Ugly Christmas Scarf

As promised, here's a picture of the Ugly Christmas Scarf. This baby got a lot of use in the two weeks leading up Christmas through New Year's Eve.

I'm wearing it here on Christmas Day, playing with the Bucky Balls I gave my cousin for Christmas. Well, I insisted I wasn't "playing" with them (because that would make me a nerd like her) but I was obsessed with getting them back into the cube shape they were packed in. It's really hard, but now that I figured it out I always have to "clean them up" if I see anyone put them down.

Get This $#*! Out of My House!

So I bake for Christmas. Well bake and make candy. Lots of candy. Somehow I didn't think about just how far fudge goes and now have about 4 pounds of extra fudge that just couldn't fit onto our gifted plates o' goodies. Then I have about half a sheet of Congo Bars (which, by the way, are the best things EVER), a dozen peanut butter balls and an entire batch of peanut bite cookies still in my kitchen.

Then... like probably a lot of you... I received several plates of baked goods as gifts from friends and family. My BFF gave me a 7.5 liter tupperwear filled with what had to be 10 pounds of cookies. That's it at the top of the page. Holy moses, right? Add to that my sister's godmother's plate of cookies & carrot cake, my cousin's sugar cookies and our neighbors plate as well.... it's a serious fat & sugar overload here. Since my sister is ALWAYS at her boyfriends, there's just TWO of us here. And believe me... if the sugar & fat stays here we WILL eat it all eventually.

So look, I gotta get it out of here. This evening I've taken everything that looks like it has a snowball's chance in hell of surviving the trip, wrapped it up in plastic wrap, stuffed it into ziplock bags, stacked it in that huge tupperwear box and I'm sending it to Afghanistan in the morning.

I figure the soldier marches around a lot & can work off the calories, plus he has 350 or so friends he can share it with. I hope if something is too moist & starts to mold I've at least separated it from the rest of the box by several layers of plastic. Honestly, if it doesn't make it at least it's the thought that counts and at least it isn't being converted into fat on my hips as we speak.

Did you end up with lots of yummy treats? What do YOU do with all of it?

The Current State of My Kitchen Counter

'Tis the season, my friends. The holiday baking/candy making has begun. Pray for me.

Gift Wrap Caddy

Since I'm on a gift wrapping kick, I thought I'd share this awesome idea for anyone who didn't catch it:

Jen at eighteen25 shared this awesome gift her friend gave her:

It's a gift wrapping caddy made from a drink carrier from a fastfood joint! How adorable is that? I think it makes a great gift for coworkers or neighbors. Definitely a good alternative to baked goods which, let's face it, NO ONE needs more of this time of year.

Hope on over to eighteen25 to see all the fun details!

What are you giving those "small gift" people in your life? Do you give presents to the whole office, or just a select few?

Gifts of Wine & Love

I have a huge stash of wine. It started on a trip to the Bay in February. The first weekend was my friend's birthday and 20 of his closest friends piled into a mini-bus & went to four wineries in Napa.

I stayed the rest of the week with my cousin & the following weekend my gay husband & his partner came up to celebrate their anniversary. They're a unique couple & like to share a lot of their lives with their friends. So when they invited me wine tasting in Sonoma, I was all over it. Since it was their special weekend, I hired a driver to take us around. With only 3 of us we ended up hitting NINE wineries.

Anyhow, two weekends of tastings made me really open up to new types of wine. My pallet had matured since my first experiences with wine and I really appreciated different varietals. I went crazy. I started buying from Wine Woot on almost a weekly basis.

The problem is, I don't DRINK wine that often. I live with a recovered alcoholic & a 22 year old who drinks anything but wine. So now I want to thin it out a bit. Luckily, there's lots of hostess gifts and Christmas presents in there! But of course, I can't just leave it at that. The bottles must be wrapped & have a little crochet love in there too.

I used Lucy's Snowflake Pattern, which is so easy & adorable. After the last round I chained 80, slipstitched into the 5th chain from the hook & did another snowflake so they're connected. It took maybe 15 minutes while watching The Joy Luck Club (so factor in time for sniffling and wiping away tears!). I'm using some Knit Pick's Comfy in fingering weight which I have an ungodly amount of. It would look so much prettier in something with a little sparkle, like maybe Bernat Baby Coordinates. Now that I say that, I think I might have some buried in my stash somewhere. I'll have to fish it out.

As you can tell, I'm getting really into the whole Christmas wrapping thing. Expect more gift wrapping posts... including photos of my friend's upcoming Christmas Wrapping Extravaganza on Friday!

How are your Christmas plans going?

Christmas Preview

I'm going to sound crazy right now. Ready? Prepare yourself....

I spent 2 hours today preparing for wrapping Christmas presents. That's right- I didn't wrap presents during those two hours... I just prepared for it.

Here's the story:

Every year my friend & her family have a small Gift Wrapping Party. Basically, 7 or 8 ladies get together, put on some holiday music, eat some food and wrap presents together. It's just a fun little get together. I'm almost never done with my shopping, but it's still fun to hang out and at least get SOMETHING done.

So I'm trying to be frugal this year. Wrapping paper is expensive! So I bought a roll of "Easy Mask"- which is this thin kraft paper that comes on a roll about 12 inches wide & 180 inches long- to use as my wrapping paper. I love the "brown paper packages tied up with string" kind of imagery.

For "bows" I'm using little projects I've made throughout the year as a result of my craft ADD. This includes small crocheted motifs, tiny amigurumi toys, some origami flowers... stuff like that. I'll be tying these on with left over ribbon or maybe some crocheted chains or other left over yarn.

Because I'm extra insane, I went ahead and wrapped one present, just so I could show you a picture. Happily, in the background you'll see my first Christmas card all addressed & ready to wing it's way across the country too!

I'm pretty excited and I'll be sure to share the big pile o' gifts all wrapped up when I'm done.

How are your holiday plans shaping up?

An Old Skool Christmas

My WIPs are out of control, but I had an overwhelming need to make something very Christmas-y with an old, vintage-y vibe.

What I came up with is just about done after just a day. I'll have completed pictures sometime this weekend, but in the meantime here's a sneak peek...

Oh Lion Brand Wool-Ease in the evening light, how I love thee.

Advent Village

My BFF & I exchanged Advent gifts on Sunday. The one she gave me is a super classy, very Martha-looking garland with lovely little gifts wrapped in cream and tan. The one I gave her looks a little like a 7 year old helped me make it.

I had high hopes of making lots of the gifts (you may remember), but time management and a lack of inspiration changed those plans. I did buy a lot of handmade and most of the non-handmade is still from independent shops, so I feel ok about that.

I made little boxes with tiny houses that fit over the top. I then used the best glue ever to secure them to a large box. I had cut the front panel of the box so it flopped open when you take off the lid. Some of the houses were glued onto this floppy panel and I was very happy the awesome glue kept them securely on.

I used poly fill for snow, mostly because that's what I had on hand. It ended up looking a little more like clouds. Eh. Whatevs.

Because I'm a little crazy, I have a spreadsheet of which presents she's opening everyday. Don't judge- it was originally to keep track of what I had purchased & which houses were complete. The fact that I can follow along with her now is just a happy sidenote.

Are you already celebrating the holiday season? If you've blogged about your projects please leave a link! I'm full-force in the holiday spirit and totally down for new crafty ideas!

Bad Blogger

Sorry guys. I know I've been MIA for a while here. I've been mad busy, yo. I officially took over as the contact person for NET in my area. It's not a TON of work, except that I happened to take the reigns in the midst of the busy time. Tracking down very busy people, getting lots of paperwork together, trying to fill empty dates... it's fun but takes lots of time & thought.

I've also been trying to spend time with various friends who are scattered about Southern California. My BFF and I made some gift decisions. That's right- we don't just surprise each other with gifts, there are decisions to be made. For the second time in our 15 year friendship, we'll be giving each other Advent gifts. So starting 4 weeks prior to Christmas, we are giving each other a gift for EVERY day. Eek! We did this in High School & I think we kept costs down by saying half of them had to be handmade or something.

This year our rule is that each gift must fit in an envelope. Weird right? I'm not sure how that happened, but it's an interesting challenge. As you might expect, I am also making at least a few of the gifts. I'm working on the first now and have several thoughts brewing.

Here's some inspiration:



I'm thinking perhaps some bunting with her name for her office (she works with young people)



Some pretty little thing to hang from a doorknob or drawer pull



I could recreate this cozy in some fall (more BFF appropriate) colors

So there's 3... out of like 28 gifts. *sigh* Anyone out there have some cute small ideas? We can fudge the "envelope" size a bit-- as long as there's an envelope in existence that it would fit in, I think I can swing it. :)