Handmade Holiday Ideas

So my new obsession is handmade stuff. Not just made by me, but pouring over other people's ideas of crafts, gift ideas, etc... and me wondering how people have enough time to do them. And marveling at how creative people are!

I can sew simple stuff (and before I got pregnant, I was working on a Sew Liberated Tunic which I now have to put off until next summer, but that's ok, I might find different fabric that I like and have to make 2 of them!) and I can follow patterns, but I do get frustrated and irritated if I have to rip out stitches more than once.

So I'm sharing with you easy things that can be made hassle-free. Yes, these things suit even the most easily irritated person (me!) when it comes to making things myself.

A pillow from BHG.com. Cut out snowflakes and fuse to a pillow. Insert pillow insert and toss onto couch. For those of you that are overachievers, sew the snowflakes onto the pillow. (Fusible interfacing is SO EASY!!).

5 different Christmas stocking ideas from BHG. Not only can you say, "Screw this pattern! I'm only half-assing it!" but you can also say, "I'm making this the most decorated stocking ever!" So you've got both sides of the coin here.

Clothes Pin Christmas wreath. Spray paint clothes pins, put them onto a wire clothes hanger with painted wooden beads between the clothes pin. Hang with ribbon.

10 Christmas Gifts in a Jar. Yes, please, people... COOKIES. QUICKBREAD. Who doesn't love some quickbread and cookies?

So people, take all these small handmade things into consideration. Low maintenance, easy to make, easy to give, easy to keep! Happy holiday crafting!

New Development on the Rusty Front

A few weeks ago we discovered Rusty with garbage in his mouth. From the garbage can.

I thought maybe when I threw it away I missed the garbage and he picked it up off the ground...

And then it happened again.

And again.

And again.

Have I ever mentioned that my dog is an asshole?

So yesterday was the last straw.

I heard rustling around in the kitchen and I thought that Bimmer Man had come in from shoveling and that he was getting himself a snack from the kitchen. Then the rustling stopped.

And Rusty walked into the living room WITH GARBAGE IN HIS MOUTH. LIKE HE WAS ALL PROUD OF HIS ACCOMPLISHMENTS. My jaw dropped open. And there he stood, wagging his tail like he was the awesomest dog around.

My 'fraidy cat dog is now brave enough to shove his freakin' muzzle into the garbage can and pull out something tasty. Where has my awesome trick of putting the garbage can in front of the door to keep the dog out gone????

So this afternoon I think I'm going to be taking a trip to the Container Store to buy a nice garbage can with a lid. Ouch. You know when parents complain about their children growing up? Well, that's how I feel about my dog digging in the garbage can.

I want my scared-of-everything dog back. Life was so much easier when you could keep him in the corner with a cardboard box.

If I Haven't Been Decorating OR Cooking...

What in the world have I been doing?

I've been crocheting like a mad woman. The above is just a very small sampling of what is in my closet. I have so many freakin' handmade scarves, but just not enough to do a craft fair - I think if I had really put my mind to it this past year, I could've had a stock of maybe 75+ to do a 3-day craft fair but alas... I was lazy and didn't think of it until October.

So instead I opened up an Etsy shop and just sort of left it... didn't advertise, didn't really do anything, let it sit... let it fester... and then finally got up the courage to list the scarves. And I sold one. EXCITING. So now I have to keep crocheting scarves to keep the stock up. HOW IN THE WORLD DID I GET MYSELF INTO THIS? Oh, by crocheting in the first place and having way too many scarves for ME to wear.

And confession: because I really didn't put too much stock into Etsy, I totally crapped out when taking pictures. I honestly didn't think I'd sell anything or anyone would even look at it. HA. I guess I better get my rear end into creative gear and start taking better photos...

Happy Sunday!

Beef & Bean Enchiladas

I couldn't even wait to take a picture before I ate them. DELISH.

I guess authentic Mexican doesn't really occur to me at 1:30 in the afternoon, the only thing that does is messy, gooey, cheesy, beefy enchiladas. Screw the finished photo and just let me shovel them into my mouth.

So I went a little Sandra Lee here - but don't give me too much crap, because not only did I not go authentic (like use corn tortillas instead of flour tortillas), but I just shoved stuff into the tortillas and prayed that it would be good.

And alas... I've got leftovers to satisfy... YUM.

Beef & Bean Enchiladas.

1 lb ground beef
1 can of black beans
1/2 onion, roughly chopped
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp chili powder
1 clove of garlic - roughly chopped OR put through a garlic press. Whatevs..
1/2 cup of water

Tortillas
Cheese for topping
1 can of enchilada sauce that you find in the Mexican/Latino section of the store or from a Mexican food market. Yes, I did actually go to a Mexican market for this on my way home from work. HA.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Make the beef mixture. Ground the brown beef, drain off the fat. Add in the onion. Once the onion is clear add in the garlic, bean, cumin, chili powder and water. Let simmer until mixture is nice and thick.

Fill tortillas with beef mixture and squish into a rectangular pan. Top with enchilada sauce. Top with cheese. Bake for roughly 20 minutes or until cheese is super bubbly and makes your mouth water.

Serve topped with sour cream, guac, green onions, or anything else that your little heart desires.

Pinterest. EEP. Addiction.

Do you Pinterest? If so, isn't it FUN???

Kim Werker is fun to follow. Plus if you read Crochet Me!, you might recognize her! (And I love to pin all things crochet...).

And I think at some point I'm going to have to re-organize my Boards. I've got so much stuff on my "For The Home" board that I think I'm going to need to put it into different categories - In The House, The Garden, etc... And I started a Holidays board but man... I may have to do different holiday boards, but Christmas stuff I love the best so maybe not...

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS, I'm telling you - those Pinterest boards! They get you every time!

So let's run down the list of fun people to follow (because I can't leave you with just one!):

SkylarkDawn

OnePlaidAunt

And there's more... but I'm the one that clicks to see who people follow and then I just keep clicking and realize that crap... I'm following over 100 people.

So if you want to follow me on Pinterest... click here!

Re-Decorating the Spare Room.

Yikes. WE'RE GOING TO BE PARENTS.

And somehow "Parent" feels like a dirty word.

So the spare room needs to be re-done, re-painted, re-decorated. Pretty much everything needs to be pulled out and then new stuff needs to be put back in. Which is fine. But getting there... Oy vay. That's the hard part.

So onto the decor. We want at least one more child after this so everything will be neutral. This poor kid is getting the shaft... no "gender" specific items... Plus that also means we can give hand-me-downs to friends when they have children and we don't need to worry about giving them PINK when it's a boy (but boys in pink ties are super cute!).

This is my top rug pick (the multi-color one on top) from West Elm. It's an 8x8 square for $399. Right now West Elm is having a 15% off sale making the rug $339. But I've seen 20% off sales on rugs before... so now the waiting period begins to get a better deal (it better happen before March). I can order the rug in the store and then have it shipped to the store so I don't have to pay shipping. YES. SIGN ME UP. Plus this rug is the only one Bimmer and I can agree on.

Wall Color - see the light gray-blue in the rug? That's going to be the wall color. Not too baby-ish, not too grown up, not too girly, not too boy-ish. We're stayin' pretty neutral here... (though in about 5 years if the room is painted HOT PINK, I suppose that's fine too). SO stay tuned on that. I have to go to Hirschfield's and pick out a Benjamin Moore color - I've had AWESOME luck color matching at Home Depot so I don't have to pay $50 for a gallon of paint.

 Crib is from Becker Furniture World - I ordered it in "Cinnamon" so it's a lighter brown. More traditional. This is also a convertible crib so at some point I'm going to have to call and order the rail and crap to convert it.

Dresser is from Ikea - the Hemnes, it's $299. I LOVE my 8 drawer Hemnes dresser and there's so much storage that I think this will be a great dresser made to "grow" with. The closet in the spare room is sort of a joke (seriously, it's laughable) that I think this is a great option.

We'll probably end up picking up a changing table and maybe a small bookcase from Ikea too - all in white.

See? Neutral. If I never said we were having a girl, you'd think we would have no idea of the sex, right?

Now the next issue will be decor - prints, do we go with Dr. Seuss? Animals? Owls? Ok, maybe not owls...

This Week's Menu

In no order whatsoever:

Leftover beef stew from Thanksgiving

Enchiladas of some sort - maybe beef. Yep, beef. No chicken. But definitely cheesy Mexican. I will have to peruse Pinterest to find myself something delish.

Grilled cheese and tomato soup.

Frozen pizza

Tacos, maybe. Or maybe spaghetti. But definitely with beef. No turkey.

Are you sensing a theme? My crazy self is now a beef-eater. I haven't had beef in years. Seriously (Ok, REALLY GOOD steak, yes... but me cook with beef? ARE YOU NUTS? I haven't touched beef for ME to eat in... maybe 4 or 5 years now... I buy it for Rusty or Bimmer Man when there's a good cut of steak but me... NO WAY).

Sign Me Up!!!

Er, um, well, I've sort of started, um...

Ok, I've got a confession to make.

I LOVE getting catalogs in the mail. I'm addicted to them. And magazines. Holy heck, do I LOVE magazines!

And it will be a very sad day for me once I start cleaning out the spare bedroom.

I'm going to have to give away some magazines. Bimmer Man - I know you read this - please note: I typed "some" magazines, not all, not the majority of them, just "some," so don't get your hopes up too high.

So I went on a catalog spree and signed up for as many as I could possibly think of. Since catalogs go out of date and are recyclable, I really don't feel bad signing up for junk mail. Plus I think I can probably keep the US Postal Service in business on my magazines and junk mail alone.

I signed up for:

The Land of Nod
Pottery Barn (Teen, Kids, Bath & Bed, blah, blah, blah....)
Sundance Catalog (Holy buckets, I want EVERYTHING from here!!!)
The Company Store
Improvements
Ballard Designs
Grandin Road
Lillian Vernon

OMG. I'm turning into my mother.

Well, actually she used to get BAGS of catalogs from a man at work. And those catalogs were AWESOME. They were so much fun to read and look at. And the Sundance Catalog... that's where I got the idea of me needing cowboy boots. And now I have a pair of boots, but they're not really cowboy boots, so I still NEED a pair of cowboy boots!

Are there any other catalogs that I should sign up for? Any that you really like that you want to share?

CSA Recipe: Bruschetta

YUM. (Although I had a serious aversion to basil early on, I've sort of gotten over it... I'm seriously waiting for next year to chow down on all the basil possible...). If you use MEATY tomatoes, you'll get more bruschetta, plus it won't be so mushy and you'll be able to fit more of it onto your toasty bread.

These tomatoes came from our awesome CSA - Driftless Organics (which, BTW Driftless, I've still got your check sitting here to be mailed for the December box, so don't fret, I just need a stamp!!!). I think next year I'm going to order a full share - I plan on making my own baby food... we will see how that goes. Rusty is still eating raw so I think this kid has got a good change of eating organic... (and it's a girl - just found out yesterday, now let's see how many of you are paying attention!).

Recipe:

Bruschetta

4 - 6 meaty tomatoes - I like using Roma tomatoes, but I'll use anything after using the CSA tomatoes
1 tsp garlic powder
Salt & pepper
A really good handful of basil, julienned
Olive oil - I'd say 2 - 3 tbsp (circle the bottle around the bowl 2 - 3 times and there you have it!)
Good crusty bread, you can toast it in the oven OR on the grill.

Chop the tomatoes into small pieces. Put everything into a bowl and refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour.
 Serve with crusty bread and big paper towels to catch falling tomatoes.

Homemade Salsa

Just when you think summer is over... BAM. I bring out the homemade salsa. It's delicious, to be quite honest. Almost all of the ingredients came from my garden (except for the canned tomatoes, but you can use whole peeled tomatoes - just drop the tomatoes in a boiling pot of water until you can peel the skin off).

I made a ginormous batch of this salsa - I put a ton in the freezer for over this winter, so never fear, you can ALWAYS freeze and eat.

And of course, just a reminder, since I'm fairly forgetful myself, to wear gloves when you're working with the jalepenos (or wash your hands a lot and don't touch your face).

So, here's the recipe:

2 cans of diced tomatoes, or really any kind of tomatoes
2 jalepenos, seeded (unless you like heat, then leave the seeds in)
Cilantro - a good bunch
1/2 red onion to start, but have the other half handy to add just in case
Salt, pepper
Maybe a dash of tobasco if you think you're worthy

I wasn't sure how this was going to go... so I put everything into a big bowl (see picture above) and then I just dumped everything into a HUGE food processor and processed away. This is serious restaurant style, non-chunky salsa and it's delicious.

I made little changes here and there - I added in another few hunks of onion, more salt, and a few dashes of tobasco per Bimmer Man's instructions.

So there. Go make your own salsa! Easiest thing to make in the entire world!