"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.

Rue de Noel

It's almost here--my very first time as a vendor at a vintage/handmade Christmas market! I've been crafting my fingers to the bone for a few weeks now and I know I'll still run out of time far before I'll run out of ideas of things to make. In the coming days I'll post a few photos of the things I've made to sell. The nightmares have already started--Saturday night I dreamed that they forgot to assign me a space, then they put me in a room all by myself, then they let everyone in an hour early and I was still setting up. I definitely woke up in a panic--darn vivid pregnancy dreams!

Here's hoping I survive until Sunday! If you're local, come out and see me this weekend!

Why it's NOT new house closing day. :(

Today was supposed to have been an exciting day for us--we were scheduled to close on a new house! I haven't said anything on the ol' blog here or really much even to the people I know in real life because I just wanted to make sure everything was signed and stamped before I opened my mouth. Turns out, my instinct was right.

Let me back up. Back in September-ish, a friend of mine who knew that we have been wanting to buy a new house all year tipped me off to a great house in her neighborhood that she knew would be up for sale soon after. It just happened to be the same floor plan as her own house, which we already knew we liked. We called our realtor and told him about it to give him a heads up, so that as soon as the house went on the market we could get in there and have a look. We were the very first showing on a Friday afternoon, and by Monday or Tuesday, we had made an offer. We went back and forth with the seller for a few days with counters, and then finally agreed on a number--but it was contingent on the inspections. You see, there is a large crack in the ceiling of one of the rooms and we wanted to make sure that was not a huge foundation problem. In addition to the normal inspection, we also hired a separate structural engineer to come and take a look and make sure the problem was not critical.

It took some time going back and forth with the seller to get everything worked out, but we ended up very happy with our arrangement. The seller was very motivated to sell as quickly as possible and we got a great deal on the house. The house itself is really beautiful! The downstairs is big and open, just like I've wanted, so I can entertain and hopefully hold more craft classes and maybe even a little pop-up boutique a few times a year. The neighborhood is great and we already have friends who live literally across the street and down around the corner. We get to stay within our current church congregation (we are divided up geographically) with friends we've known for 9 years. It's only about a mile north of our current house. Everything about this house is just exactly what we had hoped to find.

So then you might imagine how I felt late last Wednesday afternoon when I got a call from my realtor saying that we'd hit 'a speed bump'. It's a long and ridiculous story, but there was a 2nd mortgage on the house that seller apparently thought had gone away in a bankruptcy filing--but it hadn't, and the house couldn't be sold because of it. Just that morning I had been on the phone with painters and the electrician and handyman to try to make appointments so we could get started on the house this week--and then it all fell completely apart.

Now the house is going up for short sale. We decided to keep our bid in--we are already approved for our loan, have shelled out $$$ for those multiple inspections, and we REALLY want the house. But we have no idea what the bank is going to decide to do, or how long they are going to take to do it. There is still a chance that we might get the house, but there is also still the very real chance that we won't and will have spent all of that time and money and hope only to be massively disappointed again. Plus the timing is really horrible--while moving the week before Christmas isn't ideal, moving right after you've given birth is probably worse. We had planned to buy a new, larger car after the house deal was done--something that will more easily fit 3 car seats--ahead of the baby's birth in January, but now that's on hold too because you we signed a paper saying we wouldn't incur any huge new debts while the mortgage was still pending.

So there you go. What I WON'T be doing today. 2013 continues to kick our behinds.

Oh honey, you made pie

Hello, friends!

I finally got the Halloween decor taken down on Saturday. Phew! It meant a million trips up and down the basement stairs, which for this 7-months-pregnant lady, meant that by the days' end I was absolutely knackered and even spent yesterday recovering. I'm just not used to being limited in the amount of physical work I can do in a day so I definitely overdid it. I'm going to try to be more careful from now on. The upside is that the house looks nice and empty again--even though I love my holiday decor, it's always nice when I take it all down.

The reason I worked so hard on Saturday was that I hosted a craft class at my home that night. We made this pretty box:

And I even got to meet Melissa from Andromeda Vintagehttp://andromedavintage.blogspot.com/2013/11/instagram-recap.html and her cute mom, Diane! They were so lovely and it was so much fun to turn an imaginary internet friend into a real, live person friend. :) I hope this isn't the last time we get to meet!

I cleaned and prepped all day on Saturday but simply ran out of time and energy to wash all of the dirty dishes in the sink. I had just run the dishwasher so it was full and I didn't have time to unload it and reload it with the dirties, and I didn't want my guests to have to look at (or smell) stinky dirty dishes in my sink since we would be working at my kitchen table. Of course I had the brilliant idea to stick all of the light plastic stuff in a big garbage sack and stash it in the oven. You can guess where this story is going, right? Yesterday afternoon we invited our neighbors over for pie after dinner. I forgot all about the dirty plasticware and turned on the oven to preheat while I made the pie.

And this was the lovely result: an oven full of melted dishes and a house completely full of toxic melted plastic fumes and smoke. At least there were no shooting flames--I did manage to catch it before that point! We opened all the doors and windows, turned on the fans, and decamped to the neighbor's house for a while so it could clear out. I came back long enough to finish putting together the pie, then we grabbed the dinner I had put in the slow cooker and headed back over to our friends' home. I'd made double the amount of dinner anyway and they hadn't made dinner yet, so it all worked out--I baked the pie there and we shared the food and the house was nicely aired out by the time we came home a few hours later.

Good dinner, yummy apple crumble pie, and fun company--not a bad way to spend a Sunday evening, it's just a pity that I had to melt my plastic bowls to make it happen! Today I get to find a way to chisel the melted plastic goo off the bottom of my oven. You can bet I won't be making this mistake again!

Vintage collection: Beaded multi-strand necklaces day 1

It's no secret to anyone who knows me in person that I'm a big fan of accessorizing when I get dressed every day. Even though I'm a stay-at-home mom, it's important for my mental health for me to look nice, even if nobody but the eight- and four-year-old are going to see it! Obviously, some of my very favorite accessories are vintage. I can't stand wearing scarves around my neck but I wear a necklace more days than I don't, and one of my favorite types to wear are from my collection of vintage beaded multi-strand necklaces. All of mine are thrifted--some from stores, some from garage or estate sales. One day last year I dragged them all downstairs along with my dress form and had a little photo shoot but I never blogged any of the photos. Today I want to share a few of them with you.

I don't have any orange clothing in my wardrobe--never have and I can say with almost all certainty that I never will! I just don't think I have the coloring to pull it off. I do, though, have a few orange necklaces, including this one. I wore this several times during October and on actual Halloween. It's a fun pop of color without being too much of an orange commitment and I like the texture on the beads.

I wore this necklace yesterday, which is actually what reminded me of these photos that I took last year! I love the combination of the turquoise blue and green. I have the matching beaded clip-back earrings for this set but that's taking it a little too far into grandma territory, IMO. I do love the oak leaf findings on this necklace--what a pretty little detail!

This gold necklace is a fun one to wear for dressier occasions, although I wear it for everyday too--I love bling! The crystal beads have an aurora borealis finish that adds just the right amount of sparkle.

I know statement necklaces are still very much en vogue right now but that trend is definitely nothing new--these necklaces have been around for probably 50 years and they still look great!