Category: just stuff.

I had some fun working on a blog post for Reclaiming Beautiful last weekend.  The owners, Monique & Susan, wanted to pull together a hot cocoa bar in the shop.  With the ice castle opening up in Stillwater this week, they want to encourage people to stop in after visiting the castle and warm up with some free hot cocoa!

So I whipped up a couple of chalkboards to use in the photos for their blog (and they will be for sale there as well) using a design I downloaded {here}.

I liked the design so much that I decided I needed it on the chalkboard chair that hangs in my kitchen.  And since the chair hangs right next to my Keurig, the arrow even pointed in the right direction.

I keep lots of hot chocolate on hand for my Keurig because my sister and niece don’t do coffee.  We’ve also found a pretty yummy hot apple cider that we like this time of year.  I keep my k-cups in this adorable faux vintage rack that I purchased at Reclaiming Beautiful last year (by the way, they have another one of these in the shop now).

So although we are expecting a high of only 1 degree today here in the Twin Cities, it’s easy to warm up at my house!  Just pop your beverage of choice into the Keurig.

Be sure to head over to the Reclaiming Beautiful blog and check out my post there.

I’ve mentioned it once or twice here before, I think, but not only does my neighbor Ken do all of my furniture fixes, but he also snow blows our driveway for us.

Honestly, I have no idea how I got so lucky to have such an amazing neighbor.  Clearly I did something pretty darn fantastic in a previous life.

Ken is generally pretty camera shy.  He does not want to be famous (as if writing about him on my blog would make him anywhere near famous).  But I think I’m safe with this shot of him in action …

He has a pretty heavy duty snowblower.  He can get our whole driveway in just three or four passes.  He often goes across the street and gets nnK’s driveway as well.

Mr. Q and I always make a point of thanking him profusely, and Ken always underplays it and says it’s nothing.  But it really is something to have a neighbor who just does this for you.  So I try to get him a ‘thank you’ gift each year.  This year I put together a hot cocoa bar so he can go inside and warm up from the inside out when he finishes all of that snow blowing.

I started with a galvanized box that I purchased at a garage sale some time ago.

I taped off a rectangle on the front of the box and painted it with black chalk board paint.   Once dry, I ‘seasoned’ it by rubbing chalk all over and then wiping it off.  Next, I used my ‘cheater’ method of adding some chalk lettering.  I printed a design on paper and then rubbed white chalk all over the back of the paper.  I placed the paper over my chalkboard rectangle and traced around it with a pencil, thus transferring a slight chalk outline to my box.

Then I used a sharp chalk pencil to darken (lighten?) up that outline.  I’ve done that on the ‘Let it’ above, but not the ‘snow’ yet.  Just to give you an idea how faint the design transfer will be at first.  Lastly I fill in the design with sharpened chalk (I use an old lip pencil sharpener to sharpen the chalk).

If you’re one of those people who always feels like your own hand drawn writing just isn’t quite good enough, this is a great way to fake it.

I filled the box with the ingredients necessary for a Peppermint Patty.

If you’ve never had one, it’s basically hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps.  You can doctor it up however you wish; whipped cream, marshmallows, peppermint stir sticks, and so on.

I added these adorable cups that my Carriage House sale co-hostess Sue made.

Now Ken is all set for the next big snow.

And I hope he knows how much we appreciate him!

Just wanted to take a moment to wish a very merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate the holiday.

I’ll be making merry with family and friends this weekend and feeling grateful for all of the amazing people I have in my life, including all of you!

But I’m not gonna lie, I hope Santa brings some fun stuff to fill up my Christmas stocking too.

I have some great posts in store for you next week, so I hope you’ll check back.

But in the meantime, happy holidays to you!

Dreaming is no longer necessary, we are definitely having a white Christmas here in the Twin Cities.  We received a lovely 6″ or so of snow last weekend and we might get some more on Friday.  Fingers crossed.

However, when I took the original photos for this post we had barely a dusting of snow.

I didn’t do too much with outside decorations this year, but I did take a few minutes to add some spruce tops and evergreen branches to the planter outside my door.

Then I added some lights and some twig star ornaments that I found at Target.

The real star of the show though is this adorable vintage kid sized snow shovel.

I purchased it some time ago at a vintage sale and then added the stencil myself.

Shortly after I put it outside we got that 6″ snowfall that I mentioned.  Apparently someone was listening!

Now you can barely even see that stencil.  Which is just as well since obviously I no longer have to dream of a white Christmas, it’s pretty much here!

 

Hey you local readers, have any of you been to the Gingerbread Wonderland at the Norway House?  This is the second year that the Norway House in Minneapolis has invited bakers to contribute a gingerbread creation based on an actual structure in the Twin Cities to their pepperkakebyen (gingerbread city).

My sister read about this in a local community ‘stuff to do’ type magazine and she suggested we check it out.  So last Saturday Debbie, Kris and I headed into the city in search of the Norway House.

Once there we paid our $5 admission fee and prepared to be amazed by gingerbread.

The structures ranged from relatively simple (and keep in mind that I say ‘relatively simple’ while realizing full well that I would not be able to achieve even this level) …

to this insanely elaborate model of our state capitol building …

I can’t even imagine the amount of time that must have gone into some of these.

Technically the bakers were supposed to copy a real building or structure in the Twin Cities, and there were some pretty amazing results.

One that really impressed me was the Mill City Museum.

If you aren’t familiar with the Mill City Museum, it was created out of the ruins of what was once the largest flour mill in the world (google it to see photos and read more about it).  The building was destroyed by fire in 1991.  The remaining walls were later fortified and the structure was developed as a museum.  I don’t know about you, but I love a good ruin.  And I think it’s pretty fantastic how this baker recreated that look complete with scorched gingerbread.

Are any of you non-locals familiar with the iconic Minneapolis landmark, the cherry on a spoon?  It’s a giant sculpture of a cherry balanced on a spoon at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.  And here it is recreated in gingerbread …

The Stone Arch Bridge …

Mickey’s Diner …

Minneapolis City Hall …

Although technically not in Minneapolis or St. Paul, I guess this year’s display would not have been complete without a gingerbread Paisley Park complete with purple snow instead of purple rain.

And of course, the new Vikings stadium had to be included as well, complete with the football field inside.

If you are going to attempt some gingerbread houses this year, but want to keep it a little more low key, there are still some fun details you can copy.

For example, this fence detail is adorable.

Or how about adding some candy cane toboggans for your gingerbread people to ride down the hill on.

The detailed frosting on some of the houses was gorgeous.

Have you considered frosting the entire gingerbread house in classic white?

 Or blue …

Yellow is pretty too.

I used google translator to learn that ‘strikkelykke’ means ‘knitting happiness’.  So maybe that pile of stuff on the ground in front of the people is yarn?  And I can see mittens, and a scarf draped over the bench.

I hope you enjoyed seeing the pepperkakebyen!  Did you have a favorite building?

If you are local, I highly recommend checking it out in person.  I only shared some of the buildings, there are quite a few more that I didn’t include here (there are 71 structures in the display).  The exhibit is open through January 6.  You can find more info on Norway House’s website {here}.

This year I’m having a blue Christmas, aqua blue that is.  It’s one of my favorite colors, so why not use it for Christmas too?

My friend/co-worker/Carriage House sale partner Sue gave me this rusty aqua blue truck for my birthday last month.

It didn’t start out in my favorite color, it was originally green.  But Sue painted it and added that adorable Christmas Tree Farm sign on the door.  Keep this in mind if you ever happen to find a vintage toy truck that isn’t quite the color you want.  Just paint it.

The truck looks adorable filled with vintage aqua and white Christmas light bulbs.

My friend/co-worker Jodie gave me this authentically aqua rusty toolbox …

It’s the perfect color to house my vintage aqua ornaments.

My friend/co-worker Cathy gave me this charming trio of tiny glasses.

Aren’t they sweet filled with tiny Christmas ornaments?

I put together this ombre box of shiny brites myself …

As far as I know, Shiny Brite didn’t make an ombre box of ornaments, but maybe they should have!

I couldn’t leave out my other rusty aqua truck, so I added some seasonal cargo to the truck bed.

The sprinkling of snow adds the perfect touch.

 We’ve had some very gloomy days this past couple of weeks, but I’m hoping to see just a little hint of sunshine this weekend so that I can get some photos of my house decked out for the season.

I’ve also got another house tour planned for the coming weeks.  My fellow Reclaiming Beautiful vendor, Amy, is graciously welcoming me into her home this Sunday for a photo tour.  I hear that she really does it up for Christmas, so I’m definitely looking forward to seeing her place and then sharing it with you here on the blog.  So be sure to stay tuned next week!

Just before I left on vacation I ordered a new Christmas tree online from Target (no affiliation).  I had been shopping for boring stuff at my local store during my lunch break and I saw this pretty 6’ pre-lit silver tree.  I’m calling it silver, but they call it rose gold.  It looks pinkish in their photo (below) but in person it looks pretty much silver.

I didn’t want to attempt to wrestle it into my car, and in fact I wasn’t even sure how well it would fit.  As a reminder I drive a VW Beetle convertible.  Not a lot of cargo room, especially in the winter when you can’t have the top down.

So instead I took a quick pic of the tag with my phone so I would have all the info and when I got home later that night I ordered the tree online.

I wasn’t especially thinking about getting a new tree, but the price was pretty reasonable at $127.  Then I got an additional 15% off because it was on sale, then another 5% off for using my Target red card.  Plus I got free shipping because I used the red card.  Heck of a deal to get the tree delivered right to my door instead of having to try and squeeze it into my car, right?

And since my vintage ornament non-collection (because I don’t really collect stuff) has been growing by leaps and bounds, I decided a bigger tree was a good idea for this year.

I picked up quite a few vintage ornaments at garage sales over the summer.  Garage sales and estate sales are a great source for them.  Most shoppers aren’t thinking ahead to Christmas in the middle of summer, so it’s easy to snap them up on the cheap.  I bought these for 75 cents per box …

My other favorite source for vintage ornaments is a little shop in downtown North Saint Paul called La’ Garage.  The inventory at La’ Garage comes from the purchase of entire estates or just random second hand stuff, along with some new goods.  Every year they close up shop the week before Thanksgiving and completely revamp the store for Christmas.  They open bright and early on black Friday full of vintage goodies.  This year Debbie, Kris and I headed over there bright and early that morning.

Normally I wait and shop later because I’m not a fan of the crazy crowds, but I did find more ornaments this way.  I came home with this stash including the funky cake pan.  I just loved the ‘look’ of the cake pan.  I’m not sure what I’ll do with it yet, but it had to come home with me.

Anyway, lucky I have the bigger tree this year because it is chock full with all of these additions.

The size of this tree is perfect to tuck into this corner of my piano room.

I really don’t have much room in the living room itself for a tree, even this slim model.  So instead it’s just around the corner.

I put my collection of tree toppers in the window next to the tree.

I feel a bit like a broken record at Christmas.  This is year 4 of sharing my vintage ornaments on a silver tree.  I’m really going to have to come up with something new next year.  But whatever it is, it will have to be in addition to my silver tree of vintage ornaments because I enjoy pulling these fragile glass balls out of their tissue paper each year and hanging them on the tree.  I have my favorites that always get placed front and center.

How about you, do you decorate your tree the same way every year, or do you change it up each time?

 

 

My vacation earlier this month really threw a monkey wrench into my holiday budget.  I’ll admit that I spent a little more money than I had intended.  Or more precisely, I hadn’t taken the time to really add up the expenses; the resort, the cruise, the airfare, the meals at the resort, the rental car, the drinks … each one on its own seemed entirely reasonable.  Added up altogether, well, I went a little over budget.

Now I have to cut back on spending.  Right in time for the holidays.  Yikes!

So rather than buying Christmas wrapping paper this year I decided to pull out some supplies that I already had on hand and whip up some of my own.

I dug out the giant roll of brown craft paper that I purchased a few years ago, some generic shipping tags, a few old book pages, some string and Fusion’s gorgeous Copper metallic paint.

Then I added one more special ingredient; a roll of old player piano music.

I found these at a local antique store recently.  They were $1.25 per roll.  I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do with them at the time but I figured for that price I could afford to speculate.

I painted an old gift box with the Fusion paint, wrapped it in a strip of player piano music that had been folded in half, and then added a layer of painted ribbon (plain white ribbon that is also painted with the Fusion Copper) over that.

I layered painted shipping tags with book pages to create my tags.

I used the full width of the player piano music to dress up this larger gift box that was simply wrapped in plain brown craft paper.

I especially saved the very beginning of the roll for this box so that I could feature the label.

The copper paint and the brown craft paper work beautifully together.  The dichotomy between the utilitarian craft paper and the shimmering metallic really works.  I used painters tape to tape off stripes for this next package.

In addition to painted paper and boxes, I also painted a brown craft paper gift bag, which was then stuffed with some more player piano music.  You can also see that I stenciled copper snowflakes onto one package.  And while I had the paint out anyway I painted that reindeer who started out a more garish gold color.  I much prefer him in copper!

I may have produced my gift wrap on a budget, but I don’t think it looks that way.  What do you think?  I hope I’ve inspired you to get creative with your gift wrapping this year!