Just Make Stuff

2015 Favorites...

Looking back on 2015 and realizing we were pretty darn lucky to have such a great 365 days. Here are some of the favorite bits and pieces...

Favorite Gift I Gave A mini planner for my mom.

Favorite Garden Project A little herb garden

Favorite School Idea Markers to initial a participation tracking sheet I developed

Favorite Cheer Team Detail Picnic Box Homecoming Dinner

Favorite Blog Post Our new minivan

Favorite Teacher Gift First day of school snacks

Favorite Card

Favorite Organizational Project Stamp pads color drawers in my card catalog

Favorite Mantle For Thanksgiving

Favorite Moment with Sean A summer concert picnic

Favorite Moment with Mac A rainy few minutes after school

Favorite Blog Moment It turned ten

December Daily-ish 2015: 02

This is the first batch of pages I've slowly worked on over the last couple of weeks. It's such a pain to try to photograph in the album, that I just took the pages out like I did last year. 

Past December Daily-ish

A little pot of Christmas...

For hostess gifts this year I used an idea I had seen before, but decided to add my own twist by including a little pot as part of the gift. That way all it needed was water for it to be ready to go and then the pot could be reused for other little simmering concoctions in the future. 

I filled each pot about halfway with slices of orange peel, cranberries, cinnamon sticks, cloves, and sprigs of rosemary. Then I used a cellophane bag to slip over the pot and tied a big plaid bow. I used the leftovers to simmer in our house and oh my goodness did it smell delicious.

Christmas Week 2015...

A few Christmas details...wrapped gifts finally piled until the tree. An ornament crafted up during this year's merry making activities. My nephew and nieces were super sweet on Christmas morning including the gifts they made for their parents. Speaking of my nephew and nieces, my mom knitted the cutest hats for them and after I commented on the colorful pom-poms a bunch of times she made a couple extra for my gift.

And then speaking of gift wrapping, we love that Mac always spends a little time making our gifts cute. And he picked out our favorite things...candles for Anthropologie for me and he designed custom Vans for Sean. He wrapped a photo since we did't realize it takes six weeks to be done and Mac and I ordered them in early December.

Now I have been fully embracing the post-holiday tasks of wearing fuzzy socks, eating Ruffles for breakfast, catching up on this season of Good Wife and drinking one too many jars of iced coffee. We may have discussed a possible idea with a can of paint but, other than that, I am keeping on track with a solid Christmas week schedule.

From our house to yours...

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas. 

So darn lucky...

There's sleeping-in and making breakfast. There is Christmas music and pine scented candles burning all day. There is reading and crafting. And even a nap. 

I have thought at least a dozen times in the last few days that we are awfully lucky to have this time together.

Simple Gift Tags...

Last year, after many years of crafting up lots of different gift tags, I started just using alphabet stamps. I did that again this year on die-cut tags I got at the craft store. Cute enough, colorful and still slightly handmade.

O Christmas tree...

My mom moved from Chicago in 1978 (I think that's right) with one daughter, one on the way and two Norfolk Island Pines. They were houseplants until we moved into the house we grew up in and my mom planted them in the front yard. Santa Ana winds eventually knocked one down, but the other has been growing for almost 40 years.

For the last couple of years, though, my mom has talked about taking it down, since it was affecting her next door neighbor's roof. She mentioned taking it down at Christmas so one of us could use the top as a Christmas tree. She even hired a tree trimmer, specifically asking them to save the top. We also asked to save parts of the trunk for all four of us to keep. I joked that we probably were one of the most sentimental customers they have had.

The tree trimmer drove the top over to my house and it just took a few minutes to get it set up in the tree stand in front of the house. We put lights on it and, although it probably seemed random to my neighbors, it looked super cute. 

Then some heavy breezes came and knocked it down. We moved it under the porch (it barely fit) and then some heavy breezes came and knocked it down there too. I hadn't gotten the picture I really wanted of it lit up at night in front of the house. That's how Sean ended up out there right before the progressive dinner party last weekend trying to get it to stand. 

Except it wouldn't. 

Sean dealt with my persistence (a.k.a. whining) about the tree saying his very last option would be nailing the stand into the tree. I told him as long as I got a picture then it could be laying on the ground at the front door as the neighbors arrived for all I cared. I just really wanted a darn picture. 

He got it to stand for the photo...and it stood all night...and it remained standing right there all last week, even with more heavy breezes. We have joked it's a Christmas miracle. 

And then this weekend a millimeter of rain fell and the tree fell over...and fell over again, so it was time. Sean started cutting it apart, but saved the final three feet and got it arranged into a planter box we had. So it is sitting in the corner of the front porch still barely hanging on for Christmas.

Oh maybe it really will be a Christmas miracle and start growing again. 

Holiday Cheer...

A majority of photos of Mac lately have been cheer related, so it became the theme of our card. Heck, even at the official team photos down at the beach earlier this fall when the photographer was taking "buddy" photos for the girls we ordered one and went dashing into Mac's photo before he could realize what we were doing. I joked that it was for the Christmas card...and it turns out it was. The top photo was a total favorite from homecoming.

I actually used the exact same font I used on the cheer banquet invitations last April. And we included a little note about our pun on the back. I designed the cards in Photoshop Elements and sent the 5x7 file to be printed at Costco, printed the back on super thick cardstock at home, adhered the two together and rounded the corners.

I used a gold sharpie and my weird handwriting to address the envelopes. Then there were the address labels, that I loved, but ended up not matching the card even slightly. They are tied with our neighbors orange-ish wall, that I totally should have changed in the Homecoming photo, as the two little mistakes that totally bug me. Unless there's a typo or something that I missed.

I suppose the shade of the orange-wall and the address labels sort of match each other though.

Holiday happy thoughts...

I dug into the cabinet where I have been stuffing away gifts and got all of them wrapped. My mom set up her village for the first time in years...the ice-skaters on the the mirror pond were always my very favorite. And a blurry photo from last night when we went out late to see our favorite Christmas light neighborhood.

It's been a good week so far...

Cucumber, Tomato, Olive & Feta Bites

This is barely a recipe, but is an idea I have been obsessed about since we had them on our tiny trip to LA for Mac's birthday this past summer. Sean and I assembled a bunch of them (two full platters) to bring to the appetizer house of our neighborhood holiday progressive dinner (maybe to counteract all the trifle eating later that night). I may or may not have eater about a dozen just as we were making them too. 

Cucumber, Tomato, Olive & Feta Bites

Ingredients

• 10 ounces feta cheese (we used one 8 oz block and a quarter of a second one)
• 12 fluid ounce jar of pitted kalamata olives in olive oil (we used about half)
• 16 ounce package of grape tomatoes (we used about 3/4 of the box)
• 1 English cucumber
• toothpicks

This amount of ingredients made about seventy-five bites, so you can adjust amounts to make more or less.

Cut the cucumber into 1/2 inch cubes. Slice the olives in half lengthwise. Cut the grape tomatoes in half. Make sure the feta is very cold before carefully cutting into cubes. After cutting the cubes put them back into the fridge for another 10 or so minutes for them to remain cold.

Have piles of all the other ingredients ready to assemble before pulling the feta out to use. We also kept a couple small plates of the feta cubes so that half could remain in the fridge while we assembled. I found the easiest way to assemble the toothpicks was to start with the cucumber, then the olive, then carefully slide the cheese (it can crumble easily, but it worked well when I was careful) and then use the tomato half to sandwich the feta securely. Store in the fridge until ready to serve. 

Christmas Desk...

A few years ago, when I was stuck to my desk finishing my third semester of grad school (just seeing the lit review list written on the white board makes me shutter), I decorated around my desk to bring some holiday festiveness to my schoolwork. This year I took it even further and switched out the frames and took down my favorite painting to hang an unconventional wreath. It's like having a Christmas desk instead of a tree (except I actually have a tree up in the room too).

I used some deer wrapping paper in one frame and used a "Makers Gonna Make" free print in another (I changed the color to red and added a gold star background).

The hipster Santa pillow is possible my most ridiculous Christmas purchase ever, but I love it. 

I figured, if I am going to be in here, I am bringing Christmas in with me.

Make Your Own Trifle Bar

We discussed my love of kit themed gifts last week and this week it's my ongoing interest in make your own desserts.

Last year we hosted the dessert house for our neighborhood progressive dinner and I put together a hot chocolate bar. I usually like to mix up the houses we host from year to year (there's an appetizer, main course and dessert house), but I had another idea and I was too excited not to host dessert two years in a row. 

I got piles of little trifle cups at the local dollar store. I liked that they were small so people could grab a couple and make different combinations. We baked chocolate and yellow cakes. Then we made vanilla pudding, chocolate pudding and whipped cream. The cakes were mixes and it was jello pudding, but the whip cream was freshly made from heavy cream and powdered sugar.

We made my mom's fudge sauce and got a jar of caramel sauce at the store. I smashed frozen strawberries with some sugar to make a strawberry sauce. We also cooked some chopped apple in brown sugar and butter for "caramel apples". I mixed some pulverized oreo crumbs with melted butter and froze them to make an oreo pie crust crumble (that's one of the best tricks my mom has taught me).

We had mini peanut butter cups, heath bar bits and some peppermint crunch. Finally Sean quickly sliced a little bowl of bananas right before everyone walked in the door. 

Can you imagine some chocolate cake and pudding with oreos, peanut butter cups and health bar...with bananas and a generous dollop of whip cream? That's what I had and it was darn good. Sean managed to devour three different combinations...and that was after being at a party full of food all night long. Thankfully we made double of everything, so our neighbors could still get some dessert when Sean wasn't hogging it.

Holiday Gift Wrapping Kits...

I came to a realization today. I am kit obsessed.

Somehow I was totally oblivious about how much I love putting a kit of anything together...a housewarming kit, a holiday relaxing kit, office supply kits, s'more kits, and back to school snack kits.

This time it's gift wrapping kits as holiday gifts for the super kind administrative assistants I work with in the departments I teach in. My list grew this year as my office mate (she gets a kit too) and I were moved to a faraway building at the state college this past semester. The Sociology office is a long, uphill walk away so the Economics department in our building has taken us under their wing with gathering mail and letting us use their scantron machine, so now I wanted to do even more gift giving.

As I shared the other day, I made a lot of tape dispensers a little cuter (I first did this for a hostess gift a few years ago). I also gathered twine, a paper cutter, mini clothespins and made a handful of gift tags. I used digital patterns from these kits...one, two, three.

I packed each of the kits (I made seven) into boxes and tied them up with some twine and a tag. 

I wonder what will need to be made into a kit next?

Game on...

Sean started with "Clarence" a couple of years ago now. And he's has had a pretty good time around here. Then last year I saw a bunch of sad little elves heaped in the clearance section at Target and couldn't resist bringing someone home to give Clarence some competition. 

Because the only thing more ridiculous than full-grown adults having an elf on a shelf, is having two of them.

Sean knew someone would be arriving and teased me about being able to come up with good ideas.

All I said was, "Game on."

So please meet Lucretia. Lucretia Mott. She started the women's suffrage movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Seneca Falls, New York on July 19, 1848. She brought a mini copy of the Declaration of Sentiments with her.

And she showed up with a gift. A David's Tea Advent calendar. 

 

This shouldn't be so much fun...but it kind of really is.

How I spent today...

I worked on school work, school work and more school work.

And then there was this crafty Christmas project craziness. 

I'll share more when it's done...

This is why I went to grad school...

Oh I love Christmas wrapping paper a little too much. This means every single year I cannot resist a new collection of colors and patterns. 

This year I was doing okay. I got four (since it was buy one get one) rolls at Hallmark and only had two in my hand when I wandered around my ultimate wrapping paper heaven. But then I grabbed one more...and then one more and then...

I ended up filling my arms with all the good stuff, looked sheepishly at Sean and told him this is apparently what I went to grad school for...to support my own Christmas wrapping paper addiction.

Merry Making 2015...

Organizing this merry making stuff has become on of my favorite holiday traditions. This year there are nine different little gifts or activities for us to do sometime before Christmas. I don't go in numerical order and sometimes we might do a whole bunch at once. 

Last year, I made everything green, so this year I managed to use every color but green. I put together tags that just got stapled onto envelopes and lunch bags along with some colorful matching striped paper.

I also made two planner pages. I write out what each number is in case I forget (which I usually do) and roughly estimate the days we will open it. I also made a notes page to keep track of anything else that I might need to keep track of.

Here are all printable tags, planner pages and the striped pattern...Merry Making Tags //Merry Making Planner Pages//Merry Making Stripes

And here are the 2014 tags and 2013 ones.

December Daily-ish 2015: 01

This year I am using a 4x6 album which I started crafting a couple of weeks ago. I added a card to the inside cover to document when I started and whenever it's finished (since it's often been well into January). 

December Daily-ish Sharing...

For the last three years I have put together a December Daily album, but I call it daily-ish because I never get to every day of the month. 

This year I had a little too much fun shopping for Christmas crafting supplies for it and there is no way I will ever be able to use it all. I put together a half dozen packages to share. Leave a "pick me" by Thursday (and please make sure your email address is current). I will get in touch with the six random winners to send them off in the mail to you this weekend.