Thursday, November 30, 2006

No-sew Simple


I decided to make a few people on my list no-sew fleece blankets for Christmas. I've heard so much buzz about them, I figured I should try one out. I followed the instructions I found online here.

The one in the picture is for my grandma. I posted hers, because I'm quite sure she is not surfing the Net, trolling blogs. I really like that the two prints for this one coordinated so well.

Overall, I'm really happy with this project. It was very easy and the product is definitely something I can be proud of (which is not the case with most projects I make involving fabric). Plus, the blankets are super-warm and snuggly. I sort of don't want to give them away.

A few hints in case you want to try one out for yourself:

-- You need a lot of room to lay the fabric out. I did most of the work on these in my entryway.
-- I used a very large Fiskars cutting mat and rotary cutter to do all of the trimming and fringe. I absolutely cannot imagine how tedious it would have been to do the whole thing with a tape measure and scissors. My mat has a 1-inch grid on it, so that made it really simple to make the cuts for the fringe even.
-- In the instructions, it recommends tying the fringe in alternating directions. I did one that way and thought it looked a bit messy. I preferred the one I did with all of the fringe tied the same way.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Christmas Time Is Here


Just got through watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on TV. It was super, as usual, especially because I enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate with my delicious peppermint marshmallows while I watched it.

There was a great article in the newspaper yesterday that listed the dates and times for all of the standard holiday TV favorites. You can check it out here.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Wrap It Up


I found these adorable holiday socks at Target with a pocket for a gift card. I think they're a fabulous way to package a sometimes-boring Christmas gift. There are several cute designs to pick from. As you can see, our older nieces will be receiving their Barnes & Noble gift cards in these special socks.

I am also totally impressed by the array of gift card holders Safeway is offering. The ones I picked (below) are definitely not the cutest, but I needed something sort of masculine to hold cards for a few boys on my list.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Skip It

As part of our AMTSJ subscription, we had tickets to "Christmas Dreamland" last night. We had high hopes for it, as it's being advertised everywhere as a "singing, dancing extravaganza" and a "holiday tradition in the making."

It was at the Heritage Theater in Campbell, which was really nice, but so small it seemed like we were in a middle school auditorium. It was a nice idea, and the sets and costumes were impressive, but the sound system was bad and you could barely understand the words when the performers were singing. The whole thing just needed a bit more polish – it seemed like there was a visible mistake in every scene.

They did make it snow in the audience, which was cool. It probably would have been fun for kids, except our seats were in the balcony and the retail value listed on the tickets was $48, so not quite family-friendly pricing.

We heard that a live performance version of "A Christmas Story" is now playing in San Jose, so maybe that's more our taste.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Oh Tanenbaums!


We got our Christmas tree yesterday and did a few other holiday errands. This year we opted for a Noble Fir. I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. putting the fall decorations away and the Christmas decorations out.

In addition to the main tree, I put out my little three-foot fake tree devoted to my Starbucks collectible ornaments.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Next


Here are my two other Thanksgiving contributions: cranberry sauce and sweet potato casserole. I have much experience with those, so they came out delicious. The pie was good, but it was a bit gooey and probably could have used a few more minutes in the oven. Oh well, live and learn.

To get into the Christmas spirit, we saw "Deck the Halls" last night. From the commercials it seemed like it could have been a new "Christmas Vacation," but it didn't quite measure up. If you're looking for a good movie to see this weekend, look further.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Easy as Pie


I did it! My first-ever pie. Actually, I've made pies before, but they involved a pre-made crust, Jell-O and Cool Whip, so they don't really count.

The crust was tough, but after many tries I got it big enough to cover the whole dish and thick enough to be transfered from the counter to the dish. Those little things on the top are supposed to be flowers made from candied pepitas. What are pepitas you ask? When I came across that word in the recipe I had to look it up. They are the meaty bits inside a pumpkin seed. I found raw ones at Lunardi's and candied them myself.

I'm a little disappointed that I used canned pumpkin instead of my home-grown babies, but I wasn't sure if mine were the proper variety for cooking. There's always next year. Well, maybe we should wait and see how this tastes tomorrow before I go making plans for pie No. 2.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

A Cup of Cheer


As I mentioned before, Martha's special "Holiday Handmade Gifts" issue is full of great ideas. A few nights ago I decided to do a trial run of her peppermint marshmallow recipe. It was a pretty intensive process, but not too hard. The main thing I need to work on is getting the red food coloring to marble through the marshmallows. Mine just turned into a solid pink layer on the top. That's OK, cause they still taste absolutely scrumptious!!

Monday, November 20, 2006

Brown Paper Packages


I made some headway with my holiday shopping and wrapping this weekend. Sometimes I like to use regular old brown parcel paper jazzed up with a festive ribbon. I didn't have any festive ribbon on hand, so I used a big snowflake stamp I bought at Michael's ($1 for a set of three!) and some Stampin' Up ink with the coordinating marker. No bow, no tag, but I think it came out kind of cool. Next time around I might stamp the recipient's name or write it a bit fancier.

Friday, November 17, 2006

A Word to the Wise

If you are on Blogger, DO NOT "upgrade" to Blogger Beta. YUCK! I totally screwed up my page. I guess I'll work on figuring out how to fix it at some point over the weekend.

Didn't fall off the face of the Earth ...


... just succumbed to a tidal wave of pre-holiday activity.

But things should be a bit better moving forward. I have the day off today, since my friend is flying in from San Diego this afternoon to spend the weekend visiting me. Also, everything I do from now on will be inspired by the delicious sounds of Christmas music. KOIT (96.5) switches to their all-holiday format at 3:00 p.m. today, and I have a feeling that KBAY (94.5) won't be far behind. HOORAY!

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Right On


I was reading some marketing data from one of our clients at work today. It was a report that summarized the many different types of consumers the company is targeting with its product. It included information like what TV shows each demographic enjoys, where they like to eat and, most importantly, where they prefer to shop.

The attributes varied significantly, from Victoria's Secret to 7-Eleven, and from Good Housekeeping to Maxim. Despite the differences, Target was listed as a store of choice for every single demographic included in the analysis.

This got me thinking: I don't know a single person who doesn't LOVE Target. I know plenty of people who absolutely despise its counterparts Wal-Mart and Kmart, but Target is like the golden child in that family.

Does anybody out there hate Target or know someone who does? I'm really interested to know if there are any Target haters out there and why they feel that way.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Shark Byte


Just so nobody can say I'm slacking, I wanted to do a quick post about my evening. Tonight I went to the Sharks game with my friend who is a season ticket holder. We had lots of fun and enjoyed a tasty dinner at the Tied House. Now I am tired and am going to bed.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Back in the Saddle

Oh my! I can't believe Thanksgiving is just two weeks away! I have volunteered to bring a homemade pumpkin pie this year, in addition to my standard cranberries and sweet potatoes. I have never made a pie from scratch before, so that should be interesting ...

Steve turned 30 this weekend. To celebrate, we had dinner at Claim Jumper and saw "Borat." Both were popular Saturday night activities. The wait at Claim Jumper was two and a half hours!! Thank God I had made a reservation. It was very yummy, though. I can't wait to go back, cause half the fun was looking at the plates other people in the restaurant had ordered. We got to the movies 30 minutes early for the 9:25 p.m. show, and it was sold out. We had to do the 10:25 p.m. show, and people were madly lining up to get into the theater 40 minutes before it started. I could not believe how long the line got by the time they were ready to let us in. The movie was hilarious.

Other than that, I just did a few projects, cleaned the house, ran some errands, and had lunch with a friend. One of the projects I finished was this:


I did a swap on Splitcoast Stampers where 26 people signed up and we each picked a different letter. Then we had to find a favorite fall recipe that corresponded with that letter. We typed up our recipe and embellished it on a 6x6 scrapbook page (times 26), and then sent our pages in to one lady who divvied them up and returned them to us in the mail. So now I have a lovely A-Z fall cook book of recipes from all different people. I did "O" and decided to call my favorite pumpkin coffee cake recipe "Out of the Box Pumpkin Coffee Cake," since it requires two boxes of pound cake mix. All in all, I was happy with the experience, except that the ladies who picked C and W flaked, so I had to make my own pages for those letters this weekend. I also embellished the 6x6 album I put the pages in (as you can see in the photo above).

In other news, I've started my Christmas shopping and wrapping. So far so good. I also have plans for my homemade gifts that were inspired by Martha's new collectible Holiday issue.