Wow! I received my seeds yesterday...a day filled with many not so fun errands and chores. Sorting through the seed assortment was a great way to unwind and relax afterwards. It was fun to google a LOT of cool, new-to-me, varieties. The black seeds from shark fin squash are so unusual. At first I thought they had been spray painted! I'm not sure if they will set fruit at my latitude, but we'll see. I'll be sure to try the leaves and shoots, also. The patterns on the Nippon Island Squash are weird. It's fun just to look at the seeds, but I'll plant them next spring :). I'm looking forward to growing and sampling the hulless seeds from the Kakai pumpkin.....and growing many other varieties. Maybe more of the lawn will be disappearing ;) Thanks julia and everyone else who traded.

We've done the "sugar art" with and without cinnamon. We handed these out at Christmas as gifts from the kids. I printed up some instructions for cinnamon toast on the computer and cut them out and had the kids glue them to fancy scrapbook paper. I punched a hole and tied them to the jar with ribbon. My fil is in a nursing home. I have the kids make him the big sugar shakers full of colored sugar for his coffee. It's a great conversation piece for the grandpa and the nurses. For those who can't use sugar, you can always use salt. For anyone else looking for an idea, I see the Christmas ornament kits at Wal-Mart with the wire and beads. I make my own icicle ornament project by buying the packages of straight floral wire and cutting into halves or sometimes even shorter pieces. I turn over the bottom 1/4" of the wire and let the kids string on the clear acrylic tri-beads, regular facited (sp?) clear beads, and small round silver beads. When the kids get finished stringing beads, I turn over the top 1/4" wire. I tie some embroidery thread or fishing line through the top loop to hang on the tree. It's very pretty and simple. Another thing I make with my boys that would make a great craft kit is danglers. I've gotten the original idea for this off of the garden junk forum I think. I wrap floral or copper wire around pretty marbles and leave a loop of wire at each end so I can attach some fishing line. I take a wire wrapped marble and attach a needle threaded with fishing line to the end. I give the boys a big bowl of colored beads and let them string them on in any manner that they like. When they get finished, I tie off the fishing line to another wire wrapped marbled. I tie a piece of fishing line to one of the marbles for hanging. We may tie a large bead to the end of the other bead to finish it off. If anyone else has ideas, please post them. Boys get left out when it comes to a variety in cute clothes and crafts.

Anj, You sound like me--I want to see it all before I decide what to buy. (unless it is just something amazing that I know I have to get before they are sold out!).I sure miss my friend who died. The two of us had the most fun at craft shows. We'd see something we "just knew we could make", and she'd say "you memorize the top part and I'll memorize the bottom. Then off we'd go outside to draw our picture while it was fresh in our minds! ;o) I think we only actually made about three of those projects, but we sure had a lot of fun collecting ideas! I've tried going with a few other friends, but it's not the same. They aren't crafter's, and are too pokey so we don't get to cover the whole show, and they want to look at stuff I've already seen a million times! I want to find the new and unusual ideas. So while I love the chit chat and fun of being with someone--I sort of like to go alone so I can cover the show my way! Ha ha Is that terrible or what? Hey, I am just being honest here. Luvs

I bought real white pumpkins and had them mixed in with my fall decorations. Also the light blue-ish grey - I can't remember the name of those, but I love them!!! Again, REAL. That said, I have also seen where people are painting the faux pumpkins. Nothing wrong with that. One I remember she painted it kind of an off-whitish color - just enough to not be stark white. She also then used a very light shading in the "indentions" which made it look very realistic. tina