December Give Away.
Box with a wooden bird, bird paperweight, bird seed which is actually a wood box and a pretty vintage hankie. There are 4 ways to enter the drawing. Send me an email and tell me you want to win. (click email to left) Click on comment on this post and leave a comment. See this on facebook and click like it on the post. AND best of all enter in the shop every time you come in. You can do all 4!

Here's the sign that will be in front of the store today.

Come on down. Shop Niles!

Here's the candy I made for this weekend. I will also be giving away the recipe.
(you can see the recipe in last post)

We have a winner. Mom and Daughter. Cute!
(Keep a eye out for picture of our next giveaway coming to
My Friends and I soon)

I've posted this before, but it and the picture of it is way back in some older post and since I'm going to be making it to pass out in the shop this Fri. Sat. and Sun. for the Merchants of Niles Christmas Open House I thought I'd post it again. It's really good and really easy. I bought all the ingredients at Wallmart. I couldn't find the white almond bark any where else.

Crock-Pot chocolate candy~
2 lbs (36 oz) salted dry-roasted peanuts
4 oz (4 squares) German's sweet chocolate
1 12-package semisweet chocolate chips (about 2 cups)
2 1/2 lbs white almond bark

Put the peanuts in the bottom of a 4-quart slow-cooker. Layer the chocolate over the peanuts, beginning with the sweet chocolate, followed by the chocolate chips, and then the almond bark. Set the temperature on low and cook for 3 hours. DO NOT STIR THE MIXTURE. After 3 hours, stir the mixture with a wooden spoon until smooth. Drop the candy into cupcake pan liners, using about 2 tablespoons per liner. Allow the candy to cool completely before removing the cupcake liners. (I don't remove the liners, looks festive left in them.)
Makes 30 to 40 pieces. I used the tiny cupcake papers and it made 3 times that much.

Don't forget the Tree lighting and Parade is Friday evening. 6:00 pm for the tree and 6:30 for the Parade.

My friend Diane at the wonderful quilt and yarn store COLOR ME QUILTS AND MORE is having her 5th Anniversary sale this weekend. She's offering 40% off Halloween and Christmas fabrics and several bolts of fabric that will be 50 to 60% off. Don't miss your chance to pick up some fabric or yarn to use in your Christmas projects.
The shop is located at 37495 Niles Blvd.

If you go in please tell her you saw all about the sale on MY FRIENDS AND I blog.

The Silhouettes are in the store. My oh my they are really pretty. Come see.

I know this isn't readable from here but if you click on it, it will get bigger. You can also go to this site http://www.theydrawandcook.com/recipes/christmas-lollipops-by-amy-king and you can see this and others. Really cute stuff. You could print these from the site and use them as cards.

Getting ready for Thanksgiving? Well don't forget that the town of Niles has it's Annual Christmas Open House Fri., Sat., Sun. after Thanksgiving.

Friday night is the tree lighting at 6:00. then the parade of lights starts at 6:30. Come to town early, bring your chairs set them up somewhere on the sidewalk to save your spot and then go shopping! Can't make it Friday? Stay away from the crowded malls and come to town on Sat. and Sun. and get into the Christmas Spirit. Most stores will have cookies and a big smile for you.

I'm back home and glad to be. I love to travel and I had a lot of fun, but there really is no place like home.
I loaded all the stuff I bought on the road from the camper to my van and I hope to start putting it a little at a time in the shop starting tomorrow. I will try and remember to take my camera and take a few pictures.
In the meantime I saw this idea on a site I was on this evening. Never too early to find cute Xmas ideas. Wouldn't this be cute place card holders for Xmas Dinner?

My Niece in Ark. has the most outstanding collection of Pyrex that I've ever seen. The picture uploading to the blog at the RV park we're at tonight is so slow I'm going to wait till I get back to Fremont to post others. It's so colorful and happy.

This was taken out the truck window some where between Gallop New Mexico and Holbrook Az. It was prettier than it shows in the picture. I needed that break in the landscape because most of the view isn't that great.

This is just funny!!!

I'm back on the road again. We got to my brothers in Arkansas on Thurs. Didn't have Internet while there so wasn't able to blog. But I've got it here at the RV park in Amarillo TX. A lot of you know I was born in Niles and grew up in Fremont. Trust me, Fremont is wonderful. LOL

I was all prepared to stop at 2 of my favorite Antique stores in Okla. and they are now closed on Monday's! Poo! I now know how people feel when they come to Niles on Mon. and Tues. and almost everyone but us is closed. It's disappointing!

Boy did we hit some weather. It rained and hailed so hard we had to pull over. You couldn't see ahead of you. It was kind of like fog in CA. Pretty scary.

The big talk on all the news stations here is of course the Earthquake in Okla. We were in Ark. close to Ft. Smith and we didn't feel it although some people say they did. I probably wouldn't have thought it was an earthquake even if we did. Just don't think about Earthquakes there. Poor people. They have to put up with Tornadoes, now earthquakes. Bad news. Saw an elderly lady on the local news and she said she was from CA and knew right away what it was. She said to the news caster "honey I was out the front door before the dust could settle!"

We still have some places to stop, but will be home and have new stuff in the shop soon. Stay tuned!

We left IL. this morning, all of us a little teary eyed. We are getting better at saying goodbye. When the kids moved here 5 years ago it was a lot of crying from all of us when it was time to leave. It's makes our hearts feel good that our 11 year and 13 year old Grandsons still care about us enough to be really sad when we leave. (yes it's sad, but still makes us appreciate them) Same for the kids in CO.

We went to Saint Joseph IL. yesterday and were shopping in a store we love and call the "Museum" because the guy has some really outstanding stuff, but very expensive. Anyway he knows I have a shop in CA and came up to me with this box of silhouettes and said "do you sell these at your shop in CA?" Well of course I said "YES!" Well needless to say I couldn't resist buying them. There are 37 of them all different. They weren't cheap and it took me the whole time we were in his shop to make up my mind to buy them. I can't wait to get them in the shop. If your a collector of silhouettes you'll love them and even if your not, you'll appreciate how pretty they are.

Only 4 pictured below

Want to see something funny? Click here . It will take you to a short little movie. It will make you smile.