Tutorials for Christmas

Instead of double posting I'm giving you a link to head over to the D.I.Y. Louisville blog, where I have been busily posting some great tutorials for inexpensive Christmas gifts.  There are a lot more to come also and you don't have to live in Louisville to become a fan of our blog, we have interesting stuff  for everybody!

-Kim

Christmas Around the The House Part: One

I love Christmas.  I love decorating for it and thinking up new ideas and new projects, and I especially love that feeling I get when the house is decorated and I can sit on the couch under a blanket drinking a peppermint mocha and enjoying the glow of the Christmas tree.  So I thought I would share some of the decorating I have been doing around the house.  Follow me.

The tree in the living room, is done in all brown, with a little gold and red thrown in and a woodland theme.  That is if the forest were covered with glitter.

A closer view of the tree.

The fireplace and stockings.

The arrangement on the mantle

My new favorite decoration, love this little guy.

A little Christmas vignette.

The other end of the mantle.

Tomorrow I will share the dining room, which is completely different from this room in every way.  Think pink!

Kim 

I'm a Sucker

Ever have one of those days when you have to check your back repeatedly to see if anyone has taped a sign there that says "SUCKER"?  I'm sure many of you know how I feel, you get stuck doing everything under the sun, for other people who have no idea of the amount of work they are asking you to do.  I can't tell you how many times I get suckered into doing something in a week by people pretending to pay me a compliment, example; "Oh, hey Kim could you help me out?  I was going to do this myself  but then I thought, Kim can do this so much better, I'll ask her"  Which in reality should read "I was going to do this myself but then I thought, this is hard.  I can probably talk someone else into it, oh look here comes Kim"  Maybe I'm being a little sarcastic, but I just can't get over how often this happens to me.  The thing is if it were actually something that I thought the person wasn't capable of doing and I could, I would be all about helping out.  Usually though it is just some either hard or boring task that nobody else wants to do.  The worst part is I just can't seem to say no. The words literally seem to get stuck in my throat.  I want to say it so badly, I'm up to my eyeballs in work right now, so saying no occasionally would be awesome.  I just start imagining the person thinking how mean I am and telling everyone how I refused to help.  I really don't want to be that person, I want to be the helpful person, I want to volunteer, but I need people to stop taking advantage of me.  Sorry for the rant, but I bet you understand.

Kim

D.I.Y. Louisville Blog

We are up and running at our new blog for D.I.Y. Louisville, please head over there and follow us for all the information on this really cool group.  We'll also be having lots of crafty information and projects coming up!  Don't worry, I'll still be posting here too!

D.I.Y. Louisville

I'm really happy and excited to announce a new project started by myself and Julee , D.I.Y. Louisville.  D.I.Y. Louisville is a group dedicated to crafters and artists with a love of quirky, alternative, unique arts and crafts. We'll be having meet ups every other Thursday starting in November at the Sunergos Coffee on Woodlawn at 6 p.m., you can bring your small works such as knitting, drawing, embroidery, sewing, jewelry, etc or just bring yourself and hang out.  This will be a great opportunity to meet other like minded people and discuss ideas, order some great coffee or tea and just hang out.  Also, we have a Facebook page, so make sure to add us and check out all the info there.

Fall Party!

On Saturday we entertained about 25 of Tim's work friends at our home for a traditional Kentucky style fall party.  What does that entail you may ask?  Well in our case, it included burgoo, bourbon, cornbread, red velvet cake, lots of beer, pumpkins and a bonfire, to name a little.  I really wish I had better pictures of the event, because I really liked how it all turned out but my camera battery died just as guests were arriving so all I have are the pictures of the details, no guests.  For those of you unfamiliar with burgoo, a traditional Kentucky dish, it basically is a stew that consists of many types of meat, preferably smoked before hand and lots of veggies and you have to cook it forever, Tim cooked ours for about 10 hours after the smoking of the meat.  So basically he cooked for two days on this.

It's kind of spicy and usually served at large gatherings.  A lot of churches and festivals serve it here in Kentucky.  Ours included pork, beef, lamb and chicken, okra, carrots, corn, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, hot peppers and maybe a few other things.  I'm happy to post a recipe if anyone wants to make this, warning though it serves about 40-50 people.  The bourbon of course is another traditional Kentucky item as bourbon only comes from Kentucky.  The cornbread and red velvet cake aren't strictly Kentucky fare, but definitely southern favorites.

For my red velvet cake I iced it with a traditional cream cheese frosting and then made some white chocolate ghosts on sticks to decorate.  To do this just line a cookie sheet with parchment, lay your sucker sticks down on the parchment and using a squeeze bottle filled with melted white chocolate free hand a ghost shape.  Make them fairly thick so they don't break when you lift them off the parchment.  I used a toothpick dipped in black food coloring to make the eyes.

I also made Reese's cupcakes which are to die for, basically take a brownie mix, make it according to directions and tin each of 12 cupcake liners cover just the bottom of the liner with batter.  Place an entire full sized peanut butter cup on top of that and then cover with more batter, filling up about 2/3's of the liner.  Bake 10-15 minutes or until set.  I iced mine with a peanut butter buttercream icing.
Peanut butter frosting
1 stick softened butter
3/4 c. shortening
1 c. peanut butter
4 c. powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
mix the shortening, butter and peanut butter until fluffy, add the vanilla and then the sugar.  You can add some water a tsp at a time to thin it out if need be.

And the Paula Deen Pumpkin Trifle was really awesome too!

I'm also including some pictures of the house decorations.  Later this week I have to get some of the outside, since Tim did a great job out there and it looks really cute.

Wreath I made.

The kids made these with some help from daddy, they are just big pieces of tree bark, painted.

Slow Poke Farm

I love this picture, they look so uncomfortable!

Let me start by catching you up a little.  I had been feeling sick all week and was just getting worse instead of better, so Thursday night I decided to go to Walgreen's and see the Nurse Practitioner there.  After waiting an hour and a half to see her, she told me that I had bad ear infections in both ears and a throat infection.  She prescribed some meds and sent me on my way, stating that she was pretty amazed that my ears weren't causing me a lot of pain.  Well almost as if on cue they started to that night and have continued to all weekend.  Friday morning came and I had promised my niece that I would go on her field trip to the farm with her, and I don't break my promises to kids if at all possible.  So I drug my sick, coughing, wheezing self and Bug out to Slow Poke Farm in Shepherdsville, KY.  The kids had the best time, they picked pumpkins, went through a hay maze and a corn maze, took a hayride, got to feed cows and chickens, roll pumpkins down a hill and play in baby pools filled with dried corn.  I however, found myself choking on hay dust and clinging onto the side of the hayride truck while somewhere around 5 to 7 children stroked my hair in a weird way, still haven't figured that out.  I'm sure I would have normally loved the experience, because it really is a nice farm, with lots to do, just not while you are ill.  Oh, and the funniest part of the day for me, was watching the parents get freaked out by the chickens running around loose.  There were parents running from chickens and screaming, hilarious, especially for a girl who grew up with chickens.  So that was my Friday, I also spent that evening doing some serious baking for our fall party, but I'll catch you up on all of that tomorrow.  For now enjoy the pictures from Slow Poke Farm.

Bug getting completely licked by a cow tongue!

Bug showing no fear of the chickens, he wanted them to eat from his hand.

Halloween Dress Up Time!

It's that time of year again.  Time to make, buy or put together a Halloween costume for yourself or the kids in your life.  In my house there is usually a great deal of discussion about what to be starting in the summer.  Sweets usually changes her mind at least 3 or 4 times and refuses to settle on anything easy or normal to do. This year her top contenders were a monster based on a picture she drew, a jug of milk, Sherlock Holmes or her final decision which is Velma from Scooby Doo.  I know I could in all likely hood just order a Velma costume from some place but I love making their costumes.  Bug has already insisted  on the store bought Wolverine costume, much to my dismay, so I was pretty insistent my self on making the Velma costume.  Although most of what I have done is just putting together bought articles of clothing and a pair of glasses my husband found in the basement, at least its not plastic and polyester.  In the past we have had a handmade green and pink sequined dragon, a panda bear, a parrot and an organ grinder monkey, just to name a few.  Sweets was even a full on witch for her first Halloween when she was 4 months old, my mom made the dress and the tiny little witch hat.  Oh, and I can't forget my dear husband who really has the most outrageous of the costumes year after year, including a pumpkin headed scarecrow, a chimp in a diaper, a male prostitute, a drunken hobo and a monkey in a white suit.  Just to clear things up, only the scarecrow was worn around children. :)  So all of this has me thinking about good, unique, D.I.Y costumes and considering I happen to have a few in my Etsy store and on Ebay right now, I thought I would share.

Barbie costume, for the glam girl-1991

my Etsy

Vintage Gypsy or Square Dancer - 1964

my Etsy 

Vintage Rainbow Brite Costume- 1984

Ebay

Adorable gnome costume 

Simplicity

Another cute gnome and mushroom

Simplicity

So just a few cute, unique options to choose from.  Also I'll be adding a lot more costume patterns later today, including a vintage Minnie Mouse pattern, Pink Panther, Tom Arma and more, so check back!  

Halloween Sundaes

The kids are having a sleepover with their cousin tonight and this is what's for dessert. 

Trick or Treat Inspiration

Well today I made an attempt at getting the Halloween decorations out of the basement and it was an epic FAIL!  After about 3 minutes of being down in our scary basement digging for boxes and only finding part of the decorations, I was in the middle of a full blown allergy attack.  I usually avoid the basement for this fact, since I am deathly allergic to mold/mildew, but for whatever idiotic reason I thought I would give it a go today, big mistake.  So upon realizing that most of the stuff had gotten wet when our basement flooded earlier this year, I managed to get a couple of salvageable items and the rest is pretty much history.  So now I am going to desperately try and make some decorations before the fall party that we are hosting for my husbands work colleagues next week.  So I'm making an inspiration post of ideas I like.  I'm really into black and white and pumpkins this year.

trick or treat banner

 halloween sign

Boo pillow

trick or treat

pumpkins

cookies

party

amazing cupcakes

paper decorations how to

Now I have to get away from the computer and get started!

Kim

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Best Ever Fall Cookies

Let me start with an apology.  Seriously I have no idea what happened to September.  I meant to blog, really I did.  Things just got busy, my schedule has been hectic, but I am finally starting to get the hang of it.  I spent a lot of time outdoors, some of it working taking family portraits and some of it wandering alone and even a little of it camping with my family.  There was peace to be found amongst the insanity and I honestly feel so much better and more centered now.  I can see clearly.  I have ideas, lots of them and I'm ready to get down to business.  Fall feels refreshing to me and I am excited about all of the projects I want to take on.  So I apologize for the missing person act, I promise to not let it happen to often in the future.

Now on to the Fall goodness.  Oh, I love Fall.  I love pumpkin spice lattes and caramel lattes and pumpkins and pumpkin flavored baked goods and Halloween and Halloween candy and, well okay you get the picture.  So to really get into the swing of things I felt compelled to make the most awesome fall cookie ever.  It really is so good and the flavor is dead on Fall.  The only thing I wish was different is the slight cake like texture.  I have yet to incorporate pumpkin into a cookie and not get a cake like texture, I think it has to do with the moisture content of the pumpkin.  But the taste makes up for it and a lot of people seem to even prefer that texture in a cookie.

Best Ever Fall Cookie

2 1/4 c. all purpose flour
3/4 c. brown sugar
3/4 c. white sugar
1c. margarine softened
2 eggs
3/4 c. canned pumpkin
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp all spice
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
2 c. semi sweet chocolate chips
2 c. butterscotch chips
1 c. pecans
In a bowl combine softened margarine and both sugars and beat until fluffy.  Add in eggs and vanilla stir until combined.  In another bowl combine all dry ingredients and mix until combined.  Add to wet ingredients and stir until combined.  Add both chips and nuts and stir by hand until ingredients are incorporated.  Bake on ungreased cookie sheet 8-10 minutes.

Oh and just because I think these recipes look super yummy for fall and I love the cute blackbirds I am sharing these Paula Deen Recipes that I am planning on using for a big fall party that we are throwing next week.
Blackbird Pie

and this amazing looking pumpkin gingerbread trifle

Curves and Chaos Ultimate "SWAG" Giveaway

The awesome Monique from Curves and Chaos is having a massive "SWAG" giveaway.  You can win a prize package full of  great stuff including a $100 dollar TJ Maxx gift and Torrid prize package.  Just hop over to her site and follow the rules for entry.  There are several ways to enter!

My World

I have been out of sorts this past week.  Things are insanely busy around here although it feels like nothing is being accomplished.  My day is broken up into barely usable segments since school has started.  I leave to take Bug to school at 8:30, drop him off at 9, get back home at 9:30, then leave to get him again at 11:30, back home by 12:30 then leave to pick up Sweets at 2:00 and get back at 3:30.  I'm not really complaining, I knew that lots of driving was part of the deal with moving to our current area and having the kids go to the schools we have chosen, it really is worth it.  I haven't felt mad or anything like that just out of sorts, kind of lost in all the shuffle I guess.  So I really don't have a big post to share with you, just a reflection of my week.

I've been working on a little of this

These are for a special present that I'm working on for my niece.

Some of this.

I bought a lot of cool vintage items for my Etsy shop and a few for myself like this cool chair.

Celebrated my birthday with a lovely coffee date with two of my favorite people, Julee and Grace.  Julee gave me this cool vintage Pyrex and a pretty vintage apron, because she's cool like that.

Then there has been a little of this or maybe a lot.

Which has helped me to cope with the kids playroom.

The load of laundry that is coated with red crayon.

the bag of fiberfill that the kids dumped in the living room so that it would look like it was snowing and the entire roll of toilet paper that bug unrolled, stuffed in the toilet and then flushed.  I took a picture of this, but I have some manners so I won't show a picture of my toilet of here. :)

I hope you have a great week and I'll try and get it together for a long post about the birthday party we are having at my house this weekend for my niece.

Kim