It was a little under the wire, the wedding is tomorrow, but I finished this guest book last night:

It is for the niece of a co-worker. The only information that I had was that the wedding colors were pale pink and black and the flowers were roses, which made me think of Paris, circa 1950. So I took that idea and went with it, and the aunt of the bride said that it totally captured the bride’s style. So I’m feeling pretty proud of myself. 

I made an organza (or organdy, I always forget the difference) sleeve to protect it. To bad I forgot to press it before taking a picture, especially considering that pictures of non-ironed creations posted on blogs is one of my pet peeves. I know, totally nit-picky, but press things before you go posting it for millions to see. In my case, there will only be 29 people viewing my un-ironed organza book sleeve, so I’m not too concerned. The cover is Italian silk and a black flocked damask with a little grosgrain ribbon trim. I tucked a little picture of roses in there, since those are the wedding flowers.

P.S. I think you could still buy one of these little guys if you wanted to.

I wrapped presents last night! Wrapping presents is one of my favorite things to do. When I was a teenager I would spend part of my Christmas vacation with my Grandma, helping her do her wrapping and making her famous dipped chocolate candies. She had 25 grandchildren, so there was a lot of wrapping and dipping to do. She taught me how to get the corners just so, so the wrapping looks nice and crisp and tidy. I think that was the Dutch in her that I inherited. Even when she was in the depths of Alzheimer’s, she would make her bed with perfect hospital corners, and help do the dishes, folding the dishcloth perfectly and hanging it neatly to dry. I miss my Grandma.

So, I made little gifts for co-workers. I made glass glitter initials for everyone, and I wish the photograph showed the colors a little better. Then I filled cellophane bags with Lindt truffles and knitted roses (I added pin-backs to the roses), and stuffed straw gift basket filler around everything. A couple of friends got properly wrapped presents. I love the pale blue paper I picked up at Target, the turquoise glitter looks so pretty with it.

I took a couple pictures of my tree, but I ended up with a frightening bug-eyed peacock, so I will have to try again tomorrow.

I’m doing my best to enjoy the next few days of holiday-ness, but it’s been rough. I took off work on Friday so I could decorate and bake and do fun Christmas things and woke up that morning with a cold that is still lingering. I have a frog-like voice and I’m going through the tissue at record speed. This morning the husband called as I was leaving for work, broken down at the side of the road. In the car that we just spent a lot of money fixing. Not my car that we spent large, vast amounts on, but the other one that we fixed up because it would be so much more fuel efficient to drive than his big old truck, which probably also need to have large amounts of money spent on it for new tires and such. So it seems that this year is just trying to knock us down and we keep getting back up only to be knocked down again. Please, 2006, could you go a little easier on us? That would be great, thanks.

I’ve started my Christmas decorating. Since I spend the vast majority of my waking hours in a cozy cubicle, I thought I’d start there, so I made a little gumdrop wreath:

I added a green polka dot bow, and made a swag for the wall with plain green ribbon and tiny glass candy ornaments. It’s harder than you would think to get those gumdrops nicely arranged. I pulled nearly all of them off once and started over. My fingers are quite painful today. It’s a nice little cheap project, though. The wreath form I got at Michaels for $1.99 and gumdrops were on sale for $1 a bag. I had the ribbon, so for less than $5 I’ve got a pretty little wreath.

I also won 1000 pom poms on eBay for $1.25. One Thousand pom poms! I’m counting them when they arrive to make sure I didn’t get ripped off. Then I’m going to make pom pom garlands.

UPDATE:
Comments are cracking me up. Everyone is concerned that the wreath will be eaten! The part I didn’t tell you was that I bought 3 bags of gum drops, they were red, green and white. There weren’t very many white ones, so I think I used nearly all of them from the three bags, but there were still plenty of red ones left, and I didn’t use a single green one. So really, I’m more worried about getting sick of gum drops before I will ever have to pluck one off my wreath. Don’t be so impressed with my willpower, I ate plenty while I made me wreath :o)

Hello internets, I didn’t feel like visiting you for awhile. It’s nothing personal, I have just been a little stressed out these past couple weeks. My poor little car shut down on me late one night, and now I’m trying to find lots and lots of money to get it fixed. Apparently when the timing belt breaks it flies around and messes up large expensive parts of your engine. So go get your timing belts checked, people. The last time I saw it, it’s guts were spread out all over the mechanic’s garage. So sad. I will try to remember some happier times:
Spring

Winter
I should be able to pick it up Tuesday. Just in time for Thanksgiving, which only means more stress as I will have to clean the house and drive 3 hours to pick up my mother-in-law so she can spend the weekend making comments that I’m never sure are compliments or insults. Like when she told the husband that she thought I was a good cook, but she’s never seen or tasted the things I make before. So I’ll be slaving in the kitchen making turkey and pies for her. I hope I don’t get too crazy exotic with my food selections.

I did get these little guys finished and packed up and sent off for Plush Rush. Here they are in their box:

I hope they sell, I think there are going to be a lot of cool things from people who are way more creative than me.

I should really end the pity party now, so here are a few positive thoughts: the dog bite is nearly healed although a bit of bruising remains, it’s Thursday-only one more day until the weekend, I started knitting myself a sweater, and that’s about all I can think of for right now.

Thanks for all the comments lately, I really do plan on responding, but I just haven’t felt like checking e-mail. Maybe in the next few days.

No pink in sight today!

I was lucky enough to turn in my application on time and be accepted to participate in Plush Rush.


There are a lot of really great artists, I think I’m kidding myself that anyone will buy my little monsters, but I decided to be brave and send them out there into the big bad world. I’m making three little guys similar to Mort, Sally and Mimi. So bookmark the Plush Rush site, and be there when the sale starts on December 3rd!

Wow, I sound like some kind of badly written ad campaign.

This weekend was all about food. I made risotto with prosciutto and peas Saturday night, nicoise salad for lunch Sunday and a big pot of minestrone soup Sunday night. The best, though, was breakfast:

I made ginger scones and lavender lemon mint tisane from Teaism. I was even nice enough to make the manly man some waffles, because we all know manly men don’t eat scones and tea, but manly food like waffles. So he had a plain white manly plate loaded with waffles and syrup, and I enjoyed my scones and tea on pretty pink and red vintage china, and everyone was happy.

I was also busy with the crafty stuff this weekend:

I like cruising the aisle at the hardware store with all the little drawers of bolts and screws and doodads. There is some pretty cool stuff there. This is a picture frame for my desk at work, which started out as your standard brown pressed wood clipboard. I painted it pink, drilled a hole in each bottom corner, and inserted long bolts with spacers so it would stand up. I added some printed vellum for a photo mat, and a little plastic flower thingie from the hardware store. If I got ambitious, I could have plexiglass cut to fit, with matching holes drilled for the bolts, to protect the photograph. I may make a bunch of these for Christmas gifts, so I may have to look into that. It can also be hung on the wall with the hole in the clip part, so shorter bolts would be needed for that situation, obviously. I’d also like to try spray painting the metal bits black, particularly if I paint the board a darker or bolder color. I’m going to use this one to hold a black & white picture from my sister’s wedding.

A few years ago, when I was just getting into bookbinding, I snatched this tiny letterpress off eBay. And then it sat on a shelf. I think it’s time to dust it off and see what I can do with it. It looks as if it came with just about everything I need to get started, except that the ink roller (I have no idea if that is the correct technical term) looks as if something has been gnawing on it. I’m finding some helpful resources on the internet, starting with Briar Press. My little press is just big enough to print business cards, although I think I could sneak a postcard-sized card in there as well.  Ooh the possibilities!