Artsy Fartsy

I’ve been having these weird dreams lately.  Perhaps it means that I should get off the internet, stop watching TV, and go talk to a real, live human being once in a while.  I keep dreaming about characters on TV and the people whose blogs I read everyday.

Last night I dreamt that I was out for a walk in a park with The Piemaker from Pushing Daisies. (I can’t even remember the character’s name.  The narrating voice of Jim Dale always calls him The Piemaker.)  We were just walking and talking, I’m not sure what about, but then he showed me how he could do a standing back flip.  Impressive.

The night before, I dreamt that I bumped into Heather from Dooce and Deb from Smitten Kitchen in the grocery store.  The same night, I also dreamt that I found an alternate website for The Pioneer Woman which gave the names of her family members, which she doesn’t do on her site, and had a link to a resume for her cattle ranching husband, Marborough Man, whose name, in my dream world, was Jeremy.  (???)

What is wrong with me?  I’m starting to worry.  Maybe I need more human interaction.

Whatever my issues, did you notice my subtle marketing tease throughout this message?  These are some new goodies I’ve whipped up this week for the Holiday Sale.  One week and counting…

I joked with my sister yesterday that I was having my own twelve days of Christmas with the decorating of my poor, neglected tree. I’ve had it since Saturday and this is how it looked this morning. No longer naked, but almost. I managed to finish the lights on Monday, and just for fun, I threw on the beads, but then I ran out of time and so it sits, two boxes of beautiful old glass ornaments within throwing distance, yet still undecorated.

I’m sorry, tree, I’m just so busy lately trying to make stuff! I’m making and sewing and cutting and gluing and Shrinky Dinking… I haven’t found the time to leisurely hang ornaments. I promise I’ll finish before the twelve days are up. In fact, Paula is coming over on Saturday and I hope to have the ornaments finished by then. Not that I need to impress her or anything, I just need to get the boxes out of the living room to make room for the greyhounds, just in case they come… (insert guilt trip here).

I have been decorating, though. Most of the decorating happened on Sunday and each night I do a little more to make the house festive. Here are a few peeks.

I have a thing for tiny snowglobes. My decorations are a mix of old things, some of my grandmother’s old glass ornaments and decorations, and new, funky things.

Some things my sister made, things I’ve collected (nothing that I’ve made for some reason).

Grandma’s ornaments that are older than me, with a new star ornament in the middle. (It’s funny how the color of my walls is so different from corner to corner.)

A beautiful flea market chair. Looking at this chair in the corner makes me happy.

This picture makes me dizzy, but I like it. So many pretty decorations surrounding my poor, unloved tree. And tonight I don’t imagine I’ll decorate either. I was planning a marathon sewing night to make a few more last-minute totes. Last night I was up past midnight making beautiful new notecards. Oh! And look at this, can you tell it’s decoupage? I love this stuff!

That’s right! YOU, yes even you, you’re all invited. Please come to my annual I-don’t-know-what-to-call-it party. I used to call it a jewelry party, but I sell so much more than jewelry now. Some people have been calling it an open house, but that sounds like something where I should be providing a lot more food and drink and you shouldn’t be bringing your checkbooks. Yes, I want you to buy things, but I also want to visit with you, so please come to browse and try on jewelry and fondle the cute new purses, but also come just to say hi and have a pre-holiday rush drink with us. Husbands and non-shopping other halves are welcome, although we generally send them to the basement to get them out of our way. Don’t worry, the basement features a bar and pool table and motorcycles and tools. The men are generally pulled there as if by magnetic force anyhow. They’re very happy down there. Some refuse to leave. So please come, and if you don’t know the vague location of “Lisa’s House in Andover,” email me and I’ll let you in on the secret.

If you want a peek at some of the things that will be available at the sale, please visit my Etsy shops (go to the Jewelry and Gifts tabs above). Most of the jewelry I have made is listed in the shop, although some recent additions haven’t made their way to the shop yet. Most of the purses have not been listed in the other shop, neither have the new cards, wallets, or Snowkids, so come to the party and see all the new goodies!

I was just browsing one of my favorite cooking blogs, Smitten Kitchen, when in the sidebar, I saw a little picture of delicious chocolate cookies and the title World Peace Cookies. This just made me laugh and made me have to share this link with you because I have recently been obsessed with these cookies. The are easy and chocolaty and so incredibly delicious. I told my sister on Thanksgiving about how wonderful they were and she called me on Sunday morning as she was in the middle of making them. She laughed at how I wrote “Try not to eat them all yourself” as the last step to the recipe, but that’s only because she hadn’t yet tasted how wonderful they were. See, the last batch I made were devoured my me and Luke and we didn’t feel bad at all about not sharing. The recipe is by Dorie Greenspan and the reason for the title is that Dorie feels that if everyone had one of these cookies, there would be peace on earth. I’m with Deb, of Smitten Kitchen, though, that if everyone had one of these cookies, the people in my general area would not be feeling particularity peaceful because I would be hitting them with whatever was nearby in order to steal their cookies from them. If you’re looking for a new, and ridiculously easy cookie this cookie-making season, try the World Peace Cookies. And try not to eat them all yourself.

Can it really be Monday?  It feels like Thanksgiving was weeks ago.  The day goes by so fast in a fury of food and dirty dishes, and then I’m all in a hurry to push Thanksgiving aside and put up the Christmas decorations, that it almost feels like I missed Thanksgiving.  But I didn’t. We had a nice dinner with my sister and her boys (”boys” includes her husband and my two nephews).  My parents even stopped by with my aunt and uncle on the way home from their Thanksgiving dinner at the casino.  It was a nice day.  I even roasted a turkey for the first time.  Now don’t get me wrong, we used to host the annual family Thanksgiving every year, which consisted of about 20-25 guests, we even cooked two turkeys most years, but Luke always deep fried them.  I’ve never gotten to cook one in the oven.  It was very exciting.  I followed the easy recipe from The Pioneer Woman which involves no real basting, but lots of butter slathering.  Yum.  The bird was juicy and delicious, and there were pan-drippings, which meant I got to make my own gravy for once!  So days of planning, cleaning, shopping, and cooking, and we were finished eating in 17 minutes.  That’s just so disappointing.  But still, it was delicious, and afterwards we sat around and played with a new game called Blockus that my sister brought as a gift for my half-birthday.  What?  You don’t celebrate your half birthday?  How sad for you.  Then everyone went home and Luke and I sat down for a quiet drink and both nearly fell asleep on the couch.  Thanksgiving was over, now it’s time for… Black Friday!

I’ve said it before, I really don’t know why, but I love to shop on Black Friday.  The craziest thing is that I’m never going for any deals on Christmas presents.  I think I just like to shop in the early morning and as a bonus, the Christmas carols are playing everywhere and you get nice coupons.  My only goal was to buy a humidifier for the house, hoping I might score an after-Thanksgiving deal, and then I thought I might go to Jo-Ann Fabric where I had a 20% off coupon.  Well, three different store visits to check out the prices and choices in humidifiers and I ended up back where I started at Linens-N-Things.  Then I stood in a crazy long line a Jo-Ann’s to get some deals, realizing when I got home that I had been double charged on a few items.  Humbug!  It wasn’t the usual fun Black Friday trip, but still I got what I went for and was home by 11am.

We usually get our Christmas tree on Black Friday, but things were busy and the wind was gusty and we decided to pitch our tree-cutting plans and go on Saturday.  My dad likes to call it “killing a tree for Christmas” so his spirit was with us as we roamed around Hunt’s Tree Farm in Coventry.  It’s only about a mile from the house and the family is so nice, we love to go there every year to get our tree.

Luke forbid me from picking a tree years ago because my trees were always so fat, they barely fit in the door.  We have a high ceiling in the room we keep the tree, so we can get a tall one, but it’s always so hard for me to judge height in the great outdoors.  Luke liked this one (with the mitten marker) and I agreed.  We circled it, checked it from all angles, and then in my evilest voice I whispered, “Kill it”.  (That’s Dad’s influence there.)

Luke started to cut it down and I said, “Ooh, it smells nice”, to which Luke replied in his evil voice “That’s the smell of death!”  (See?  Dad was there with us the whole time.)  Luke cut while I watched and took pictures.  He dragged it to the side of the road while I watched and took pictures.  He went to get the truck while I waited by the tree and took pictures.  I’ve never felt so girly and wussy.

And now the tree is home, in the stand, in the living room, naked.  My plan was to decorate it on Sunday while Luke was at work.  Oh, there’s another story.  As if Luke’s internal clock wasn’t screwey enough, he decided to get some voluntary overtime and work on Sunday morning from 8am-1pm, then come home, eat and sleep, then go back to work at his normal time, which was moved up a half hour for the holidays from midnight to 11:30pm.  So when he left at 7:30 on Sunday morning, I was going to decorate the house and the tree and maybe sew some things, but as I leaned over the stairs to put some holly on a high shelf on the wall, I had a little spasm in my lower back that somewhat slowed me down for the rest of the day.  I’m fine, MUCH better than the other times I’ve had spasms, but I’m still stiff and sore and didn’t want to risk it too much.  I decorated the house and laid on the heating pad.  I sewed one purse and finished the invitations for the holiday sale.  It was a slow day, but it’s so nice to see the Christmas decorations again.  And I watched back-to-back Christmas movies all day.  <Sigh…> I love Christmas.

And today, I’m told, is Cyber Monday when everyone is Christmas shopping online from their work computers.  Interesting, since I was planning to do the same.  Happy Cyber Monday to you all, I hope your Thanksgivings were wonderful, your weekends restful, and  no one was maimed Black Friday shopping.

Look! Snow. Happy November. It’s supposed to be in the high 50s on Thursday. This weather is crazy, but you won’t hear me complain. I was actually psyched to see snow this morning. I don’t complain about snow until, oh, about January 2nd when Christmas is over and the novelty has worn off. It was so pretty this morning and the sound of the flakes on the grass outside was so peaceful… I’m sure I’ll be linking back to this post in March when I’m complaining, once again, about the weather.

Even the drive in wasn’t bad. The roads were fairly empty and people seemed to be driving responsibly. I did see two accidents, I saw one actually happen on 384 in Manchester when a van slid into a truck. Oh wait, I almost forgot, I took pictures! (While driving safely, of course.)

This is ten seconds before the accident in Manchester. I was just trying to capture the snow falling against the trees, I didn’t intend to capture an accident in process.

Heres route 218 in Bloomfield (complete with wiper action). It totally looks like winter!

This is the St. Thomas Seminary in Bloomfield (and my awesome polka dot upholstery). Oh the weather outside is frightful…

Drive safe everyone! Enjoy the snow, it’ll all be gone tomorrow.

Luke was cutting down some trees in my neighbor’s yard yesterday and I just wasn’t in the mood to change out of my jammies to go out in the cold, so instead, I threw some more logs into the wood stove, sat down in my new lovely pink office, set a movie to play on the computer, and started to sew. And sew I did. Two totes, ten wallets, and five wristlets. I even put together some gift wrap bags to sell at the Holiday Sale. Oh, by the way, yes, that means it’s on. More info later in the week.

Did you know that I listed jewelry in my Etsy shop yesterday like a madwoman? I did, go see.

Did you know that I made my first sale of jewelry to Australia yesterday? Yup. My jewels are off to Oz. (Thank you Bronwen!)

Did you know that today is Friday, tell-a-friend-Friday? It is, so go listen to Croncast.

Did you know that my favorite color is blue but I tell everyone it’s pink? Weird. And also, there’s some disconnect in my brain that causes me to say (and type) the completely wrong color that I’m thinking. And even more strange, the color I accidentally say (or type) is often the opposite of the color I meant to say (or type) on the color wheel. For instance, in that last sentence, I wanted to type “blue”, but I typed “orange” and when I wanted to type “pink”, I typed “purple”. Strange.

Did you know I like strange facts and random observations? And urban legends. Go here some time to read up and waste time.

Did you know that I had nothing really interesting to write about today so I thought I’d throw out some random statements instead of not blogging? Ya, you probably figured that out.

This here is the start of the invitation I’m putting together for the annual holiday sale I may, or may not be having. I can’t decide. I go through this all the time. I want to have a holiday sale to sell stuff (duh!) and make money to buy Christmas presents, but I need to have enough inventory to not look like a fool inviting a bunch of people over to fight amongst themselves about who gets to take home the ten necklaces I have for sale. I do have more than ten, in reality, maybe closer to twenty, but I prefer to have, like fifty. I also want to have more purses and matted artwork and cards, but I’m running out of time.

For the past two years I’ve had this holiday sale after Thanksgiving, usually the first weekend of December before everyone’s schedules get too crazy. Last year I shared the sale with my friend Karen, who is far too busy this year with very cool craft shows (lucky lady) to lug her inventory to Connecticut again. This year I wanted to have the sale and donate a portion of my profit to Luke’s cousin’s daughter, Emily, who is trying to raise money for a trip with the Girl Scouts. But should I have the sale? I can’t decide.

It would be easy to just not have a sale this year, no planning or cleaning or frantic last-minute crafting, but I think I would miss it. And if I didn’t have a sale, then what the heck am I making all this stuff for? I actually ask myself this all the time. I make stuff and have my Etsy shops, but really my stuff sells about 500% better when people can see it and touch it and try it on. If I don’t do craft fairs (which I haven’t had luck with) and if I don’t have my annual holiday sale, then why am I filling my house with crafts and spending my money on supplies? See? I start thinking about these things and I go all melancholy.

So I don’t know. I have to make a decision this weekend because if I have the sale, it’s going to be on Friday December 7, and that’s coming quick! I just don’t know. What do you think?

The internet seems to be having a dry spell on fresh blog posts today.  I’m not feeling the creative urge to share anything particular and it seems that most of my other favorite bloggers are feeling the same.

I stayed up late last night checking over my inventory and seeing what needs to be photographed and listed on Etsy.  Looks like I have a lot of work to do.   About half of what I have made isn’t listed and I’ve run out of necklace boxes.  Half of my totes aren’t listed and it’s almost time to list the Snowkids again.  I took a million pictures and now they all need to be looked at, cropped, edited, etc. before I can list them.  Phew!  I had better get to work!