Happy Holidays

So much has happened in the past few weeks, let alone the past few months. There is no way I can recap all events since my last blog post, so I figure I will start fresh with what has happened this holiday. Evan’s parents came to visit us in Maryland, we entered a balcony decorating contest in our new apartment complex, my brother adopted a puppy and we had an absolutely wonderful Christmas at my mother’s house in Annapolis. I hope the holidays have been as good to you as they have been to me. Have a wonderful wintery weekend.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Evan is ¼ Irish, which is only one of the reasons that St. Patrick’s Day is his favorite holiday. There is not much celebration for St. Patty’s here in Arkansas, so we planned to have friends over for a late lunch on Sunday. Evan got up early and started his pot boiling on the grill outside. He spent the day laboring over his corned beef and cabbage, which turned out spectacular. He boiled the beef from 10am-2pm and added potatoes, carrots and cabbage at the end of the boil. I had a frozen pizza ready to go for the non-Irish, but everyone ended up eating the corned beef. We served Irish coffee, Guinness, and Smithwicks. Irish Car Bombs were consumed after lunch (not by me). I made a "Pot of Gold" for dessert. I used the caldron that I bought for Halloween as my pot and filled it with mini yellow cupcakes. It turned out cute, but we ended up having a delicious grasshopper pie that my friend, Cheri, brought over. Lucky Evan got to take the "Pot of Gold" to work today.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine’s Day is here! I just love this cheesy holiday. I made heart cookies last night during Project Runway so that Evan could take them to work today. I just used my regular sugar cookie recipe and canned frosting with a little food dye. We exchanged gifts this morning. Evan gave me a gift certificate to get a manicure. I gave him a gift card to get some new music. It was a perfect exchange. I put on my red dress that I haven’t worn since college and am ready for a great Valentine’s Day. We don’t have big plans for dinner. Thursday is our “No TV” night, so we will probably have dinner at home and relax. Have a great day!

Valentine's Globes

I didn’t think I’d have time to do another Valentine’s Day craft project, but I found this adorable paper project on the Craft Magazine Blog that I just couldn’t resist. They have a template that you can dowload so that you have all the dimensions and instructions to create the globes. My paper globes were made with some Valentine’s Day stationary that I bought at our local craft store. I decided to use one design of paper for each globe, but Heather Bailey, the originator of the idea had a beautiful paper globe that was made with multiple prints. These would be excellent decorations for a bridal or baby shower. I had a lot of fun making these, so I’m sure I’ll find some other occasions for them.

Valentine's Card 2008 edition

I’ve been trying to brainstorm a project to do in honor of Valentine’s Day, but have been uninspired. All of the things that I think of seem like something that would be fun if I had some little kids to play with. I remember making Valentine’s cards full of glitter and construction paper heart cutouts. I know for a fact that my mother has a drawer full of these, but I can’t imagine her finding this as adorable coming from her 26 year old daughter. I thought about how to make a Valentine’s card without being so cheesy and this is what I came up with. I used left over scrap paper from my Christmas gift tags and a hole punch to create my little design. I cut out a heart shape and taped the cut-out on my coffe table so that I could glue tiny hole punched holes in the heart shape on the card. These were fun to make, but a bit tedious, so these are very limited edition. We still have a few weeks till Valentine’s but with our trip to NYC planned for next week, this may be my last red and pink project.