Happy Halloween

A Happy and Safe Halloween to you all

A Valley Haunting

A trip to my ancestral and childhood home this past weekend, led to a road trip with my cousin in search of our Duesler ancestors.

Armed with the family history records , a GPS and my lovely cousin to share my adventure with , this was one trip I had been looking forward to making.

A visit to the early churches and burial grounds of my ancestors, whose roots run deep in the history and heart of the Mohawk Valley Region of NY .

A video, I put together of the churches and grounds that they married in , baptized their children, built their frontier homes and came to their final rest.

Now in this area that is rich in Indian and early American history there are bound to be many tales of ghosts and haunted grounds.

One such place is Beardslee Castle, now converted into a restaurant.

Stopping by Beardslee in search of a bite to eat and to talk over the days events.

We found the Castle to be at full capacity with two weddings being hosted and a full house of diners the waiting would be 1 - 2 hours even in the dungeon are of the castle.

Leaving Beardslee Castle I did manage to click off a couple of pics.

Clarity is pretty bad in these photos, it was an after thought to snap these pics as we were leaving in search of a quicker meal.

Hey, you never know...you just may find you have captured something unusual.

As you can see...nothing of an unusual nature here :)

In this first video , you will find a brief history of the Castle .


The next two videos will tell the story of Beardslee Castle haunting.



Here you will find a link to a list of live web cams were you may catch a glimpse of ghostly haunting's .

Hope you all have a fun filled week as we approach this years Halloween Celebration.

Buyer Beware

I am using my blog today as a means of communicating an explanation.

Some of you I have been involved with in challenges, online crops, Message Boards and some of you are new faces and names to me.

A few of the old teachings I have been raised to believe is that your word is your bond, if you can't say something nice, it's better to say nothing at all and to pick and choose your battles.

This is a battle that I choose to pick.
First let me say, I have always believed in supporting small businesses and have worked in this type of field all of my working days.

So I do understand the hardships of starting a new business or venture.
But, I also know that customer relations makes up a very large part of whether you will make it or go under. Building a clientele is a very tricky process and most be handled as if holding a newborn infant.

Ignoring a customers requests for information on goods not received is not a very good way to start out.
I would much rather have a TRUE explanation than none at all.
Excuses for this type of dealings are just that excuses.

When a business can manage to find the time to submit payment for said goods not yet received,
I feel it is the obligation of the seller to the consumer to find the time to notify there may be a problem with their order.

With the Scrapbook industry going through some hard times and Independent stores closing everyday one would think it is in the best interest of a new store to keep all dealings on the up & up.
A simple explanation would have been sufficient to keep this customer happy.

If anything has come out of this...you all now have an open letter of apology from this company for its handling of this matter and I hope this will help in the process of you all receiving the goods you have paid for.

Now one last thing ...I really think it was in bad taste to add the extra comments to the apology on the message board. This most certainly was not on the one I received in private and makes me wonder about the sincerity of your stores apology.

I am insulted as a consumer that a company would consider this matter to be BS or Drama as so put especially when no mention of this problem had been posted to the forum. It is our right as paying customers to question any bad service especially when it is being paid for.

With that said I have pulled any advertisement of support of this business from my blog and ASKED to be removed from the Message Board.
I am not out for the Drama I only want to Craft and Scrap and enjoy all the wonderful works that others create.

So that's it..I usually try to stay away from this type of post... but this type of behavior has to stop, especially when it becomes personal.
For those of you who have no idea what I am writing about I apologize...for those of you who feel I am on the attack... sorry that you feel that way, but I am sure you would understand if the shoe was on your foot.

For those of you who understand what it feels like to be in this situation,
hang tough and know that you are on the side of what is right.
BUYER BEWARE !

Batty Napkin Ring Holders

Fast and easy little project to help add that extra touch to your Halloween table.
Batty Napkin Ring Holders!


Using Eco friendly adhesive backed felt.

Using the template provided, cut four bats from black card stock

Using template again cut four bats from adhesive backed felt.

With right sides down slowly peel back paper backing from adhesive bat and apply down card stock.

Wrap around napkin attaching through with the notches.

Thanks for stopping by, hope you have a ghoulishly fun week. : )

Boogie with the Boogey Man

How about some free Halloween Tunes and Spooky sounds to go along with your Halloween Celebration ?

Here are some links that I came across in my search of some scary sounds.

Have fun creating your own personal Haunted music !

All About Halloween

Halloween Carols

I thought the Carols would work with my Free Halloween Digital Border, to print off for a Halloween Sing Along with little tricksters.

Halloween Sounds

Some creepy sounds here to mix

Scary Music

you will find some old favorites here.

And last but not least, a little something to help set the mood : )

RIP Pumpkin King

A Creatively Green Project Challenge.
Using a box create a Halloween themed project for under $5.oo.

Here are the bones for my project.
Styrofoam ball .50 from my personal supplies
Free Newspaper
salt flour & water from my kitchen
Paint ,Mod Podge ,hot glue and Ink from my supplies.
I will estimate between $1.25 - $1.75 worth of supplies to complete this project.

The end result... a Paper Mache Pumpkin King Tombstone.

I used the hot glue to create my inscription and added dimensions

While I am on the subject of tombstones.....it is the Halloween Season after all !

What better than a Graveyard for a Halloween delight or fright !

My Great Grandfather was a Stone Mason.

Entering into business with his brother they carved a living, out of Memorials for the deceased.The above monument photograph was sent to me, by one of his Grand daughters while researching this branch of my family tree. What a treasure to come across.
The story goes that he carved and was particularly fond of this piece, so the photo continues on today.

It's resting place, the rolling hills of Forest Hill Cemetery Utica, New York.

A beautiful landscape of hills and valleys surrounded by trees .On this video at time marker 1:32...not positive but I believe you may see this Stone Angel .

Next trip up North I think I will have to check this out.

One can not discuss Cemeteries with out mention of the "City of the Dead"to be found in the City of New Orleans.very interesting history behind these Crypts.

Another unusual cemetery is located in London, England.

The grounds and the carvings are stunning.

You may read a little of High Gate Cemetery's history here , you will also find some additional hauntingly beautiful images.

Here you will find some tombstone Epitaphs of some famous people.

For a little Halloween fun stop by here and create your own Epitaph.

Thanks for stopping by :).