11.25.2009
My best cookie ever. No, seriously. Ever.
11.23.2009
Candy Wreath party
My cousin, Tracy, also made two wreaths. The beautiful bows were all made by my aunt Patty.
A litttle peek show. It took a while to get these pictures as we were all laughing about inappropriate things and the wreaths are heavy so we kept lowering them. And finally a nice one. Good work, ladies. Good work.
11.21.2009
Speaking of that contest....
I couldn't wait
The back. Jordan's Santa needed to be a rock star, clearly. Note how he's playing a blue bass, just like Jordan's first one. Putting two elements together like this was a new concept.
The fish is supposed to be for our wedding, since we got married in Barbados.
Seeing as how Jordan is a mechanic and has always loved his first green pickup truck, I thought this would be cute. The hub caps are buttons from the collection I got from my grandma. Yup, the same collection I used for Finn's bunny. The head light bead was probably the most irritating part of the whole project. I bougth at least 6 different beads for it.
Everyone also gets a rocking horse, though the colors differ from stocking to stocking.
Here's the snowman. He's also a standard for all stockings. This one got a little ribbon bow tie, unlike some of the older stockings. He is also holding on to the popcorn strand that's off to decorate the...
tree! Jordan's is the first stocking where the different components interact so much.
Everyone gets a couple of holly leaves as well. They take the least amount of time to make, but still take about an hour each. This is the oldest of the stockings at our house. This is my mom's front. And the back.
My dad's.
The back.
Jessica's front. Her's started to fall apart, so we took off all the pieces and put them on a new stocking. We aslo added a silk liner, which I thought of to help keep some of the stress of a full stocking off of the felt. All the new ones are getting them.
The back.My stocking's front. Poor thing, it needs a new hanger. The back. And Brianna's front. And back.
11.15.2009
Thanks, Ray.
My mom, my friend Ann and I had the pleasure of going to the Ray LaMontagne concert on Friday night. I had been told that it was going to be one of the greatest concerts of my life and it certainly stood up to the hype. First off, the concert was at the State Theatre in downtown MPLS. Gorgeous old theatre. When Ray came out, it was just him, a guitar and a mike. That was it and it was beautiful. He was really friendly and funny, telling us some lovely anecdotes. The music speaks for itself. My only woe is that the second song I recorded didn't record all the way. Lesson learned. Next time make sure to clear off two ENTIRE sd disks. We were in the second balcony, so I was zoomed in a bit, but I think the videos are good anyway. Jess, this post is dedicated to you!
Ray told us that Elvis Costello told him that this was The Song that would bring people to Ray's music for years to come. Like Alison is for Elvis.
11.11.2009
Not your typical snowflake...
11.07.2009
C is for cookies. Lots of delicious cookies!
For every major holiday I like to make cookies. Not just any cookie. I make my best friend's mom's cookies. She used to send them all the way to Iowa from Colorado, wrapped in bubble wrap, for all major school year holidays. Looks like a sugar cookie, right? Nope, they're short bread. I never liked sugar cookies that much. When you add the frosting, they get too sweet. That's saying a lot for me since I LOVE sweets. So here is the dough, all rolled out and ready to go.
I have tons of cutters. These are my Halloween cutters. I also did my more generic fall cookies. I find that if I cut all the cookies out like this, instead of one at a time, I can keep better track of how many of each shape I have. I learned that from past cookie sessions where I ended up with way too many snowmen and not enough stars (I make them into Santa's).
Here they are, all ready for the frosting party. You can actually keep them in the freezer for quite some time if you can't get to frosting right away.
I splurged and bought really nice food coloring for my frosting. It's the gel kind made by Wilton instead of the standard liquid. The gels come in a ton of colors and they are so vibrant! Michaels has a great selection. I of course used my 40% off coupon. I never go to Michaels with out one! I just found this sweet list of colors on their website.
Liz made a sweet Frankenstein out of a skull cookie. I added a tad too much milk to the frosting and it was slightly runnier than I would have liked. Frank ended sliding a bit to the side, but he still looked good!
Cam was a super froster. My favorite by her was her pink pumpkin. She's also a super Bears fan.
Not to be outdone by his wife, Beak got in on some frosting action. As you can tell, Beak is a Vikings fan. When the Vikes play the Bears, the Mader casa is a house divided!
11.05.2009
Will Whitmore and Ugly Bunny
p.s. I turned the video right side up, but somehow youtube turned it sideways again. Sorry!
After the show, Jordan and I joined the Allen's at their house for a nightcap. I saw the ugly bunny doll I made for Finn's first birthday so I took a few pictures to post up. All the fabrics were gifted to me by my mother-in-law, Sue. The buttons are from my Grandma's collection she gave to me about a year ago. The nose and the tail were my two favorite buttons. The nose is a soft suede and the tail is a tweedish coat button.