Vegetarians Don't Look!

We made a bigger Sunday dinner than we usually do at our house. It's been cold and we don't typically do any kind of holiday meal so we decided to go for it with Sunday supper. I made hashbrown casserole (a la Cracker Barrel) and baked beans (Mother-in-law has tastiest recipe... super easy but you'll have to ask her for it :) ).



Rolland made a smoked turkey in the smoker that ended up being super easy and incredibly tasty. He did his home work though and brined it (Alton Brown) prior to smoking and it made all the difference. Most moist turkey ever. I'm already thinking about the yummy turkey sandwiches to come.



And it's no wonder we got this tastiness made with help like this attached to us at the hip.



Next week, Beef bourguignon via the Barefoot Contessa which I've made before and is heaven. I think this Sunday supper thing might take hold for the new year.

Merry Christmas!

With this year's white Christmas, I got everything I wanted and more. I hope your holiday has been filled with beauty and joy.

Happy Christmas Everyone!

Awesome vacation ...

means finally getting some fun stuff done in the studio. I'm trying to create pieces with all the goodies I've been collecting and resist buying new stuff until I've made some space. This one is made from milk glass beads I got at Michaels with a few left over quartz crystal coins. I've linked with them all together with annealed steel wire that is on a huge spool that is greatness. I'm scared I'll never find such a large amount again but I don't let it stop me from being my go to wire. The length is actually fairly long and close to a flapper style necklace that I plan to pair with a piece I made over the summer for some yummy jadeite style goodness.


For this one, I had a bag of leftover charms that I've collected in the last year with a vintage charm bracelet I bought last Christmas and thought I'd go ahead and start adding the charms since everything was just sitting here; half hour later I've got a full travel charm bracelet that even hubby thought was cool. I really love it and feel it's especially festive now as I jingle every time I move! I'm contemplating starting to collect shield charms like these but I need another collectible like a hole in the head. Please note this is not necessarily a strong no. :)


My final accomplishment for the day was finishing the mammoth biography of Julia Child I started in May. The author really covers all the details which kept making it hard to stick with the story but the last month I buckled down and got it finished. Strangely, now that it's done I kind of loved it but it's definitely an investment in time. It's amazing to read exactly how dedicated she was to changing the way Americans cooked and felt about food. Her commitment to her profession, her husband and her causes is incredibly inspiring.

Cloverleaf

We went on a miniroad trip today to Ardmore, Oklahoma to check out The Cloverleaf Boutique. I've had the article about it on my inspiration board since May of 2008 so yesterday hubby volunteered to head north to check it out. It was awesome! Completely girly heaven where I wanted one of everything but managed to show great restraint. There were even a couple of sections to keep Rolland occupied so he didn't mind my looky-looing. I forgot my camera but the trusty iPhone was put to good use snapping some outside pics.

Vacation Necklace 1

Rolland took this a while ago but it definitely captures the last few days. It's amazing how much time I can spend in the studio when I don't have to worry about getting everything done in a weekend before I have to go back to work on Monday. I made this one yesterday and another one is await


I made this one yesterday and another one is almost finished except for some pesky wire wrapping. Tomorrow, some collage and backgrounds for some soldered pieces I want to get started on for this week as well.


We've also got more movie plans. Did you hear about the Morgans? was great and very sweet. Invictus (also my husband's favorite poem) in the next couple of days with Sherlock Holmes and tamales on Christmas. Yes, I know those two are not especially related.

Vacation is starting off right

I'm playing catch up now that I've had some time in the studio. This is a necklace that I made for my friend Molly and I'm thrilled that she liked it. Hubby and I collaborated on making the bezel based on somethings I learned in Terri Brush's clash but I took a shortcut with copper tubing to make the perfect circle. I'm hoping to get a lot of these made next week. We bought the big torch and everything... mostly because hubby does the torching. :)


This is the packing and ornament I made for my 12 Days exchange with the Charmsters group. I love how untraditionally Christmas my lady dancing is and hope everyone else did too. I think these colors are just yummy and would use them more in the house if the boy didn't protest so much. I suppose that is a lot to ask.



I've had a great day in the studio and been super productive. I will have lots more photos over the next few days.

Hope everyone's having an awesome weekend.

Vacation in sight!

I can't believe how close to Christmas it is. I've got almost nothing done that I wanted to but am incredibly excited that tomorrow is Friday and I get an entire week off. I have huge, huge plans to play in the studio and the kitchen. We're also planning a date night for Did you Hear About the Morgans Cowboy Chow and Christmas lights. I've also ordered some urban fantasy that looks awesome so when I'm not playing I can do some fun mindless reading. Seriously, there's no way this vacation live up to these huge expectations but I'm going to risk.

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend planned.

Christmas

So today I know how an elf must feel working overtime at the North Pole. In fact, that elf would be totally wiped out and have extremely dry hands from paper, glue and ribbon. I finished wrapping all the presents and Rolland got them boxed up and ready to ship out tomorrow.


These are the packages headed north and hopefully will arrive in the next two weeks. I dread waiting in line while Rolland brings more in from the car and everyone gives us incredibly dirty looks.

Luckily, the 60 Christmas cards I finished up tonight can be dropped in the mail without any seeing the huge stack. I have no idea what possessed me this year. This week, baked goods. Normally I've been working on cookies since October and just have to slice and bake with the thawed rolls from the freezer but this year Christmas got away from me and I've done no pre-baking. OY! Do you think a group pan of brownies is horrible?

Now, I'm going to bed and am hell bent on regrouping for a new attitude of merriment. I've got some awesome plans involving spray painted plastic dinosaurs and a Lego Rockband Keychain. This minor lapse in holiday cheer will soon be forced into submission.

Weekend

So far, this weekend has been awesome. Tiring, but awesome. Last night was a girls night and we had dinner at The Porch then saw the Santaland Diaries which totally rocked. I love David Sedaris and the show at The Contemporary rocked it.
Today has been a lot of shopping, wrapping, repeat. Tomorrow I need to start stock piling the cookies for delivery on Friday. I'm taking the week of Christmas off so all office goodies need to be done by the 18th so I've got butter thawing as we speak. Pics of cookie goodness should be forthcoming.

Speaking of pics, this one is the tree at the Galleria and was taken with my iPhone using the Toy Camera application. Now, my new favorite thing about my iPhone since I took it with my phone, uploaded it to twitpic, saved it from there and posted it here... no finding the camera, downloading pic, photoshop, save, upload, etc. Although I apologize for twitter followers and blog readers on the shared photos but it's festive!

Mid-week Progress

Not much to share in pics but I've got several projects in progress. I had to take a round 2 with filling a bezel with resin. First round, not great, so I added a pic to the top and a thin coat of diamond glaze so I hope that salvages the piece since I really like it. I have big plans for the chain.

The kitchen has been more successful. I made a super tasty quiche on Monday, while watching the Patriots get pounded by the Saints (so sad), and tonight a spicy tomato soup found here. Yummy goodness. This weekend I'm thinking we might use the smoker for some barbecue experiments. It's finally gotten cold enough for more tasty comfort food. Maybe turkey?

Note: no turkey was consumed on Thanksgiving so we're not completely out of our minds with turkey overload.

Soldering Skills Come in Handy

Turns out, my being able to solder is super handy. We saw a mirror set at IKEA that I loved. Mostly, I loved the hand mirror and the large mirror hanging with pretty pink velvet and chain but for $30 I could definitely figure something else out. I bought a set of rectangular mirrors instead ($5 for the pack of 4) and decided to DIY it at home. My first attempted involved epoxy and hangers... this did not go well although I discovered the epoxy failure prior to it hitting the ground. Up next, a round of soldering. This turned out to not be the pain in the butt I was expecting. I added a patina finish and am really happy with how it turned out with my pink ribbon and vintage chain added. Now I can check out the jewelry choices without running back into the bathroom to review. You would be amazed how many runs this can be in the am. :)



I decided to continue on with the super crafty DIY skills and fixed these vintage ornaments we got a few weeks ago. There were 6 in the set but two had lost their metal hangings so a little foil, flux and solder and these are back in business!


This weekend has been awesome. Incredibly relaxing with lots of movies (Blind Side, Purple Violets, Bottle Shock), tv catch up (have you seen White Collar yet? It's greatness!)and playing in the studio. We did get some Christmas shopping done but still need to get a few more things ordered.

Hope you had a terrific weekend.

Last Marie Pages

This page was daunting to work on since Keli did such a gorgeous job on the background page I hated to cover it up! It came quilted with the text and the lovely ribbons already added. I did my best to add to it without destroying anything she had already done. In the end, I think it came out pretty well.


Suzanne's page was quite a challenge since she sent a cake mix box as her background. She has a baking background and it seemed like the perfect way to create a book. Incredibly clever that Suzanne. This one was a little late since I wanted to get it done on time but had to wait for lots of layers of gesso, paint, more paint, marker, glue, etc to dry. I really had fun with this page and the background.


That's it for me. Next pics will be of all the wonderful pages I received. I've been collecting them and waiting to open them until I was ready to put them in the book. It's going to be like an early Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We've had a lovely day of food, movies, shopping and play in the studio (at least for me). It's been a wonderful holiday and I hope you're enjoying it with family, friends and the tasty goodness of your choice.

Silver Bella Pics

I didn't take as many pics as usual but I did snap a few with the iPhone. Instead, I had a great time and was caught up in actually enjoying the festivities forgetting to take my camera out of the bag!

Almost done

More Marie pages that I sent out Pre-Silver Bella. I've got some pics to post from Silver Bella and a bunch of new stuff to share but I had a minor injury with my new ceramic knife today - cut a very nice gash across the middle finger of my right hand - and I'm finding it slightly challenging to type and work on the computer. Hopefully these pretties can suffice until the weekend.







Note: I am taking this opportunity to clean up my blog though! I finally figured out the tag thing so that should be a lot less messy in the future.

Silver Bella Day 3

Ok, I skipped day two since I was swept away in the awesomeness that was vendor's night. I've had the most amazing time. It was the perfect weekend to get away, create and recharge. I promise pics and links in the next post. For now, I'm heading to bed early and making my way back to Big D on the early flight out. Ready to be home with hubby and puppies.

Hope everyone's weekend is also greatness.

Silver Bella day 1

I'm loving Omaha & Silver Bella. We had our reception, dinner & group project tonight which was greatness. Stephanie Haliman (?) from Fiskars led our group project and we ended up with a lot of goodies. I've also managed an initial trip to Second Chance antiques so lots of super cool stuff purchased. I'm slightly worried about getting it all home but I refuse to get bogged downin pesky logistics! Now, book & bed since tommorrow is a big day of Gorky goodness including the Vendor Faire. See not worried a bit.

I get to go to Silver Bella ...

And this is what Rolland will be doing while I'm gone.




I figured if I get to have a girly weekend he should be able to have some weekend fun as well. This meant the new Call of Duty game, including night vision goggles, and getting to sleep late.

Happily, I've also got most of my projects wrapped up so I can head off to Omaha guilt free. These are the 12 Days gifts all wrapped up and heading out across the globe.

Brand Spanking new nephew!

Our new nephew was born this am and we're super excited! I can't wait to see pics and see him.

Pie Class

This is me during class. I'd like to say that I, at no point, floured my butt. Instead, I kept getting patted by the instructor who was covered in flour. Also, the instructor never actually read the recipes we were making in class. I found this incredibly uncomforting for successful pie making. The other instructor, who did know how to cook, wore a bat wing top that kept promising to catch on fire at any second. Regardless, Bo (the girl) and I had an awesome time and we both went away with tons of new ideas and cookware. Why waste a 15% off coupon and a le creuset sale?!

More and More Marie Pages

I knew the Marie swap had the potential to get out of control so I've been mailing my pages all along. I did take advantage of a couple of extended deadlines to squeeze in a fewer other projects but now they're almost done! These are two that have been in progress and I've got a couple more in different stages of drying. It's been super fun to spread out and try new things. I feel a little conflicted since I think the idea was to be super romantic and frilly but I've been loving Teesha Moore's stuff more and more so some of these pages just seemed like the perfect place to try some of the graphical elements that are so prevelant in her journals. If you like her work, follow her blog to see some of her awesome videos of her how tos.

I hope everyone's having an awesome weekend and getting in some outside time with this gorgeous fall. In a couple of hours I'll be lunching on the patio with Bo and then hitting Sur la Table for pies & tarts class. Next week is Omaha and Silver Bella! Woo hooo!

Last Weekend's Antique Outing

Apparently, there is a twice yearly antique sale in the design and antique district in Dallas. This was the first my friend Jen and I had heard of it so we promptly scratched other plans and made this our new destination. We've also added a new partner in crime, Bo, not to be confused with Bo, My husband has taken to referring to her as Bo the Girl and since she is delightful and charming she did not smack him. Bo, not the girl and I, are heading here for lunch on Tuesday but I digress.

The other shopping fiends and I met for breakfast here. It's incredibly tasty. In fact, the husband and I are planning to head there for breakfast in a couple of hours. 1. it's super tasty 2. It's my bribe for swinging by the antique store for more Christmas ornaments like these.



Sorry, I digressed. Again. Anyway, after breakfast we headed towards the design district thinking this was where all the sale goodness was happening but not so much. We were not deterred and headed down to Industrial where, in fact, all of the actual sales were happening. I have found a few new places to love like this, and this, and this one. Here are some pics that I didn't take because I was caught up in a vintage ornament/biscuit and gravy coma.

These are some of my other super great finds.




I also found these great dice and pics which are perfect for our guest bathroom. After our major bathroom re-model I was not discouraged (for long) or put off (much) about redoing the guest bathroom. It's mostly Rolland's, and where the puppies get baths, but I really want to do a vintage black and white bathroom even though it's incredibly over and done to death but still, I want my white subway tile! I decided it would help my cause to find some great old items that even he would love.
How could anyone say no to a b&w pic of a fighter pilot and over size vintage dice from Vegas?

Tomorrow, lunch then Pies and Tarts class at Sur la Table. I'll try to be a better blogger and take pics. Even if I am covered in flour with hand prints on my butt, not that this is something that occurs regularly when I'm in the kitchen or anything!