Help Ink is a collaborative project, which uses the sale of premium and exclusive posters to help charities in a really cool way. When you buy a poster, you will have the opportunity to choose a charity that will receive 40% of the profits from your purchase.  The gist of this post? Buy this poster or some other poster from this brilliant organization.  What a great idea, wish I thought of it, but since I didn’t I am so glad somebody else did.

P.S. If you didn’t win a Besotted Brand goodie in the last giveaway, Danni of Oh, hello friend is giving away one of my wood box stationery gift sets. All you have to do is answer a fabulous little question here.

I have no need for these place setting magnets but it doesn’t stop me from wanting them. I am always on the look-out for props these days for my shop photos.  I can almost convince myself that these would be great, I do have to keep to a strict budget right now and can only buy things that I absolutely need but check out their paws and hooves, they are gold! I do need these right? Speaking of photo shoots I am supposed to spend a lovely afternoon shooting with some even lovelier bloggers. We have plans for an early ‘crafter-noon’ date which will require me to drive on the *gasp* highway and leave my zipcode. The winds here have been a bit icky (hot, thick and allergen ridden), which doesn’t bode well for the outdoor set-up I have envisioned, but the winds may be more mild  soon. If all goes as planned, I promise to take lots of evidence that I did leave my apartment for more than an hour and hopefully get a bunch of those stamping tutorials I have been promising.

The night before I wrote an awesome post about Aubin & Wills.  A post so witty and delightful that you can only imagine my dismay when I checked my blog and saw that it still read ‘Happy Halloween’. I was truly disappointed.  I figured that I may have set said awesome post for a latter date, but alas it was not to be found in drafts, pending or any evidence that said awesome post ever existed. Perhaps I dreamt it, but I am sure I wrote it and it is very unlike me to keep a ‘Halloween’ post on my blog past its expiration date. It doesn’t matter what kind of mire I am in, I just wouldn’t do it. So here I am late on November 1st trying to make up for my injustice and slipping this post in to cover November 2nd as well.  I do believe Aubin & Wills deserves such atonement on my part and once you visit their dapper site you may forgive me my folly. Now go ‘Pin’ it like crazy and let the world know who sent you to this great find–the girl with the hives who celebrates Halloween for two days straight.

A Happy Halloween to you all {insert mad scientist laughter here}. As I sit here and write this I am covered in angry, red, blotchy hives. Pretty. I had a fit of nerves this weekend and because I was ignoring the fact that my cortisol levels were higher than should be legal by nature I manifested hives. The whole eloping thing should be effortless right? So to keep you abreast of the inanity (yes, inanity) that is my current world I shall fill you in. Since the photographer I thought I had coming was not able to (boo hoo) and I couldn’t find another one under a mortgage payment I had to re-arrange my original plan to elope to Santa Catalina Island.  There were other factors as well, such as a non-pet friendly hotel situation on the island and the general hotel situation on Catalina, unfortunately it isn’t that great (see here, here and here for prime examples).  The thing though that was hardest,  I had my heart set on my chosen date 11.11.11, but how easy a date can be thrown out the proverbial window when a photographer is not available. We I started the Herculean task of re-routing us (the Fancy would get married at the car wash if it was possible, it really doesn’t matter to him where). Thankfully I was thrown a glimmer of hope from my mentally sinking ship, a truly lovely lass held my virtual hand, sent me links to honeymoon hotels in my new chosen area, found me a photographer, (she wrangled her  talented hubby), even offered to watch my fur babies and generally stopped me from running out into on coming traffic. The internet is the most magical of places isn’t it? I also had some divine intervention thrown in via Kara of McMaster & Storm fame (I am so, so lucky), she introduced me to Jill who is obviously as nutty as myself as she agreed to take on the near impossible challenge of making me a version of my beloved dress. We both know it’s a long shot, being that I can’t get fitted, but we are going to try if I can find the right lace before noon tomorrow {insert more hives forming on my tender skin}. And how was your weekend?

This is the dress that I won’t be wearing to my wedding, but it is the dress I wish I was.  I had no idea that Etsy had the ability to make my wedding frock dreams come true. This is exactly what I have been searching for–long lace sleeves, above the knee and a beautiful back. The Etsy seller is booked until April 2012, so asking her to re-create this dress in ten days seems to be out of the question. It makes me want to flog myself for not keeping up with my sewing lessons not that I had any aptitude for it, my one foray into clothing was not bad on the hanger but pretty slipshod on my person. No one wants a slipshod wedding dress. I am hoping to find a substitute for this pretty dress this weekend. Where in the h-e-double hockey sticks am I going to find a short white dress with long lace sleeves in the 21st century?  It definitely is a vintage find waiting to happen, but in the City of Angeles our vintage shops are picked over by vultures and there wouldn’t be a dress this magnificent in any of them. By the by, how gorgeous is this bride? I love her loose locks and sweet halo of flowers. I was thinking of a bird cage veil but this little crown is lovely as well. Oh, the last minute decisions!

I want to wish you all a wonderful weekend, thank you for your support and kind words this week whilst I had my mini pre-marital melt down. Your well wishes on our elopement were so appreciated and the stories you shared made me both laugh and cry (tears of joy of course).  Wish me luck on my search and if anyone see’s a dress like this anywhere in the vicinity of mother earth, please send me a link or smoke signals, either one will do.