I'm running off to join the circus--but only if it's a Vintage-style circus!

I was at Michael's the other night reveling in the glory that is child-free shopping, when I found this cute new stuff in the $1 bins:

I've been kicking around the idea of doing a vintage circus theme for Porter's 2nd birthday party but seeing all of these cute things definitely made the decision for me! There are printed paper sacks (goodie bags), blank cards (all they need is a printed insert to become invitations), cupcake papers, rubber stamps, and the cutest paper masks that would make fun photobooth props. There are actually three motifs within the line: the circus, hot-air balloons and acrobats, all with a cool vintage style and great color scheme. I'm so excited to use all of these cute things, even though Porter's birthday is still six months away. That just gives me plenty of time to plan, right?

Maren's 6th birthday is this week and her birthday party will be on Saturday. She's a huge Scooby-Doo nut so we're having a Scooby-Doo theme this year. I had decided not to go all out with Scooby-Doo branded decorations and paper goods; rather, I was going to use the Scooby-Doo colors of purple, turquoise, lime green and orange and ordered a Scooby cake to be made by our neighbor. However, yesterday at Target I found Scooby-Doo paper plates, cups and a tablecloth on 75% off clearance for around 40¢ per package, so my love for a bargain is winning out over my aesthetics on that one! I have lots to do this week to get ready for the party, but I think it will be really fun!

Lemon Chicken and Artichoke Pizza

A few weeks ago I found my new favorite pizza recipe and wanted to share it with you because I made a few tweaks to the original recipe. I love the flavors, and I think the lemon sauce is nice and springy! You can view the original recipe here.

The original recipe was shared by Amy Richardson on a tv show called Studio 5. You can watch a video of her making the pizza below.

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

Her version had stalks of whole roasted asparagus laid across the top which looked pretty, but was seriously impractical when it came to eating! I used nice skinny asparagus and cut it in half, but it was still awkward to eat and although I like roasted asparagus, I didn't think it added much to the pizza itself. So--in my version, you can eat the asparagus on the side, or skip it altogether! I didn't include instructions for roasting but you can visit the link to find them if you wish.

I've added chopped fresh tomatoes to my version, because I love the bright fresh flavor they add to any pizza and the pretty color is nice too. I love artichoke hearts on just about anything, but I think the lemon in the sauce is an especially nice pairing for them. Just be sure to give them a quick chop before you sprinkle them on.

Heidi's Lemon Chicken and Asparagus Pizza

Crust:
I'll confess, I used premade dough for my crust. I was in a hurry, and my grocery store sells whole wheat pizza dough so I went with that. If you have a recipe you love, just make enough for two 12" pizzas or one 14" thick crust pizza. When I made this at my mom's house, she used the dough recipe that came with her Cuisinart food processor and it was yummy!

Sauce:
The recipe says it makes enough for two 12" pizzas and I didn't believe it because it doesn't look like much in the pan--but it will be enough, trust me! It thins a bit when it hits the warm crust.

2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 tsp fresh minced garlic
zest from 1/2 lemon
2-3 tsp fresh lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

1. Warm the oil in a small saucepan. Whisk in flour until smooth.
2. Gradually whisk in the milk and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat and simmer until the sauce thickens.
3. Whisk in the garlic. Remove from heat and add lemon juice, zest, salt and pepper to taste.

Toppings:
2-3 cups cooked chicken breast, shredded (cook breasts or use a rotisserie chicken)
1 can artichoke hearts, cut into quarters
2-3 fresh Roma tomatoes, chopped
2 Tbsp fresh thyme, snipped
2-3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1. Heat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Sprinkle a bit of cornmeal on your pizza pan, stone, or cookie sheet and place the rolled out dough on it. Prebake the dough for 7-9 minutes.
3. Remove toasted crust from the oven and spread on half of the sauce. Layer with chicken, artichoke hearts, chopped tomatoes, thyme and cheese.
4. Bake pizza for 7-9 minutes, just long enough to warm the sauce, crisp the crust and melt the cheese.

Makes two 12" crusts or one 14" thick crust pizza.

The Wearing of the Grin

A little St. Patrick's Day fun, Looney Tunes style!

Spool decor

Some cute ideas for making your own vintage-style spool decor with real and faux spools:

Check Kristine's website for the free download to make the giant spool label.

Two good women.

Last night, my beloved Gram returned honorably to her heavenly home. I don't like thinking that she lost her battle with cancer, because that implies weakness on her part and my Gram was not weak. Her body was fragile, but her spirit was strong and cancer most certainly didn't beat her. She endured to the end and that's why I believe that she won the right to leave her imperfect body behind and be at rest.

The last time I saw my Gram, December 30

It's not fair, really--my grandpa, her husband, passed away back in September and it was not even two full months after his death that she received a terminal diagnosis. I think she had been looking forward to a rest after dealing with him but that just wasn't the plan for her.

Gram's birthday party, 2008

In the short months and weeks since her diagnosis, her children have been with her around the clock. She told my dad that she prayed that God would extend her life so that she would be able to spend more time with them, and I believe that He did. She was able to spend precious one-on-one time with each of her children and some of her grandchildren as well, a mercy for which we're all grateful.

Gram meeting a newborn Maren for the first time

My Gram was an exceptional woman. Her whole family simply adores her; she's truly our matriarch and queen. We'll miss her acutely. I'm thankful that my two children had the chance to know her. Porter won't remember her, unfortunately, and Maren is young so I don't how well she'll remember. I plan to make sure that as they grow I tell them about her so they know what a special person she was and how very blessed and lucky I am to have her as my dear Gram.

Exactly a week ago today, another exceptional woman departed this Earth. A woman from my church congregation who was only 48 and by all accounts very healthy (I just saw her at the gym two weeks ago), had a heart attack and died very unexpectedly and tragically. She left behind her husband and five sons, the youngest still in high school. I went to her funeral on Saturday morning and it was an incredibly uplifting and inspiring experience, despite the sorrow at her loss. Of all the people that I know, she is among the very most qualified to meet her Maker with no notice. Learning more about the life she led has inspired me to be better in every way.

Two good, righteous women gone, and the Earth is poorer for their loss. I'm privileged to have known them both and look up to them both immensely.

Things that are RED: red polka dot plates

Thanks for your encouragement on my last post! I made progress last night by getting nine sets of rubber stamps listed on eBay, and I'm taking advantage of my sleeping baby right now to photograph some more stuff while the light is good.

One more good reason to clear out my cupboards: to make room for these cute red and white polka dot plates that I got on post-Valentine's clearance at Target last week!

They're salad plate-sized, and won't they look darling heaped with fresh strawberry shortcake?

Getting serious about my Stuff with Peter Walsh

Let me be honest: I am never going to embrace a minimalist lifestyle. I like my Stuff, plain and simple. "Restrained" and "understated" are probably never adjectives that will be used to describe me! All those cutesy decorative signs and stuff that you see in gift shops that say "Simplify" in a swirly sort of script make me giggle, because I will NEVER have one hanging in my home.

That being said, I mentioned the other day that I feel like I'm drowning in my Stuff right now. I still love my Stuff, don't get me wrong--but right now it's taking over and making me unhappy. If you walked into my home right now, you'd never know that while I was growing up, my bedroom was neat and tidy: a place for everything, and everything in it's place. My mom never ever had to get after me to clean my bedroom, and I was always a great college roommate because my side of the room and bathroom was tidy and I cleaned up after myself in the kitchen and common areas.

And then I had kids.

Kids who do not so far seem exhibit those same proclivities toward neatness, making me fear that their father's dominant Messy gene won out in that battle. I'm not blaming my current messiness on my kids (okay, not entirely). The simple fact is that now that I have children, I have more responsibilities in the same amount of time, and something has to give. That something is unfortunately my neatness and organization. I feel like the state of my house is negatively affecting the state of my mental clarity and I'm ready to do something about it.

I picked up Peter Walsh's new book, Lighten Up, at the library a few weeks ago. At first I was disappointed because I felt like the subject matter didn't really apply to me, but then this weekend I took another look and found a statement that really got my attention:

"I'll say this again, too: no matter whether you own or rent your space, you're paying per square foot. Space has value, too. If the stuff in your space is driving you nuts, then step up and do something about it. It won't fix itself on its own. Giving time to what you value is important. When you lose your ability to enjoy a room or to store your car and seasonable items in a tidy garage, you're throwing that portion of your rent or mortgage down the drain." (Lighten Up page 252, emphasis mine)

My Stuff is indeed driving me nuts, and I've lost the ability to enjoy more than one room in my house so this went straight to my heart. In the book, Peter suggests calculating the value of your home ÷ your square footage to get an idea of what each square foot of space in your house is worth. With every square foot full of clutter, you are losing out on usable space in your home and basically throwing that money away! We've been talking a lot about square footage and mortgages lately because we were considering a move, so that concept is very striking to me.

Peter also suggests a schedule for organized living, with a different category each month. The one for March is "Tension Tamer" and the assignment is to choose one area of your home that deserves the greatest amount of attention and focus your energy on that one for the month. Right now, the biggest Stuff monkey on my back is my Etsy/ebay/Craigslist mess. I enjoy selling on Etsy and have plenty of "inventory" that I've picked up but I just can't seem to get going and get it listed. It's ironic, because I've noticed that the more frequently I list, the more I seem to sell (due to Etsy's default search settings). I keep bringing in more Stuff to sell, but I'm not selling at the rate I'm accumulating so I have a huge imbalance and as a result, can't walk around in our home office because of the giant pile in the middle of the floor.

Prompted by Peter, I've made a decision: I'm giving myself until March 31 to deal with my stuff. By "deal with" I mean photograph and list for sale on Etsy, eBay or Craigslist. Whatever is not listed by March 31 gets donated, no matter what! No matter how cute it is, or what it cost, or how sure I am that it will sell--it's gone! During my Tension Tamer challenge, I'm also on a junking freeze (after the trip I have planned tomorrow--I'm shopping for a swap). No more bringing in until I get more out! I'm giving myself a pass on my Christmas items, however, since listing those right now is a waste of money.

This is going to be a big challenge for me! I get 2.5 hours per day of kid-free time per weekday while Maren is at kindergarten and Porter is napping, and any other things I need or want to get done without little helpers has to be done during that time as well, ergo I won't be able to devote that whole time each day to my challenge. I'm hoping that my motivation not to "waste" my stuff by giving it away on April 1 will motivate me to work quickly and efficiently. I'm also planning to be out of town for a week in March, so that's why I'm starting now instead of waiting until March 1--I need every single day I can get for this to work!

I got started yesterday by photographing some rubber stamp sets that I'll be listing on eBay this week. eBay is having a listing special that ends a week from today, so that's even more motivation to get things listed quickly. I know this was lengthy, but I hope by getting it all out there publicly, I'll feel more accountable to get moving and make my challenge a success! Wish me luck!

Valentine's Day decor

I know it's WAY after the fact, but I did want to post photos of this year's Valentine's Day decor, both for my own records and just to share some fun pictures.

Last week, I posted the window I made and mentioned that I wanted to back it with old book pages. It was a project that took me about five minutes and made a big impact! I simply cut a piece of cardboard box to size, sprayed it with spray adhesive and slapped on some old dictionary pages. It's adhered to the back of the window with blue painter's tape so it is easily removable, but it occurs to me now that I could have also cut it to the size of the glass and just wedged it in, eliminating the need for tape.

The window inspired me to use a red, black and white theme for my decorating this year. I used the red honeycomb medallions that I made last year and stuck them into a red and silver vase. I added my red gumball machine that is half-full of white buttons, a few black thrift-store finial-thingies, and at the last minute added a cute vintage-style Valentine take-out box that has a black beaded handle.

For the top of my little dresser, I used a vintage redwork tablecloth, an old red book, and a vintage candy box from an estate sale last summer. I added a bit of black with a neat cameo pin (thrifted, should get a better photo to show a close-up) and a red, black and white folding ruler used to hold up a vintage Valentine from my collection.

I stayed with the color scheme when filling my muffin tin table. Yup, still my favorite piece of furniture in the house!

Back before Christmas I found this darling vintage chalkboard at an antique store, but I've never showed it on my blog because it's hard to get a good photo with the lighting in the room and because there's a big chip in the navy wall paint that I've been too busy/lazy/distracted to fix. I picked out some Valentines that school kids would have exchanged and hung them with tiny clothespins from a length of baker's twine.

Just for fun, I added an old class photo (dated 1938) that I picked up somewhere and suspended it from little metal clips inside a thrifted frame that looks like it's made from old rulers.

I didn't get things decorated until the Friday before Valentine's Day so I'll probably leave them up for another week while I decide what to put up in their place. I got rid of all my St. Patrick's Day stuff (what little there was) because I just can't get really excited about the holiday, plus kelly green just does not go with the paint on my walls! Easter is late in April this year so I have a good month before I'll want put out the bunnies & eggs, so I'll have to do something non-holiday related. There's never a wrong time for aqua pottery so I think I might go that direction.

Lemony Chickpea Dip

Last weekend I had some friends over to chat, make a Valentine and eat yummy food. I wanted to offer some healthy choices alongside the not-so-nutritious options, but my challenge was that I wanted everything to fit within my chosen color palette of red, pink and white. I knew I wanted to offer fresh veggies (red bell peppers, radishes, jicama and grape tomatoes) and some kind of dip, so I turned to a recipe I made quite a while ago and had marked as "yummy + healthy!" It was just as good as I remembered--maybe even better--and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a pinkish-red, so it fit in with my color scheme! The things that make my little OCD self happy. ;)

It's a bit like hummus, but without the tahini. The lemon juice gives it a nice bright flavor and the sour cream smooths out the texture. Even Porter likes it!

Lemony Chickpea Dip 
from Cooking Light magazine

1/3 cup fat-free sour cream
1/4 cup water
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp hot paprika (I used regular)
1/2 tsp hot sauce (this doesn't make it spice, I promise)
1/4 tsp salt
1 19-oz can of chickpeas/garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
2 garlic cloves, peeled
2 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

1. Combine all ingredients except cilantro in a food processor; process until smooth. Pour into a bowl. Stir in cilantro. Yield: 1 1/2 cups (serving size: 2 Tbsp)

Each serving only has 40 calories and 1.7g of fat, which is so low that you can have several and not feel too guilty. I promise you're not going to be able to limit yourself to just 2 Tablespoons! It's excellent as a dip for fresh veggies or with pitas or pita chips.

Porter, 17 months

I'm in a bit of a blogging slump, which seems to happen to me each year right around this time--the last time I had more than 10 posts in February was back in 2008! Right now, keeping my family fed, in clean clothes and keeping Porter out of mortal danger (or at the very least, serious mischief) all day long is taking up all of the mental, physical and creative energy I possess. The idea of coming up with something interesting and clever to write about is just overwhelming, to say nothing of setting up, taking and editing nice photos to accompany my words.

I feel like I'm drowning in a messy, undecorated house and lack the motivation and kid-free time to do a thing to remedy either. I know that everyone says to cherish the days when your kids are small, but right now I'm counting the days until Porter quits climbing into the kitchen sink and spraying water everywhere, or dumping the books out onto the floor for the 96th time that day, or emptying the dog's water bowl all over the wood floors, or eating Maren's crayons and markers, or playing in the butter dish, etc. etc.

=

I haven't mentioned it a whole lot here (Facebook has seen the brunt of my exasperation) but Porter is hard. My parents visited a few weeks ago; the last time we'd seen each other was September. I've told them over the phone all of the shenanigans he gets up to and how difficult it's been for me to deal with him, but I'm pretty certain they thought I was exaggerating. I felt completely vindicated when they visited and my mom admitted that she's never seen another kid like him!

He's just one of those kids who is INTO EVERYTHING, ALL OF THE TIME. He's extremely strong and has quite advanced motor skills for his age (he'll be 17 months tomorrow). He's also a champion problem-solver and maddeningly persistent--add that to fearless and three parts-spider monkey, and you can imagine why I spend the bulk of my day pulling him off the kitchen chair that he has pushed against the counter so that he can reach the butter/phone/kitchen sink/knives/glasses of water/etc. and create some sort of havoc from it, and in record-time because did I mention he's also FAST?

I love him, and I adore when he grabs a book and climbs on my lap to have me read to him or when he puts his head on my shoulder and snuggles in (he's a far cuddlier kid than Maren ever was at this age). But most days, I'm afraid I'd have to seriously consider if some gypsies came knocking on my door and offered to take him off of my hands for me...

Valentine vintage window decor

I love decorating for each holiday, but because I like to make things hard on myself  like new decorating challenges, I usually change things up each year. Here's what my Valentine decor looked like last year:

I really liked how it all looked, but I got tired of the mercury glass candlesticks and gave them all away, and the little vignette on my bench is out of the question this year because of a certain little Master of Disaster so I need to do something different this year.

Changing up my decorations each year means that it takes me a little while to get it all put together and tweaked until it's just right. I don't have this year's decor done so I don't have a photo yet, but I did make something new to be the centerpiece of my display.

I used an old window I bought several years ago at a garage sale. I decorated it for Christmas too but I never got around to showing it on my blog though I suppose now's as good a time as any:

For Christmas, I made a banner using my die-cutting machines. I cut the cute scalloped bases out of old sheet music with my Sizzix Big Shot and edged them with vintage silver glitter. I cut the letters out of red cardstock using my new Cricut machine, and clipped them onto strings of red and white baker's twine using tiny clothespins. The twine was attached to the frame using tiny clear 3M Command hooks.

For my Valentine display I knew I wanted to use my window again and even purchased some pink vinyl to use with my Cricut machine, but I changed my mind at the last minute and used cardstock instead. I've seen a few things around Etsy and blogland using this little phrase and since I'm a big-time Beatles fan, decided I'd use it too.

To get my words all straight and evenly spaced, I used a ruler to divide the window into equal sections, then used a dry-erase marker and drew lines on the back side of the window. From there it was easy to cut out, arrange and adhere my letters in nice straight lines, and then I just used a spritz of Windex to clean the lines off the back of the glass when I was done!

I put my photo background board behind the window so I could get a better picture of it, but I actually really like how it looks and I think I'll make one the correct size to place behind the window for my display. Now I just need to put the rest of the display together...

A new week--phew!

Hooray for a brand-new week! After last week's hassles, I'm more than ready to start anew. Thank you all so very much for commiserating with me! Things are mostly back to normal. We got a new battery for the car. The washing machine works again and if the pipes were frozen, they thawed with no damage (that we know of yet...knock wood). Maren did end up with a couple of fractures to her wrist: one transverse and one buckle. Here she is with her new pink cast:

She's doing fine and hasn't complained at all about wearing the cast; we'll see if that holds for the rest of the 3.5 weeks it has to stay on.

As for this little monkey,

he's still climbing out of his crib, and twice he managed to OPEN closed bedroom door! I ordered a crib tent from Amazon and paid for expedited shipping so it arrived on Friday afternoon, so I put it up and found that if I install it per the instructions, it doesn't fit my crib! There were nearly tears. From me! I think we may be able to rig it so it will work, especially since Amazon won't take it back now that it's been opened. Not sure how they think I could have figured out it wouldn't fit the crib without trying it on since there are no measurements on the box and my crib is most definitely what I would consider standard-sized, so I'll be adding my 1-star review to the others for this product on Amazon. Boo!

I did want to mention that I still have some cute vintage Valentine assortments in my Etsy shop. Shipping is cheap because I'm mailing them First Class, so you can order for the next day or so and they'll should still get to you in time for Valentine's Day on Monday.

Groundhog cupcakes

Friends, it's been a rough week. And it's only Wednesday afternoon.

On Monday morning, Maren had two cavities filled. She was a brave girl--didn't cry one tear and never even needed the nitrous oxide! That afternoon at school she fell during indoor recess (cold kept the kids inside) and hit her head on the wall and landed hard on her wrist, resulting in the dreaded call from the school nurse.

The doc decided it warranted an x-ray, and it turns out she has a buckle fracture in one of her bones. We head to the pediatric orthopedist this afternoon to find out if it needs a cast or can stay in the splint. (sidenote: Maren keeps calling her splint her "sliver." I think she's getting the whole splinter/sliver thing mixed up but it makes me giggle every time.)

Yesterday school was canceled due to ridiculously cold weather. The high temp yesterday was several degrees below zero, and we spent the whole day listening to the heater cycle on and off nearly continuously as it tried to keep up with the cold outside! I went into the basement yesterday morning to put in a load of wash and found that the water in the washer won't come on. We're not sure if it's due to a frozen pipe or just that the washer coincidentally went kaput on the coldest day of the year, but either way we have about two more days of clean undies until I'll be knocking on my neighbor's door with a basket of dirty laundry in hand.

Last night, Porter finally figured out how to climb out of his crib. I know that he's known how to do it since before Christmas, but last night was the first time he actually tried it. Moving him to a toddler bed is not an option for numerous reasons, so we're going to try the crib tent thing for a while.

To get Porter to stay in bed last night we rigged up a 'lid' for his crib out of packing boxes and duct tape. It did the trick and kept him in safely, but then I woke up around 4:30 am this morning, worried that he'd manage to get his head stuck somehow and asphyxiate so I crept downstairs and got scissors and cut all of the tape just in case.

Today school is closed again because of the extreme cold, but I decided we'd go out to the chiropractor (my back/neck are killing me) and to buy a crib tent. I got us all dressed to fend off the -20 degree windchill, strapped everyone in their car seats, and only then found that the car battery is dead. {bangs head against wall}

The bad news is, I fear we haven't faced the worst of it yet. My dear grandmother is fading rather quickly, and I'm afraid that she may not last through the week. Every time the phone rings I'm afraid to look at the caller ID.

Highlight of the past few days has been the Groundhog cupcakes that Maren and I made yesterday.

They're not perfect, but they're still cute! This photo was taken after Porter perpetrated a small Groundhog Massacre so a few of them have wonky faces. I sent them to work with The Mister--I don't care for Almond Joys, so this may be the first time I've ever made cupcakes that I didn't want to go in there and eat them all by myself.

Anthropologie-style antiqued mirrors

I'm so tempted to give this a try! Aren't the results beautiful?

Here's a link to the tutorial in case you can't watch the video.

Sad week for wreaths

Sunday morning I came into my office to find the floor littered with shards of pink glass. I think I might have actually screamed out loud when I realized that those shards could only have come from this:

My beloved pink wreath was hanging on the closet door in my office to keep it up and away from destructive little hands. I keep a 3M Command hook on my closet door because it's a good place to photograph items for eBay and Etsy, so I hung the wreath there for photos as well. Sometime during Saturday night, the adhesive on the hook failed and the wreath crashed to the floor below.

Thankfully, the floor is carpet so the damage wasn't as extensive as it could have been.

As it is, the ornaments marked with Xs are now in the belly of my Shop Vac. I think I'll be able to carefully replace the three large ornaments around the bottom, but the sweet little bird is history and I'm not sure what I can do to fix it. I used up all of my pink ornaments on the other two pink wreaths, so I can't do anything about it until I find more anyway, which means it will probably be months.

The truly sick irony is that earlier on Saturday afternoon, I moved the other two pink wreaths downstairs and packed them carefully into wreath boxes to store them safely until next Christmas. If only I had moved this pink one instead, it would still be intact and beautiful. :(

To add insult to injury, yesterday I caught the dog in the act of eating the gumdrops off of the gumdrop wreath I made in 2009.

 I had put it in the basement because I'm still in the process of putting away my Christmas decor (I know, don't judge) and it was awaiting space in a box. I forgot it was on the floor and left the basement door open in between doing loads of laundry, and the dog wandered down there and found it. He'd denuded half of it by the time I found him, and had vigorously licked the other half. I'm sure I could have made some attempt at repair but at that point I was so disgusted and annoyed that I just pitched the whole entire thing.

It's a bad week to be a wreath in my house, apparently.

More Ornament wreaths

May I present vintage ornament wreaths no. 2

and 3:

 I was able to dig into my stash come up with enough pink ornaments to squeeze out a third wreath, though I had to mix them with silver to have enough for the whole thing.

I love them! I think I'll sell at least two of them next year, as I don't really need three pink ornament wreaths in my house (which has NO pink in it other than Maren's bedroom). Now I just need to find a way to keep them safely stored until next year--these things are fragile!

Top Ten "Junking" Finds for 2011

What do you think of the list? Is there anything missing or anything you don't agree with? What's on YOUR personal Top Ten Junking Finds for 2011 list?

Vintage ornament wreath #1

Confession #1: my Christmas tree is still up and decorated, and about half of my other Christmas decorations are still out. It's now the middle of January.

Confession #2: I don't even care!

I've never before left my Christmas decorations up so late but they're not bugging me, so I've ignored them. Part of the reason I haven't boxed them up is that I'm still doing Christmas crafts, so there are some things that I can't put away because I'm using them! All of my boxes have to fit neatly into a small space so I have to have them all ready to go and put them all in at once to make it work--it's like Christmas box Tetris.

Last night I made my first vintage ornament wreath. I've wanted to make one since, well, since I started collecting vintage ornaments about six years ago. But as with the other crafts I've shown this week, December gets crazy for me (schedule-wise and mentally) so I can't seem to get one done before the holiday. Now I'm early for next year!

I didn't hit the post-Christmas sales at Target this year because 1) I don't need anything and am trying to declutter and 2) I was lazy. :) But I did have to go to Target last week for something else and decided to wander by the Christmas aisle to see if anything was left. It was already 90% off so pickins' were slim, but I did find some colored tinsel wreaths in silver, pink, blue and green. Original price was $2.50, so I figured I couldn't go too wrong for a quarter apiece and bought the silver and the three pinks that were left on the shelf.

I used one of the pink wreaths as my base and glued on the outside ring of larger solid colored ornaments first, then filled in the middle with the fancy stuff. I wondered if maybe I ought to use a different color than my precious pink vintage beauties in case I messed up my first attempt, but luckily it worked out and I couldn't be more pleased with the final product!

I still have two pink wreaths and a silver left, which is a good thing because now I'm addicted! I've already started a pink and turquoise wreath, and I'm trying to decide what color scheme to use on the silver. I bent the remaining pink wreath into a heart shape and I'm going to see if I can't come up with something for Valentine's Day. I'll have used up all of my pink ornaments though, so that one will have to be mostly red and perhaps silver.

I'm giving myself one more week to get the Christmas crafting wrapped up and put away--just in time for all of the Valentine's decorations to come out! Guess I don't have to worry about that whole post-Christmas emptiness in my decor, right?

More Christmas crafting: vintage-style hanging glass bead ornaments

Still working on the post- (or pre-, depending how you look at it) Christmas crafting. This project was easy, I just didn't ever have the time to sit down and actually do it before Christmas!

Earlier this summer I bought this vintage Christmas wreath-thingy (I really don't know what to call it) at an estate sale. It's made of glass beads and the top is shaped into a wreath, with four long dangles hanging down, and each long dangle has a small glass ornament at the bottom.

When I purchased it, two of the green ornaments were broken, but I was sure that I had something in my stash that I could use to replace them. While I was doing the repairs, I realized how simple the construction was and thought maybe I'd try to make one myself.

The supplies were minimal: glass beads in two sizes, feather-tree size ornaments for the dangles, two foil leaves and a piece of ribbon. I didn't have any vintage foil leaves in the right shape, but I did have some very similar silver holly leaves made by a scrapbooking company called Prima. I used Zip Dry glue to adhere a length of thin floral wire to the back of each one.

A word about the mercury glass beads: finding strands of these is one of my top 10, possibly even top 5 thrills while junking. I LOVE them! I've found about a dozen strands over the past few years, but here's the thing--I've never really done anything with them. They don't display well on aluminum Christmas trees, and I plum forgot to put any on my green tree this year. I could put them in a big jar like beautiful glass bead spaghetti, but I just don't have a place for that and they get tangled really easily. When I decided to attempt to make this ornament, that was the push I needed to finally DO something with them. I cut apart the strands, removed all of the broken bits and now I have a jar full of glass beads that I can actually use. Sometimes the thought of using my vintage (and therefore difficult to replace) treasures is scary, but I have never regretted it when I actually do!

The construction of the ornament is simple. I don't have photos of all the steps because it was late at night and I made it up as I went along. The colors of my ornaments were constrained by the fact that I only have a few of the larger size strands of beads needed to make the wreath: red, turquoise and royal blue. My first attempt was the royal blue. Using the green ornament as my size guide, I cut a piece of wire roughly the same size as wreath and strung on blue beads, then twisted the ends to secure.

Next, I made the little bead clusters that sit in front of the leaves. I can make a tutorial for these if anyone is interested--leave a comment and let me know! I didn't have any small blue beads for this part so I improvised and used red. Then I twisted the tails of the clusters and the wires of the leaves together. One thing I wish I'd done differently is make the wreath portion bigger. The blue beads were smaller than the green beads, but the leaves I used were larger than the originals, so I think the proportion is a bit off.

The original dangles were strung on heavy thread or string, so I used three strands of embroidery floss to make mine. I again used the original as a size guide and strung the same number of beads. When I got to the bottom, I looped through the wire of the ornament, then went back through the beads again and out the top to make each dangle. When I had all four completed, I pulled the threads through a large silver bead and tied the threads in a knot. Here again I think the proportion is just a bit off: the silver beads I used were just slightly larger than the originals, and using the same number as the original resulted in longer strands. I used two red balls to bring in the color from the clusters, but I don't know if I like how it looks and I may remove those in favor of more blue.

To put it all together, I tied the threads around the bottom of the wreath (where the wires were twisted), cut the threads close to the knot and applied a drop of glue to keep the knot from coming loose. Next I twisted the wire from the leaves/clusters around the same place. Then I made a small bow, twisted a piece of wire around the middle and attached another glass bead, then twisted the ends around the same place as the leaves. It's not as clean on the back as I'd like, but honestly the original is a bit messy in that area as well.

I liked the next ones I made better, because I figured out my proportion problems so I think they look more balanced. I made the red one with gold dangles because of the gold leaves.

My favorite is definitely the turquoise one! I wish the holly leaves were smaller, but I worked with what I had and I made the bow out of wider ribbon to try to balance them.

I'm not sure what I'll do with these--perhaps they'll end up in my etsy shop next year. I also think it would be interesting to make a smaller version, better sized to be an actual Christmas tree ornament, using some of my really tiny feather tree ornaments at the bottom of the dangles. I'm not sure what I'd use for the leaves, but I have 10 months to figure something out!

Muffin Tin Advent Calendar

This past weekend I spent working on crafty stuff--Christmas crafts, to be precise. Now, you might think that I'm about three weeks late, but I prefer to think of myself as 50 weeks early for next Christmas!

One of the projects that I did was this muffin tin advent calendar. I've wanted to make a cookie sheet advent calendar for years, ever since I first saw Teresa McFayden's fabulous creation years ago. Every year I'd plan to make one, and then every year it would be December 1 before I knew it and too late. 2010 was no exception, but this year Teresa had a new advent calendar in the Christmas issue of Inspired Ideas (the same e-magazine where I got the inspiration to make my glittery cookie cutter ornaments). Teresa's article is on pages 40-44 if you want to go check it out.

I bought my Wilton mini muffin tin at JoAnn's so that I could use a 40% off coupon, but Wilton pans frequently go on sale both there and Michael's as well. I haven't painted it or drilled the holes in the top yet, but that task may have to wait until I pull it out next year--though I ought to just get it done now, right?

I don't have the 2 1/2" or 2 5/8" scalloped circle punch that Teresa suggested, but I do have one that is 2 3/8" from Stampin' Up. It fits, but just barely covers the muffin wells, so I knew that attaching magnets to the back of cardstock circles probably wouldn't work well. I opted for another method: I purchased magnetic sheets at JoAnn's (with a coupon, of course! I'm too cheap to pay full price for anything there) and because they're thin, was able to use my punch to cut out 24 circles. I also punched scalloped circles out of some of my favorite hoarded Daisy D's vintage Christmas scrapbook paper, and ran them through my Xyron to apply adhesive to the backs. Then I simply applied one scrapbook paper circle to the top of each magnetic circle.

The most fun part of the project was definitely picking through all of my little bits o' junk to make all of the numbers. I used stuff from my scrapbooking stash (brads, metal numbers, rub-ons, chipboard, stickers, tags, metal shapes) and vintage junk as well (a domino, a checker, bingo numbers, game card, milk bottle cap, buttons, tickets, price signs). I glued it all together with my favorite Zip Dry craft glue, and I accented some of the numbers with another of my favorite crafting products, Stickles glitter glue.

If I didn't think the candy would go bad (and possibly attract bugs), I'd go ahead and fill the wells now so it would be all ready to go on December 1, 2011 when I pull it out of the box! I'm glad to finally get this project done after literally years of having it on my mind (another one out of my system)!