pre-school age (and satisfied with a few houses they could take us to). So, I usually didn't do much except maybe the church party or something.

Now I'm a Halloween scrooge - turn off the lights and hide in the back. I know, how horrible of me. But last year, I did have fun making very cute costumes for my kids (which I would love to sell or even give away this year - anyone want a pink pig costume for a school-ager or a jack-o'lantern for a toddler?)

I have to say, although I hate the idea of hoofing it around the neighborhood with the kiddos again this year, I did totally love putting together Gauche Alchemy's Nevermore kits for this month. I guess for the creative stuff, I still do love it. Otherwise, meh.

Gaby Bee said...

All your Halloween charms are simply stunning, Sherry. I especially adore the one with the two little guys, love her hats!
In Germany we did not celebrate Halloween so much and I don't "do" Halloween. I love the carved pumpkins and the candy corn, but I hate spiders...grrr
Love and Hugs
Gaby

Ina Good said...

I like to dress up still and go to Halloween parties,,I love carmel taffy apples with nuts!!!Anything Pumpkin!!Love going around neighborhoods to see the Halloween displays and pumpkin carvings!!! Like seeing the little ones all dressedup in costumes...like going to the two neighbors haunted houses and donating pet food to go in to the homeless animal shelter..Love the cool crisp air and smell of leaves...jumping in piles of leaves!!I think I am in my second childhood...Oh my!!! Love the Halloween art work and would love to win the charms!!Thanks for letting me enter and enjoying your blog!! Ina

Anonymous said...

I love Halloween because it is my brothers birthday and that has given us a great reason to dress up as children and as adults and have a crazy fun time all in his honor, and of course share it with all the trick or treators that show up. Love the colors, the candy and of course who doesn't love all that pumpkin carving, and the pumpkin pies, oops that was when I still had the energy to actually make them by hand..

I also love Halloween because you are kind enough to want to share some of your charms with the lucky winners. ;-)

Michaele C.

Anne, Bulles dorées said...

I didn't celebrate Halloween before ten years ago. I love all theses decorations, the jack o lantern, the deguisements, and the candies !!! :p

Anonymous said...

I'm in the uk and it's only been for a couple of years you could get any halloween stuff, but I'm enjoying getting into it now!
Nikie

CreativeElements said...

I love your Halloween charms, Sherry! They are adorable.

I love Halloween for a couple of reasons. My husband of 15 years asked me to marry him two days before Halloween while we were carving a pumpkin on night. It has been tradition for us ever since to carve a Halloween pumpkin.... no matter what! My girls now love it, too.

I have always made costumes for my girls. I love to watch them running around in them and having fun, though we only take them to homes of people that we know. We LOVE the treats, but try to avoid the tricks! Ha! This year, they will be two little clowns. I will have to send pictures. :)

Thank you for the fun opportunity to win these charms! I hope your adorable son just happens to pick me out of the bowl!!

Melissa
Creative Elements

Unknown said...

My birthday is October 20th, so every year my mother had a Halloween themed party for me. My friends came in costume and there were scary stories and my dad dressed as a ghost shaking hands with each guest.. He would be wearing a rubber glove filled with water! Very creepy stuff. I always wanted to be dressed as something pretty, not scary. I still enjoy seeing all the little ones in their various costumes.
Linda Miller

CindyB said...

I like Halloween for the simple fact it is a good indicator that cold weather is on the way.
eiggam44@yahoo.com

Anonymous said...

Would love to be the lucky winner!! These are sooooo cute!!

Carolyn Miller

Barb said...

Hi Sherry,
Absolutely luv the Halloween charms!
Halloween decorations can be so festive - pumpkins of all sizes and shapes, colorful gourds, Indian corn,friendly scarecrows -- it means Fall is here and Thanksgiving and Christmas are not far behind!!!
Thanks for offering this wonderful give-away.

karlascottage.typepad.com said...

Those are cute as a bug. I'm not a big Halloween person myself, but as the years go by and I see more and more elaborate displays and decor for the holiday, I am wanting to join in more. any opportunity to decorate is a good one to me!

Anonymous said...

I like the nostalgia of Halloween! As a kid it was fun to meet up with friends and get tons of candy and run through the streets together screaming as we wnet! Often my folks gave parties when we were young bobbing for apples, donut string eating contests. Getting dressed up as something sweet was always fun too! I also loved horror movies as a kid like the bride of Frankenstien etc... The newer movies are a bit much gore for me I preferr a movie with a chilling twist rather then all blood and gutz! We also used to go over to my aunties house and because she had no children then she would deck her house in candy and treats and trick us everytime with a good hardly boo scare! She was so much fun and we always looked forward to that! This year we are trying something new. A guy I know is having a haunting at his house he has spent fifteen thousand dollars on it so it should be great! Lights on for the little ones.
What I don't like about Halloween is worshipping the devil or the killing of animals and pets. Also when people kidnap children or poison their candy it's an opportune time for petaphiles. I think it's prtobably best to only take your children to people whom you know. NOT THAT WE DID THAT AS KIDS! I also think it's played down that the devil is real which I believe he is. I think we all have a darkside though and Halloween can be a time where it is safe to try getting in touch with that. Like for example: if you always wanted to be a cross dresser this is the only day it's ok to do that. Or if you love scaring others innocently then go for it dress as a scarcrow and wait on your porch and jump at the kids! MEAN! Sometimes not all art is pretty but can still send a powerful message. Halloween can be fun, should be for kids especially, maybe more about harvest and screaming in the cold weather then about evil and all that it entails. Sanna

Art by Ronda Juniper Ray said...

Hi, Sherry, and thank you so much for stopping by! What I hate about Halloween -- ORANGE AND BLACK!
:-)))

What I love -- CANDY! Yum!

I'm off to read the rest of your posts - the photo of bling in the next post is calling my name!

Warmest (and Halloween candy sweetest!) regards, Ronda

Anonymous said...

Halloween…
What a wonderful night!
Dressing up spooky
To give kids a fright!

The fantasies are fun for sure,
But there’s something that’s more dandy.
And I have to admit it’s immature,
But I love Halloween CANDY!!

Katina (who also loves your halloween charms!!)
kjkoukla(at)hotmail(dot)com

Alecia Wolfford said...

These are SO CUTE, love them!! And I love that you call him teenage man-child, hehe, soooo gonna use that!!

I LOVE Halloween, especially dressing up. Yes, I still dress up every year, even though my teens aren't really into it anymore. We have a really fun Halloween Party at work with prizes for all sorts of things, so I enjoy it!!

Thanks for the chance!!

Queenly Things said...

I snoozed, I losed. Wah!!!

Renée James said...

HOT DIGGITY DOG

Sandra Evertson said...

Those are Fabulous!
Happy early Halloween!
Sandra Evertson

Anonymous said...

LOL!@ Queenly things... I was trying to think of the past tense of snooze when I realized it was as past as the actual drawing...dog bite...