Archive for the ‘Holidays’ Category
Ashblue, a fabulous locally-owned gift shop here in Nashville, sent me a postcard week before last inviting me to check out their annual egg decorating party (thanks, Mary-Michael & Marrah!). But this event far-exceeded the typical egg-dying party for three reasons:
1) the blank canvasses we were handed were OSTRICH eggs
2) the decorating supplies went way beyond the usual dyes and stickers
3) Faith Hill and her daughter were there bedazzling with us!
My mom, mother-in-law and I all attended last Saturday afternoon. We thought we would spend an hour or so … but two and a half hours later we were finally paying our bill and walking out with our prized creations. There were young kids, older kids (some who were serious artists and really making some amazing things), and adult kids like us. All were having an excellent time.
I made this which I was really quite pleased with …
Rubber bands created the curved lines in the center when stretched around a naked egg. I used blue painters tape to tape off the ends while I dyed the center pink. After a trip under the hairdryer and removal of the tape and rubber bands, I found that some of the pink had seeped though to the ends. Although it wasn’t what I was going for, I decided to embrace the marbleized look and I taped off the entire pink center band and used highly-concentrated dye and a paintbrush to accentuate my previous “mistakes”. After some more time under the hair dryer I decided to go a little glam and I added the gold paint and jewels.
My mother in law, Karen, made this …
Since she was flying back to Savannah after her Nashville visit, she assumed that the ostrich egg would not make the trip so she dedicated it to my husband and I with a monogram. The monogram and fun pattern on the back were made with crayon. Here’s the back:
Then she dyed the whole egg in yellow. Next she added some clear glitter that makes the monogram look almost frosted. Then she glued all of those cool little flat, glass pellets into each circle on her crayon’d pattern. Pretty cute huh?
My mom made one too but I don’t have any pics. In bright greens, pinks, and yellows, we decided it was Lily Pulitzer inspired. She’s using it as the centerpiece of her breakfast room table for the Easter season.
I think these are both going to be heirlooms someday. Can’t you just hear future generations fighting over the ostrich eggs that grandma and the great-grandmas painted??
I have NO idea how you might source your own ostrich egg if you wanted to replicate this project for yourself. But Nashvillians, if you are interested, Ashblue has offered this fun activity for the last 5 years. It’s $32 per egg and it’s a ball. You need to reserve your egg in advance … but don’t worry, I’ll remind you next year. And even though Easter is over for 2010, you should run on into Ashblue anyway because they have some great looking stuff. My favorite is probably the DIY succulent gardens … so cute. Get on over there and hoping you and yours had an eggcelent Easter!!
posted by Julia on Apr 5th, 2010 in Crafting, Decorating, Holidays, Steal This
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Although I love my job and I love seeing my awesome co-workers (hi guys!), at this particular moment I am terribly sad that I am in LA for work. Because if I were home, I would gather up some Nashville friends and host a Tree of Hearts party straight away!
How beautiful is this!?
I’ve got to credit the photo and the backstory to one of my favorite blogs, Style Blueprint.
But before I go there, let me tell you how crazy the blogosphere can be. The tree pictured above is just around the corner from my house. Notice the sweet little twinkle lights? Across the neighborhood and through the leafless branches, these twinklers had been taunting me. Why? We’ve joked in our house that we are cruising for a red neck ticket because our white icicle lights are still hanging from the gutters of our house, as if it were December 24. Obviously, it’s February 10 and WAY past the acceptable time frame for Christmas lights. But it has just been so cold in Nashville that the idea of heading down to our neighbor’s house to borrow the ladder, dragging it back to our yard, and pulling down those lights has been just way too much of a chore to even consider. So when my hubby saw those twinkles from across the neighborhood and through the leafless branches, he decided we were in the clear. If they can do it, so can we.
But a few days later when I drove down Leonard and saw how this home owner had augmented her white Christmas lights with hearts I understood that they were indeed not cruising for a red neck ticket as we are. I thought it was super cute and my thief’s brain immediately got to chewing on how I could hang hearts from my gutter line to get some more mileage out of the white lights ritual. As my mind’s eye shuffled through all of the store-bought heart options I could dream up, nothing really looked fabulous to me. Considering that this idea would most likely send my husband up the ladder once again, I decided I should take a pass.
Until today.
Because now I understand that the heart decor is about so much more than just looking fabulous. It is about being a fabulous friend and sharing love on Valentine’s day. How do I know? Enter Style Blueprint. My neighbor’s blog featured this awesome post with the so sweet back story of a Tree of Hearts ritual that started in the northeast to cheer a friend who had breast cancer. In the middle of the night, a woman snuck into her dear friend’s yard and hung hand-made hearts all over the tree to cheer her when she saw it in the morning. The tradition caught on and now it’s an annual ritual there. The house around the corner with the darling heart tree is a transplant from that very neck of the woods!
Style Blueprint is calling for this to become a Nashville tradition and I have to agree that it is fantastic and absolutely should. They are even suggesting that a non-profit should take on the preparation of Tree of Hearts kits as a fundraiser. Genius! So in the spirit of blogosphere stealing, I mean sharing, I’m posting it right here even though my work schedule this week prevents me from participating. But 2011 will be the year for my first annual Tree of Hearts party and you’ll have to tune in here to see the results. Nashville readers, if you want to be on the invite list, let me know in the comments below! For those of you who are in town right now, there’s still time to make it happen!
posted by Julia on Feb 10th, 2010 in Crafting, Entertaining, Holidays, Random
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Will and I got engaged in November of 2007 on a magical European vacation with our families. The day of our engagement, we opened up a bottle of champagne in celebration and I’ve been saving our treasured cork ever since.
Er, um, ok so that’s not exactly how it went. We did get engaged on a wonderful Mediterranean cruise with our families. And we did open a bottle of champagne not long after Will popped the question. And I did save the cork. And then I lost it 36 hours later. But, in true glass-half-full style, we just used that as an excuse to order more champagne and do more celebrating. ;)
But what to do with them? I came up with an idea that I think is totally genius. Christmas ornaments! Don’t you love to go through the ritual of pulling out your Christmas ornaments each year and remembering who gave them to you or who made them for you or where you bought them? Well now you can remember those special occasions by immortalizing your champagne cork as a festive ornament for your tree. Here’s how:
Champagne Cork Ornament
1.) Start with a clean, dry cork with the muselet still attached.
The muselet is the wire cage that secures the cork to the bottle (I just learned that term tonight – fancy, eh?). If you want to work with a wine cork that naturally does not have a muselet, you might try threading some fishing line on a needle and pushing it through the cork. I haven’t tried this, but it seems like it would work.
2.) Shape a bow using some cute, festive ribbon.
I chose ribbon that’s Christmas-y but it would be just as cute to match the ribbon to the occasion. So if you opened a bottle of champagne on the day your baby girl was born, make it pink. It it was the day your hubby got into business school, find ribbons in colors that match the program.
3.) Shape a bow, don’t tie a bow.
I’m using grosgrain ribbon here and it doesn’t exactly make the most gorgeous bow because the ribbon has so much body. But it’s just too darn cute to pass up. So, I shaped the two “ears” and two “tails” of the bow and pinched it with my fingers.
Then I used a stretch of fishing line to tightly cinch the center of the bow. Next, I used a 1-inch long stretch of ribbon and a little crazy glue and covered up my fishing line. Grosgrain ribbon will fray so don’t forget to singe any loose ends with a lighter so that the fibers melt together just a bit.
4.) Attach the bow.
Bend the muselet back to make a little spot for the bow to rest. Give it just enough room so it’s snug. I added a little crazy glue to the cork right where the bow would fit to keep it extra snug.
5.) Make it hang-able.
I used some fishing line to make a loop through the ring of the muselet so it can be hung from the tree! Our tree is already down for the year so here it is, hanging from a nail in my office wall. Trust me, this will be WAY cuter once it has a Christmas tree limb to dangle from.
I’m going to try to remember to do this as a follow up from showers, weddings, engagement parties, New Year’s Eve parties, and the like. Wouldn’t it be such a fun idea to steal a cork from a party you attend and surprise the guest of honor with a little momento at Christmastime? I could kick myself for not nabbing a cork from an engagement party I went to this weekend.
One of my favorite blogs, Young House Love, does a similar application with the chop sticks from their ritual New Year’s Eve dinner. You can read about that here. They also mention framing their old house keys in that post but wouldn’t old house keys make great Christmas ornaments too? Maybe with a sweet little hand-written label that gives the address of a much-loved house and the years that you made memories there. Such a fun thing to pull out every holiday season.
So Corks for Christmas – totally a Julia Original! Enjoy!
posted by Julia on Jan 19th, 2010 in Crafting, Gift Giving, Holidays, Julia Original
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I am a big fan of holiday photo cards. Some people think they are cheesy but I love tearing into envelopes all December to see pregnant bellies, new babies, fun kids expressions, and even an occasional prank. If you are anything like me, you probably feel really guilty about throwing these out at the end of the holiday season. That’s exactly why it’s mid-January and I’m just getting around to doing something with the cards I received this year! Just can’t get rid of them!
Well, I’ve got a great idea that’s a double rip-off. My friend Katie Nalley had 3 or 4 years worth of holiday cards neatly organized with binder rings sitting in a long, wooden bowl on her kitchen table when I visited her over the holidays. I thought it was such a great idea that I just had to ask about it and it turns off she learned the trick from her mother, Cindy! I love the Meeker/Nalley clan so I’m super excited to be ripping off one of their time-honored traditions!
It’s easy as pie. At the end of the holiday season when you are packing up our Christmas decor, all you do is punch a hole in the corner of each of your cards. You go on down to your local office supply store and pick up a few binder rings. Mine happen to be multi-colored but plain old silver would do just as well. Loop those cards through there (most have the date so no extra step of dating them needed) and toss the lot in with your Christmas decorations. The following year, dump them in a basket, tray, or large bowl and set them near a comfy chair ripe for reminiscing. And, it’s a great way to make absolutely sure you reciprocate cards year after year as well.
So Meeker/Nalley Rip-Off Accomplished!
posted by Julia on Jan 15th, 2010 in Holidays, Organizing, Rip Off
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Earlier this week, I wrote a post about the Real Simple inspired Wrapping Brunch I threw. I promised food details so here they are!
As I mentioned in that post, I served Eggs Benedict Souffle, Banana Breakfast Cake, Fruit Salad, Biscuits, Tea, Coffee, Bloody Marys and Pomegranate Mimosas. To keep things easy, I bought pre-cut fruit salad and frozen biscuits. At the bar, I served things DIY style. For Bloody Marys I offered Zing Zang, celery, garlic-stuffed olives, pickled okra, lemon wedges, celery salt, prepared horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, and black pepper. For the Pomegranate Mimosas, I set out chilled champagne and a small pitcher of POM Wonderful juice. The guests knew what to do!
I prepared the Eggs Benedict Souffle the night before and let it set in the refrigerator overnight. The faux-hollandaise that accompanies the souffle had to be made the morning of the party but that was no big deal. Here’s the recipe, shared without permission but with gratitude to my husband’s cousin who owns and operates a fabulous ranch in Colorado. This guy knows how to entertain and this casserole is always a HUGE hit! Click the image for a printable 4×6.
I also prepared the Banana Breakfast Cake the night before. This cake is more like a breakfast bread that is made in a bundt pan. I used a Williams-Sonoma Heritage Bundt pan that I mention here only because my cake totally stuck! I don’t know if it was the recipe or my oven or the pan but it sure did! But taking Julia Child’s advice to never apologize for a culinary mistake, I put that cake on my cake stand and out on the table. It tasted great so who cares. Here’s a shot of what was left of the cake after the party …
And now that your mouth is watering, here’s the recipe. Provided without permission but with gratitude to Lynn Christman. Lynn gave me this recipe at one of my bridal showers and I can tell it’s going to become a family favorite! I used dried cranberries but I think dried cherries would be A-MAY-ZING. I’ll be using those next time. Click the image for a printable 4×6.
posted by Julia on Dec 23rd, 2009 in Entertaining, Holidays, Inspired, Recipes
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Last year I saw an idea in Real Simple magazine for a holiday wrapping party. The article suggested inviting 3-5 friends over on a weeknight for a simple supper and gift-wrapping session. The theory was your friends will appreciate some time together at the holidays even more if you can take something off their to-do list rather than adding something on (another cocktail party???). You can read more about Real Simple’s concept here.
At the time I was living in cramped quarters but I loved the idea and decided that Christmas 2009 was my year. I wanted to take it up a few notches from the Real Simple suggestion and invite 12 folks for Saturday brunch plus send good, old-fashioned, paper invitations instead of an eVite. People just don’t send paper invitations enough in my opinion! So I mustered up my inner poet and came up with this rhyme (sorry for blacking out my contact info, you can’t be careful enough these days):
To decorate for the party, I used my glass and silver containers and filled them with cards, tape, scissors, bows, ribbons, and tissue paper. I found some great deals on wrapping supplies at Costco. I arranged these in the center of my dining room table with a small arrangement of flowers.
I served Eggs Benedict Souffle, Banana Cake, Fruit Salad, Biscuits, Tea, Coffee, Bloody Marys and Pomegranate Mimosas. I prepped everything the night before except for the sauce for on top of the souffle (which was easy to whip up the morning of the party) and served it all from a buffet in my breakfast room. I’ll post the recipes later this week.
Here are some of my friends enjoying the party. Sorry for the bad photo quality!
I didn’t follow Real Simple’s advice to the letter but I liked my inspired party idea better anyway! I think I’ll make it an annual affair.
posted by Julia on Dec 21st, 2009 in Entertaining, Holidays, Inspired
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No sir. I don’t need expensive Pottery Barn decorations to make the outside of my house a winter wonderland! I found myself pretty taken with this exterior shot when the holiday Pottery Barn catalogs started arriving in October.
But there was no way I was paying $79 for a 22″ wreath and $59 for a 60″ garland studded with plastic ornaments. Plus, the greenery is FAKE! I hate fake!
So I got my own REAL pine wreath for $19 at the Boy Scout tree lot near my house and set out on a mission for ornaments suitable for outdoors. An impulse trip into Kirkland’s turned up just the thing I needed. I came home with over 40 red and silver jingle bells in 3 different sizes for $35! And the next day I found the red and white wired ribbon in a gift shop for $3. Here’s the outcome:
I nestled some of the bells in between ornamental cabbages and kale in my front window boxes. REAL, LIVE ornamental cabbages and kale.
I used floral wire to wire bunches of bells into my wreath. And yes, I tied that bow! WOOT! Click here to see the video that helped me make such a gorgeous bow.
So I’m pretty excited with the outcome, if you can’t tell. What could have been $200 at Pottery Barn was $57 (not including the cabbages and kale because in our climate those will last until spring time) and they should be usable year after year.
Pottery Barn rip-off accomplished!
posted by Julia on Dec 21st, 2009 in Decorating, Gardening, Plants & Flowers, Holidays, Rip Off
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