by Amy | Dec 6, 2012 | Blog, The Art of the Moment
Creating a solid Christmas cards has been one of my favorite traditions since college. Whether posting with my roommates or snapping a quick picture with Derek…the Christmas card is a magical thing.
This year, it occurred to me to spread the world of Christmas card possibility to some of my friends. I mean, I own a fancy camera and a production business…if cute photos aren’t a perk of the friendship, I’m not sure what is.
Lucky for me…my friends are simply precious. Get ready to feast your eyes on two cute couples {and one awkward couple}. Get ready to pin some sweet ideas for your own portraits.
Don’t Sean and Katie remind you of a Forever 21 ad? They are so beautiful. I just love their style.
Like that banner? I made it in about an hour. I cut letters out of poster board then taped wrapping paper to the front of them. Punch holes in the letters and weave yarn through. Easy as pie.
Now say a hardy “Hullo” to Mallory and Kyle. See, I told you my friends are cute! These two just had their first anniversary…congrats, guys!
Okay. Now a few portraits of an awkward couple. You guessed it. Me and Derek. Here’s the thing. I want photos of us that look this cute. The hard part is that I’m the photographer. So any portraits of us have to be shot on self timer. Boo. So, what ends up happening is, I find a cute location…I push the button…we have 10 seconds…and we choke. When that little organge light is blinking at us, we forget everything about looking good and cute…and we {I} look like a hot mess.
This particular time we chose a location full of weeds and grass to trip on. So, I pushed the button then began to run to meet Derek. I tripped multiple times, my hair got a little ratty and my eyeliner started to run. Smile. Click. Dang…I look awful. So I compiled these photos. The best of the bunch…but still a bit awkward, if you ask me.
The best ones are where I am NOT looking at the camera. But aren’t we always harder on ourselves? {PS…I’m not fishing for compliments here. Compliment my cuter, more photogenic friends instead.}
But if there is one thing I’ve learned in recent days {like with my Christmas tree} if you put some white lights on it and look at it at dusk…even the most awkward thing can look beautiful.
Here’s a napkin. You can stop drooling now. Don’t you just love romantic Christmas portraits?
Amy
by Amy | Dec 5, 2012 | Blog, The Art of Living
Who doesn’t love a good Christmas movie? I know I do. But after watching them year after year can get a little mundane. Watch the classics with new eyes this year after checking out this sweet list of things you never knew before. {Go ahead…impress your friends with your useless knowledge.}
1. Ralphie’s house in “A Christmas Story” is in Cleveland, OH…but many locations including the iconic chop suey restaurant were shot in Ontario, Canada.
2. Vera Ellen {Judy Haynes} isn’t really singing in White Christmas. Her voice is dubbed in every song, but she was cast since her dance moves are so killer.
3. “Christmas Vacation” is based on a short story titled “Christmas ’59.” The character of Cousin Eddy is based on a real man Randy Quaid knew in Texas.
4. Natalie Wood {the little girl, Susan Walker} in “Miracle on 34th Street” actually believed that Edmund Gwenn was Santa Claus throughout filming. It wasn’t until she saw the final film in theaters that she realize he was just an actor, like her.
5. The tape that Kevin watches in “Home Alone” is not a real film. It was footage especially created for the. movie. The faux movie was titled “Angels with Filthy Souls.” In the sequel “Home Alone 2” he watches a bit of footage the crew titled “Angels with Even Filthier Souls.” Merry Christmas you filthy animal.
6. Fred Astaire’s “drunk” dance in Holiday Inn was actually filmed while he was intoxicated. He took two shots of burboun before starting to shoot the scene and one shot after every take. They used the 7th take in the film. {You do the math.} I wish I could dance like that sober!
7. Jimmy Stewart had to be convinced of playing his role in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” It was his first project after serving in WWII, and he didn’t feel up to acting. In hindsight, he later said it was his favorite role of all time.
8. {Bonus!} More than 6000 gallons of fake snow was used in production of “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
9. The montage of Buddy the Elf when he first arrives in New York was achieved by driving around the city and allowing Will Ferrell to randomly interact with pedestrians in character. People seen on screen were given quick cash for their role as extras. If you look closely, you’ll see genuine surprise on a lot of faces.
10. Peter Billingsley {Ralphie from “A Christmas Story“} plays the brief role Ming Ming in “Elf.” He also directed “Couple’s Retreat” in 2009.
11. The role of Scott Calvin in “The Santa Clause” was written for Bill Murray. It was also offered to Chevy Chase before going to Tim Allen. How different would that have been?
12. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was the first animated Peanuts feature. First and best in my book. Also, real children did the voice acting for the characters instead of adults acting as children.
13. In “A Muppet Christmas Carol” Kermit is voiced by Steve Whitmire. This is the first time he wasn’t voiced by Jim Henson.
Let the Christmas Movie Marathon begin!
by Amy | Dec 4, 2012 | Blog, The Art of Gathering, The Art of the Kitchen
What would Christmas be with no cookies? I guess it’d still be Christmas. A holiday celebrating the birth of Saviour of man kind…but there would be fewer stomach aches, and nothing to dip in your hot cocoa.
I digress…
Point? I. Love. Christmas cookies. Love.
So I was thrilled with a friend hosted a get together to make several yummy batches. The best part was that we all got to split the goodies at the end.
Upon arrival I found that our hostess {Wyrene} had been busy before our arrival. She had already prepared a crockpot full of hot cocoa and these AWESOME hot-chocolate-on-a-stick. I’m not sure what recipe she used, but they were amazing. How genius? Fudge+Marshmallow+Stick…stir it in a hot cup of milk for a delightful treat. Here is a similar recipe I found. Seriously…there were bomb.
Wyrene had also made sugar cookie and peanut butter cookie dough ahead of time, so we got to do the fun part together. We started with the PB. Let me tell you…these were my favorite cookie of the day! How adorable is that?
They’re reindeer!! Those are chocolate coated pretzels and M&M’s. Press them in place as soon as the cookies come out of the oven. How sweet would these be for a classroom party? If only I were in 2nd grade again and my mom knew these existed…
I like the brown eyed ones best. The others look a little zombie-ish. Especially that one in the photo with the glowing yellow eyes…But who cares? It’s Christmas and we are totally allowed to eat things that look like laser-eyed-sleigh-pullers.
Here is a photo of how we shaped the dough to get our heads just right.
So the cookies were delightful. But what really took the cake {or cookie, as the case may be…} was Wyrene’s two-year-old daughter. She is a laugh a minute. I am in love with her busy personality. Let me tell you…this is one spunky kid. And even though she’s a mini, she’s still a girl…entitled to her fair share of cookie making.
One of my favorite moments came when we were done rolling out the dough for the sugar cookies. We left the flour on the counter and next thing we know, this little one had made a giant mound of flour. She’d taken it teaspoon by teaspoon out of the canister. We had our backs turned until we heard a little voice yell:
“Look! It’s a mountain!”
Yes…a mountain of flour. In the photos above she had torn down the mountain and begun burying cookie cutters. Needless to say she was a mess. But a little flour seems an awful low price for a good laugh. {Notice that she’s in different clothes in the following set of photos. Wonder why?}
To me, no matter what kind of cookie…the best part is always decorating them. Whether that means slapping some pretzels in place as antlers or glazing them with bright icing. As you can see our best helper was very into this step as well. She did a great job. Seriously, are kids precious? Who wouldn’t want to accept a cookie from a cutie like that?
We had a great day. If I can’t be with my mom and sister and aunt and cousin to bake holiday treats, I’m glad I can be among a lovely group like this. My cookies are gone now, but let me assure you…they were indeed made with love.
Amy
by Amy | Dec 3, 2012 | Blog, The Art of Adventure, The Art of Living
I can’t guarantee that this is the only awkward thing that will happen in my life this holiday season. But I can tell you that the event I’m about to describe goes down in history as one of the most janky, rigged-up, random things Derek and I have ever done.
And we’ve done a lot of weird things in our day. I’ll start by showing you a photo of the tree while we were decking it out. Now let me tell you how we got here…
So it’s Christmas time and we needed a tree. One of our favorite holiday traditions is finding our Christmas tree…and cutting it down ourselves if at all possible. The only time we’ve bought off a lot was when we lived in Oklahoma, and that’s only because they are so hard up for trees down there.
Over the years we have found some pretty precarious trees. Like the tree we got in Florida after driving by a random evergreen field. There was a mailbox with a saw hanging from a nail on the post and a sign that read : “Christmas Trees $25. Use the saw. Put money in the mailbox.”
Seriously I can’t make this stuff up. We hauled that one home in the back of our 1995 convertible LeBaron.
But what happened this weekend was even more redneck than that.
Saturday started innocently, with our weekly trip to Menard’s. {We always need something from Menard’s.} After picking up screws and bolts we went to the garden section to get a tree. But when we walked outside it just didn’t feel right. Sure, the nearest Christmas tree farm is hours away. But there had to be a Christmas tree for us somewhere in the wild. So we left tree-less and took a drive into the sticks to see if we could find a tree that we could whack down ourselves.
It turns out…there aren’t many more trees here than there were in Oklahoma.
We drove and drove. And what we found was that evergreens are planted intentionally up here. They lined lawns and created property boarders, but none seemed appropriate to cut down and haul off without facing criminal fines. We were about to give up and drive home when suddenly…there it was…
It was a true Clark Griswald moment. You know like at the beginning of the movie when he sees the tree, and it doesn’t matter that it’s way too big, or that it’s not even the kind of tree you use for a Christmas decoration. “Thith tree is a thymbol of the thspirit of the Griswold family Chrithmath.” And we knew it would be ours.
Where was this magical tree? I think this photo can speak for itself.
Yep. You are seeing correctly. It was at the edge of a gas station. All alone. Obviously an intrusive tree, not meant to be there. What gave us further calm about taking it for our own was the fact that it was half uprooted by the wind. If we left it, it would just die anyway…this was much more dignified. Sure, it was leaning back on another tree…but we’d be able to straighten it up in the stand. Sure it literally had empty bird nests in it…but we’d shake it good before taking it inside. Sure it was full…but we have tree trimmers at the house.
So Derek cut. And once it was cut we had another Griswald moment. Pretty much the same realization Russ has when he says: “Dad, that thing wouldn’t fit in our yard.” But we knew, “It’s not going in our yard, Russ, it’s going in our living room.” It was big.
But stuffed it in the back of the Equinox anyway. Somehow we got the doors closed and we hauled it home where we whacked off a few feet at the bottom, and I trimmed it into a respectable shape. Once up in the living room we really realized how ugly natural it looked. Full of holes, still a bit crooked. It looks as awkward as the circumstances it came from. But we put it up, slathered it in lights and used the trimmings to deck the rest of our halls.
In 2012 we cut down our own tree. And it was a beaut, Clark.
Amy
