Christmas Card Confession

I have a confession to make.

Those are my Christmas cards, still unsent. I did get a few out on Christmas Eve, but the rest of them I wrote this morning. Nothing like a bit of procrastination, eh? One year I actually did send New Year's cards; I have a neat rubber stamp of an hourglass and I use sparkly colored glitter for this sand. This year, I'm just late! When I addressed the envelopes back in early December I purposely put the stamps on them, so that I knew I couldn't just shove them back in the box until next year. See, I know my weaknesses.

No big plans for us tonight. Once we had a baby I finally got over the feeling that if I didn't have some fabulous New Year's Eve plans, I was a total loser. Now I don't even care if I stay up until midnight! I don't even want to make special food after all the overeating we did last week, so we'll just have a normal dinner and watch a video. Low-key, but sounds good to me! Tomorrow I want to start de-Christmasing but I need to get the new toy mess cleaned up before I'll have room to make another mess.

Goodbye, 2008! And now I'd better run to get the cards in the mailbox before the postman comes!

Soldered Santa #2

I think I'm finally getting the hang of this soldering thing. Sure, my pieces are still a bit rough around the edges and my technique could use improving, but at least I'm to the point that I'm pleased with what I've made and don't want to throw it immediately in the trash.
This is a little ornament I made for my friend Shara. The Santa is a vintage gummed package seal and the back is a vintage Dennison label and lots of twinkly silver German glass glitter. The bead on the bottom is from an old earring. I'm pleased with how it turned out and I hope Shara likes it too! Once I clear the mounds of Christmas crap off my desk and get some glass ordered, I'm hoping to make some Valentine pieces. On one hand I hate to put away all of my vintage Christmas pretties but on the other--as I expected--I'm just ready for the mess to be gone. From the slew of organizing post around blogland, I know I'm not the only one!

Christmas Leftovers

Hello again! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with lots of good memories--we did! We spent the week in Utah visiting our families and just got home last night. Now begins the unpacking, laundry, and cleaning up the mess we made when we were getting ready to go! Before I get started I wanted to share a few more photos of Christmas stuff before I forget and move on.
These fun treats are the Snowman Hats I made to take to Maren's preschool party. I used the same idea as these Pilgrim Hats, (I used chocolate bark instead of chips) and decorated them with a strip of Fruit by the Foot for ribbon and cinnamon candy holly berries (I wanted to use mini M & M's but they're not peanut-safe). They were a huge hit with the other parents and teachers and they were yummy too! If I'd remembered when I was doing my shopping, I'd have used a little tube of green frosting and made a little holly leaf to accompany the berries, but they were still pretty darn cute even without it.

I mentioned earlier in December that I'm a bit obsessed with red and white toadstool ornaments. I must not be the only one who loves mushrooms because I found them at Pier One, World Market, Wal-Mart, Anthropologie, and Macy's this year! Here's a photo of some of of the shrooms I've collected:
Kkeep in mind that this photo doesn't show the 5 toadstools I found at Macy's (including a few giant Martha Stewart versions) or the really neat vintage toadstool guy I bought at an antique store in Utah on Saturday.

I also found this kitschy decoration at a thrift store earlier in the month:It's a little wooden crate with a few flocked toadstools, plastic greens and vintage glass beads. I totally dig the red velvet ribbon and it's even painted my favorite color of shabby aqua blue! It's like it was made just for me!To go along with the toadstools I found these little wooden gnome ornaments (in a bag from the thrift) and some of these glass guys like Sarah found at Macy's. More toadstool love can be found with Sarah's woodland tree, Suzy's mushroom tree, and Hannah's giant sequined toadstool.

Just before I left for vacation I received a delightful box from a dear friend which included this little glittered house in my favorite turquoise and red that I just had to show you! Isn't it darling? Shara even included some little brown toadstools! Does she know me or what? Thanks again Shara, I love it!

And now, I have a couple of overflowing laundry baskets calling my name!

Holiday Decor at my house

We're here in Utah at my parents' house but I still had a few more photos I wanted to share with you of the decorations in my home. I'm short on time so I won't give descriptions but hope you enjoy--click on any photo to make it bigger. I have a few left to share tomorrow as well! Hope things are beginning to feel a lot like Christmas wherever you are--they certainly are here!

Soldered Santas, a beaded bouquet and crafty links

A few weeks ago I had an opportunity to make some ornaments for a few lovely friends and wanted to show you what I came up with because I'm pretty thrilled about how they turned out! I knew that I wanted to try soldering again--I'm determined to get good at it, by golly. I rummaged around in my supplies and found a few scraps of one of my all-time favorite scrapbooking papers, some metal Making Memories snowflakes, and the cool Tim Holtz tags I bought in Phoenix at Mystic Paper. I soldered a jump ring on the top to hold the ornament hanger and also on the bottom, where I hung a pretty iridescent bead taken from a vintage earring. I tied on a bit of matching red seam binding and tucked them into organza bags. I love how they look and hope the recipients like them too! I definitely feel a bit more confident in my soldering abilities now as well.

Along with the vintage glass bead garland yesterday, another vintage Christmas item I always look for when thrifting or antiquing is glass bead picks. I covet them so very much, but for me they have been just about impossible to find locally and they are pretty pricy on eBay--I guess I'm not the only one out there who loves them! When I walked into my favorite local store, Patina this was the first thing I saw and truly, it was love at first sight:I've never seen anything like this and I probably never will, as it was handmade. It's a bouquet made of all different shapes, sizes and colors of mercury glass beaded picks, tinsel, and vintage glass ball picks. Oh, it is glorious! I love it so, so much (like everything else I've ever bought at Patina) and I'm not sure I'll be able to bear to pack it away after Christmas--it might have to stay out for a while so I can look at it more!

Looking for something cute, vintage-style and crafty to do with the kids? How about these darling little snowman scenes from Holly Doodle Designs or these neat vintage-inspired chenille candy canes from Jerusalem, via Vintage Indie.

Tonight Maren and I are going to make snowman hat cookies for her preschool class party in the morning. We're going to use the instructions for Pilgrim hats but forego the yellow buckles for something a bit more wintry. If they turn out hopefully I'll have a picture for you tomorrow!

The most wonderful time at the thrift store redux and a Christmas catalog link

Still loving the great vintage pickins' at the thrift stores now that all the Christmas stuff is out! I made a stop at the thrift last Thursday while Maren was in school and was rewarded with these beauties.
They were stuffed in a bag with some other ugly (new) beaded garland but when I flipped the bag over and saw these I think I might have gasped out loud! This might be just the prettiest vintage glass bead garland I've ever seen and certainly the most elaborate in my small collection. Wow! What a treasure.
Vintage glass bead garland is one of my Holy Grails of thrifting. I find it so rarely that every strand I've managed to turn up is absolutely precious to me and I hoard it jealously. The problem is that I don't have a good way to display it--it doesn't work on my tree and when piled in a bowl or on a cake plate it just looks like sparkly spaghetti. I've seen so many neat handmade items embellished with these glass beads that I'm trying hard to get over my hoarding tendency and my fear of actually *using* it. I'm trying to remember that I'd get a lot more enjoyment out of the garlands if I used them (even if that requires cutting them apart) as right now they're just tucked in a plastic tote out of sight. I did manage to unstring a few beads from one to use on a project I'm working on right now. Baby steps!

If you still have time to waste after yesterday's Betamaxmas link, how about checking out this very cool online compendium of old Christmas catalogs? The earliest is from 1940 and the most recent is 1988. I've been loving the 1986 Sears catalog..I was 8 that year and I've already found several of the toys that I remember hoping Santa would bring. Just the Barbie pages alone have me squealing!

Vintage cookie cutter garland and two more fun Christmas links

I mentioned a little while ago how smitten I was with this tutorial over at Joli Paquet. I was able to find the repro vintage cookie cutters at Home Goods and armed with more vintage cutters from my collection and ribbon bought for half-price at JoAnn's the day after last Christmas, I set about making my own garland.(Sorry for the lousy photos--it's hard to get a good one since there's always light coming in) Making the garland couldn't have been easier--just measure the ribbon, find the center and string on the cookie cutters! I knew I wanted to hang mine on the curtain rod over my kitchen window but the valance I had up, cute as it is, didn't match. Luckily, the same friend who lent me the other valance also gave me this cute gingham curtain trimmed with fat white rickrack, which turned out to be the perfect background for displaying the garlands.
I started out by making the bottom garland but when I finished I still had plenty of cookie cutters left and another spool of ribbon, so I made another! The only thing I did differently from the tutorial was leave off the buttons, for no other reason than pure laziness!

I love how the garlands turned out! What a fun, easy and satisfying craft project and a cute decoration!

The Christmas countdown clock seems to be ticking a bit faster for me today because in exactly one week we'll be on the road to Utah to spend the holiday with our families. That means I have to get all the gifts purchased and wrapped, get us packed, packages mailed, do any baking, gifts to friends, etc. by Saturday. Yikes! I wish I was one of those people who does their Christmas shopping all year round but that just doesn't really work for the people I have to buy for, so I'm usually scrambling at the last minute

Hopefully you're further along in your preparations than I am so you have a little time to check out my favorite time-waster website this Christmas, Betamaxmas. You'll love it if you're a child of the 80s like me! Be sure to check out the TV Guide for the programming lineup and move the antennas on the TV to make the picture fuzzier or more clear.

If you're still crafting and need some great vintage Christmas images, check out Clearly Vintage, a blog that has new vintage images each day until Christmas! She also designs a line of vintage-inspired rubber stamps that are really neat.

And one more thing for those viewing this on a blog reader--I've updated my blog roll on the left side to include a whole mess of blogs that have great vintage Christmas inspiration. Go check them out!

Window frame card display project

A few months ago my sweet dad helped me hang an old flea-market-find window on my wall, and I've been patiently waiting for inspiration to strike so that I'd know how to embellish it. The other night I was looking through some ideas I'd torn out of magazines a while ago and found it--my inspiration! Within about 30 minutes I'd collected all the supplies, put it together and was admiring the finished product! I rarely finish a project that quick (or at all..ha) so it was particularly gratifying.

Here's the inspiration:
This was torn out of a BH&G Holiday Decorating special magazine from 2003.

Here's my frame:I used double-sided tape to attach the ribbons to the top and bottom of the frame. I used a small square of the same tape to attach the cards to the ribbon--there may be a better way to do this but I wanted to get it done.
The greeting cards are all thrifted. The round card on the bottom left is gorgeous--all lovely Victorian embossing and soft green velvet ribbon (that was from an antique store and was more than I usually pay for cards but it's just beautiful!). The round item on the bottom right is an old coaster, and the two Santas in the middle are vintage die cut decorations. On the top of the frame I have three vintage bottlebrush wreaths I found at a thrift last month. Two of them needed new ornaments but that was easily remedied with tacky glue and a few items from my collection. I had been looking for a way to display them and this was just perfect!

There's so much Christmas goodness out there in blogland right now that I'm almost overwhelmed! If you're a fan of the Barenaked Ladies, here's a link to a fun interview with Ed and a free download of the boys singing a very funny version of "Jingle Bells". (PS--if anyone knows how to permanently download that to your computer, will you leave a comment? I'm stupid when it comes to stuff like that).

It's the most wonderful time of the year...at the thrift store!

It's 7:03 am and the house is so blessedly quiet! It snowed last night so school is delayed an hour today, meaning that Maren will only be there for 1 hour and 30 minutes and honestly, I'm half inclined to just keep her home altogether so we don't have to go out in the snow and cold. We'll see, I still have a bit before I have to decide.

This most certainly is the most wonderful time of the year at the thrift store for anyone who loves vintage Christmas (and wants to buy it cheap) like I do! All of the thrifts around here keep their Christmas decor in storage until sometime in November and then I become like a woman possessed, just thinking about all the vintage *goodies* that might be lurking unassumingly between the bags of tangled Christmas lights and ugly candle holders. Last week I heard the thrift calling and although the day was snowy and I only had a few minutes to pop in, I was rewarded with treasures!
These went straight on the tree. My favorites are the ones with pale green and pink stripes and sparkly old glitter. I do profess a certain secret love for the ornaments made of styrofoam and sequins as well...I gotta have my sparkle, and I've never met a sequin I didn't like!These were also waiting for me back in the craft section. I can always tell when they've had a donation of someone's old sewing supplies because they have several bags full of vintage goodies at once (the rest of the time it's bags of old zippers and that horrible 'craft' ribbon from the 1980s). Those are my favorite times! I love the button cards with the lovely ladies in the minty pastel colors.

I'm still not quite finished with my decorating. Yes, I've been at this for over a week now but in my defense, I did have a couple of days this past weekend where I was gone and unable to get anything done. I think it's taking so long this year because I've been making a bunch of new items--fun stuff and I'm loving the process, but it does take time. I do have a deadline--my folks are coming on Thursday, and I want everything to be pretty for them. Deadlines are a good thing for me!

I'll leave you with one of my favorite non-traditional Christmas songs that seems pretty appropriate for my world this morning. Oh, and the video is lame-o (just a collection of still photos) so minimize the window and just listen to the pretty music. :)

Winter decor inspiration from Hallmark Magazine

I'm sure by now you've heard through the blog grapevine that Mary Engelbreit Home Companion has sung its swan song. Big time bummer, but I'll admit that over the last year or so I've liked it less and less. I can't put my finger on why exactly--I'm not sure if the content has gotten thinner or it has gone too 'artsy' or what--I just know that I haven't enjoyed reading it like I used to. However, the recent Antiquing issue was fabulous, and seemed to me to be a return to the old Home Companion that I liked so much. Sad that it made that turnaround right before its demise.

However, I've already found its replacement in the pantheon of the magazines I love so well: Hallmark Magazine. Somehow I scored a free subscription through a link on this blog and I've really been enjoying it! The December issue has a fabulous spread with bird-themed Christmas decor in the most beautiful shade of blue, silver and touches of red.

all images from Hallmark Magazine December 2008 issue

Here's a link to the article if you want to see the other photos. There's even a template for that darling bird garland made of vintage sheet music, beautiful blue ribbon and tiny ornaments. I think I'll try to use these ideas for my January 'winter' decor. I was at Wal-Mart yesterday to buy the mushroom ornaments I saw on Sarah's blog and found some cute little glittery bird ornaments in silver and aqua that could definitely work for this theme.

Today marked the beginning of the second weekend of The Purple Pansy Boutique! If you're local, do come by--we're open from 10 am to 5 pm. If you mention that you saw this on my blog you'll receive an extra entry into the door prize drawing!

A few late night Thursday things

I'm totally tickled PINK to have an item from my etsy shop, The Merry Magpie, included in this fun Chic Geek column by Delia Hauser! My item is #4 in the Wrapping section, a set of darling vintage Christmas gift boxes. I have those and a ton of other cute vintage Christmas items in my shop right now.

I'm still waiting for an email from the winner of the Mickey Mouse puzzle, Mabel. Please send your address to fraulein_h at hotmail and all that so I can get it in the mail! Today would have been a perfect puzzle day here. It started snowing at 7 am and left us with about 6" of powdery, fluffy snow. I shoveled the driveway so that The Mister could get in after work and it was like shoveling cotton batting! It looked exactly like the bag of fake snow I have for decorating and sparkled just like German glass glitter. It was COLD but absolutely beautiful! The gentle glow of Christmas lights reflected in snow has to be one of the most peaceful sights ever, don't you think?

Crafty links for a cold day

My lands, it is cold here today! The heater has been running just about nonstop and I've had cold hands since the minute I woke up. I had hot soup for lunch, planning to make more hot soup for dinner and I'm on my first cup of hot chocolate with more sure to come. Brr! It's the perfect day to stay in and decorate!

The tree is up and hung with my most precious of vintage ornaments. Oh, it's pretty! I say this every year, but when the afternoon sun comes in the window and hits the tree it's just like a big jewel box with all the sparkle and the colors. This is a photo from last year, but it looks pretty much the same this year too:It makes me so happy to walk in there and see the glitter! Now that's done, it's time for the rest of the house to get festive.

I don't know about you, but I'm totally in the mood to do some Christmas crafting! Last December I was in such a bad humor that I don't recall doing nearly as much crafting as I would have liked, even though I was filled to the brim with inspiration from Silver Bella. This year is different, and it seems that Blogland is just filled with no end of crafty ideas! Some of my favorites from this past week alone are:

• This fun white fur wreath from The Nester
• Barbara's darling glass bead and bell garland at Oodles and Oodles
• All of the tutorials on Joli Paquet have been top notch, but I'm especially in love with Sunday's tart tin ornaments and cookie cutter garland!
  

I am so in love with that cookie cutter project that I must have gone back and looked at it a hundred times already. I immediately dug through my big jar of vintage cookie cutters to see if I have enough to make a garland of my own. I do, but that didn't stop me from heading to Home Goods on Monday to see if I could find the vintage repros that Jeanne used in her tutorial. I did find them in the aisle where the cooking bowls in case any of you want to look for them as well. I was just tickled to see this garland idea because last December I tried to think of something decorative to do combining my cookie cutters and big silver jingle bells, but due to my aforementioned BAD MOOD and a lack of time, I never did anything. Now I have a plan!

By the way, here is the Chocolate Pie recipe that Blogger wouldn't let me post yesterday:

Creamy Chocolate Silk Pie

One 9" pie crust shell, baked and cooled
1/4 c. sugar
3 Tbsp cornstarch
1 1/2 c. milk
1 c. chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet)
1 tsp vanilla
2 c. heavy cream
2 tsp powdered sugar

In a medium saucepan combine sugar, cornstarch and milk. Whisk ingredients together until well-blended. Heat just until it starts to thicken, remove from heat and add chocolate chips and vanilla. Allow them to melt into the milk mixture a minute or so before stirring. Let cool about 10 minutes, cover with a lid and place in the fridge to cool for at least another 30 minutes.

Whip heavy cream and powdered sugar until soft peaks form. Combine half of cream with the cooled chocolate mixture, folding together gently to keep it light. Fill the pie crust. Use the remaining whipped cream for the topping, either piped from a bag or just spread over the top like icing on a cake. Sprinkle with shaved chocoalte or mini-chocolate chips. Refrigerate 2-3 hours before serving and serve cold.

I'm afraid I didn't write down the source of this recipe so if it's yours, thanks for sharing! :)

The Goblet speaks & yummy chocolate pie

Thank you all for commenting and entering to win the cute Mickey puzzle! I consulted the Goblet of Fire and it said...

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

6 

Timestamp: 2008-12-02 21:20:09 UTC

Comment #6 was left by Mabel! Email me at fraulein_h at hotmail etc. etc. with your address and I'll get it in the mail post haste!

*************************************

A few more words about Thanksgiving...so many of you left me wonderful advice about how to cook a turkey, which I appreciate and will put to good use when I finally get around to cooking Birdzilla, which is still in my freezer. :) Once I got to Costco and saw the price of turkey breasts (as much as a whole turkey! Sheesh) I marched myself over to the meat case and bought some lovely filet mignon instead! Not traditional, but I didn't get any complaints from the menfolk who ate it so I think it was a fine substitution.

Everything else turned out pretty yummy with the exception of the rolls--but then yeast breads and I have never gotten along well, so I shouldn't have been surprised. That may have been the Lion House recipe but those weren't no Lion House rolls, let me tell you! Lion House hockey pucks was more like it. I know that I just need to practice more to get good at making yeast breads but really, who wants to "practice" making something that takes all day and leaves your kitchen a floury mess, without the promise of a yummy payoff for the work? Not me, and that's why my rolls were terrible!

My rolls might not have been great but at least the Chocolate Silk Pie was a winner! It was easy and SO yummy; very light but with a very rich chocolate flavor, and perfect for breakfast. ;) Here's the recipe in case you want to make it for dessert (or breakfast!):

Okay, nevermind. I've tried and tried to post this darn recipe but Blogger is having a temper tantrum so I'll try again later. Boo.