Feliz Navidad

Tea Station

It's so nice to have my computer back!  The power supply died earlier in the week, and I've had five days to experience how a smartphone is not a good substitute for a good old-fashioned desktop.  Thank you to my BIL for helping Dave get it back up and running!  While the computer has been out of commission, I received a belated Christmas present from my best friend in California.  Pretty awesome for her first counted cross stitch project, don't you think?  I know exactly where I'm going to hang it, but the problem is, we don't have that space in our current living accommodations.

I found this image of a coffee station on Pinterest a while ago and decided we would make space for a tea station in our next house.  Instead of a Keurig, we'll have our electric kettle, and all of those baskets will be filled with tea.  Heather's cross stitch definitely fits in with this plan--picture it on the top shelf with several of our fancy bed & breakfast mugs!

Original Source: For the Love of Coffee

Best Etsy Finds of 2012

Most of my lovely readers know that my BFF Heather lives across the country in California. I found the perfect present for her on Etsy a few months back and ordered it just in time for Christmas!

All incoming boxes are subject to kitty inspection...

Aren't these just too sweet?

Goodbye, Georgia mug, and safe journey to California!

Check out more cute stuff from GreySkiesBlue on Etsy!

The other awesome find on Etsy this past year--a baby black hole (with birth certificate) that shipped across the pond from the UK!

Perfect to cheer up my Georgia BFF after eye surgery!

Holiday Santa-tizer

Last year I got all ambitious for my co-worker's Christmas gifts.  This year... not so much.  But I had to be at least a little bit crafty, so with the inspiration of the "Hand Stanta-tizer" idea found through Pinterest, I came up with my own low-budget gift that kept the wonderfully lame Santa pun.

This is an oddly appropriate gift for work right now since the crud has been going around campus for the past few weeks!

Binder Ring Bonanza

Binder rings are my current favorite office supply (though Sharpies and Post-its are never far behind!) thanks to inspiration on Pinterest...

Christmas card albums for 2010 and 2011
[source]

Adapted from a "shower rings on a hanger"
scarf organizer idea [source]

Not as pretty as the source, but baggies hung with colored binder clips
on rings keeps my knitting organized! [source]

I keep running out of hair bands at work
and I had an extra binder clip...

Peace, Joy, and Soap!

It all started while searching Pinterest for co-worker gift ideas... I liked the idea of taking something practical like hand soap and crafting it into something gift-worthy.  I started out with the idea of something simple, maybe with a little silver bell bling.  Then I found the most brilliant idea yet--transparency film inside the soap bottle!  For those of you who know me well, you understand how hard it was to use MarthaStewart.com for anything, but she had the best free monograms I could find for this project.  Add a cheesy little saying in a homemade card and PRESTO!  Co-worker Christmas presents are done!

Clear hand soap $0.89 each, Snowflake stickers $1.29,
Silver ribbon $0.74, Decorative bells $1.00

Transparency copy $0.10,
Labor to remove soap labels FREE (but my poor fingernails!)

Cutting the transparency to the right size for a circular bottle was a pain.
Next time I'll find rectangular soap bottles!

These bells were the best find at Dollar Tree!
I just had to restring them onto silver ribbon.

The stickers were originally going on the soap bottles, but they made cute
cards instead with the added bling from leftover wedding craft supplies!

All bagged up to go to work--I love the snowflake stickers on top!

And the biggest compliment? My boss thought I'd bought them somewhere!

Sister Scarves

My oldest nieces are almost 3- and almost 5-years-old. They are sisters, and at their age, they (or at least the younger of the two) want to have everything the other has. So when knitting scarves for them for Christmas, I used the exact same pink/purple/turquoise eyelash yarn for both and made sure they were just about the exact same length (sorry, I'm not double-checking by counting rows with furry yarn!)  These will accompany t-shirts from the Disney store.  I know, they're not the same shirt, but there were no Perry the Platypus shirts in a 3T, and I *had* to get a Perry shirt for at least one of them!

Crafty Card Display

I combined a couple of Pinterest ideas to come up with a way to display all of our family and friends' photo Christmas cards this year.

Cute ribbon plus coordinating paints and naked clothespins

Dave mocked me for taking the time to paint clothespin pieces

I debated adding bling to the pins, but decided I prefer the simple look

The finished product!

Not Actual Size

My BFF saw the beautiful holiday centerpiece below on Pinterest and loved it so much that I knew I had to get her something like it for Christmas.  My wonderful baby sister pointed me toward Target.com, where I even got to choose between a couple different sizes of apothecary jars!  Of course I had to get some ornaments to go with it, and that's where I should have paid more attention because size *does* matter when it comes to filling jars...

The ideal centerpiece from Pinterest

The actual gift in Heather's winter decor colors

But another idea from Pinterest can make everything right!

What she may do with the jumbo-sized ornaments instead...

Early Christmas

My BFF got an early start to her Christmas shopping.  Before Thanksgiving, she gave me a gift certificate to spend at erincondren.com and steered me toward the personalized planners.  I ordered the Monthly Planning Notebook in "candy lace" print.

Such a pretty box!  And it's wrapped inside, too!

I even reused the box and inside wrapping for Dave's gift... hehe!

Matches my new purse perfectly!

Half of Heather's present arrived on her doorstep Monday, and the other half is scheduled to be delivered today. I can't wait for her to open it!

Beware of Christmas Paws

Twenty-five days till Christmas, and the decorations are still in a pile of boxes in the dining room--but at least we got them out of the attic! I dug out the advent wreath, the main part of the nativity set, and our stockings, but otherwise I'm procrastinating decking the halls. I blame Skeeter because I'm not sure what she's going to do with a fully-decorated Christmas tree. She's already pulled the bows off of a few wrapped presents I have stashed in the guest room...

Christmas Cookie FAIL

On the eve of Christmas Eve, I headed home from work with intentions of baking Christmas cookies for my family. I figured I'd start easy: chocolate chip cookies with M&M's instead of chocolate chips. The batter was a little gooey going into the oven, but I didn't think much of it until I pulled out the cookie sheet after 10 minutes.


Instead of a dozen cute Christmas cookies, I had a caterpillar-like blob. After a couple of calls to my mother debating what I could do to rescue this recipe, I decided to force the cookies into perfect circular shapes using the best cookie cutter I could find--a drinking glass.


Despite my best hopes, I had to concede FAILure on this particular recipe and moved on to something different. I made a batch of red and green sugared snickerdoodles (which turned out perfectly), and went to bed with hopes of regrouping in the morning for round two with M&M Christmas cookies...

I found a different chocolate chip cookie recipe and was determined to follow each instruction perfectly to limit the possibility of another FAIL. I also discovered a cookie scoop in my kitchen gadget drawer which quickly became one of my new favorite kitchen toys. Since I was low on M&M's due to the FAILed batch, I made these with mini chocolate chips in the batter and one M&M on top.

See the difference? I now have a new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, and hopefully I won't have to endure another epic cookie FAIL any time soon!

Merry Christmas!

Since I will probably not be blogging much between now and next week, I just wanted to wish my few loyal readers a very merry and very blessed Christmas!

LibraryDiva's Family

I can't help but think of LibraryDiva's fantastically funny family in Mississippi whenever I see a plastic light-up Nativity in someone's front yard... and I've seen three of them so far this Christmas (one even had a burnt-out Joseph!)

The Morning Before

'Twas the morning before Christmas
And all through her home
Karen was attempting to knit
And (at the same time) think up this poem...

These presents for the ladies at Mencom only needed to have ends woven in, so I did manage to finish them (though they didn't get washed...)

This isn't even close to the 18" needed to finish Dave's hat (see picture in book for model).

Mom's tote bag is only about 2" long, and Mary's scarf hasn't even been started, so these will be wrapped up for them (needles & all). At least I'll have something to do after all of the presents are opened tomorrow!

Ah, my pretty tree... and look at all the presents! Pretty amazing considering that I live alone!

Christmas in Diva-stan

LibraryDiva and HistoryDiva model their striped Christmas scarves (HD picked up the yarn from a dollar store in West Virginia) and their new hand-knit dishrags. LD has a box stitch and a moss stitch dishcloth; HD has two embossed daisy dishcloths modified from a Creative Knitting pattern (May 2008 issue).

Mistoffelees snuggles up to the box of my new serving bakeware from HD.

Truffle guards the Christmas tree with her laser vision.

Tis The Season

The weekend after Thanksgiving, I trudged upstairs to the attic to bring down all of the Christmas decorations. That same weekend, I started feeling a little under the weather. I managed to get the Nativity scene set up (no baby Jesus till Christmas...), but that was about it for the weekend.


During the week, I started to feel worse--coughing fits, constant nose-blowing, and a general feeling of "ick." All I got accomplished on the decorating front was unpacking all of the ornaments and piling them on my dining room table.

After taking two sick days at the end of the week, I finally broke down and went to see the doctor. The diagnosis: I had walking pneumonia!

The good news was that the prescription meds would have me feeling much better much quicker! So this past Sunday, I was finally able to finish setting up the Christmas tree.

I fluffed all of the wiry artificial branches, then added the lights. Finally, all of the ornaments which had been adorning the table were tranferred to the tree. Ta-da! It's officially my second Christmastime in my house...