Buh-bye

Dear December:
Boy, am I glad you're over. You sucked rocks approximately 87% of the time. Good riddance. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Dear 2010:
Overall, you were pretty good (see above for the exception). Thanks for the memories!

Dear 2011:
I have big plans for you! Get ready!

Crafty stuff: Glittery vintage cookie cutter ornaments

One type of item I see frequently at thrift stores, estate sales and antique malls is aluminum cookie cutters.

 

Every housewife at some point in the 1940s-70s must have had some in her kitchen, so they're usually easy to find and inexpensive. I've picked up quite a few, but stopped myself from bringing home more when I realized that other than putting them all in a big jar, I couldn't think of anything else I could actually do with them.

I did make these Christmas cookie cutter garlands a few years ago, using a combination of new reproduction cutters and vintage cutters from my collection. To make the garlands you need to use cutters with two holes in the front so they can be strung on the ribbon.

Most of the cutters in my collection are the ordinary type without the wooden handle and the accompanying pair of holes, therefore unsuitable for garland-making so they've still been sitting in their jar, patiently waiting to be turned into something fun.

Enter the Christmas issue of Inspired Ideas! If you're not yet familiar with Inspired Ideas, it's a wonderful online magazine put together by the fabulous and charming Amy Powers. In my opinion, the 2010 Christmas issue is the best yet! There are 170+ pages of yummy eye-candy and crafting and decorating inspiration, all for free! The feature about cookie cutters that caught my eye is on pages 157-159, by Heidi Woodruff, who has an appropriately-named blog called Everyday Cookies. Heidi used doll-sized vintage aluminum cookie cutters to make cute charms, but the suggestion that got my wheels turning was to cover cookie cutters in glitter and make them into Christmas tree ornaments.

Since I needed more ornaments for the Jolly Green Giant tree anyway, this was the perfect solution! And it was simple enough that Maren could help, so it would also fulfill the requirement of keeping her busy while she's been on her school break. (12 days and counting...)

I used Heidi's instructions from the magazine article, so I won't give a tutorial here. I chose the Christmas-themed cutters from my collection and used a Cropadile to make holes in the tops for hanging. I had originally intended to use coarse silver German glass glitter. Maren used pink and red glass glitter on her two ornaments (the pink flower and red heart) and the coverage wasn't great, so for mine I switched to Martha Stewart glitter. I tried the tree and a heart in Tourmaline, a lovely aqua color, but by far my favorite was the Antique Silver. It looked like the original color of the aluminum cutters, but sparklier! For glue I used a bottle of Martha Stewart Glittering Glue that I had in my stash. The bottle lid had an attached brush that was very handy for painting the glue all over the cookie cutters.

Once they were dry, I used Heidi's method for making beaded hangers. I used long head pins from my jewelry making supplies and glass beads cut from vintage beaded Christmas garlands.

The glittery ornaments are incredibly sparkly in real life and look so pretty on my tree! I was sad that I ran out of Christmas-themed cutters before I could make more. I've scoured the thrifts looking for bags of cookie cutters, but haven't been able to find any (figures--the rest of the year they're plentiful, but I need them for a project and they disappear.) I saw tons at the antique mall last weekend, but didn't want to pay antique-booth markup when I know how much they cost at the thrift stores! I'll have to keep my eye out this coming year and stash away a few to make more ornaments next Christmas.

Photo swiped from Rebecca at Thrifty Goodness

I knew that I wanted to make these for our yearly Goodness Girl ornament swap, but as I was out of Christmas-themed cutters, I used hearts instead. For these ornaments I punched a hole in the bottom of the heart as well as the top, and used more glass garland beads and a piece of a chandelier crystal to make a little dangle. I've yet to find anything that didn't benefit from even more sparkle. :) I packaged them in little muslin bags stamped with the year.

I've always wanted to have a "kitchen" tree, and I think these would be darling on one, hung from a piece of polka-dot ribbon. Thanks to Heidi Woodruff for the cute cookie cutter inspiration, and be sure to check out Inspired Ideas if you haven't already!

Thrift store chair re-do and cute chair inspiration

One of my favorite things to do when my dad visits is hit the thrift stores to look for treasures together. He shares my love of junk and it's fun to spend time with him prowling the aisles of the thrift store or antique mall. On one such trip several years ago, we picked up this old oak chair.

My dad shares my weakness for old orphaned chairs, and what made this one particularly appealing was not the ugly paint job or scary upholstery fabric, but the pretty claw feet:

You can see the original price tag of $6.99 but if I remember correctly, it was purchased on 50% off day so it was only $3.50.

This chair sat in the garage until last summer, when I decided it would be the perfect project to work on while I was out supervising Maren, who loved to play in the front yard with the neighborhood kids. If I was going to be out there, I might as well have something productive to do, right? I managed to get most of it sanded, and that was where my good intentions petered out. In summer '09 I was pregnant with Porter and pretty soon the idea of hanging out in my south-facing garage in the afternoon in the hottest part of the summer didn't seem all that appealing anymore.

So the chair was abandoned again, halfway sanded and with the chair cushion removed, looking sadder than ever. And then this summer in a fit of productivity, I decided to have a go at it again. I wasn't pregnant, but still didn't want to hang out in my hot garage any more than necessary so I decided to go the lazy route and just paint the darn thing instead of sanding, stripping and refinishing. I'm fairly certain at the moment the first blast of black spray paint hit that oak, a chill ran down my poor dad's spine, and he didn't even know why.

It may have been the lazy way out, but I love that it's actually DONE. Well, not completely--I still need to attach the cushion to the chair but as long as nobody actually sits in it, that's not a problem.

The cushion was made from another thrifted item I've had hanging around for years:

I found this fab skirt a few years ago and although it was a child's size 12 and wouldn't fit Maren until about 2020, I grabbed it because I saw its potential. The skirt is red velveteen, with bands of black velvet ribbon and a really neat ruffled trim. I contemplated making it into a pair of pillow covers, but it worked out perfectly to cover the chair cushion. I simply cut off the waistband, split it at the side seams and removed the lining (which I actually reused for another project I'll share someday), and let out the bottom hem to make it easier to fit around the cushion. Plus I still have another panel to use, so I can still make that pillow cover someday!

Back in September when I visited Utah, we went to a craft fair and found a booth with the cutest upcycled chairs. My mom purchased one of the Halloween designs (they stuck to Halloween and Christmas only) and I thought it was so cute and clever that I wanted to show you.

The chair was likely a thrift or yard sale find, painted black. The cushion cover was made by sewing strips of patterned fabric (in this case, Halloween prints) together, and then it was recovered in the normal fashion (click on the photo to enlarge it if you'd like a larger view). It is a very simple design, but so cute! I love the idea of a red-painted chair for Christmas, with a cushion made of strips of vintage Christmas tablecloths.

The pillow on the chair was also from the same vendor. I think that it is made out of bleached, ironed drop cloths and painted with a freezer-paper stencil. The paint was a little bit glittery and it had the nice sharp edges you get from the adhesion of the freezer-paper to the fabric. This example is for Halloween of course, but you could do a Christmas version with a big red 25, and a drop cloth would give you enough fabric to do a bunch of cute pillows to give as gifts. It's probably not a surprise that with cute (and so reasonably priced) wares like this chair and pillow, that vendor's booth was hopping!

No-Bake Gingerbread Houses for Kids WINNER!

The winner of my giveaway of a copy of No-Bake Gingerbread Houses for Kids:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

13 

Timestamp: 2010-12-15 02:24:24 UTC

Commenter #13 is Amy! I happen to know where Amy lives (ooh, that sounds stalkerish, doesn't it?) because she's a local friend, so Amy--I'll get your fabulous book to you soon! Thank you all for entering, and I'd encourage you to check out my friend Lisa's book, which is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders. You can also check out her blog, where she has info about where to find candy, great decorating inspiration, and even the plans for two of the houses in her book! Now I have to decide which house to make next: the Cozy Cabin with its yummy Pirouette walls, or the darling toadstool house to go with all of the toadstool ornaments on my Christmas tree. Decisions...
 

Mermaid Palace from No-Bake Gingerbread Houses for Kids

Since Maren is STILL out of school (25 days until she goes back and counting**), I figured this was a perfect time to try our hand at one of the houses in No-Bake Gingerbread Houses for Kids. I let Maren choose which house we'd make first, and she chose the Mermaid Palace--no surprise there from my girly girl!

Once the Master of Disaster was in bed for his afternoon nap, we set to work. I used meringue powder to make my royal icing, per Lisa's tip in our interview. I had a can leftover from a Wilton Cake Decorating class I took a while back, but it can be readily purchased in the Wilton aisle at both Michael's and JoAnn's (don't forget your 40% off coupon!) The Mermaid Palace uses stacks of vanilla Oreos and ice cream cones to construct the towers, so we glued them all together and let them dry for a bit--not long, because royal icing dries out very quickly.

Once they were dry and secure, we got to do the fun part--the decorating! We mostly followed the picture in Lisa's book, though Maren chose blue icing for the walls instead of seafoam green. I piped on the frosting and Maren helped me smooth it out with a frosting knife.

For decoration, we used Smarties (leftover from Halloween!) and some tiny pink sugar pearls that I had in my cupcake decorating supplies; every Mermaid's Palace needs a little bling, right? Lisa's Mermaid Palace in the book looks like rests on a sandy seafloor made of graham cracker crumbs. I don't have any graham crackers right now, so we improvised and used breadcrumbs, which look just the same! I simply squirted royal icing all over the cardboard base, smoothed it out with a knife and we dumped the crumbs on.

My local Walgreen's was sold out of the green sour straws so we had to forgo the seaweed, but we did add sour gummy worm sea anemone to wave in the underwater currents. Maren loved how it turned out and had such fun making it! The whole thing was incredibly easy; the hardest thing for her was being patient while the icing dried. Being able to use store bought, pre-made items for the structure of the tower was such a huge mess- and time-saver for me!

I think next up we'll try the Cozy Cabin from Lisa's book. Maren and I have been reading the Little House on the Prairie series and when she saw it she said, "Look, it's Mary and Laura's cabin!" so that would be a fun way to tie into our reading. The fact that the cabin is constructed from Pirouette cookies, which just happen to be one of my all-time favorites, has nothing whatsoever to do with it. ;) And Pirouettes are on sale right now anyway, so it's economical!

You have a few more hours to leave a comment here and enter to win your own signed copy of No-Bake Gingerbread Houses for Kids! The giveaway closes at noon MST!

**(disclaimer: I love my daughter and I enjoy spending time with her. However, I also enjoy the precious 2.75 hours of "alone" time I get per day when she's at kindergarten and the baby is napping. It keeps me sane and allows me to get a lot done. Maren truly loves school, and is bored without it. Six weeks out of school in the middle of winter when it is too cold to go outside and run around gives us all cabin fever.)

Good Junk: Gurley Santas

Don't forget to enter my giveaway for a copy of No-Bake Gingerbread Houses for Kids by leaving a comment on this post! Giveaway closes Friday, December 10 at noon!
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My favorite time of the year at the thrifts! I haven't found anything stellar yet this year (although this trio of Gurley Santas is pretty darn cute), but that is partly because I can't go as often as years past. I'm still holding out hope for a late-season thrift bonanza like last year. There's still time! I've been good this year, Santa, I promise!

And speaking of Good Junk, I've been working my little fingers to the bone to get vintage Christmas treasures added to my etsy shop, The Merry Magpie--go check it out! I've already listed a bunch and just when I think I'm just about done, I find another box of stuff squirreled away to list. I think I'm going to set a limit for myself and if it's not listed by this Sunday, it will have to wait until next year. I've got other things to do--like figuring out a tree skirt and tree topper for the Jolly Green Giant. And decorating the rest of the house. And buying presents. And basically, everything else--I'm a little behind this year.

Crafty Stuff: sequin tree ornaments

Don't forget to enter my giveaway for a copy of No-Bake Gingerbread Houses for Kids by leaving a comment on this post!
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The tree is up! And all of the branches now have working lights! And it has only taken me two weeks! For crying out loud. Still no tree skirt, but there's no need to rush things, right?

We have a new tree this year. Well, new to us anyway--it's well over 10 years old. It's the tree we used in the house where I grew up, where there were huge tall cathedral ceilings in the living room that called for a great big tree to fill up all that space. Ten years ago we moved to the house where my parents live now which has standard 8" ceilings, a problem when you have an 8" Christmas tree. So after a few years of putting up the tree without the top layer, my folks bought a new (shorter) tree and retired the Jolly Green Giant to the shed, where it's been resting until my dad brought it out to me this past summer.

It's worth noting that this is the first time since we got married that we've had a normal-sized GREEN tree. The first two years we used a tiny little green thing that the apartment office gave to The Mister as a "we're sorry" gift after the upstairs toilet in his apartment leaked and flooded the main floor, while he was blissfully unawares on deployment to Saudi Arabia. Once we moved here six years ago, we finally had the space for me to put up my beautiful, beloved vintage aluminum pom-pom tree and bedeck it with my growing collection of fabulous vintage ornaments.

As much as I adore my sparkly silver tree, this year it was time for a change. I've been itching to try something a bit different anyway, and Porter + fragile vintage anything = a recipe for surefire heartache. So this year my lovely silver tree and most of my vintage pretties will have to stay in the basement, safe from the marauding chubby fingers of the Wee Master of Disaster.

Last week I showed you the button ornaments that Maren and I made. A few of you requested a photo of the toadstool ornament, so here you go:

Awww, cute, right?
For the next ornament project, I turned to a vintage-style craft I've wanted to try for a while using a few of my favorite vintage-type crafting materials: styrofoam and sequins. I've had this photo in my inspiration files for several years but never have gotten around to trying my own.

Sequin trees from Sis Boom

Before Halloween I bought a package of small styrofoam cones to do some glittery candy corn project that never happened, so I decided that Maren and I could use the cones to make our own mini sequin trees. I thought I had some thrifted vintage sequins kicking around but I think I actually sold them, so I did have to break my self-imposed rule and buy some at the craft store.

I also bought a packet of sequin pins, though I did find a vintage package I had stashed away. It's a good thing, because we used a lot more pins that I thought we would need. Even though the cones are only about 4" tall, it took an awful lot of sequins to cover them! Really, it go to the point where I wasn't having fun anymore and just wanted to be done. Now I can't imagine making one of those huge Sis Boom-style trees!

Part of the problem was that I didn't love the mix of sequins that I bought, because many of them were in strange shapes like baby bottles and bibles and were really more like confetti because they didn't even have holes. If I were to do this again, I'd just purchase the big multipack of round sequins in various sizes and colors instead. I actually had a few styrofoam balls kicking around that I thought I would use when the cones were gone but I never made it to those--we didn't even use all of the cones before we lost interest.

Here are our final products. Maren and I had fun and enjoyed crafting together, but I can't say that I'll be for sure keeping these when we take down the tree after Christmas; they're pretty cheesy! Oh well, they add sparkle to the tree and now at least I've got that craft out of my system and I can move on to something else!

No-Bake Gingerbread Houses for Kids GIVEAWAY!

I first met Lisa Turner Anderson in 1990, right at the end of sixth grade. We had moved into the house right across the street from her and we became fast friends. Fast-forward twenty years and now my dear friend has written a book of her own, and I couldn't be more thrilled for her!

Lisa's first book is No-Bake Gingerbread Houses for Kids. Have any of you ever made a gingerbread house from scratch? I have--years ago. It's a lot of work! You have to make the dough, spread it flat in a pan, use a template to carefully cut out all of the correct pieces, bake it, and let it cool and hope none of the pieces break--and all of that is before you even get to the really fun part, which is the decorating! Lisa's great book features 23 different gingerbread houses that don't require any baking, because they're constructed of graham crackers, cookies, and other things you can buy at the grocery store. You can let the Keebler Elves do all the work for you, while you concentrate on the the fun stuff!

Lisa agreed to do a little interview for us about her new book:

Heidi: What gave you the idea to write this book?
Lisa: I noticed there were no books on the market for gingerbread houses for kids. I also thought there had to be an easier way to make a gingerbread house. I had made the simple graham cracker one before, but I thought there had to be more you could make with graham crackers. So I started experimenting and using other things to build with along with graham crackers. I discovered there's a lot you can do with cookies, ice cream cones, etc.

Heidi: Do you have a favorite house?
Lisa: I have so many favorites! My favorites are probably the windmill with the gumdrop tulips and the tiki hut--those tiki masks were fun to draw. I also love the cabin because it looks so real and so cozy!

Heidi: Where did you buy the candy to decorate your houses?
Lisa: I started out buying a lot of it online, but then I discovered I could find most of it at the local grocery store, Walmart, the dollar store, and the candy store at the mall.

Heidi: Do you have any tips on working with royal icing?
Lisa: I prefer to make royal icing using meringue powder. It contains dried egg whites, so you don't have to work with messy eggs! 

Heidi: Since the book has been published, have you thought of any more houses you'd like to try?
Lisa: I've thought about making some more haunted houses based on movies--like the houses from Amityville and Psycho. I'd also love to do a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired house. I figure long, flat graham crackers would be perfect for that!

Ooh, I love the idea of a Frank Lloyd Wright graham cracker house! You can watch Lisa in action, showing how to make the Old Woman in the Shoe house from her book:

I have a signed copy of Lisa's book, No-Bake Gingerbread Houses for Kids to give away to one of you! To enter, please leave a comment on this post and tell me what your favorite Christmas candy is. This contest will be open until Friday, December 10 at noon MST.

An argument for the lost art of the handwritten thank you note

At my library, there's a section where you can purchase books that have been donated. I always check out the children's books for sale, because the prices are lower than the thrift stores and the books are generally in better condition. The other day I was checking out the new Christmas offerings when a card fell out of one of the books and fluttered to the floor. It was a handwritten thank you note, dated December 27, 1982 and because I'm nosy, I couldn't help reading it. I was so charmed by the heartfelt words that I swiped it to share with all of you. Yes, I stole a 28-year-old card from a book donated to the library. Arrest me now!

Here is the text of the note:

Dear Nancy,

Only a good friend would notice that my keys were ensconced in the same old ring that the car dealer gave me when I first got my car key. At any rate, I've never found a case or ring that I liked any better so I just held onto that one. Your gift is a real treasure--not only because it's heavy, large and easy to find in my purse, but also because it's a continuous reminder to me of the special friendship that we've developed over the past three years. For that, I am most grateful.


So, for you, most thoughtful friend, I thank you for my wonderful heart keychain, but most of all for being the good friend that you are.

Love,
Wendy

The note isn't fancy--the stationery is monogrammed but the words are just written in pencil. It probably didn't take long for Wendy to write but her words are heartfelt and sincere. I'm sure Nancy was delighted to receive such a sweet note from her friend! The sentiment was even charming to me, a stranger, 28 years later.

I know that etiquette has become increasingly less formal and handwritten thank you notes seem to be the exception rather than the norm now. It's certainly easier and quicker to dash off a 'thank you' via email, text or Facebook message--in 1982, Wendy didn't have those options! The words in an email can certainly be sincere, but there's just something different about getting those same words, handwritten on a card sent through the mail. In fact, maybe they are even more meaningful now, because they indicate that the sender went to more trouble to send an actual note rather than simply an email.

My Gram with a tiny newborn Maren

My Gram is a thank-you-note-writer par excellence. Her notes are prompt and she has a gift for expressing her gratitude is a most heartfelt and eloquent way. Unfortunately, my dear Gram is ill and I don't know how many more sweet notes I'll have the privilege to receive from her. I do know that one of the best ways I can think of to show respect and honor for her is to be more conscientious about sending sincere, handwritten thank you notes more often; to let people know that I appreciate them and that they are worth my time and effort. It's a small gesture, but one that in my opinion makes this world just a little bit more gracious and kind.

To whom could you send a handwritten thank you note this week?

Crafty Stuff: Button Ornaments

I've got my eye on January 4. It's a long time from now, but that's the day that Maren goes back to school after having been out of school for nearly six weeks. She is on a year-round schedule and her last day was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, so she gets the three day Thanksgiving break, three weeks of standard off-track time and the two weeks for Christmas break all stacked together. I love my daughter and I enjoy spending time with her, but six straight weeks of zero Mommy-alone time during the day is enough to make me shed a few tears.

To keep us from going crazy, I'm going to try to have fun activities planned for us to do while Porter is napping. We have a new-to-us Christmas tree this year and it's a biggun'! I'll show it in another post when we get it all ready to go (it needs a new strand of lights) but one thing is for certain--I don't have nearly enough ornaments to fill all 8' of Tree-zilla. Let me be more specific: I don't have nearly enough unbreakable ornaments to fill my tree, so I thought Maren and I could get our craft on and make some fun things together. Ornaments for the tree + fun activities to keep Maren busy=killing two birds with one stone.

I looked through my files and found this cute Martha Stewart project that I'd saved from a while back.

Since I have no shortage of buttons

and plenty of pipe cleaners, I pulled them out while Porter was napping yesterday.

Basically, you fold a pipe cleaner in half and string the buttons on in increasing and decreasing sizes.They really were pretty easy, and Maren needed only minimal help. She loved digging through the bowls of buttons. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree on that count!

We made two Santas, a pair of cute snowmen, a red and white toadstool and a candy cane.

I have a lot of brown buttons so I'd love to make a reindeer but I don't have any brown or black pipe cleaners to use for antlers. I have plenty of white stems, so maybe I can think of a way to dye them. My favorites are definitely the snowmen!

I already have plans for more ornaments for us to make! I'm going to try to only use my existing supplies and not have to buy anything new. Since I could practically outfit a craft store with the contents of my closet and desk, I don't foresee that being too big of a challenge. Next up: sequins and styrofoam. Whee!

Mad for Plaid

I've been thinking in plaid lately. I believe I can trace it back to the basement of the TopShop at Oxford Circus in London, where the "vintage" department was filled with racks of plaid kilts and for the more sartorially adventurous, plaid trousers. Ever since then I've had plaid on my mind, specifically of the classic red and black variety with a bit of yellow and green thrown in for good measure.

A few plaids from my own collection:

Cute ballet flats from Payless

 

Thrifted vintage Kiltie plaid Thermos

Vintage 1970s Pendleton plaid wool cape

I'm wondering if my current plaid obsession will make its way into my Christmas decorating...