by Amy | Nov 21, 2012 | Blog, The Art of Gathering
When the turkey has been eaten and the pie has been cut you’ll be left sitting around the house with friends and family. And in my house…that means games. We love games. Games of all kinds. And we have a sick game collection. So I’ve compiled a list of the best games {according to me…} to play this holiday season after the meal.
1. For the vocabulary savvy: Scattergories. This one is a classic. Stretch your brain by coming up with a word that fits into a listed category. The catch is…every word must begin with the same letter {chosen by a lettered dice.}
2. For the vocal: Mad Gab. Perfect for larger groups as it is a team game.
3. For the silly. The Game of Things. Have you played this one? It’s so fun. One person reads a category from a card {ie: Things not to do in a hospital.} Then everyone writes a response {ie: Eat junior mints while observing a surgery.} Players score points by guessing who wrote what. It. Is. Hilarious.
4. For the versatile: Cranium. Another classic. Teams move around the board by completing puzzles, charades and pictionary clues.
5. For the laid back: Skipbo. It’s a card game, good for 4-6 players. A slower pace, no teams, not a lot of ingenuity. Perfect for those feeling a bit sluggard after turkey.
6. For the poker faced: B.S. It stands for what you think it stands for. All you need for this one is a deck of cards and the ability to tell a white lie. Rules here.
7. For the creative: Balderdash. Players write made up definitions for obscure words, people and movies. Score points for tricking other players into believing yours is the real answer. This game never gets old to me.
I hope your Thanksgiving is full of full bellies and lots of quality family time…whether with family, or friends who might-as-well-be-family. I know I’m having a blast. But alas, before I can play games, I must bake the pies.
What is your favorite game to play with family on the holidays? Oh, and if all else fails…you can always pop in Christmas Vacation. After all, once T-giving is over it’s Christmas-time!!
Amy
by Amy | Nov 19, 2012 | Blog, The Art of Gathering, The Art of the Kitchen
It’s only a few days away!
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you must be reading from another country. Because in America, the only thing we love more than food…is a holiday that celebrates food.
Thanksgiving.
My parents got in last night, and boy am I glad to have them here. I just adore it when folks make the trip to come visit us…wherever we are. But I digress. You saw the title of the post and you want a recipe, darn it.
So here we go. This pumpkin bunt cake is a creation of my own and I’ve been celebrating fall and Thanksgiving with it for years now. {Ever since the recipe came into being.} It takes about 20 minutes to whip together…then about 55 minutes of filling your house with amazing cinnamon-pumpkiny smells.
Here’s what you do:
Get out a big bowl.
In that bowl beat together:
3 cups sugar
1/4 cup butter {softened}
1/2 cup vegetable oil
Then…
Add the following ingredients one at a time, mixing after each:
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp allspice
3/4 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
Finally…
Alternate adding the final two ingredients. First some flour, then some pumpkin…until it’s all mixed in.
3 1/2 cups flour
1 – 15 oz can of pureed pumpkin
Pour half of the batter into a greased and floured bundt pan. Sprinkle with 1/3 cup brown sugar and 3/4 tsp cinnamon. Then pour the rest of the batter on top. Sprinkle the top of the batter with more cinnamon and sugar.
Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes. It’s done when a knife stabbed into the center comes out nice and clean. After it’s cooled for a bit mix up 3/4 cups of powdered sugar with 1/4 cup of milk {more if you want a thinner glaze}. Then use a spoon to drizzle the glaze over the top of the cake.
You’re gonna love this one.
Amy
by Amy | Nov 16, 2012 | Blog, Crafts, The Art of Projects
You know what’s pretty? Pottery Barn stuff. All of it. Every season. Every stinking item in the catalog.
You know what I can’t afford? Pottery Barn stuff. Any of it. Any stinking item in the catalog.
But I really want a pretty PB house. I’ve started a board on Pinterest of things I think I can recreate. I’ve started frequenting this amazing site called Copy Cat Crafts. It’s chock full of knock off tutorials.
That’s where I got the inspiration for this wreath. I think it just may be the prettiest wreath I’ve ever made. {And I’ve made a lot of wreaths. Two which were awarded Grand Champion at the Elkhart County 4-H Fair.} Doesn’t it look sharp on the piano? Don’t mind those roughed up keys…It adds to the primitive look.
This is the tutorial that inspired this project. I followed pretty closely, but here is the process I used.
I bought:
1 Wire floral wreath form | A tiny can of silver spray paint | A stack of silver snowflake ornaments {they came in a tube} | An assortment of pretty glittery/silver snowflake ornaments
I used about 15 ornaments total for my 14″ wreath. You may want a few more. I did all my shopping at Hobby Lobby. But Wal-Mart and the Dollar Tree are known to have good sparkly ornaments too! This is one project where a little gaudy can still look classy. The key is to stick with one color {like silver} and motif {the snowflakes.}
Here is what I did:
1. Spray paint a wire wreath form silver.
2. Snip off tags and hooks from ornaments.
3. Arrange them on the form.
4. Hot glue them in place.
Done. It is so easy…I just couldn’t even believe it. I think it’s a classy wreath. Like snowflakes each one will turn out unique. And I plan to hang it the day after Thanksgiving until January 31.
While it is super pretty, I don’t think I’d recommend hanging it outdoors. I think the elements may be a bit too harsh for this dainty project.
The best part? The PB wreath retailed at $70. Mine cost $15! Yeah baby. That’s what I like. Thank you Copy Cat Crafts for being so inspiring!
Happy crafting. And remember, friends don’t let friends craft alone.
Amy
by Amy | Nov 15, 2012 | Blog, The Art of Design
Today I’m going to give you a beginner’s lesson in design. Let me put it this way…If I can do it, you can definitely do it. So I’ll be showing you step by step how to make this:
From this:
Pretty enough to be a card, right? Well first, let me tell you that you can do this. There is nothing special about the quality of the photo or the skills you need to put it together. My mom took this photo of my family skating a year or two ago. It was snapped on a plain jane point and click camera. {Mom is not a photographer.} All you need is a little imagination, yesterday’s cute elements and this tutorial.
This is a long post…so you’ll have to click through to see the full tutorial.
(more…)
by Amy | Nov 14, 2012 | Blog, The Art of Design
Hi guys,
Christmas is coming up fast. I actually thinks that goes without saying. The season brings lots of things. Candy, cookies, warm drinks, White Russians, parties…and cards. Lots of cards.
Whether you send out a card or not…chances are you still like clever, cute photos. {I know I do!} So I made a few goodies for my goodies. You can use them to make your own cards…or just a really cute Facebook cover photo. Up to you!
Here are some examples that I made using the elements that I’m giving you today! Click the links below…that should take you to the free Google document so you can save it for yourself. Once you save the ones you like be sure to check out the tutorial on designing your very own custom cards!
I’ll start with a recent photo. The rest of these are a bit of a time warp…The stars and text are one solid graphic. Get it here.
We took this photo when we lived in Florida. It was a joke that this would be our Christmas card. We meant for it to be a bit awkward. At the time we really did miss snow…Now it’s all over the place….The tree and the thought bubble are available for you!
This is again from Florida. I guess we took good Christmas photos that year. This orange tree was in our back yard. How cool is that? The text and snowflakes are separate. There are three snowflakes for you. Here’s #1, #2, and #3.
Again…the snowflakes. Here’s a different text graphic for you. I really love this one.
Lastly, a little joy to the world.
The point of these is to be able to turn any photo into an awesome Christmas card or image to share with friends and family. Using these is super simple. Just save it to your computer, open your image in an editing program that supports layers {like PhotoShop or GIMP}, then open the layers and put them where you want!
If you don’t understand the “layers” talk…no worries. I’ll be covering how to use them tomorrow. I’ll show you how to put together your own Christmas card in GIMP. And if you really wanna go ghetto…you can always use these in Word. Create a custom paper size to fit your image. Open your image, then open the elements you want to use.
I hope you like them. I’m also cooking up custom cards for my Etsy shop. So get excited already!
Amy
by Amy | Nov 14, 2012 | Blog, The Art of Projects, the house
Are you familiar with the phrase “Oopsie poopsie.”
Probably not. I think it’s a phrase my sister made up.
Well. Let me show you what an oopsie poopsie looks like. It looks like this:
They come in all shapes and sizes. But tonight I made a major oopsie poopsie. After working on a small project I screwed the lid on my Sherwin Williams sample jar and picked it up to put things away before dinner. Well, the lid was screwed on…crooked. I realized something had gone horribly wrong when I stepped in something cold and wet.
But alas, it was too late. The damage had been done.
Friends tell me that the bright side of brown, splotchy carpet is that it will hide everything. Turns out, the one thing it doesn’t hide so well is aqua paint.
Most of it came out. I’ll call it, well seasoned. Looks like the living room floor project just moved up the to-do cue.
I hope you’ve had an oopsie poopsie free day.
Amy
PS–Free photo elements tomorrow!!
by Amy | Nov 13, 2012 | Blog
I had a few simple things I wanted to accomplish today. The biggie was getting my front coat closet cleaned out and organized for the winter. It’s pretty bad in there. Things just strewn about. Coats jammed in. Scarves and hats on the floor…mixing in with wet boots. Yuck.
Anyway. Back to the list.
It got jammed. Who know Veteran’s Day in Practically Canada would be like Black Friday in any other American town? Not this girl.
Roads were icy. Traffic was backed up worse than a middle aged man after a cheese festival. Lines were winding around the Wal-Mart. So a trip for a few simple things {and a few closet organizers} became a nightmare.
After traveling all over town only getting about 50% of my list accomplished I was pretty wiped out. I had yet to find bins to use to store our hats, gloves and scarves {I found some…but thought they were over priced.} So I decided to force myself to make one last stop. At Goodwill. Because when you are looking for something and all else fails…you should always check the thrift store.
So I was totally burnt out. Like ready to lay on the floor and play Words With Friends.
But I didn’t. I pushed on. Then, suddenly I saw something. Something that wouldn’t hold my scarves. Something that wouldn’t prevent my wet, snowy boots from getting my hat all slushy. Something that looks like this:
Yes, folks. Let it soak in. It took my breath away. Like a beam of magical light in a dismal Goodwill on a day of errands that had rendered me totally exhausted. There is was. A Unicorn grandmother clock.
I didn’t buy it. {But I might tomorrow…Christmas is coming and that is the mother of all White Elephant gifts…} Simply knowing that something like that exists was enough to energize me and breath new life into my day. Just knowing that one day, somewhere someone created a plan and a mold for this whimsical gem was treat enough for me.
Seriously…?
Then, in the next aisle…I saw this:
Is Minot
by Amy | Nov 10, 2012 | Blog, The Art of Living
I’ve only done Friday confessions one other time. But today…after the week I’ve had, I really thought it would be good to get some of these things off my chest. Won’t you join me as I reveal my inner most thoughts?
1. When the stair project was over I had watched two full seasons of Pretty Little Liars. This week I found the other 13 episodes from season 3 and marathoned them over a 4 day period.
2. I was dog sitting and the dog ate 85 pieces of Halloween candy when I went to the gym.
3. Said dog pooped out a log of kit-kat wrappers two days later. Too much info?
4. I’ve basically stopped drinking water and instead drink only hot tea these days.
5. There was that day when I couldn’t button my shirt.
6. I didn’t mail my absentee ballot in time. My vote didn’t count in the swing state of Florida…but I did voice my opinion up here…where we earn a whopping 3 electoral votes.
7. I voted for Heidi Heitkamp on the basis that I so hated the anti-Heitkamp commercials produced from Rick Berg’s camp. {And besides…he’s gone Washington. If you don’t live in Practically Canada, you probably don’t understand.}
8. While we are talking about voting, I might as well mention that I didn’t realize there was a backside to the ballot.
9. I went to a progressive dinner where I volunteered to bring baguettes. I brought day old’s from Jimmy Johns.
10. I put my leftover Halloween candy {that the dog didn’t eat} in a cornucopia and called it a Thanksgiving candy-copia.
11. The man who came by to give me an estimate on furniture repair revealed his real passion is clowning….how do you respond to that?
12. Last night I unpacked {kind of} my necklace collection. For the first time. Since July 2011.
13. I spilled red Kool-Ade down the front of my shirt and jeans at a baby shower. Like a whole cup full.
14. I taught Trim and Tone last night. Today, I’m having a hard time walking. {Who says instructors don’t get sore?}
15. I heard Mariah Carey sing “All I Want For Christmas is You,” when I was at K-Mart. Inside I wanted to hate them for playing it so early…but I sang along under my breath and deep down really liked it.
Geesh I feel better. What do you need to get off your chest?
