There is something about the changing of the leaves and the nip in the air that makes me want to bake things and give them to people. To do this, I like to have cards!

Here are some great ones from our design team.

By Debbie Olson, using Earth Love.

By Laura Craigie, using Nutmeg.

By Debbie Olson, using Earth Love.

By Gudrun Loennecken, using Mr. Campy.

Maybe you have new neighbors. I do.

By Wendy Sue Anderson, using Early Bird.

By Gudrun Loennecken, using Earth Love and Snorkel.

Maybe you have teens. I just bought winter clothes and books for mine. It would have been nice to make a card for them too. I like to write them little notes sometimes. I find they consider that much more special than just a compliment.

By Debbie Olson, using The Boyfriend.

By Laura Craigi, using The Boyfriend.

Or, maybe you just want to let someone know how special they are to you.

By Laura Craigie, using Everafter.

By Laura Craigie, using Earth Love.

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Now for the winner of my collagey painting. Congratulations, Karen who said, "This is stunning!! I absolutely would love to have hanging in my house. (I'd like a few lessons too.)" Well, Karen, stay tuned. Eric and I have plans for an upcoming video tutorial. Maybe one featuring me teaching Lindsay to paint! We'll see if I can talk him into it or not.

For now, send your address to kristen@cosmocricket.com and we'll send you the painting. It might not ship until tomorrow though. I used some oils with it and they are taking their time drying.

Let's begin with the important stuff. I received this comment yesterday on Tuesday's post.

"........I am sure at one time I thought Lindsay was a girl, and married to Julie. :-)"

I'm really sorry to single you out RitaS, but I have to know, when you thought he was a girl and when you thought he was married to me were two different moments in time, right? I mean, you didn't think he was a girl AND married to me, did you? Just wonderin'.

OK, now I want to share a really fun book with you all.

I love everything about this book. The illustration's are fantastic, it promotes individual thinking and it fosters creativity and imagination. Each page has a question to think about like: What sort of animal would you like to be? Then there are usually follow up questions like: Would you be friends with people? Or not?

This weekend, we are going to use this book to spark ideas for paintings. We often have family art nights but now that my kids are getting older, they are more influenced by what they see their friends drawing and doing. They have also become molded by the school system and forgotten themselves a bit. I am hoping that using this book as part of our activity will help them remember.

Here's some of my favorite pieces from my kids.

Abby did this self portrait at school. In the second grade, she still has her quirky, design-y style. I hope she never loses it!

Ethan's style definitely went more boyish around the 4-5th grades. Now, in the 8th grade, he is really into dragons, ninjas and weapons. But, I still love all the emotion he put into this piece.

I love how each of my kid's styles is a reflection of their personalities. Kate is a softie. She cries whenever anybody cries, she gets sad when she hears sad stories on the news, etc, etc. She loves all beautiful things like flowers, butterflies and rainbows. Even her style is soft.

And where's Jack's art, you ask? Well, Jack prefers match box cars. He doesn't like art. :( But he does a great job of adding sound effects to the pink eraser as he drives it around the table.

OK, enough bragging about my kids, I suppose we should announce the winner of that happy Paisleys and Polka Dots kit. Congratulations, Shannon who said, "i am a scrapper wannabe and this kit is absolutely perfect. i've always wanted to try scrapbooking but never knew where to start. what a great idea!"  Shannon, send your address to kristen@cosmocricket.com and when the UPS man shows up, you can officially call your self a scrapper!

Papercrafty Thing #1: Torendi Kit Club Giveaway

Have you heard of Torendi yet? They are a brand knew kit club and online shop you should definitely check out. Why you ask..... well for one thing they have some really cool twill ribbons (they are not Cosmo Cricket and I don't make any money at all for endorsing them). Also, they have this really cool tape (same thing as before, I just really love it!).

But, there is another reason to check them out, especially today. You could win their kit this month that features Earth Love (my endorsement of Earth Love is totally biased and yes, I do make money when stores buy it, so keep that in mind.) Here's a sneakie of it, notice that cute twill I was talking about? It's a perfect kit for card makers with 6" papers and fun stamps.

Here's some things their designers made with this kit.

If you want to win this set, you need to visit the Torendi blog and leave a comment there, but be sure to come back here and read the other two Papercrafty things!

Papercrafty Thing #2: Scrapbook.com challenge winner.

As always, we have a monthly challenge going on over at scrapbook.com. If you would like to enter this month's challenge, you could win some Nutmeg along with some other Cosmo Cricket goodness that I can't recall at the moment. Anyway, last month's winner was Ami G. She made this beautiful Everafter layout that I just love! Check it out.

Papercrafty Thing #3: A Get Well Card for Lindsay

I really think that Lindsay needs a personal health crisis coordinator. Yesterday, he unexpectedly, had his gallbladder removed. I told him he should have scheduled that for the same day as his amnesia episode so he wouldn't have remembered either. My kids all made him get well cards and I did too, here's mine.

He actually looked really good. In fact, his coloring was better than my own..... in my perfectly healthy state!

I had planned to show a fall home decor project today. Unfortunately, as I was about to put it all together over the weekend, I realized that I was out of styrofoam and hot glue.

So, instead, I'll tell you two funny grocery shopping stories that happened this past week.

On Wednesday, Eric and I were grabbing a couple things quickly at the store. We had just gotten into the check out line when I saw some popcorn on an endcap. I left Eric in line to go get some. As I came back, I saw him swiping his card and so I handed the popcorn directly to the cashier and said, "Is it OK if we get this too?" Then Eric turned to me and I saw that it wasn't really Eric at all. Just some other super tall man with sandy blonde hair. 

OK, so fast forward to last Saturday night. We are at the store again buying everything to make beef bourguinon for Sunday's dinner when we ran into our friend, Jon. Eric and he began chatting, I got tired of waiting around and so I left the cart near them and headed down the aisle looking for a good red wine (did you know they don't sell wine at grocery stores in Utah?).

Anyway, I eventually returned to the cart, as Jon and Eric were wandering away the other direction. As we headed down the next aisle, I noticed some linguini noodles in our cart. I asked Eric what the linguini was for. He said, "I didn't put that in there, you did." I assured him that I didn't. That, combined with noiticing a young man running after us, is when we realized I had stolen someone's cart.

The next morning, our friend called our house to make sure we made it to the right home with our own groceries.

So, the point of these two stories? Be careful while shopping at Macey's in Providence! There's crazy people shopping there!!