Greetings from PA and Merry Christmas!

Hey all, just popping in from my vacation via Easton, PA. We're staying on at a friend's house an extra day, and we're hoping to get down to Baltimore tomorrow. We were supposed to be in Maryland today, but my friend Rob, who we'll be staying with, is stuck in Richmond, VA with a broken car!

This is what I've been doing -

* eating copious amounts of diner food
* opening copious amounts of presents
* watching excessive amounts of CABLE television - oh the evil luxury
* knitting FOR FUN - without a deadline
* missing my kitties, but cuddling with this adorable little lovebug



I'll try to pop in over the next few days - a Christmas report is certainly in order, but for now, back to hanging out with the hubs. Cheers!

It's Christmas Eve!

...and I have a gift to show you. I feel fairly certain that my sister Ren won't be reading blogs less than two hours before we exchange gifts at our parents' house tonight, so I'll share her gift with all of you here.

I was so inspired by Jen's gorgeous wreaths this Christmas, I knew that I had to make some for myself. You can see images of hers here, here and here.

This is mine:



Hopefully she likes it!

I'm off to enjoy a fun family tradition. Chinese food from the China Palace and prezzies! I hope that everyone is enjoying the holidays! Cheers!

I have a gift for you

Hey peeps, I'm just popping in to say hello! I'm alive and crafty and things seem to be a little on the upside here. Thank you for all of the good vibes sent my way. First off in big news, they didn't raise our rent a dime! However, we're still looking on the slim chance that we might find something cheaper that's just as nice. And I'm okay with that. Nutcracker is over and I am more than okay with that. The summation of what I've been doing for the past few days pretty much looks like this:








A mile high stack of Christmas/craft magazines, coffee, and lemon poppyseed cake. I made the cake from super yummy organic mix, I think called Bob's Red Mill or something and I added chopped up bits of ginger candy by the Ginger People. Mmm, ginger candy.

Visiting home, this is the house and street that I grew up on...





and that was yesterday, before it snowed, AGAIN! It snowed alllllll dayyyyyyyy todayyyyy! Whitest Christmas EVER!!! Whoo hoo!

So I sewed:



This potholder is for my brother, Thom. One down, one to go - and I'm going to give him a fave recipe with all the dry ingredients. He finally moves into his own apartment and he doesn't have his own potholders...taking things out of the oven with towels, men, SHEESH! I hope he likes them. I tried to go slightly manly - trees...lumberjacks...but fun for me to make...ooh little teardrops on the binding...no one will notice the pink ones, har har har!

I only have a few gifts to go. I don't know how often I'll be blogging until the New Year, because I am going to BALTIMORE to visit friends from college for Christmas. I'm so excited. Does anyone have crafty Baltimore/DC area suggestions? Cool restaurants?

Now for exciting stuff...Marie Claire Idees accidentally sent me an extra copy of their Christmas issue. Leave me a comment telling me about your favorite Christmas memory, recipe, craft, tv special, movie, etc. and I'll randomly pick someone to send the magazine to, (probably not until after the holidays). You have until midnight on the 23rd!

Cheers, Sarah

Loved

Oh today was a better day, in many ways...sleeping in, coffee with eggnog in it instead of cream, kind words and e-mails from friends and family, prospects of prezzies and ETSY orders! A very nice someone bought not one, but TWO of my scarves today. I'm so excited - it's been so long since I've had an Etsy order!

I've also been doing some therapeutic crafting, I'm a little late in sending out my international ornaments, but I've been working dilligently to get them out the door ASAP. These little rag wreathes are so fun. I like that I've been able to come up with so many differently color combinations and embellishments using tiny scraps that I already had.

Nutcracker opening was tonight. It was a little hairy to be honest. Lots of dancers mopping the floor in the first act. Injuries and last minute replacements before curtain. And with the mountains of snow that we're getting, (cleaning my car off was like disassembling a snow man's pet dinosaur), the audience was very small, maybe 150 people in a 900 seat theatre. And we're supposed to get snow on Saturday too! I love the snow, but it's definitely putting a bit of a damper on our last weekend of performances! Regardless of all the theatrical excitement I felt so much calmer today. Sister's rock. Blog friends rocks. Family rocks. And my husband rocks :) (literally he does!)

I have THREE shows tomorrow - the first one at 9:30am - whoo! Time for me to go to bed.

Tomorrow will be better, maybe?

I received this lovely ornament from Donna yesterday. The little tags are hand stamped with the words "Joy" and "Peace" and the crystals catch the light beautifully.

There is not much "Joy" and "Peace" around here lately. More appropriate would be "Grumpy" and "Unsettled." Yesterday was a trying day because Matt told me the news that our new property manager is coming by next Monday to assess our apartment before they draw up a new lease for the year. Of course the place is a pigsty, our vacuum just broke, and I'm completely booked with Nutcracker every day this week. If they raise our rent there is no feasible way that we can continue to live here, which means trying to find a new apartment in two weeks and packing during Christmas, two things that I do not want to do. I'm happy here. I feel settled. And I certainly don't feel like moving, that's for sure.

I chatted with my mom last night, and she said, you know tomorrow is always better. Well it WASN'T!

Today I wake up to look at my checking balance to see that in the craziness of Nutcracker I have seriously overdrafted my account. And I have fees. I've never gone over this badly before, I'm so mad at myself. This goes to show that I REALLY should use a ledger to consistently keep track of things. I had to drain over half of our meager savings to cover my mistake, and a $150 dollar check for my student loans that hasn't gone through yet, and grocery money as our fridge was completely bare as of this morning. Even suckier is that I know that Matt was counting on some of that money for Christmas presents for me, so my mistake will literally make my Christmas crappier. Go me.

My hub came home today and said "Let's have dinner at the table." I cooked Sister Diane's spaghetti carbonara recipe while Matt cleared the table off. We chatted and did dishes, and afterwards and Matt proclaimed that this would be the routine for now and ever more. I just hugged him with happiness at the thought of doing this every day. We've both been in such a slump lately. Last year we were really great about having dinner at the table instead of in front of the tv, no matter how late I got home from work, and it just hasn't happened this year. It's amazing how a little spaghetti and dishwashing with your greatest love can be so therapeutic.

So here's to *maybe* a better tomorrow. Dinner certainly soothed me a little, but I'm still worried about what's going to happen with our living situation. I need some happy vibes to ease my poor brain right now. I think I'm going to rub some lavendar oil on my temples and go to bed!

BazBiz and Holiday Ornaments

Two posts in one day? You bet peeps. I have a lot to say today, and sometimes I feel like reading blog posts in small doses are easier than reading the posts that are opuses, although I'm definitely guilty of writing a few opuses here in this space...

First off Bazaar Bizarre...oh we almost didn't make it! The directions that Matt got online were terrible and sent us out to Arlington, all the way across the city...at 5:00pm! The bazaar ended at 6:00! I literally hopped into the car directly out the stage door from a Nutcracker performance, so we did the best that we could. Thanks to great directions from a friend, we got there in time for the last 45 minutes. It was a little poo-ey, because I didn't have time to absorb all of the crafty goodness - and Matt and I splitting off to shop for eachother occurred in the last ten minutes, so the gifties aren't going to be so much of a surprise this year. I basically pointed to something and said - "I WANT THAT!" and ran away from him, hahaha.

One of the highlights was meeting super sweet Kellee from My Favorite Mirror. I have a mousepad from them that I just love, but I don't use a mouse anymore. I'm contemplating framing it as a piece of art haha. Perhaps using it as a trivet?

Most of the goodies I purchased can't be shown yet, because they're prezzies, BUT I did purchase two awesome ornaments that I can show you:

The cutest gingerbread man ornament from Heidi at My Paper Crane



And the second from the lovely Ashley the creative force behind Fern Animals



Speaking of ornaments these two lovelies arrived the other day - my first ornaments from the Holiday Ornament Swap:



from Stacey Winters



and Betty Turbo. Thanks ladies - I love them both!

Knit they told her - knit a thrum thrum thrum thrummmmmm

Sing my post title to the tune of The Little Drummer Boy. Go ahead, my fellow dorky knitters, I know you want to!





These are my first mittens ever - a finished prezzy for my brother in law, Geoff, for Christmas. The yarn is a much darker brown than this photo. It is snowing here today, and all of the natural light available to photograph by is super bright and reflective!

I'm so happy with how these came out. If you're interested in thrumming, I kinda followed the pattern available at Wool-Tyme. The only thing I did differently, and this goes to show how well I pay attention to directions, is that I knitted these on double pointed needles instead of regular needles. I just assumed that the pattern called for dpns, but I was supposed to knit them on straights and seam the whole thing up at the end. So making that mistake actually saved me some work in the end! As I went along I found the Thrum FAQ available at Yarn Harlot's blog very helpful.

Just a couple more gifts and ornaments to go and I'll be able to relax and enjoy the season!

The Nutcracker - A story of transformation

I *do* have finished projects to show you, and booty from the Bazaar Bizarre to gloat about. But I want to take nice photos of all of those things in the sunshine, tomorrow, on my DAY OFF! Whoo-hoo!

So instead of all of those lovely crafty things, I thought I would share a story of transformation from the Nutcracker. Not the Nutcracker's transformation into the handsome prince, no. My transformation into Clara's mother.

These were taken in my dressing room today:









Early 19th century stage make-up and hair, voila!


with my good buddy, Allison



All of that takes about an hour and a half to complete and about 10 minutes to dismantle. Within the next week I'll do this seven times over! This is a major part of my Christmas ritual. Warm-up, do hair, do make-up, dance, make magic and do it all again!

Popping in!

Hi bloggy friends. I'm just popping in to say that I'm alive, and frantically crafting for Christmas, along with frantically living through Nutcracker season. I needed the break after blogging everyday (okay, except two days) in November. I've been holding off to show you some finished crafts, but I haven't quite gotten there yet.

I did want to share with you a new artist friend of mine, Cynthia aka RosieMusic. She friended me yesterday on Flickr, and it took me about five minutes to buy something from her fabulous Etsy shop.

I bought this for Matt for Christmas, and I'm fairly confident that he doesn't read my blog, so I'm not worried about sharing...







A knitting girl, a bass playing boy and two cats? This had to be mine. This could be a snap shot of any evening at our house. The people don't particularly look like us, the colorings are right, the hair lengths are off, but I love that the guy is wearing glasses. Matt wears contacts during the day, and only wears his glasses at home, so often he's perched just like that practicing bass and wearing his little specs. So sweet! An added bonus, this is printed on earth friendly wood paper which uses less renewable and unrenewable resources than regular paper. It was a limited edition print, and I don't see any other copies left in Cynthia's shop, but there are a mountain of other goodies available, so check them out!

Thanks for friending me Cynthia!

The Story of Stuff

I found this short film via the Seacoast Eat Local blog: The Story of Stuff. It's just a few minutes long and well worth watching.