"Elf"-themed Ugly Sweater Party

PHEW! This afternoon I finally dropped off my 3 boxes loaded with wrapped gifts to be mailed to our extended families in Utah, and now I feel like I can relax a bit. I'm still not completely ready for Christmas--no matter how much I try to be organized and have lists, I still feel like every time I go shopping I somehow manage to forget something, which is so aggravating! I've been to Target 5 times in the last week and a half and I never thought I'd say it, but I think I'm sick of going to Target! LOL The combination of a late Thanksgiving and doing the Rue de Noel market along with being 8+ months pregnant has made it hard to feel on top of things. Having those boxes out the door really does help my stress level go way down!

Even though it's kind of late in the season for parties, I wanted to post about last year's "Elf"-themed sweater party that I helped decorate. I didn't get around to posting it last year before Christmas and I didn't want to hold onto it until next year. I have some dear friends who have held an Ugly Sweater party for the last few years. Last year I helped my friend organize the party and decorate for it. We had other festive plans that morning so I didn't get to go as all-out as I would have liked, but I still managed to add a few fun touches that referenced the movie.

 A quick centerpiece for the food table: an Elf-green cake plate topped with fake snow, a silver Empire State Building ornament, a homemade snowglobe with "New York City"inside, a bottle of maple syrup and candy canes.

I hung hand-cut snowflakes and paper chains like the ones Buddy makes in the movie.

 

I will totally admit that one of my contributions to the buffet was a meat-and-cheese tray, purely so that I could make this sign to sit next to it.

My other contribution was a batch of hot chocolate cupcakes with teeny tiny marshmallows on the frosting!

I made two other signs with quotes from the movie. Luckily my friend had a few Santa decorations out that I could put them near.

An Ugly Sweater Party definitely requires a photo booth so that there is a photographic record of all of the heinous outfits the guests wear. I made some Elf-themed props for our photos.

Last year we also decided to incorporate a White Elephant gift exchange into the party activities, which ended up being pretty darn hilarious--so funny, in fact, that I was too busy laughing to take any photos of the 'gifts'. (Two words: Shake Weight.) However, I do have photos of our other two party games: the spaghetti challenge and the burping contest.

The spaghetti challenge was not for the faint of heart. Or digestive tract. 

Each willing participant got a plate of spaghetti, liberally doused with syrup and garnished with mint M&Ms and broken cookies. First one to finish their plate was the winner.

Or the loser, whichever way you look at it.

It was horrifying. Horrifying but HYSTERICALLY funny. The next game was the belching contest.

Participants were allowed to choose from a variety of 2-liter sodas (all chosen for maximum carbonation) and then graded on duration, creativity, and volume of their resulting belches. Extra points given for style. Although two men participated, please note that the winner was one of the lovely ladies.

She got to take home this lovely custom trophy.

Due to my busy November and December, I'm totally off my game in the ugly-sweater-thrifting department. I should have been out there looking back in November when the racks began appearing at the thrift stores but I was too busy at home hot-gluing things, and now I'm paying the price because there are no more ugly sweaters to be found! My big belly makes it even trickier to find something to wear so I think we're going to end up recycling last year's models--thank goodness I didn't get rid of them.

Tomorrow morning is the Ugly Sweater Run 5K (see last year's report) and I am having a serious "what was I thinking?" moment about it. Running it in my condition is obviously out of the question, but even walking 3.2 miles sounds like sheer torture at this point when the fastest I can move is at a moderately swift waddle. Back when I signed us up for this I obviously forgot what it feels like to be 35 weeks pregnant! The Mister and Maren may decide to run it but Porter and I are going to take it easy. Heck, I may just be one of the cheaters this year and cut it short. I will definitely be taking my camera and hopefully I'll have some awesome pictures to share again this year!

Rue de Noel--what I made

If you follow me on Instagram, you have already seen most of these pictures already because I had fun posting the items I made before I packed them away in my boxes to take to the market. I made a ton of stuff and even though it was so much work, it certainly is FUN work!

One of the things I had in my stash was a bag full of covered buttons that I'd covered with scraps of feedsack quilt squares. I made them earlier this year and then stuck them into a bag in the closet because I couldn't figure out what to do with them. I pulled them out and made two different types of items to sell:

the first is these bookmarks. I had a box of huge oversized paperclips in my stash and the buttons fit perfectly on top of them. I was afraid that glue alone wouldn't hold the metal together and would look messy, so I ended up pulling out my soldering gun and soldering the paperclips to the backs of the buttons. It looked a lot neater and hopefully they are nice and secure! I packaged them up by folding a piece of old book paper and clipping the bookmark to the flap, then wrapping the whole thing in a self-closing cellophane bag. I wanted these to be able to be given as gifts and thought they might be more appealing to shoppers if they already looked like they were ready to give.

The other item I made with my buttons (once I ran out of paperclips) are these hair elastics:

I had purchased the elastics on post-Christmas clearance last year so they were in my stash as well. I packaged them on old Flinch playing cards and put them into cellophane bags as well.

These are one of my favorite things that I made! I used some of my old milk bottle caps and some magnets from my stash and created refrigerator magnets. For packaging, I had some old metal game tins that I bought from the dollar store back when we lived in Georgia, 10+ years ago. I covered up the graphics on the lids with cute vintage-style scrapbooking paper, stuck the magnets to the metal and packaged the whole thing up in a cello bag. I had enough magnets and milk caps to make only 4 sets and I must admit I was a little bit surprised that only one set sold! Oh well, I thought they were so darn cute that I'm happy to hang onto them for a little longer.

These snowman tags were one of the very first things I made to sell. I raided my collection of mother-of-pearl and shell buttons to create the snowmen and made their hats from an old Bingo card that I cut up. I stamped the 'snow' on the kraft tags with white ink and tied the tops with two different colors of seam binding ribbon. I sold out of these on Friday (the proprietor of a very upscale antique store bought most of them--I know she was planning to mark them up hugely and resell them but I'm flattered at having something of mine in her shop!) and these are one of the things I made more of on Friday night to take in on Saturday.

Several years ago I bought a bag of balls of crochet string at a small-town thrift store. I've used them as jar fillers before but this year I decided to make them into snowmen! Their hats are made from old wooden spools of thread and black checkers and they have vintage glass buttons on their bellies. These both sold (as did the tree in the pink LuRay sugar bowl, the tree in the white ceramic trophy, and the clear paint can full of vintage Shiny Brites that are sitting in the background)

I also had enough of the big thread balls to make one big snowman! He has arms made of brown floral wire and carries a glittery cupcake pick tree, which is a bit hard to see in the photo. His face and buttons are all vintage (his nose is an old celluloid button and his tummy buttons are glass). His hat is my favorite part--I was stumped what to use because a spool would be too small. I used the text-a-friend option for help and after I thought about it for a few days, I found an old gelatin mold in my stash that was just the right size and shape. I covered it with black glitter (thanks, Shara!) and added a vintage holly leaf thrifted earring. He didn't sell on Saturday and I'm not sure I really mind because I love him! Now I get to enjoy him for a while.

I raided my vintage canning jar collection and made the few clear ones I have into waterless snow globes using bleached and glittered bottlebrush trees, fake snow, glitter, scrapbooking rub-ons, and various lace/ribbons/seam binding and old bling earrings. These are hard to see but they have little sparkly stars dangling from threads glued inside the lids.

All of these except the pink jar sold. Surprising to me since so many people are into pink vintage Christmas decor!

These cute jars with red lids had wider mouths so I was able to fit a tree and a cute vintage plastic deer inside, along with some cute vintage spun cotton toadstools! Both of these jars sold.

When I ran out of big jars, I moved on to the wee jars! The salt shakers were from a garage sale a few years back--they're special because they have beautiful mother-of-pearl shakers lids! You may have seen the teeny jar on the right on Melissa's blog--she came and visited me on Friday! All three of these jars sold, in addition to the salt shaker's mate.

And two more, one in an old olive jar with a red lid. Wish I could find more of those because they sure made cute little snowglobes! Both of these sold as well.

For a few years now I've been collecting thrifted silverplate sugar bowls and cups to use for holding bottlebrush trees. This year I finally got around to making them! Some of the trees are actual vintage (thifted) and some of them are new trees that I bleached and/or dyed. All of them are decorated with vintage feather tree ornaments and mercury glass beads and other trinkets like sugared bells or tiny reflector flowers. All of these sold except the gold and silver tree that is second from the right. I also made some smaller trees in thrifted vintage Lefton candlestick holders, but I didn't get any photos of those.

Another jar with a deer and a tree in the middle. It's sitting on a pair of vintage books I bundled together and tied with jute. Every single thing in this photo sold!

More bleached and glittered trees. These topped vintage wooden spools of thread and were fancied up with seam binding and a bit of vintage bling. I made 8 of these and all but one sold on Friday. Friday night I found more trees and spools in my stash and made up 9 more of them to take in on Saturday, and all but one of those sold too!

I made three ornament wreaths this year using tinsel, wreath forms, and ornaments that I already had. The large pink wreath in middle was the first to sell, and it went early on Friday morning. Unfortunately, it's the only ornament wreath that sold, which is a pain because they are a drag to transport and store given their fragility. However--having those big, shiny, beautiful wreaths at the back of my booth was 100% worth it even though they didn't sell, because of the amount of people they brought into my booth to look at them! I believe I was the only one at the market who had any ornament wreaths and they were so pretty and eye-catching that they really worked well to draw people in.

Even though the ornament wreaths didn't all sell, the two wreaths I made using vintage light bulbs did both sell, as did 2 of the 3 vintage-style dangly ornament things I made (you can see them near the top, hanging between the big wreaths).

And of course there were banners. This one was my very favorite and it was also the very first to sell! I don't have any more of the red and green diamond ribbon but I think I have enough of the other materials left that I can make one like this for me to keep. I used vintage bingo (actually Beano!) cards for the base, red glass glitter on the letters, my favorite black and white striped ribbon, hand-sewn red crepe paper ruffles, and cute green vintage-style washi tape to make this one.

This one sold too. It had glittery silver letters, iridescent ribbon, jewels, beautiful felt snowflakes, and striped ribbon. The banner pieces were covered with canvas and now I wish I'd bought more of those because they were so fun to work with.

I loved how this one turned out! It wasn't what I had started out making but it turned out so cute. The black stripes in the middles are covered with tiny black jewels and there are glittery black balls on the bottom of the points. I am in love with tissue fringe and used it on several of my banners. This one sold.

This one didn't sell, and I'm kind of surprised. The colors are bad in this photo but those circles are red and aqua peppermint swirls that are actually from a package of Martha Stewart coasters I bought post-Christmas last year. The pennants are glittery silver paper and I used some red striped and aqua ribbon as well as red tissue fringe.

Another one of my favorites--this sold before I even had a chance to pin it up on my board! I had some green bingo cards in my stash that were perfect bases for the metallic red and silver striped paper rosettes, glittery silver letters, green tissue fringe, and glittery red balls. This one had glittery red polka dotted ribbon and green ribbon with red stitching. It was so fun to mix and match ribbon for all of these banners!

There are many more things I made that I just didn't take individual photos of, but that I can see sprinkled around my photos in my previous post: vintage-style foil-covered cardboard bells adorned with vintage Christmas corsages...greeting cards made with vintage sewing pattern girls...book bundles with red and green Readers' Digest books...glittery vintage cookie cutter ornaments and garlands...tags with trees made from folded vintage sheet music...tags made from vintage button cards...rickrack flower pins...Christmas card holders made from vintage folding rulers...stationery folios covered with old sewing patterns and tied with vintage cloth measuring tapes...all of it SOLD! I do regret not getting photos of all of the banners I made that sold but I didn't have a good place to take them before I packaged everything up and then things literally sold out of the boxes before I had a chance to pin them on the board on Friday morning. I took 15 different banners/garlands and I brought home fewer than 5, so those were good sellers and they're one of my very favorite things to make because they're all one-of-a-kind.

I'd definitely love to do this market again next year, so I'm already trying to think of things I can make so that I can take advantage of post-Christmas sales to stock up on materials and supplies. And I think next year I'll start making inventory in June instead of in November!

Rue de Noel antiques and artisans Christmas market report

Well, it's been a week and I think I'm finally recovered enough to report on how my Christmas market went! As a recap, December 6-7 I participated in an 'antiques & artisans' market called Rue de Noel. It was pretty much the sole focus of every minute of free time I had for weeks. The market itself was held indoors, in a vacant retail space in a mall that used to house a Borders bookstore.

There was plenty of space and the aisle were nice and wide. I had many customers tell me that the arrangement was much better than the previous year's market, when it was in a much smaller empty retail space and it was so crowded and jammed with people that they couldn't even shop. We were allowed to set up our booths all day long on Thursday, which was a lifesaver!

On Wednesday we had a huge snowstorm and then that night the temperatures plummeted. The high temps during daylight on Thursday were in the single digits and the parking lot was snowpacked, though the roads were clear. The mall is WAY across town from where I live--a good 35-minute drive, if there is no traffic and if you take the pricey toll road. It took us 2 trips with 2 cars completely full to get everything over there and loading and unloading all of the boxes in the frigid temperatures was no picnic, let me tell you!

Thankfully, with the help of my husband (and the neighbors who watched my kids and let us borrow a truck at the last minute) I was able to get my booth completely set up Thursday night by about 9:30 pm so at least I didn't have to get to the market until 9 am Friday morning to put the finishing touches on everything.

Friday's and Saturday's weather forecast was pretty much the same as Thursday--high daytime temps in the single digits, though much of the day it was below zero. I was so worried that nobody would venture out in the nasty cold weather and I would have a repeat performance of last October's market, where all of my preparation was ruined by the stupid weather.

I needn't have worried, however, because the shoppers turned out in droves! There were so many people waiting to get in the doors the first morning that we let them in 5 minutes early so they didn't have to wait in the cold any longer. My booth was completely slammed just a few minutes after opening and it didn't let up for a couple of hours!

I was absolutely floored at how much stuff I sold on Friday. In fact, by Friday afternoon when things started to slow down a bit, I started to freak out that I wouldn't have anything left to sell the next day! In my downtime I began making a list of things I had at home that I thought I could bring in to sell. I didn't get home until about 8:00 pm and frantically started pulling things out of closets and ransacking my own Christmas boxes to find things to sell! I hurried and was able to make a few tiny things--my husband and even my sweet dad stayed up until midnight with me, sorting buttons and tying ribbons on tags. I got up early the next morning too and put together a few more things to sell so I was able to make the booth look not quite so picked-over.

Saturday was just about as busy as Friday. Tons of shoppers in the morning, and less of a slow-down in the afternoon. Having the market at a mall was definitely a huge advantage because we got the people who came just for the market as well as the people who wandered in from the mall entrance as well! And thankfully for this 8-months-pregnant lady, I was just around the corner from the restrooms and had a great booth neighbor who watched my stuff while I ran to use the facilities!

Things slowed down a lot on Saturday evening. The Mister had to work all weekend long but was able to get out a bit early and come over so that I could have a break and finally walk around and check out the other booths. The market closed at 7:00 pm and my dad brought my kids, and they all helped me break down the booth. Loading up was definitely easier because I'd sold so much inventory, but again the unbelievable COLD made things less than pleasant when the guys were trying to shoehorn everything into our 3 vehicles so that we would only have to make one trip. Then once we were home, we had to completely unload all the stuff into the house. We were all frozen and exhausted by the time all the work was done that night.

In all, the market was a WONDERFUL experience for me! I still can't believe how much I sold. It's funny to look at my photos now and see that almost everything in the pictures sold! I had a mixture of handmade and vintage items, and the majority of the handmade stuff was made with vintage materials. My sales on Saturday were not as high as they were on Friday and I firmly believe it's because I had just run out of things to sell! I absolutely think that if I'd had more stuff to sell on Saturday, I would have sold it. I just plain ran out--in fact, nearly everything that I hurried to make or to dig out when I got home on Friday night did end up selling on Saturday, so it's a good thing I took it with me!

Really, it's a good problem to have--selling more than you expect. I wish I'd been able to make more inventory but honestly I did the absolute best that I could have. I'm actually really proud because the vast majority of things I made were done with materials I already had in my vintage Christmas and craft stashes! I had to purchase another bottle of Mod Podge and some tags, two spools of ribbon, a container of plaster of Paris, a package of bottle brush trees, a large package of chipboard letters and fewer than 5 sheets of fancy scrapbook paper. When you consider the amount of stuff that I made, I think that's pretty remarkable! That goes to show you what kind of a craft/vintage Christmas pack rat I truly am. ;) But see--it all got used! Sometimes it takes me 10 years to get around to using something (like the rub-ons I used on some of my snow globe jars) but I do use it...eventually!

This post is already long enough so I'll do a separate one to show you some of the things I made to sell.

Weekend Junk Finds: Christmas in July

I haven't been doing much thrifting this summer, which is sad because it's prime garage sale season. Things just haven't lined up right to do it and truthfully, I just haven't had the desire. I did read last weekend that the local Goodwill Outlet stores were doing a Christmas in July promotion and offering 10% off any Christmas goodies you manage to dig intact out of the bins. Well, the prospect of finding even a little bit of my beloved vintage Christmas was enough to make me willing to drag my kids all the way to two different Goodwill Outlets--twice in one week, even!

I only had any luck on the first trip, making the other ones a total waste of time and gas money but this was enough to make me happy! I tried to show Maren what I was looking for and she worked hard to find me more vintage ornaments. She's still learning how to tell the difference between the new and old, but I'll turn that girl into a vintage Christmas spotter yet! She was excited to help me shop. Both kids were really well-behaved and I had no problem rewarding them with some books from the bins--at 30¢ each, that was a bribe I could handle!

The Goodwill Outlet is tricky--they roll out the huge bins and leave them on the floor for some predetermined amount of time. Then throughout the day, they take rows of bins to the back and bring out new ones. The 'inventory' is rotating but not quick enough for me. Only a small fraction of the bins on the floor even had Christmas stuff in them, so waiting around and hoping those would be replaced was just not going to happen. I'm lucky to have even found these goodies!

In other junk news, my favorite local thrift store is making major changes and I really hate it. :( It was a small chain that was apparently bought by Savers/Value Village sometime in the last year. The last time I visited a few weeks ago, I noticed that they had changed the pricing structure and brought in new tags that look like the ones they use at Savers.

When I stopped in the other day, I found the entire store had been rearranged and reorganized. This thrift is housed in a former grocery store space so it is HUGE but for some reason they squished all of the clothing racks together. Now you literally cannot pass two carts down an aisle. Heck, even if you don't have a cart yourself, if somebody is standing there in the aisle with their cart, you have to ask to squeeze by them and run into the clothes on the racks to do so. For all the bric-a-brac stuff, they went from having 4 rows of shelves with LONG, wide aisles to turning the shelves perpendicular and creating about 20 short rows with narrow aisles. It's a total pain in the bum and will be even worse if you're trying to use a cart. It's all just so squished together and I can't figure out why because there is a ton of empty, wasted space all over the store now, except for where the actual merchandise is.

That thrift was my favorite--it was also the closest to my house, the cleanest, and had the most selection because it was so large. I'm so disappointed in the changes they made because they most certainly weren't improvements! I almost never go to the local Savers anymore because the prices are high and the selection is poor, and I'm bummed that my favorite store looks to be headed that direction if the Savers corporate offices have anything to do with it. :(

FREE Christmas banner printable!

I have a confession to make: my tree is not decorated. My house isn't either. It is a week before Christmas and my living room is filled with bins of decorations that have yet to see the light of December 2012. I've had a lot going on this month with custom orders and events that all had deadlines, but decorating the tree? No deadline, so it got pushed to the back of the list over and over again. I'm bound and determined to get it done in the next couple of days so I can put the boxes away and finally enjoy my pretty decorations before Santa shows up!

Whether you're all done decorating, haven't even begun (like me), or are still looking for a little more somethin'-somethin' to pretty up your home, check out the beautiful printable banner that Kelli from KCustomables is sharing with all of my readers! Normally this banner is for sale (with a lot of other fun party printables) in KCustomables' Etsy shop, but here on my blog you can access the banner for FREE!

To access the PDF file for the banner, simply click on the image above. You can print out the banner, cut out the letter pieces and string it on the ribbon of your choice (wouldn't red and white baker's twine be darling?). Please be sure to let me know in the comments if you make it--I'd love to see a picture!

Thanks, Kelli!

The Ugly Sweater Run

Saturday morning we rolled out of our warm beds and dressed in many layers so we could go participate in the Ugly Sweater Run 5K. It was a brisk 30 degrees so running in a sweater was not such a bad idea.

 

Some of us even donned mustaches

 

Porter was foul that morning and refused to wear his Ugly Sweater. He compromised by at least wearing his Minion hat.

This is the back of The Mister's sweater. Glorious.

 

We met up with our friends for a pre-race group shot. I love that I have friends who also think donning a hideous sweater and a fake mustache and then running a race sounds like FUN!

 After that, I amused myself by taking photos of perfect (and awesomely attired) strangers.

 

Ack! Misuse of vintage felt goodness! 

 

One of the race sponsors was Samuel Adams and included in our entry fee were coupons for both a pre-race and a post-race beer. I don't drink, but even if I did I'm not sure I could handle drinking a beer first thing in the morning when it is below freezing outside. And then running 3.2 miles. Maybe it warms you up? They were also pouring shots of some vanilla-flavored liqueur. My gosh, you should have seen the lines for the porta-potties all along the race route! Definitely ridiculous for any other 5K but for this one it was perfectly understandable.

At any rate, these folks are demonstrating one of the reasons Colorado is a great place to live. Colorado is known for being very health-conscious and we do a lot of outdoor exercise. We're also know for our beer (Coors, zillions of micro-breweries). So why not combine the two? It's perfectly reasonable in Colorado to run a race while drinking a beer.

 They obviously didn't pay attention to this sign. One of the items in our swag bag was a pint glass with the Sam Adams logo on one side and the Ugly Sweater Run logo on the other. I think it's my new favorite glass. It's pretty cute!

 Folks did not limit themselves to Ugly Sweaters. The outfits were really hilarious.

 Yup, he ran the entire race in Santa & Mrs. Claus slippers. Next year, The Mister wants to wear a pair of red long johns like this one. With the flap open.

 Knitted Adult Onesie. With Attached Santa Hat. I'll just let you enjoy that one for a minute.

I have to tell you, this race was SO FUN! In case it's not obvious, it was incredibly casual. There was no race clock. If you wanted an actual time, you had to keep it yourself. They let us onto the race course in huge waves and there were nearly 7000 ridiculously-dressed people there that morning. There were no mile markers and the race aid stops consisted of various giant inflatables that you could take photos with, a hot chocolate station, and a huge pile of trucked-in snow that people were using for snowball fights. People regularly stopped for photos, waiting in long porta-pottie lines, skipped, and sang. When the race course looped back on itself, we watched people just cut it and ended early (presumable to go snag their post-race beer). The finish line was another giant inflatable with a machine shooting bubble foam in the air. There was a Best Worst Sweater contest and a Best Mustache competition as well.

IT. WAS. AWESOME.

We are already planning our outfits for next year.

And because I love Ugly Sweaters, go here for a really adorable FREE printable of some Ugly Christmas Sweater gift tags that you can print and cut out.