Thursday, December 23, 2010

So Sorry

Hello followers & other random peeps reading my lovely blog. I need to apologize for my lack of blogging this week. The computer i wAs supposed to be using at my inlaws place crashed the second day we arrived. Really great timing huh? Anywho just wanted to keep y'all in the loop. I have 2 great posts that i will try to get up asap. For now i'm thankful for my new iPhone which is allowing me to blog right now.

So until next time, Merry Christmas! I hope you and yours have a wonderful weekend with family and friends!

Saturday, December 18, 2010

The Little Blog That Could

14 Amazing Followers!
Y'all rock!

I'm flying out to Saskatoon Saskatchewan (north of Montana & North Dakota for you Yanks) tonight, so I must run and pack (I should really document my packing style?  I think it's kinda great).  But make sure to stop by on Monday (maybe late Sunday) to see me and Envirocraftiness' FIRST Sister Blog entry.  We'll be sister blogging for the next 2 weeks-so make sure to stay tuned!  It's guaranteed to be hilarious, heart warming and of course crafty!

Here's wishing you safe holiday travels!

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Lucky 13

Hello Blogland.....

Well I've got 13 Followers as of today!  I know many of you are oot and aboot (that's Canadian for Out & About) joining the AMAZING giveaways that are out there (me too!), but I want to remind you of my so awesome goal of reaching 25 followers by the end of the year.....that's just 15 sleeps!  So share some bloggy love this holiday season-I have a great new button (I think it's SO cute!)-please feel free to grab it and rock it fiercely on your blog!  Also if you'd like me to feature you, send me your stuff!  I'd be totally honoured.

DON'T FORGET!  Envirocraftiness & Try To Keep Up will be sister blogging (for real...we're sisters) during the next 2 weeks!  It's going to be hilarious, catty, crafty and overall amazeballs!  If you follow either of us you will definately be in for a treat!

Happy Happy Merry Merry!

Monday, December 13, 2010

Christmas Gifts on the Cheap Part 2

Where did that week go? I dunno, but anywho, here's part 2 of great, heartwarming christmas gifts for neighbours, family, friends or if your eco/budget concious!  Part 1 was all about food....but I didn't know how to share it without giving away my dishes.  So here is what I came up with!


I took 2 old Pirouline cylyndrical cookie jars and turned them into re-useable gift tins!

Here's what they started out like
Then I spray painted them with Krylon Spray Paint in Ivory (Sorry no pics of this stage)

One of them did a wonky thing, and crinkled when I sprayed it (only one can.  The other paint lay flat) 


So I decided to use this defect to my advantage....doesn't it kinda look like a snowflake or frost?  That's what I thought...

So I started painting a winter/snow theme in teal, dark pruple and silver on the can.


For the lid, I stamped snowflake images in paint and then onto the top of the lid.  I added glue dots with white glue and sprinkled them with silver glitter.


For the other can, I went with a traditional theme, using green, red and gold sparkles.  First I started with green....

I had to paint over that free hand script several times, in order to make it nice and bold!

Next I added some red for a pop of colour!

On the red & green stripes and the painted script, I painted gold glitter over top to add some holiday sparkle.

For the lid, I painted a green & red plaid (I love plaid!)


Then I filled a large ziploc bag with my homemade Nuts & Bolts and put the bag inside the tin! TA DA!

There were some left over nuts & bolts and I had a few smaller gifts I wanted to give.  So I washed some old, unique jars to fill!  One was a mason jar, the other was a salsa jar!

As you can see I opted for plastic wrap and a good ole rubber band to seal the jar.  The lids from these jars never really come clean in the dishwasher, especially from spaghetti sauce jars!

To hide that lovely makeshift lid, here's what I did


Purty huh?  Here are the 2 of them side by side!

Hopefully my recipients will like these homemade gifts as much as I do!  Happy Gifting!






Saturday, December 11, 2010

So Don't Name My Blog

Remember way back when, in September, I opened a contest called "Name My Blog"?  Maybe you don't-and that's fine, no one offered a better title...and the more I think about it the more I like my blog name.  Mostly the contest was for me to set some goals. 

One of them was to get an "I've been featured" button for my blog.  While I have been featured on a couple of other blogs, I wanted to offer a button for people I featured.....Check out my side bar....do you see it?  I hope you like it.  I've also made a Try to Keep Up Button that you can grab and enjoy and share on your blog-IF you feel so inclined! 
I think they're pretty nifty!

Another goal was to have 25 followers by the end of 2010! 

 I want to thank those that have chosen to follow my blog-it really means a lot to me.  I hope that (since whenever you joined) I have been able to make you laugh, possibly cry and hopefully inspired you to craft something.  As you can see today I have 12 followers.....and there are 20 days left in the year!  So I need to get 1.5 followers PER DAY until the end of the year.  If you like my blog maybe consider sharing it with other bloggy friends and help me reach my goal? Thanks :)

With that said, I'll try to entice you & potential other followers with a teaser.  Me and my AMAZEBALLS sister Jill over at Envirocraftiness will be crafting up some supah cool goodies over the Christmas Holidays!  You won't want to miss out! Necklaces, raisin pigs, and full-on sibling rivalry will abound, so I hope you'll stop by!


Friday, December 10, 2010

Oh Christmas Tree

I do love decorating my tree.  Last year we had just signed the papers and purchased our new house in November and were headed 'home' to Saskatchewan in December...knowing we had to move in January we thought it silly to put up the Christmas tree, only to pack it up again.  It seemed like extra work.  So this year we put it up a little early (November 28th) and we have been enjoying it ever since. 

Here are some pictures of my tree just for fun

Left: Ballerina-I try to keep the dance/ballet influence in my home to a minimum, mainly because I live with another human being who happens to be male and didn't choose to devote his life to dance like I did.  But I just had to buy these last year!  There are only 3 of them.

Right Top: Glitter reindeer-these are new additions to the tree.  I bought them at Target (love) when we were down at the Seahawks game back in early November.  I think they were $2 or $3 for a set of 2 so I bought 3 packages and now we have 6 glitter reindeer in our tree!

Right Bottom: Crochet Snowflake-This was made by my mum, although I believe I starched it-that was an experience.  These snowflakes have become a bit of a tradition in my family (I'm the 3rd generation) so I feel it's important to have them be a part of my holiday!


Top Left: Owl-this is a wooden owl I HAD TO buy from Target!  I'm just so in love with him!  Even better?  He was only $3!

Bottom Left: Fireplace-Ty's parents bought this for us last year to welcome us into our new home...even though this is the first Christmas we've celebrated in it.  It's the only red ornament, but it's very special.

Left: MY TREE!  I love my gold tree.  I finally found a topper this year that I didn't hate that was only $15!
The ribbon is french ribbon I bought from Costco the year we bought our tree...at least 4 years ago.  The french ribbon is so perfect, since it allows to create any shape you want.  Before I bought the star topper I had created a giant ribbon bow that trailed down my tree. 

Oh and here's me and Ty in front of our tree!






My First 10 on 10

Well here it is-December 10th 2010 and here I am with my first 10 on 10!

11am
All prepared to get my christmas cards and letters stuffed.  Took the photo on Tuesday night, uploaded it to Costco Wednesday day, ordered online Wednesday night, picked them up Thursday!  That's what I call efficient!

12pm
Stuffed, Sealed, Stamped-I'm yours! (I love Stevie Wonder!)

1pm
still stuffing a few.....I got a few late addresses come in via Facebook!  Just in the nick of time


2pm
frustratingly trying to get a hold of Toys R Us to see if the gift I want to buy is in stock...I was on the line for 5 minutes until I was diconnected. The other number just rang & rang & rang.... buh.  Do you see my chai tea? The only thing keeping me sane!


3pm
Out and About.  Letters in the mail before 4 pm so people around North America get them by next week!

4pm
Driving Home....Fraser Highway; I use the term hiway loosely.  The speed limit is 60 kph and it two way traffic-meaning 1 lane in each direction!


5pm
Dinner time.  I made beef & broccoli stirfry with ginger and oyster sauce.  So delcious.  I will definately post the recipe soon!  It's too good not to share!

6pm
Hot cholcoate time.  This was brought back from Mexico for us and we hadn't tried it yet.  Sadly all the instructions were in Spanish....luckily I know what con leche means-with milk.  And litre is litro....we figured it out. 
  It was delicious...a little bit cinnamony!

7pm
It's a Wrap.  Wrapping the gift I bought today!!!! So excited.  I hope they like it!

8pm
Relaxing and watching a little HBO!  This is a scene from Eastbound & Down starring the very funny Danny McBride.  Not to be viewed if you are easily offended or don't enjoy the comedy stylings of Will Ferrell-he is one of the executive producers!

I was really looking forward to 10 on 10, which I almost forgot.  It's a difficult challenge, mainly becuase you're so wraped up in your 'to do' list, that you forget to take the time to stop!  Look for another installment on Januaty 10 2011!


Thursday, December 2, 2010

Family & Friends Christmas Gifts on the Cheap! Part 1

 Ty & I are headed 'home' to Saskatchewan (try saying that 3 times fast!) for a few weeks and will need to bribe ask our friends to keep an eye on our house, pick up the mail, water the plants...y'know.  Hopefully they'll agree to this mundane task because I am making them STELLAR gifties.

Step 1-Make delicious food they can't resist. 

I can't believe I am posting this-it's something of a family secret recipe, much like my chili, but it's too delicious not to share.  Every family has different 'holiday' food that they ONLY make once a year around Christmas.  This is one of those traditions in my family!

Daddy Lou's Nuts & Bolts
1 1/2 Cups Margarine
2 Tbls Worcestrshire sauce
10 Cups Cheerios
4-5 Cups Shreddies*
2-3 Cups peanuts*
4 Cups pretzel sticks
1 Tbls celery salt
2 tsp onion salt
1 tsp garlic salt
*I like to put more Shreddies in, since they hold the spices and are SO delicious.  I am also not a big fan of peanuts so I don't put as many in.  To each his own! 

Mix cereals, peanuts and pretzels in a large roasting pan 
sorry, I took this pic before I added the pretzels


Melt butter and add Worcestershire sauce. 
I made a goof and didn't use enough butter in this picture. 
The sauce should be much more yellow!


Add the butter mixture to the dry and toss well.  Combine the spices in a small bowl and sprinkle over the cereal.  Bake at 200 degrees F for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally. 


And here's the finished product! YUM!

Let cool and store in air tight containers.

This is what I will be giving to my lucky neighbours and friends....but whatever shall I put them in?  Stay tuned!

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Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Nifty Gifty Tags

I'm sure many of you out in blogland make homemade gift tags.  It's nothing new and it's a great way to use up scraps!  I bet some of yours are better than mine. And while a part of me wished to make beautiful ornate, lace adorned, sparkly gift tags, the reality is that these are often thrown out (recycled) with the gift wrap.  So I make nice enough gift tags to match my wrapping paper.  Yes I am just THAT cool.

Since I love stamping (and had some new ones to try out) here is my first batch of hand stamped gift tags!



And here are the very few gifts I have purchased, wrapped and are all ready to go.  As you'll notice I don't go overboard with fancy wrapping either.  Not that I don't want to, but I have to pack them in my suitcase and fly them from Vancouver to Saskatoon (about 1200km or 750 miles!)  So any goreous wrapping would get squished and man handled by the baggage crew! Boo!



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