Monday Mentions: holiday edition

It's time for another round of Monday Mentions, hosted by the fabulous Jen of Daily Mish Mash.

There are two parts to today's mentions. Part 1 consists of Halloween mentions. Since I didn't do anything other than don my Tim Tebow jersey while watching the Gator game, I lived vicariously through others. These pictures/posts made me smile.

• Cathy Zielske's yard decoration is hilarious, and I love how it's contrasted with the beauty of the leaves.
• Jaemie's cat is extremely tolerant. (My cat would scratch my eyes out before letting me put clothing on her.)
• Evanescence is one of my favorite bands, so I LOVE this Evanescence pumpkin.
• Sara's Dracula dog is more cute than scary.
• I so wish there was a Witch Night where I live!
• With the release of New Moon less than 18 days away (SQUEE!), I had to include some Twilight pumpkins.

Part 2 was inspired by my friend Jenny. She tweeted this weekend, soliciting ideas about homemade gifts. After tweeting links back and forth, I thought I'd share some of my favorites here.

• Altered notebooks are a great gift for teachers. And if you make additional altered office supplies, you can put them all together in a cool stationary box.
• I made these craft/snack trays for my nieces last year, and they loved them.
• My friend, Amy who runs Two Florida Girls with her sister, has been sharing some of her favorite Etsy shops here and here. If you can't have your own homemade holiday, why not support someone else's handmade efforts?

I'm actually making a really fun gift for my MIL, but the supplies haven't come in yet. Once they do, I'll be posting a how-to about it. Diane, this means that you can't peek at any posts that say, "Diane, do NOT read." :)

If you have any mentions, head on over to Jen's and link up!