Click here for a give-a-way from a sweet blogger.

I promise I will come right back to add pictures-I am going to download right now but wanted you to be able to get your posts in.

**Update:  I posted pictures last night and they are gone so I am re-posting them.

To all of the prayer warriors — can I ask you to pray for my Mom.  If you have read about me in ‘The G-Force Family’, you know my Mom survived cancer.  She has been in a lot of pain lately, and not herself at all.  She went to the Dr and all the tests, they did were fine but she is still in a ton of pain and has a Dr. appointment today.  She is sure they will do a CAT scan this time.  She made a comment last night that alarmed me even more, than just the pain, she said “something is not right”.  It brought back all the conversations from her cancer discovery, several years ago.  She kept saying back then, “something just isn’t right”.

So have you heard about my BIG Announcement?:

I want to start featuring a home cottage per month. Your homes, so others can be inspired by you and see what creative things you have created. I think it sounds like such a fun idea. I love LOVE touring my friends homes. I’m thinking I will create a button at the top or side of my blog for each monthly feature (but it will also be a post that I do), so people can click and see it all month long or maybe it would be better to have a video clip-I’m finishing up the details so if you are interested in having your home featured, let me know right away and I will get you on the list. I will do a post of your home on a Friday, (since I have my party and favorites Mon-Thurs). For now, it will be the featured cottage for the month week-because you gals like this idea too. You may want to do a room or you may want to do your entire home, that is up to you. It can be inside or outside your cottage, your cottage can any size, as well. Show us your creative adventures in making your home a dream cottage. If you have any tutorials that you can show of something that you did as a DIY project then that would be GREAT, PLEASE let me know about the tutorials when you e-mail me so I know what kind of projects we will be showing. Help get the word out.

NOW what should we call the featured Monthly Cottage? Help me come up with a great Cottage name. Post your name suggestions in the comments and put your name on the list if you want your home showcased and I will be getting with everyone to start posting on Fridays.  I have thought about something like The Weekly Dream Cottage Home Tour.  Let those creative juices start flowing and give me suggestions.  I am thinking we will start next Friday, and I need time to get the button done (since we are back into our home school schedule) and get the first person all set up to go, so I have less than a week to have everything done.
 Someone suggested:  Its So Very Cottagey—Keep them coming.

I would really appreciate it, if everyone who has enjoyed these parties will grab my buttons to post on your side bar so others will learn about the party and come post their beautiful inspirations as well, so we can be inspired even more. I have a button created for the Knock Off Knock Out party and the Celebrate the Holidays party. Thanks gals.

I love coming to meet you and if you follow me I will come and do the same. If you have not had a visit from me with in 24 hours you need to contact me because I can not find you -due to the way your account is set up, or Google issues. I feel really bad when I can not keep my promise.

Be sure to subscribe. It is great for you, you can view all your blogs in one spot. I had one gal, who had no idea what it was. She e-mailed me and said “You are my new best friend”. I guess she was pretty thrilled with her new time saving tip. It quick, free and makes blog life so much better.

Come by for the Knock Off Knock Out party next Monday, and bring your posts.

Let’s get to the Holiday party. I will be posting to these parties:

I finished my pumpkins the other day but I didn’t have time to get my hand painted leaves on them or the jute twine wines I made to attach the leaves, but I have them done for today.

 Do you see my chalkboard in front of the old shutter?  I need to get some chalk so I can write on it some Halloween message.

I repainted the one little salmon colored pumpkin, I just wasn’t happy with it and it is now a cranberry color. It looks so pretty sitting next to the copper one.

I also got my faux mercury glass pumpkins done. I wanted to try and get this look, as much as possible.
Do you see that milky, runny look to the light on the far right? and then there are these:
I knew I couldn’t get that look completely, after all my pumpkins aren’t glass but I didn’t like the all over silver look-for me. I painted them silver, then added some black paint for some depth, I sprayed over that with silver and a frosted nickle spray paint. I flecked it with hammered bronze paint. It was hilarious to the neighbors, I’m sure, as the wind continued to change paths. I was holding a pumpkin in one hand while holding my can of hammered bronze in the other. I was trying to get the paint to mist the pumpkin. I just wanted speckles of brown. So, close your eyes and try to imagine me swishing pumpkins in the air (the neighbors had no idea I was trying to get a misted look-they probably just thought I was nuts.)and every time the wind would change direction, so I would swish a different way and you guessed it, the wind would change again. I think I acquired 49 new mosquito bites while trying to get a misted look. (And if you didn’t know this-Florida has, not only normal mosquitos that are a pain in the butooky but also Salt Water Mosquitos. They are more agressive and don’t fly away when swatted at, they can travel far distances, unlike regular mosquitos that stay close to their babies..OK enough with the science lesson). I let them dry and I just wasn’t satisfied. Yes, sometimes I get a little obsessive compulsive, perfectionist, only the best will do attitude crafty and want my item to look like a Knock Off Knock Out instead of home made, so I continued working on them. I swished some areas with white pearlized paint-still not it, ahha-I added a little water and it got that speckled, dried water splatterish look to it (yeah-you’re right splatterish isn’t a real word). I was thinking Uh-huh I’m liking this now. I got a fine tipped paint brush and started dotting in brown dark brown dots and I would dab with my fingers to make themmore muted. They were looking so good. I decided to let them dry and see how they looked once completely dry. I took pictures though to show you for the Celebrate the Holidays party and as I was downloading my camera the battery went dead—ugghhhh. Sorry if I woke the kids with that scream that traveled across the great US–my day has gone so unplanned-it feels like organized chaos today. So I am hoping, as I type this out that there will be enough charge so I can download my pictures and get them on here.

So here are the faux mercury glass pumpkins-what do you think?

**I want to add in a disclaimer here.  I woke up this morning and I do not want anyone who has done the shiny mercury pumpkins to think I am dishing on their pumpkins.  I think they are beautiful and I will probably do some of the shiny as well but I just wanted these to have that milky look.  I woke up this morning, worried and thought ‘I hope I didn’t offend anyone-that was not my intent at all’.

Here is the pumpkin painting tutorial if you want to know how I made the pumpkins turn from ordinary orange pumpkins into these charming colorful pumpkins.

ANYONE is welcome to join the party.

How do you join?

**You need to create a post about your item. (I suggest opening 2 browser windows so you can go back and forth-it just goes faster.) In your post you need to add my KNOCK OFF KNOCK OUT button (copy the code in the scroll box under the box and copy it into your post) or add the link to my post so people can find the party.

**You need to add the permalink (NOT your blog address). If you click on your post title, copy that code that appears in the address bar and then post it to MckLinky.

If you come back and your post is not here, it is because you forgot to do one of the above things, just fix it and re-post. I have been trying to come by and let people know if they forgot something but with our home school year underway, I can not guarantee that I can do that this week. We enjoy every new post and I appreciate everyone who has posted the party buttons on their side bar. You guys really do inspire me.

I can not wait to see all the wonderful projects. I will post my favorites tomorrow and those gals will get to post the “I’ve been featured” button on their blogs.