angry chicken

happy holidays!

We are super excited for the next few days of parties, a real tea at a fancy hotel, cookie swaps, and general silliness. My mom and brother have some time off and my plan is to not craft, but chill out and have a lot of hot chocolate while they entertain the girls.

These goodies that the girls are holding are super tasty, and I am thrilled to show you how to make them over at the always wonderful Kiddley. Hope you have time to try them out. And thanks so much for all the cheesecake recipes, I will report back. I bought 5 bricks of cream cheese today. (Is that gross? Maybe.)

Okay, we are outie until the New Year. Don't get in trouble, be safe, and relax!

crossed (off the list)

Just under the wire, I got done with this sampler, which is the main project for mailorder #5. I feel so relieved to have this behind me. I have really grown into counted needlework. It took me awhile to get into the rhythm, but by the time I started this, I had figured out how to make it work for me, so was I actually able to start and finish this mostly during down time with the kids over the last 6 weeks, as unlikely as that seems. It's the type of activity they let me do uninterrupted while they play. (Unlike anything related to the computer, phone, or in the art room.)

So, this chart (the finished size is about 8 1/2" x 6" on 28 count linen) along with some other goodies will go out in early January, and there will be single issues available then too. I plan to design and sell some charts for smaller counted needlework projects as well, I am really excited about this, so you can try this look without a big time commitment.

Okay, I think (I think) I will be able to get done with robes for the girls to go with the Christmas nightgowns I finished last night in a crazy/manicy burst of sewing energy. (Since it had been almost a month since I had sewn anything because of the flippin' cross-stitch.)

I am bringing dessert to Grammie's for our family Christmas Eve shindig and I want to make a good old fashioned cheesecake. No frills, just plain-jane and super yummy. I know I saw Ina make one years ago on her show, but I can't seem to find that recipe in the 3 books I have of hers. But I swear it's there. If I really can't find it, The New Best Recipes has one that I think will be perfect.(She said with much confidence. This could be a disaster.)

doin' good.

We had a very productive weekend so I think I can relax and enjoy this next week. I got the cookie bags done, Pete bottled his amazing mustard, and then with Sadie's help, we actually made these little gifty crackers for our small friends, which I wasn't sure was actually going to happen. They have chocolate coins and either a stretchy frog or a paratrooper inside. Not too shabby. Pete choose the gifts. I heat Cost Plus.

Here are the bags all ready for the freezer. I think the ginger cookie flavor in there might be leaching into the butter cookies, but what can you do.

Okay, things are good. We dressed up on Saturday night and went to Pete's office holiday party which was so fun. Too much fun, perhaps? I wonder if I need to get out more. I had a really good time. I think I need to get out more.

And wow, kiddley has been rockin my world-there are so many cool ideas over there right now, I can't believe it! I think my project will be up this week, and keeping in the theme of my sugar obsession, it's cooking related.

the factory

I have finished up all my cookies/candies for my bags. This weekend we are doing the bag assembly and then all the bags will go back in the freezer ready to be given/mailed off. 2 batches of this fudge were the last additions. First I did a straight up fudge with chopped walnuts and then got all crazy and did the second batch with chopped mini pretzels. I still can't decide if this is genius or just wrong. The salt is so good, but I feel sicker after I eat this fudge.(Sicker than normal fudge sick.)

Now I am scheming to see if I have time to add homemade marshmallows, inspired by the amazing display over at Sarah's, but I think that might be tipping the scale to full on insanity at this point.

Also, boiled art editions has added even more cards up since yesterday and this one is making me all goofy.

letterpress love.

Hooray! Brian has opened his shop over at Boiled Art Editions! I got the most amazing custom cards from him a bit back and have loved using them any chance I get. Along with his wonderful custom work, I am so happy that he now has individual cards for sale as well over here. The Squirrel is extra special, I say. Can't get too much of that letter press goodness.

completely random-

These Sonny Angel Kewpie dolls are making me crazy! The Santa one is from Japan (mariko is a superstar) and the other is from Kidrobot. I don't need more, but really, I do. I can't find them now, but they are a blind box thing, which of course, makes me all the more crazy for them.

Okay, my brain is total mush today but here's a bit of what is banging around in there; trying this fudge recipe today, very excited. And if you haven't taken a second to see all the recipes on Tie On One, please take a gander, they are great!

And I still stink! Long ago, I posted about BO, yes, I am talking about my BO, and I mentioned that Lush had this amazing deodorant.Well, it is really amazing--possibly life changing. It's aromacreme, and I got it almost a year ago (it lasts that long) and it worked so well, I figured that maybe I just stop stinking because my body chemistry was different now or something? Nope, it's the amazing aromacreme. I ran out last week and stank to high heaven. It's all better now that I got more, but I just can't believe how amazing this stuff is and how good it smells. Also, I have to mention this soap and this bath gel are the 2 best smells in the world to me.

Okay, last random thing is that the ornaments I made a bit back are for sale individually here at the fabulous artstar gallery, as are my hand screen cards. I was only selling the ornaments as a set, so here's a chance to get just one, your favorite one hopefully. The folks there sure are nice, please look around. You can see all the other artists ornaments here.

rebelling against myself

I have had this book idea in my head for awhile now. It's for the girls and I was thinking of putting them in different scenes, with a simple story and simple drawings. I think they would freak at seeing themselves in a book. I would! So, this was started about an hour ago and I guess there is no way I can do ten drawings and write the story and get the book made by Christmas. I was hoping to get it bound in one of those books you can make on flickr, I need to mess around with it still.

This came about because I am a bit antsy lately with the crafting. For about 3 weeks now the cross-stitch has taken up all my time. I like it, but multi-tasking craft projects is my bag--I never work on one project at a time, let alone one for 3 weeks. I am too ADD and get all freaky when I work on one thing for too long. So, I was  working on mailorder this morning (hubby took a vacation day off, whoo-hoo!) and found myself working on this book project instead. I hope to get mailorder out the first week in January. Not sure why the timing of mailorder always seems to be very close to a holiday.

Anyhoo, I think mailorder will happen on time, but I am so glad I rebelled against my own deadline to work on this a little instead. It's good for my brain. Okay, back to stitching and cookie baking and freezing.(And maybe some more drawing for this book.)

about a B. maybe an A-

This week was long. LONG. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. I am so happy it is Friday. In a fit of munchies combined with laziness (meaning I didn't want to leave the house) I decided to try a treat  during the smaller one's naptime. These chocolate dipped marshmallows (which I think should be called top hats) were pretty dang good. Two things I would do differently-actually three, if you count this next sentence. I like dark chocolate chips (Trader Joe's are my fave) but I wonder if they should be mixed with a milk chocolate, because these were a bit rich.

But here's the thing, I didn't use TJ's chips, I used ghirardelli chocolate chips, and even though every few years I make this mistake, I have to keep reminding myself I really don't like this brand of chocolate. There is a weird understate of alcohol to it which I don't dig. The second thing (or third) is I put them in the fridge to set up, and then, you know, to test them-I ate a bunch, and chilled marshmallows just aren't so good, even ones dipped in chocolate. When I took them out (after they set) and ate them at room temp they were way better.

I tried rolling some in some sprinkles for the girls, but that was a disaster, sprinkling from the top would have been better. Still, overall, not bad for a sweet tooth fix from the pantry in less than 10 min. I heart microwaves, chocolate meltly miracles that they are. And I heart long skewers, too.

ornaments, how I love them.

I love family ornaments. Some of these are from family and some from Pete's ornament box. Pete's parents had this wonderful tradition of buying ornaments to hang on their tree for their children (when they were too young to choose) and then the kids would buy their own every year until college (I guess in the teenage years, some were purchased for them as well, you know, cause teens are too cool for that kind of thing.) This ornament was made by my great Aunt Mickey.

Then when Pete and I had our first real tree, right after college, he got all the ornaments from over the years from his parents in a box. They are so special to us and he loves looking at them. It is so cool to have him show the girls his favorites when he was their age. He loved wooden ones that were toys, so his collection is mostly made up of that kind.

This is my favorite of his, certainly chosen by his mother because it's from when he was one. She dated them on the bottom.

I am 99.9% sure this one was his great Aunt Bea's. I am going to start this tradition of getting the girls ornaments every year too-so they have their own box when they get their own tree. It would be fun to make an extra cool box for them too, maybe with photos from Christmas over the years. So far we have been a bit lazy, skipped a few years, and haven't dated a thing. I might have to buy a few at once and do some back-dating, but they won't know, right?

books.

Catch a fish, throw a ball, fly a kite: 21 timeless skills every child should know, by Jeffery Lee

I saw this book awhile back and didn't buy it, and now I am wondering if I should. I love the idea of it, but I need to look at the index more closely. I could use some help in the fishing dept. for sure and the cover is so flippin cute I might just need it anyway.

At this point I need to apologize for this unnecessary bold print. I am having major formatting issues from lazy cutting and pasting and now am too tired to fix it all, so just know the boldness is for no added emphasis. (Unless to demonstrate just what a sloth I am.)



Martha Moth Makes Socks, by Cambria Evans

This is the book I did buy when I was looking at the above book, it was a gift for a 3 year old and I really should have bought two. I can't stop thinking about these amazing illustrations. The drawings inside are so sweet and clever. They get me in the gut. You know how certain styles just get to you, and this one has got me bad.

Our tree is up and decorated. The girls are very into low clustering of the ornaments. Only one broken one so far. (not including the snowglobe) Our neighbor seems to have started something with the lights this year, we have always been the big show until now. I'm tempted to have Pete stay home tomorrow to get cracking.

There are now yummy recipes over in the November Gallery for Tie One On, thanks so much for all your contributions and bits of personal info-it makes it all so special and so very cool.

See now it's all back to normal. I swear my next post won't be this weird.