A Very Merry Early Christmas

Our sweet new homemade artwork from our friends Emily and Crys! She is a great artist! I bet you wouldn't have guessed what the design was created from? It's tire tracks in the snow that she duplicated, flipped, and reversed four times :) Pretty creative, huh?

Sweet Silver Bells

Yummy nuts to crack and our homemade coffee scented candle arrangement. I suggest you try it! Just buy coffee beans and stick a votive in the middle! Coffee smell anytime, without having to brew a cup!

A cheery way to display our candy canes - and makes them obvious so we dont have any leftovers this year!

Our enormous pine cones from Lake Tahoe - I cannot believe we got away with bringing these back on the airplane!

Since this years tree is super made of thrifty creative ideas I figured why not make the tree-topper out of one of our little ornaments I already had. It didnt have a photo in it so I decided a pretty monogram would make a nice focal point.

We used the pine cones from last year to decorate the tree. They shimmer because I doused them in glitter so the tree really sparkles!

Our sweet new Eco-Travel calendar from the old-fashioned magazine shop a few blocks away downtown.

And...since we already had "Jack" from A Nightmare Before Christmas, Daniel thought it was appropriate that we just carry him on through holidays from Halloween to Christmas and give him his Santa hat!
Except, my Jack is creepy - like his angry face.

HAPPY 25TH BIRTH-WEEK DANIEL :)

I think birthdays and holidays a really BIG DEAL and should be approached with tons of enthusiasm so this year Daniel and I came up with the idea of celebrating Birth-WEEKS instead of Birth-DAYS. It's completely appropriate because I know our parents were counting down the days and dancing around with excitement the week of our impending due date 20-some years ago. :)

I highly recommend this approach to birthdays because we really enjoyed drawing out the celebration and having one big excuse to do a lot of things we enjoy :)

Dan's wish list was:
1. Peanut Butter Fingers
2. Thai Food
3. Time together
4. Presents ON his birthday

Ok, so I have to admit that we started a little earlier than the week of his birthday because I wanted to give him one of his gifts to have for the 3+ hour trip we made up north to Gaylord for Thanksgiving. He opened one of the car magazines (0-60 Mag) which gave him lots of fun articles to look at while we had lazy time on vacation! :)

On Monday Daniel asked me to meet at his work for lunch together. My original plan was to attempt to make the Thai food he had asked for but then I changed my mind I thought it would be fun to bring him the real thing (skip the possibility of a big cooking disaster/disappointment).

Unfortunately, the plan backfired and this food was not very good at all. We were bummed, but we had a great time sharing our mid-day with each other!
Last month was Novem-BEARD so D has been working on his fuzz. Looks good, huh?! This is the post-gross-thai-food-feast face. :( Not feeling very good....
In an effort to make up for the icky take-out we had I made up some homemade Pad Thai with a recipe I'd never tried before. It got raving reviews from Daniel and his friend Jason - the coworker that also benefits from my cooking experiments :)
Wednesday we went to the animal shelter and helped out. I dont think there were any adoptions but we felt like we did good by giving lots of puppies and kitties snuggle time and running around time. Then we came home and D got to open another one of his gifts - an EVO car magazine with lots of good new articles on sweet cars. :)

Thursday night we have our Dale Carnegie class together so we just shared class time together that night. But I made sure to surprise him with a little pre-BIG DAY decore and hung a sign on the fridge that said HAPPY ALMOST 25TH BIRTHDAY DANIEL!!!

DECEMBER 3RD 2010 - DANIEL'S 25!!!!


Daniel woke up to a new sign and lots of balloons and wrapping paper in the kitchen :) We were going to start our morning off with something freshly baked from the bakery downstairs but we skipped that in favor of a little extra snuggle time.


D decided he didnt want his gifts until after work so I had to wait patiently (very difficult) all day to see him open the rest of his gifts....
When he came home we lit the peanut butter finger ablaze and sang "happy birthday" and opened presents!

I decided to make him a special album of the moments we shared experiencing a little bit of his dream out on our NY vacation. It holds a special message from me inside it too and a little love on the cover from one of our most dear adventurists and dreamers - Dr. Y "Make life an adventure." It helps us to remember what we can do with our lives. Of course, I had to include a little sugar in there for D because he just smiles so big at the sight of such things - see his smile - all for the box of yummy gummies! His other gifts were two framed photos - in cool brushed black and chrome metal. They remind us of the Lamboghini driving tour we went on - living out dreams. :)

Copy Cat

A few years ago I fell in love with these canvas paintings of the Eiffel Tower and Colosseum on Pottery Barn's website but, at that time, I couldn't afford them on the few measly beans I made each month. I was crushed when I went searching for them online a year ago and all I could find were "product no longer available" postings. Not even someone selling one on ebay! So sad. :(

Then my genius and very encouraging husband gave me the idea that we could make them ourselves using the projector at his work for a fraction of the money I had planned to spend. Hmmmm???? Interesting challenge...

So after two 40% off coupons from Michael's I'd spent less than $10.00 total on two canvases and one tube of black paint and I was ready to start painting (ok, not quite mentally ready, but I had the materials). I'll admit that I've done a fair share of successful painting in the past - but those projects were easier - ie. little snowmen on Christmas bulbs. I was super nervous to paint these because the ones from Pottery Barn were just so perfectly imperfect and really captured a certain feeling when I looked at them. How on earth was I going to do that?!

Here is the picture from POTTERY BARN that originally caught my eye. I just love how they pop against the bright apple green:Here are our copy cats:

How did we do it?
All you need are: 2 canvases, one $.59 tube of black acrylic paint, some cheap paint brushes, a scrap piece of paper, an easel, a projector...

AND, one super cute and handy dude to help work the projector and give encouragement if you're feeling shaky :)
After testing a few ideas I realized using a scrap piece of paper to get the feel of painting the image and how heavy-handed you want to be with your brush strokes is extremely helpful. This is also how I learned that I didnt want to use a big permanent marker (my original idea-no dry time) especially because I was really after that faded look of the brush strokes as you use up your paint.

Then just project the image onto a big wall so you can get a feel for it and then paint away!

They're so fun arent they?! I have to say, for all my worrying about how I would possibly recreate the same feeling as the PB ones, this was actually quite easy! And, much thanks to Daniel who gave me great perspective when he said that I couldn't screw up because their charm was in their imperfections and quirks. Hooray for that!

So, paint away and good luck!

I am thankful for Stuffing and for gravy....

AND FOR ALUMINUM FOIL HATS that keep mom and ann from cheating in eucher!


and for a few great days at the cabin with the fam :)

for "the stupid face" that makes me laugh every time

for knowing that life will always surprise me - ORGANIC BATTER BLASTER - pancake batter in a can!

for stealing someone elses sweet shoes

for a husband who loves squirrels. Meet Theodore.

for the lovely day at the cider mill wandering out in the corn fields picking these stalks with Crys, Emily & Dan...and especially for finding a great way to recycle them as Thanksgiving decor!

For our "woodland harvest" friends :) Meet Humphrey...

Winston....

and George.

for the italian plums mom bought me that we got to eat on top of heart shaped waffles!

for the smell of coffee

for great freebies (near the dumpster) that can be recycled for great use! shoe rack!!!

for delicious candy cane lane tea :)

for finding the cool organic idea of using rice as a vase filler which made my soaps look soooo much nicer in their glass canister

for the delicious apple spice waffles with pecans that we found and really enjoyed one sunday together :) and for mom making sunday breakfasts a big deal so that it became a tradition in my family now too

for the ability to go for long walks in the middle of the day at the parks to watch the seasons change ....cozy.