Anita’s Crafting Cavern Candy

Anita is offering a selection of goodies from her new shop as blog candy, and it’s well worth a visit. There’s a free gift with every order, postage is great, and calculated by weight, so you don’t end up with the ridiculously over-charged for a single packet of stickers.
And, wonder of wonders, delivery is speedy, YAY!! Am I the only person getting fed up with craft sites taking a week to process orders? Thank goodness for smaller sites that still have the personal touch and realise that once we’ve ordered something, we want it quickly
Anita’s Crafting Cavern blog
Anita’s Crafting Cavern shop

Beth’s Little Card Blog

Beth has some candy to give away, to find out more head on over to Beth’s Little Card Blog, and while you’re there have a look at some of Beth’s fabulous work. Beth is a DT member for the Penny Black Saturday challenge, and she has some gorgeous work on display in her blog.

Stardust Gems and Ribbons

There is some beautiful blog candy on offer over at Stardust Gems and Ribbons, and such a cute Halloween card too. Go have a look around and don’t forget to leave some comments

Cake Cocoa and gossip!

Becks over at ScrapGenie has some absolutely gorgeous Basic Grey stamps to give away as blog candy. Hop on over to see the details and make sure you’re entered.
Thanks very much for the candy, Becks

Let’s Talk Shop!

Sherry over at If I Could Set My Soul Free is having a month long blog-versary party. Today we’re talking about shopping, please feel free to hop on over to Sherry’s blog to see the details and read everyone else’s replies. Today we’re nattering about shopping.

1. Where is your favorite place to shop?
Hmmm, it used to be eBay, for great choice and fantastic bargains, but not so much any more, and I haven’t found anywhere to replace it. I LOVE bargains, so if anyone knows of some really great deals, let me know, lol, I need a new favourite shop.

2. Would you rather shop on-line or in the stores? Hmm. I tend to shop more on-line. I’m partially-sighted, so it can be difficult for me to spot what I’m looking for in shops, and on-line I can use a search function to find items, and I can zoom in, and I can also look up what other people have to say about the product. However, sometimes you just can’t beat being able to hold something in your hand before buying it.

3. If you needed new undergarments, but you saw something that you didn’t really need, but just wanted, which would you buy? Lolol, the undies wouldn’t stand a chance!

4. What really annoys you about other shoppers? Hmm, not a lot really. Rudeness isn’t good, in anyone, so I don’t like it in other shoppers.

5. Have you ever got up to the checkout stand and had a ton of stuff in your cart and after they rang everything up you realized you didn’t have your money, check book, debit card, or credit cards? Oh yes, but not for quite a while now.

6. If you buy something that isn’t necessary or something just for fun do you feel like you have to justify it to yourself or your partner? If the item is a bargain, that’s all the justification I need

7. Do you hide those unnecessary things for awhile and then later claim you’ve had them for a long time? Oh dear, yes, I have done this.

Introducing Inklebods stamps

Jennifer over at Phoenixcrafts is celebrating the launch of her new stamp company, Inklebods. They have some beautiful stamps, really cute characters, go and see and decide which one is going on your list of must-haves
And then hop back over to Jennifer’s blog to check out the blog candy that she’s giving away to celebrate the launch.

Scrap Bitz blog candy

To celebrate the release of the new Whiff of Joy stamps, Suzanne over at Scrap Bitz is offsering some fantastic blog candy. These stamps are just beautiful, I’d love to own one, but since pay-day is a little while off, I’ll be entering into candy draws. Thanks so much for the chance to win, Suzanne, and huge congrats on your hit counts as well

Carmen’s blog candy

To celebrate reaching a truly astounding 20,000, Carmen is giving away some beautiful blog candy, which can be found on her blog, here. Congratulations on the hits Carmen, you have a wonderful blog

Creative Antics blog candy

A gorgeous autumn-themed give-away is going on over at the Creative Antics blog. Pay a visit and tell Ann what you love most about the fall season. The winner will be anounced tomorrow, so hurr on over to be in with a chance of winning

Craftling’s Cosy Corner

Christine over at Craftling’s Cosy Corner has some great blog candy to give away, with various ways to get involved. Just click on the link to find out all the details.
The following anouncement is a quote from Christine’s blog, and gives her reasons for disliking word verification on blogs. I’m very new to blogging, but I don’t have word verification on, and I don’t really see a need for it. However, I (Susan) don’t mind commenting on blogs that do use word verification. It’s always been loaded by the time I finish typing my comment, but I usually visit other blogs from the comments list, so it can be a little while before I even start typing. However, it does seem that lots of people find word verification annoying, and it doesn’t really fulfill any purpose, so why leave it on?
The following is quoted from Christine’s site, with her permission.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST WORD VERIFICATION

“Everyone will have their own view, but in my case, I regard the removal of word verification as a basic courtesy to my visitors who are kind enough to take the time to leave comments. Being aware of their comments through comment moderation, but not hindering them with word verification is the very least I can do to reciprocate their courtesy to me.

The problem with word verification is that it takes too long. The characters are very often hard to decipher, and it’s frustrating when you get them wrong and have to re-enter the little suckers!

So this campaign is on behalf of busy bloggers. Please spare a thought for the poor bloggers who work so hard at getting round as many blogs as possible to leave sprinkles of blessing and good vibes wherever they go. The terrible proliferation of this awful plague of word verification is a blight on their efforts to make the Land of Blog a cheerier place.

I think most people don’t realise that they have word verification on their blogs by default, or how easy it is to switch it off, and perhaps not realising how annoying it is for other bloggers. Either that, or they’re under the misapprehension that they will be bombarded with spam messages. This is not the case. I’ve had mine switched off now for three of the four months that I’ve been blogging, and have had two spam comments. The responses I’ve had from other bloggers to my earlier posts on this topic back this up. (You can see the comments in response to my previous post on this subject, HERE.)

For safety’s sake, have comment moderation on for sure, but please consider canceling word verification on your blog. Maybe for a trial period, and see how you get on.

Unless there are thousands of comments being left, comment moderation shouldn’t be too much of an issue for the blog owner, and other bloggers will also be more inclined to leave comments if they can see that you don’t use word verification.

However, each to their own, and if you disagree with me, that’s cool. We can agree to differ and not visit each other’s blogs! lol ;o)
OK.. rant over. If you have read all the way to the end, thank you for putting up with it, and ~ obviously ~ do what you wish on your blogs, but I had to say something. I love to get around and leave comments, but word verification spoils the experience.
Of course, when I get my new job, all this will be academic to me, as I will then have a life, and I won’t have time for much blog-hopping!! Not that blog-hoppers need to get a life.. Errr… think I’ll stop digging now, before I get into REAL trouble!! lol ;o)”