Live Thanksgiving Day Feed

Ok I'm going with Heaven's idea of live blogging today to give you a walk through my Thanksgiving day :) I love Thanksgiving day! So this morning Jake and I woke up at 7:30am to get started on some cooking. He started his preparations on the Turkey and I started snapping some photos of our decorations :) Sorry if the photos are bad quality, I am using a phone camera.

7:30am














This is the view from the living room into the family room.
















The little Autumn village above the tv and fireplace. And also the other Fall-ish decorations.
















The kids table. I put Autumn die cuts on the back of all the chairs to kind of dress them up a little bit.
















The adult table.
















The china and rest of the place setting.


8:30am














My Pumpkin and Cream Cheese Muffins. I never follow a recipe to the dot, I have this thing about having to just glance at a recipe and just doing whatever I want :P Which is what I did this guys and they were AMAZING!!!
















This is them rising in the oven...
















And the final product! Like I said, they were AMAZING!

12:30pm

I guess I really like doing things at the half-hour mark :P













I had to go out to the store. MISTAKE. I drove down to Trader Joe's - CLOSED. Then drove to Target - CLOSED. Then I drove to Walmart - OPEN... but they didn't have everything that I needed. Safeway - OPEN... but they also didn't have what I needed in stock. I know, you may think I must have been looking for something strange, but really I was just looking for some celery! Then I drove down to our sketch creepy Win-Co - OPEN and filled with a ton of people! I finally bought my celery. I also picked up some wine while I was out. EVERY single store I was able to look in was sold out of Pinot Grigio. Weird right? I guess it was chosen this Thanksgiving as the "it" wine ;P I picked out a Sweet Red, Shiraz, and White Zinfandel.













Jake finally got the turkey on the grill! Seriously people this is going to be the best turkey I have ever had. It smelled amazing before he even started cooking it! Plus he made the most delicious looking turkey stock that I have ever since in my life! I can't wait to show you some photos!













I made my homemade stuffing mixture. You see all store bought stuffing box kits have some form of corn in it. So I decided to make my own because its seriously my favorite dish at dinner. I couldn't just not have stuffing on Thanksgiving! I cubed some buttermilk bread and browned it in the oven at 350deg. Then I chopped some onions, celery, and mushrooms. I also added some parsley, garlic, salt and pepper. I think that's all. Then when I'm ready to cook it up I'll add some stock :)













Then I had to hand snap the ends off of all these green beans! Then cut them all in half because they were super long! These are for the Green Bean Casserole.

That's it for right now :) Everyone is on their way over from SF as I type this :) I'm watching MythBusters!

2:30pm










Checking on the turkey...










All dressed up and ready :)

4:00pm







I have decided it's about time for some ibuprofen... I think I'm getting a fever :(

8:20pm




Beewee and I ready to start munching!!!




My final stuffing :)




Anna's apple pie! I couldn't eat it because there was corn of some form in it...




I had some champagne that grandma brought over!




Jake SLAVED over this turkey! He was even up at 1:30am to check on it while it was in the brine. Then up at 7:30am to start the other preparations. It was sooooo yummy!




Close up of the turkey




Jake had a mishaps with the tin foil...




The table with the food!




And the other table :)

Now I'm enjoying some sweet red wine and watching a tv show called Pumpkin Chunkin with the fam bam. I love them!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

A Day In Your Shoes

I really wish this idea was possible. I am constantly curious about how other people feel, think, and perceive things. It truly truly intrigues me. I wonder what motivates people, what makes them behave the way they do. How they feel about me, how they perceive me. Its funny to me that we are all so different and so unique. Our minds are wonderous. Just yesterday someone told me they didn't believe I used to do hip hop. The reason? Because you're too quiet. I didn't used to think of myself as cautious, quiet, and reserved. I used to be so outgoing, accepting, and yes, loud. I was always looking for a way to make more people happy and to include as many people as possible in whatever I was doing. I was completely extroverted. To hear myself being described as quiet felt kind of weird. I guess it shouldn't have surprised me. As my lack of sleep has caught up to me over these past 2 years I have noticed myself that I am not as active as I once was. It has made me more timid. I felt a little more secure in who I was when I was younger. Now days I sometimes wonder where I fit in and who I am trying to be. I think in a sense it all boils down to what drives us. What are our passions, what do we seek most in life. Where are our priorities. Mine are not usually on par with the people around me everyday (the kids at school) so I in general feel like I don't fit in to the things they are pursuing. Which I guess would make me less inclined to open up to them and include them. Which in turn would make me appear to be quiet. But if you know me (Heather!) then you know that I am not usually quiet when we are hanging out and having fun. I can be funny and crazy, or possibly just plain crazy ;P I like to talk and keep things lively. Unless I am dead tired. So like I started off with, I am intrigued with other people. People so different from me. I really wish I could live a day in someone else's shoes. But not to just live in their life, so really experience their mind. What a curious thing...

Mistake

Ok I'll admit it. I messed up big time. I thought it would be ok to pop two benadryl and forget about my allergies and enjoy a thanksgiving dinner around friends and family. Now I'm laying in my sister in laws bed crying on and off from the intense pain I'm in. I took two more benadryls once I realized I must have eaten something with corn In it. But it doesn't seem to be helping. I'm having a really really bad allergic reaction! Everything hurts and itches really badly :( I hope I feel better fast.




P.s. My tummy is making nonstop rumbling loud noises and threatening to make me throw up whatever forbidden thing I shoved into it :(

Determined

I'm determined to get these flower pins/clips perfected for Christmas :) Here is my second batch taking the suggestions I got into consideration. Please tell me what you think of the new ones!





These are a set of grey hair clips. The fabric is cotton, from an old dress :) I wanted to make the sets coordinating but not totally matching. Plus this second batch I made all the flowers smaller and less busy :)




The flat one




The ruffled one




The black set. Once again made from the fabric of an old dress :)




This ruffled one is a hair clip




This one is less ruffled an has an antique button on it. Plus this one is a pin.







And last but not least, the cream set.




This one has a more stiff fabric. And I used a blue antique button. There was only one hole in the middle which is why I sewed it the way I did :) This one is a clip.




I love this one. I plan on making more with book paper :) This one is a pin.


So what do you think of this batch? Better?

flower pins

I have been trying to figure out some homemade gifts for Christmas that people would actually use. I feel awkward about receiving homemade gifts that we all know I'll never really use. And since we are trying to save money where we can homemade gifts would be great for us this year. One think that I personally love are those fabric flower hair accents, or cardigan accents, or even shirt or purse accents! Plus there are so many different styles! I thought that making some homemade flower pins would be a good idea for a homemade gift. Here are some photos of my first attempts.




the first one I made!




a semi side view to see the layers




a close up

This one was such a project! At first the pink layer was too big, so I cut it in half and redid it (which means that I restitched it by hand) Then I did the same exact thing for the grey/brown layer and the cream lace layer. Then I incorporated the tulle on one side. To finish it off I sewed some crystal beads in the center. Is this something that you would use? What do you think of the colors, textures, and such?


Next I wanted to make one using some fabric from an old tank top that never fit right but I couldn't bring myself to throw away.





So this one has a cotton fabric (tank top) on the bottom with cute little blossoms.




The colors are off-white, blues and a little purple. So on top of that layer I added some cream lace, then some of the tan canvas.




For the crystal beads this time I sewed them on in a circle using coordinating colors to the bottom layer.


Next I used the other tank top, same exact top but different colors for the blossoms.





I sewed it a little differently than the last one so that it was more of a circle.





I didn't want to make it too thick so there is just a touch of tulle over the bottom layer.




Then a purple layer to go with the colors in the tank top. It took me a while to settle on the last layer. But I finally decided to go with grey lace. Then more crystal beads for the center.


So what do you think? Are these pins/clips that you would use? Or would this be one of those awkward homemade gifts that you never actually use? You can be brutally honest.

Eye candy

This Tumblr posts a lot of eye candy :)

Such as










Awesome.

Christmas Cards 2010

I thought I would do a post of my Christmas cards for this year. I took some photos of me making a few of them. Like I said before this years cards are really simple. That way I can finish them quickly and without having to buy anything extra :) While growing up my family liked to buy cards that had the 3 wise men on them. Every year we got a different design, but they all had the 3 wise men. I guess I grew fond of it. This year I wanted to do something with the 3 wise men. I don't plan on carrying on the tradition to do it every year, but it fit with the design I wanted to do this year :)




Proof that you can use a pink-blue-green plaid pattern on a christmas card! I forgot to take a photo of them too, but I have a dark red envelopes for all of the cards to be mailed in. So this cards is a standard A2 size. The design in on the front measures about 4in x 2in.




The inside stamped message. Then we'll add personal messages to each one before mailing them out :)




I started out with my stamp, ink, stamp placement holder, and a nice cream card stock.




This is how the stamp placement holder thing works. Its so that you can make sure to stamp straight each time :)




And you can make sure you get it in the corner correctly! This way you can use up as much of the paper as possible.




Then I use my paper cutter to trim it down.




Next I cut out a piece of patterned paper just a little bit larger than the stamped image piece.




Then I glued the patterned paper to the center of my card.




Then I glued down the stamped image piece. You usually don't want to rub your hands over the ink so I always place a scrap piece of paper down and rub my hand over that to make sure that the two pieces of paper are properly adhered to the card.




And there you go, a simple and cheap Christmas card! Exactly what I wanted this year :D This design would work wonderfully with all kinds of papers and stamps! So you should try to make your own Christmas cards this year!!