A Thank You Party

Posted by Nat on Aug 7, 2010 | 3 comments

Don’t you think throwing a nice party is sort of a craft?  It’s definitely an art form, and it’s hard to do well, I think.  Anyhoo…..

My mother was adamant about a lot of things when we were growing up (I’m the youngest of 3, and yes, I was worried they would forget about me so I acted out just for the recognition).  One thing that I still thank her for today is the fact that she taught us such good manners (as I’m typing this I’m hoping that no one sends me a comment that reads: “Yo, you were totally rude to me and this is what you did….”).  We always said please and thank you.  I’m finding myself doing the same with my kids- maybe it’s in the DNA.  In this case, it’s a good thing.

As a working mom, one of the hardest things to do every week is leave your kids somewhere.  Doesn’t matter where it is, or even if you think it’s actually good for them to go to childcare/preschool/etc.  It’s just hard to leave them.  When we found our kids’ preschool/childcare place, it was a huge relief because we LOVE their “school.”  The classes are small, the teachers are amazing, the two women who run the place are flexible and helpful, and they still consider me the boss of my children.

I told Michael that I wanted to celebrate them this summer by giving the kids’ teachers  a thank you party.  It was so fun to plan something like this.  If you’ve been around since I started this blog you may remember this post about asking their food and drink preferences.  This also sort of built the excitement for them- they were all a-twitter the day or two before the actual party.  I thought I’d share a few of the things we made for them.

Pear Rosemary Martinis

You can find the original recipe for these here at Epicurious.  It had really great reviews, and I actually made these a few years ago for a friend’s bachelorette (ah, those were the days), so I knew they were yummy.  However, I had to alter the recipe a bit to make it work for us.  The original recipe calls for pear brandy.  Pear brandy is a bit expensive, and with everything else we were doing I needed to cut some corners.  So instead, I used some regular run-of-the-mill brandy, regular (nice) vodka, and some Absolut Pear.  My version of the martini is at the bottom of this post.

Caprese Kabobs

These are fairly self-explanatory, so I’ll just post pictures.  I got our little mozzarella balls at Trader Joe’s along with one of those huge basil plants.  I covered them with wet paper towels so the mozzarella cheese wouldn’t dry out before the party, wrapped the platter in saran-wrap, and popped it in the fridge.  Then I drizzled them with a slightly sweet balsamic vinaigrette right before serving.  Yum- and so pretty.  I liked this because it wasn’t too heavy before a nice, hearty Italian dinner.

Tiramisu

I also found this on Epicurious, here.  It was delicious!  This was my first Tiramisu.  My biggest challenge was finding the lady fingers, but once I found those we were good to go.  Warning:  do not be troubled by the filling while you are making it.  I tasted it and was concerned that it didn’t taste good, but something about sitting overnight in the fridge and setting makes it taste oh-so-wonderful the next day.  And it was great because it was one less thing to worry about the day of the party.  I used Sweet Marsala instead of dry.  Tasted fine to everyone!  And I used a trifle dish because it just sounded pretty and many commenters on the site said it made for nice presentation, so I followed suit.

Lastly, a couple of other pictures.  One is of my china.  We pulled it out, and I’m so glad we did because I. Love. My. China.  I remember calling my mother when we registered, worried that I was picking a rather fancy one that was a bit more expensive.  My mother said something like, “Do not pick a cheaper china just to be nice.  Pick the one you want and people will buy it.  You will regret it if you pick one you don’t like just to save people money.  If they don’t want to buy you china, they will buy you something else.  Get the china you want.”  She said this, of course, in the way that all mothers have- the guilt fell away and I got my china.  Thanks, Mom!

Finally, I took this picture towards the end of dinner- we turned out the lights except for some distant lamps, and lit the candles.  It was so relaxing to eat in a dimly lit room- and everyone looked stunning.  🙂  That’s my amazing husband in the background.  I am totally in love with him, by the way.

So, who can you thank?  How would you thank them?  This was so much fun, and I think we’ll do it again next summer, for shizzle.  Nothing can replace confidence in those who care for your children, and thanking these wonderful ladies felt good.  Great.  Awesome.  And I got toasty-buzzed in the process- who can beat that?  Okay fine- I was a bit hungover the next day.

Here’s that Pear Rosemary Martini recipe (my version):

1 cup simple rosemary syrup (see below)

375 ml (1/2 bottle) plain vodka

375 ml (1/2 bottle) Absolut Pear vodka

3 tbsp Brandy

5 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

For the syrup:  boil one cup of water with one cup of sugar, stirring to dissolve.  Once it boils, reduce to a simmer for 2 minutes, adding 4 rosemary sprigs while simmering.   Once it’s cool to the touch, remove the rosemary. Completely cool before adding to the liquor.

Combine all of the liquids in a pitcher and place in the freezer for at least 3 hours.  Before serving stir it up.  If you have time and a mesh strainer, it’s good to strain the pulp out of the lemon juice.  Garnish with a sprig of rosemary.  Caution:  these go down easy and sneak up on you!

Man, oh man!

Posted by Nat on Aug 5, 2010 | 1 comment

I am so thrashed!  I have just spent oodles of time updating my widgets and categories.  Still working on the categories.

I have ordred “WordPress for Dummies.”  I feel like a dummy, so hopefully that will help.   I have countless posts in my cue, and so many projects to work on.  And school starts in 2 weeks.  Yee.  Haw.

Wish me luck!  My next task is going to be to try and put Twitter and RSS feed buttons in my sidebar.  Yikes!

Ack!

Posted by Nat on Aug 4, 2010 | 4 comments

Hello everyone!

If you have come to see me via my old url, craftingcrazy.wordpress.com, then you should know you are in the presence of genius.  No, not me.  My husband.  I am so excited!  In the last 24 hours I successfully claimed a new domain (crafting-crazy.com), set up my new blog with WordPress.org, and got all of the domain stuff switched over.  Now I have to figure out how to get all of my posts (all 20 of them) over here and we’ll be good to go.

Thanks for hanging out with me!  I’m so excited to start this new adventure!

Nat

Fabric Inspiration

Posted by Nat on Aug 1, 2010 | 3 comments

Oh my.  Oh my, oh my.

I went to the fabric store.  I had some coupons.  Oh dear.

I know- the white isn’t that exciting, but one has little polka dots on it- cute but simple.  The other white is flannel- lining for more crayon rolls so I can make them whenever I want, for whomever I want.  It’s all been washed.  It’s all ready for creating.  What shall I make?  Only time will tell.  I’m horribly excited and scared at the same time.  But I love it.  I stare at it.  I nearly drooled on it.

Here are a few close-ups.  I can’t wait to see where these babies pop up on this here blog- I wonder what they shall be….

Operation Organization

Posted by Nat on Jul 31, 2010 | 22 comments

This post could also be entitled “I love you, Ikea.”  Or, “I love you, Mod Podge.”

The challenge:  organize the hall closet.

A few weeks ago I was visited by my wonderful and oh-so-easy-to-talk-to friend, Jen, from Feng Shui Jen’s Way.  Jen, you inspired me to get my house’s rear in gear (which I guess means my own rear in gear).  I hope this post makes you proud!

Here is the hallway- it’s quite long.  I apologize in advance for the photo lighting- there are no windows, therefore not a lot of natural light going on. You can kind of see the closet on the right in this photo- it’s one of those old-school, folding door closets with narrow shelves that don’t hold anything very conveniently.  Great for my type-A personality.

Here’s the closet “before” (embarassing, I know):

You may notice the white tubs with the lovely pink sticky notes on them.  This was my half-a** attempt at organization.  Downside to the sticky notes (aside from looking horrid) was that they fell off.  Often.  I don’t like baskets for things like this- they look nice for a while, then they collect dust, and then they fall apart.  I needed and wanted tubs.  Ikea rocks in the tub department- did you know?

Here are the tubs in their plain, boring format.  The big ones are 5.99 and the little ones are 2.99.  They are from the Slugis collection.  See their specs here. (added:  Apparently this line of tubs has now been discontinued.  Insert maniacal crying here.) 🙁

I wanted to beautify them a little and also make them impervious to label-fall-offage.  So I went to my paper stash and picked some favorites.

I created a template and traced it on the back of the paper so I didn’t have to worry about marker showing through.  I used a nice thick permanent marker so I could cut precisely.

Then I started the Mod Podge process.  First I painted the face of the tub with a layer of MP.  I used a matte finish for this project because I didn’t want to be troubled with glaring labels whilst trying to find something.  Immediately after applying the first layer I put a piece of paper on top.  Then I slathered it up with some MP and let it dry.

I had a little bit of fun doing this- they were just so much nicer to look at after they were papered up.  Even Michael liked looking at them.  Aren’t they purty?!

Then I made labels for them.  I made them all 6 inches across to help them look uniform, and used the same font throughout.  I MP’d the labels on and then covered them with a layer of MP to finish.

The finished closet:

Can I say that I am in organization heaven?  I love opening this closet and knowing where everything is.  And the best part is that I didn’t fill them all up, so as we need to, I can put more labels on some.

BTW, this is the very first project where Mod Podge did exactly what I wanted it to.  The paper did not bubble, it went on nice and smooth- hooray!

I am so excited that this was featured on Amy’s Mod Podge Rocks Facebook page!  Yee haw!

I’m also going to link up to It’s a Blog Party’s Show Me How Party.  Yay for links!

Our Family Rules!

Posted by Nat on Jul 28, 2010 | 2 comments

You could read that two ways:

A)  Our family RULES!  (As in, our family is totally rad- and it is)

or

B)  Our family rules (As in, here are our Family Rules).

You pick.

Up there in my header there’s a list of Things I’d Like to Make.  I need to add to it because I’ve seen some pretty awesome stuff in the last few days.  One thing this 31DBB Challenge is doing is getting me to click around incessantly on the internet.  Ridiculous.  Often it’s worth my while, and occasionally I have to smack myself upside the head and get crackin’ on something of my own.  In this case, it was the Family Rules.

I first saw this idea on one of my fa-fa-favorite blogs, The Pleated Poppy.  You can see Lindsey’s fabric version here, and her friend Nicole’s version here.  If you look at the comments on their blogs you will see that many others have made these and I am way late on this bandwagon.  But better late than never, I say.

What I like about these, other than the crafty part, is that it’s a great reason to sit and think about what you want for you family.  What are your core values?  Get ’em up on the wall where you can see them daily.  I collected ones I saw on the web and then altered and added to suit our tastes, and then showed them to Michael.  He added some more and off I went.  Actually, I didn’t have to get much- just the canvas and the orange paint.

Here is my finished Family Rules:

One thing I did differently is I totally copped out on the whole font thing.  Many of the other blogs I read did their fonts by hand.  For reals.  I’m toooo lazy, and I’m also lucky enough to own a Canon i9900, which will print on a 12×12 piece of paper.  Hindsight 20/20, I wouldn’t have done it quite the same if I were to do it again, but I am still pleased with the turnout.  (And I’d still be totally lazy and print those puppies rather than do them by hand.)

I learned, however, that white ink is not Mod Podge friendly, or at least the white ink I used is not.  See the one that says “Celebrate together”?  I wanted it to *pop* on the paper which, though it’s hard to tell in the photo, is a shimmery paper.  So I spent a ridiculous amount of time covering the blank ink from my printer with white ink, only to have it wipe off when I Mod Podged it.  (Can you use Mod Podge as a verb?  Not sure…)  For some reason the other one I did, “Say grace and clean up after yourself” did not have the same problem, so it must have something to do with the paper.  Oh well- it’s all shellacked now anyway.

Here are some close ups of the smaller ones- I had to get creative because I ran out of room, so this was my solution:

Here are all of our rules (they are not in this order on the finished product):

1. Have fun, be silly
2. dance, hug and snuggle often
3. Celebrate together
4. Say, “I love you” (lots and lots)
5. Have an open mind
6. Be kind and respectful
7. Obey your parents
8. tell the truth even if you might get in trouble
9. share    listen    (these ended up as small ones so I separated them)
10. Give your guest your best
11. Mom & Dad:  remember your wedding day
12. hands are for hugging not hitting
13. encourage your siblings… share in their joy
14. there’s no such thing as too much reading
15. never give up
16. act responsibly, choose wisely
17. keep your promises
18. Use your manners- say please and thank you
19. Say grace and clean up after yourself
20. Ask lots of questions
21. Use your creativity
22. Try another point of view
23. Remember that God is Father of us all

If I get some requests I will be happy to post the names of the fonts I used- I am a total font junkie which is part of the reason I loved this project.  Such a nerd, I am.  I would do it now but I have consumed far too much BV Cab, and fear I would list them inaccurately.  🙂

I love this- it adds so much color to our kitchen, and is one of a bunch of things I’ve been doing this week to get organized and get homey before the school year starts.  I love coming home to a house with love and life, and I feel like I’m getting there.  Just wait until you see my other project from this week…. coming soon!

Day 7 of 31DBB: aaaarrrggghhh!

Posted by Nat on Jul 25, 2010 | 3 comments

I am so overwhelmed.  I think my brain has hit its capacity.  Between figuring out Twitter, managing followers and somehow adding followers, joining BlogFrog, committing to the challenge, trying to craft/sew, evaluating my blog and where it’s going, completing the tasks in the challenge and wanting to accomplish EVERYTHING I am, well, overwhelmed (oh- and remaining a decent mother & wife, to boot.  And friend.).  You know that feeling you get when you’re reaaaaallly excited for an upcoming, happy event?  Like your wedding day, or the birth of a child (yours or someone else’s), or a big party or something like that.  You get that build up, that “something big is coming feeling,” or that, “crap- I have so much to do I hope I get it all done” feeling.  That’s me.  There’s so much I want to do, so much I want to accomplish.

Add to that the fact that I have just a few weeks left of summer and then I begin my final year of teaching.  I am dreading that on many levels.  I don’t want to teach anymore, but we need me to teach just one more year.  I am sure it will all be fine, everything will work out, and one year from now I will look at this post and laugh.  Hard.  But right now I am so excited, stressed, and, oddly happy about this summer.  I’m achieving so much, yet have so much more to do.  The best part is that I’m really excited about blogging.  True to my header, I really have no idea what I’m doing in several areas, but I love it.

That, my friends, is rad.

Whew!  Thanks for the vent.  On to Day 8!

p.s.  If you’re wondering what I did on Day 6- we had a ton of reading.  If you’re wondering what I did for today, Day 7, click here. Or look up above and note the new pages I’ve added to this here blog.  🙂