Homemade Store-bought Ornaments

While I was on my crafting kick the other night, I picked up some 60% off clear glass ornaments at JoAnn's.  I think they set me back about $2.

I decided to internally paint them with the acrylic paints I still have left over from Halloween.  I'd seen this on a few blogs and on Pinterest and decided it was worth a shot.

I just squeezed paint into the ornament and then rolled it around until I got a design I liked or in one case, I had covered the whole ball.  I went with blue and green to match my living room and bring some more bright colors to my tree.

They dried overnight and then I popped them onto the tree.  Is it an only child thing that I can so easily entertain myself?

Pablo's Present

I love my dog and all, but I'm not usually one to spend a lot of money on him during Christmas.  Part of the reason is my family does an excellent job spoiling him.  And the other reason is my lazy little chihuahua isn't much of a "player".  He's more of a sleeper.  This year I was feeling crafty and decided to make him a gift.  It looks like a toy but more than likely he'll use it as a pillow while sleeping.  Best part, it only cost me $0.80.

Really all I did was buy two pieces of felt and then sewed and stuffed it with stuff I already had on hand.  I drew a dog freehand on notebook paper and used that for my stencil.

I used some yarn to whip stitch the two pieces together, stuffing as I went.  Since Pablo isn't an aggressive player I wasn't worried about him getting to the stuffing and tearing it apart.  Gracie on the other hand would have disassembled this in 2 days tops.

It was a very quick project.  Sometimes you just feel like crafting and this hit the spot.

I decided to let Pablo give it a test spin when I finished.  I'm not positive but from these pictures it looks like he approves of his new toy/pillow.

After I confirmed his approval, I took it away from him and wrapped it up under the tree.  Trust me, Pablo's not that bright.  He'll still be surprised on Christmas morning.

Outdoor Christmas Lights

This was my first time to ever put up outdoor Christmas lights and I had to restrain myself not to go crazy.  It took me a few days to finally get this much done because I've been working around the rainy weather.  The first part I got done was lining the roof.  I thought this was going to be hard, but it turned out to be a cinch.

I started the process inside on my couch.  I bought these plastic clamps that eliminated the need for nails or hooks.  I didn't buy enough for every bulb so I placed them on every 3rd or 4th bulb.  My neighbor has one for every bulb and they make the lights stand perfectly and create a straight line.  Mine go in every direction and are a little messy.  Whatever.  It's a learning curve.  I'll try to pick up extras at the after Christmas sales and use them next year.  Once they were attached, I went out side and popped them on the shingles.  It probably to no more than 15 minutes to do the whole roof (well, the front facing side of the roof).  What a great invention!  And since I have no peaks from the front of the house, all was done with my 6' ladder.  No roof walking required.

As you can see I bought the new LED lights.  The only downfall is their color.  They are a bright blue-white versus the old yellow-white lights.  It makes them a little crazy looking.  As you can also see from the above picture, my big ol' tree blocks a lot of the house.  My original plan was to just wrap the trunk and limbs.  Here's how far I got with my $50 in lights.

It was so good in concept, but was probably going to require another $50 in lights to complete.  Maybe next year.  I may also try using my old yellow-white lights to do it if I get adventurous this weekend.  I'm not sure if that will clash too bad or even if I'll have enough. 

I used two more LED strands to wrap the post on my porch and I still have one more strand that I've yet to hang. 

I'll keep you posted if I make any major changes or decide to install at 10' inflatable Santa.  Just kidding on the inflatable. 

Bulk Trash Repurposing

Last month, before tossing out all my tree trimmings into bulk trash, I snagged a few branches and let them dry out in my garage.  It was the ulitimate recycling project.

I was frustrated with how much stores charged for decorative branches and stuff.  I decided to save the $30+ and figure it out on my own.  I basically just chopped everything to the length I needed and them spray painted them. 

Piece of cake!  I choose yellow to bring out the yellow stripes in one of my Missoni for Target vases.  I don't think I could have purchased a better fit! 

I'll rearrange them a little nicer once I figure out where they are going to reside.  Things are still moving all around in my dining room.

Crafting: A Cautionary Tale

It was bound to happen.  It was really just a matter of time.  Last night I had a crafting emergency.  No, I didn't run out of spray paint.  I didn't lose me tape measure.  I cut myself.  With a razor blade.  [Parents, breath.  I'm obviously fine as I'm blogging just 16 hours later]

Razors are sharp.  And when you need to remove stickers and glue residue from glass, they do the job without leaving scratches.  Unfortunately, one wrong move and they can cut you pretty bad.  Last night I sliced a flap off my finger about the size of a black eyed pea (the New Years Day treat, not the band).  And with it about 1/3 of my fingernail.  It bled and bled so at 8:45 I hopped in the car and headed to PrimaCare hoping to get in before they closed at 9pm.

My pinky now has a safety helmet

I'll spare you the photo I took once they got it to stop bleeding and instead show you my bandage.  They glued the flap down since it was too thin to stitch.  My crafting injury was fixed by....crafting of sorts.  I find this amusing.  I've never had a doctor glue me back together.  At least it wasn't a hot glue gun.

I spent about an hour at PrimaCare.  They were very nice.  It's amazing how fast they treat you when you walk in bleeding.  Of course, I already knew this because I also walked in bleeding in 2003 after cutting my foot.  The upside of this, I'm once again current on my tetanus shot.  Bring on the rusty nails!  While being treated I must have filled out or signed about 10 forms.  My shock was making me a little punchy:

Description of injury: razor sliced fingertip

Who was involved: me

What happened: crafting gone wrong

Where did this injury occur: home

When the accident occured: 8:15  11/30/11

Why did this injury occur: carelessness

So I'm now on the mend and going to be steering clear of razors for a while.  Luckily the cut and the tetanus shot where all on my left side.  This means I'm still good for our company's annual Christmas bowling tourney on Friday.  Team I Can't Believe It's Not Gutter is still poised for greatness!



O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

As soon as Thanksgiving was over I had Christmas on my mind.  I even roped my dad into helping me get my Christmas boxes out of the attic on Thanksgiving Day.  I think of it as working off our turkey.  I was in the market for a new Christmas tree since my old 9.5' tree would not have worked with my new 8' ceilings.  Now I'm not normally one to go out in all the Black Friday hoopla but with all my ornaments staring at me from boxes I could not resist.  I went to 4 big box stores between 10am and 11:30am.  I got great parking at all of them and didn't have a problem with crowds at all!  I did have a problem finding a 7.5' prelit tree until $100...which is why it took four stores, but at my last stop (the second Target of the day) I snagged one.  The last one to be exact.  It was $85 and I had a $5 coupon.  Not too bad!

I took it home and spent the rest of my afternoon getting it all set up.  Spreading out the limbs on a brand new fake tree is quite the chore.

When I finally got it done, it struck me as a bit of a Charlie Brown tree.  I could see right through it in spots.  But the size was perfect and I was armed with ornaments.  A couple of hours later it filled up!

I love decorating the tree every year and reuniting with some of my crazy ornaments that I forgot I had.  Like Yoda.

And Big Bird.

I also have an apple from 2nd grade, a pickle, some ornaments that I may or may not have stolen from my parents (flat Santas), and a really creepy glass clown that I hang in the back of my tree every year. 

Now that the tree is up I'm in the Holiday spirit and can't wait to get some decorations up in the dining room and outside.  I bought my lights for outside but since it's dark every night when I get home from work, those will have to wait until the weekend. 

Pie Fail

I will spare you too many sob stories about my lack of pie-making skills.  Maybe I'll just sum it up with a couple of pictures and a couple of contributing factors that worked against me.

Unbeknownst to me my pies were doomed from the get go.  I bought the last two pie plates Target had in the store.  When I got ready to make my pie (using pie crust dough pre-made) I realized that the pie plate was 9.5" while my dough was for a 9" pie.  Doesn't sound like much but trust me.  The effort spent on trying to stretch my dough into place was enough to make me crazy.  The other problem my dishes presented was a 1.5" lip of glass that went around the edge.  A true baker could have worked around it but it had me perplexed as I tried to make fun crust designs (the sole reason I wanted to attempt to make a pie).  But I digress.  Onto the pie flops.

#1) The Chocolate Chess Pie

This one doesn't look all that bad fresh out of the oven.  I think it's biggest problem is that it sunk about an inch before it was actually served.  The surface of the pie vaguely reminded me of images shot back from the Mars Rover. 

#2) Dried Apple Cider Pie

I had high hopes for this one.  It's basically an apple pie made with dried apples that you rehydrate in apple cider.  Sound great, right?  And then I think I overcooked my apples.  And then my fabulous crust design flopped and burnt.  Yes, I used foil around the edges.  Somehow it didn't work for me.  I will add here that this is my first house to ever use a gas stove/oven.  I'm pretty sure I haven't quite mastered the temperature and that's why I keep burning stuff.  Regular food has been fine but most of my dessert items of late have fallen flat (some literally).

I will take all responsiblity for my failings.  My coworker, Sally, gave me these recipes and I guarantee when she makes them they are devine.  I have confidence that some day, withs lots and lots of practice, I will be able to make a pie.  I just wouldn't hold your breath while waiting.

On a positive note, I did solve a problem when it came to my presentation.  Since I had two pies (I use that term loosely), I needed two pie stands and I only had one.  A quick brainstorming session resulted in a faux-pie stand created with an upsidedown bowl and a plate.  Not bad!

Guess I should just stick to decorating and crafting and leave the baking to the professionals.