Chica Schmica

but pickin’ oranges in Great-Grandpa’s citrus groves was a real treat!

riding in the buggy on our way to the oranges

There’s nothin’ like sun-kissed Florida oranges. 

This slippery little fella was a lucky find.  My mom reached up to pick a tangerine and there he was!

The trees were literally dripping with citrus.

"Now how do you open this thing?"

What’s the best part about eating oranges?

Spitting out the seeds! 

They were so juicy, Annabelle ended up wearing much of hers.

And of course, we were happy to stop and say hi to "Big" Grandpa. He comes across all gruff and intimidating, but he’s really just a big teddy bear.
 

I think Annabelle’s favorite part was riding Grandma’s buggy. The breaks on it are out and it has the type of jerky ride that will leave you clinging to anything you can grab a hold of. It’s purple and turquoise with a leopard print steering wheel. Nothing could be more perfectly suited for my mother.

We came home with a basket of oranges destined to become Christmas Marmalade for our closest friends and relatives. Not sure what went wrong, but it had a weird aftertaste and never quite thickened past the consistency of syrup. We deemed it un-giftable but I’m determined to have it all figured out by next year.

For now, I’m putting the oranges behind me and looking ahead to strawberry season. We got our first taste of the season’s local strawberries from the store yesterday and I’m hoping to take them to a u-pick farm in the coming weeks. Strawberry shortcake anyone?

I mentioned before that I participated in a gift swap this Christmas,  but I didn’t really go into much detail because I decided it deserved a post of its own.

The swap was hosted by Meg at Sew Liberated, and as soon as I read the details, I knew I wanted to participate. In a nutshell, you get paired with one other person to share the details of some tradition that you maintain around the holidays. Each person is to send her partner a handmade gift, a recipe, and the details surrounding their tradition. The really fun part is getting to "meet" someone that you most likely wouldn’t meet otherwise.

My partner was Debbie, and I must say she really out did herself.

She included examples of her traditional tin can baskets, which are perfect for putting little treats in for teachers and such.

She thoughtfully provided two sweet little felt Santa bags with beaded costume necklaces for the girls and sent along some delicious lotion for myself!

For her recipe (which sounds so yummy and actually looks like something I could pull off), she has this great idea to put a magnet on the back to keep handy in the kitchen. Awesome!

And finally, my favorite, is her handmade gift: a decorative plate with this adorable snowman image on it. She even thought to send a plate stand!

I was completely overwhelmed with gratitude at receiving such a bountiful and thoughtfully conceived package.

Thanks, Debbie!

Growing up in a military family, I always found that maintaining family traditions was one of the best ways to stay grounded and feel at home no matter where we happened to be physically located. My own family is still relatively young and we have yet to start any new traditions, but one Christmas activity from my childhood has always stayed with me. It is centered around decorating the Christmas tree and I hope that my children’s memories of it will be as fond as mine are.

Every year, when we bring the tree home, regardless of whether it is live or artificial, we gather as a family to adorn it with all of it’s trimmings. With Christmas tunes playing in the background, we begin by preparing refreshments. To drink, we make our version of warm apple cider: pour regular apple juice into a mug, add a cinnamon stick, microwave until warm, use cinnamon stick as a straw to slurp up every last drop of the cider. It’s warmth and subtle flavor make it the ideal holiday drink for children. It’s also fun to have special mugs that you use for this every year. I remember using those yellow smiley face mugs for the longest time, I’m guessing until they all broke. My mom would also have made some cookies for us to enjoy as we strung lights and popcorn around the tree. We can spend several hours at our task as we reminisce about the significance of particular ornaments and take care to spare no inch of the tree from some adornment. I’m not big on tinsel (although it was a staple when I was a kid!), but candy canes are a must!

This particular time of family sharing and enjoyment is the main kick-off of the Christmas season for us. The music, the sweet aroma of cider and cookies lingering in the air, and the warmth of family are prefect for getting into the Christmas spirit. It is one of my favorite parts of the season, and it is a holiday tradition that I hope will continue for generations to come!

I recently shared this tradition with my swap partner (Debbie) in Sew Liberated’s Holiday Traditions Swap and made a few things to go along with it.

In the hopes that Debbie and her family will try the Apple Cider, I sent her some cinnamon sticks wrapped in monogrammed cozies. They’re all bundled up for the cold weather and are just waiting to be dunked in some warm apple juice!

I also made her a star ornament, using this star pattern, to include on her family’s Christmas tree.

As for our own tree, we got our first real Christmas tree in years and decorated it simply with colorful lights and cinnamon ornaments that the girls made.

Even in its simplicity, it was one of the most beautiful trees I’ve ever seen.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

I’ll be posting again soon to show you all of my loot from the Traditions Swap.

Thank you all for your congratulations and ideas of things to do while in New York. There were some great suggestions that definitely came in handy.

We had a blast, hitting most of the points of interest that we had hoped to. The City is such a spectacle I was in awe during most of my visit.

I have never had so many different, delicious foods consecutively in all my life. Everywhere we ate was absolutely perfect. My two favorite places were B. Smith’s and Kashkaval.

I also found some artwork at the Met that I’d like to recreate in our playroom:

Something about the bold colors and mix of shapes and symbols just seems perfect for a kids’ playroom to me.

But, I’d have to say that this was the highlight of my trip:

Cory surprised me with the tickets the night before we left.

L.O.V.E.D it!

I could seriously gush all night about this show, but I really think you ought to just go out and buy the soundtrack. Listen to it. Dance to it. Find yourself in the characters. And sing as loud as you possibly can with it!  It really is an awesome show and if you ever get a chance to see it grab it!

We also saw Spamalot (starring Clay Aiken of all people). It was a good show, too. 

We spent most of our time enjoying ourselves and rarely broke out the camera. Or perhaps that had more to do with the 30 degree weather and the fact that we were freezing our little Floridian heinies off? Either way, we ended up simply taking in most of our experiences in New York rather than capturing them.

This was the first picture I took:

I’m using their camera and Cory is photographing me. Actually, I noticed these fellas taking pictures and eyeing me, so I offered a welcoming glance, expecting them to ask me to get a picture of them together. The next thing I knew I was having my picture taken with a complete stranger. It completely threw me off. I still offered to take their picture, though, and they seemed grateful. Such is life.

By the end of our trip I had only taken one photo…with somebody else’s camera. The pictures above were all taken by Cory. After all, it is his camera…I just hog it most of the time. I’m realizing this while we’re on our way back to the hotel to grab our luggage and head off to the airport.  So, about a block away from our hotel it’s finally hitting me that we’re leaving and I have yet to take any of my own photos of this fantastic city. At this point, I went ahead and grabbed the camera and snapped about 3 shots.

Frankly, they weren’t very good. I’m ok with this, though, because taking pictures is a new hobby of mine and I only expect about 10% of my pics to come out half-way decent.

Here is one from that set of 3.

There’s nothing spectacular about the shot…just a flashy corner on Broadway. But I love the colors, and for that I have to give credit where credit is due. Pioneer Woman has offered up some of her Photoshop actions for free and, by golly, these actions are the coolest things ever.

Just to give you an idea, here is the before (SOOC):

I used two actions, her Boost and the "Define and Sharpen" action from the first set. I was so blown away by the difference the first time I saw it. Mostly because I’m a lazy blogger and I ordinarily wouldn’t have even touched the SOOC shot. I tend to keep things the way they are if they are at least "good enough." But, since I only had a couple shots in my bag, I really wanted to make the most of them.  Anyways, these actions are tons of fun to play with so I wanted to share the links with anyone who is interested. Here is the link for the second set.

Enjoy!

I began my journey with the only person for whom God intended me.

We’ve been nuzzling ever since.

And our schnozzes are still vying for space.

May we continue to have such problems well into eternity.

Happy Anniversary, Sweetie!

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As an aside, we will be flying into New York tomorrow to celebrate our anniversary and I am so. friggin. excited!  Any tips on restaurants or places to visit?

I know that potato stamping is traditionally a child’s craft, but I’ve also seen some pretty impressive potato stamps out there. With that in mind, I thought that creating a potato stamp for some homemade Christmas cards could be a cheap resourceful and creatively satisfying project.

In case you can’t see it, this is supposed to a star shining over Baby Jesus. After carving it, I envisioned a stack of carefully stamped and thoughtfully composed Christmas cards that would be sent out to our family and closest friends. Upon stamping, however, it became obvious that I had no idea what I was doing. It came out looking terribly gloppy and, well let’s just say Baby Jesus wasn’t exactly looking his best.

What did I do wrong? First, I think I didn’t dry the potato enough before stamping. Second, I didn’t take any precautions to keep the paint on the just the image. I recently saw this video of Martha Stewart making skull potato stamps. In the video, she used a paint applicator which I think would have really helped to keep the print a little cleaner looking. I think my final mistake was not having really clean lines between Jesus and his cradle, so it really just looked like a big blob.

Take 2

My second attempt went much more smoothly. I used a real ink pad instead of paint and carved deep into the potato…probably a good 1/4 inch. I think that made all the difference in the world.

You can see how much cleaner the lines are on my second attempt:

especially when you look at the image.

Potato stamping, and stamping in general, has so many possibilities. I could definitely see myself getting into this more if I had the time to experiment with it in more depth.

If you ever find yourself with a potato in hand and a few moments to spare, go ahead and take a knife to it. It’s more fun than you might think. And, if you’ve read this post (as opposed to just looking at the pictures and moving on) then you should be all set to do it right the first time!

For the past month or so I’ve perused the pages of Etsy, looking  for a sturdy Nativity set that could stand up to two toddlers. I wanted something that they could play with, something that would be with us for many years, and something that would be nice to look at…oh…and it had to be affordable (that’s always the kicker, isn’t it?)

I am so thankful that I peaked over there again last Wednesday because I found the perfect set on reserve for another customer. It was made of wood (pine), simple in design, and very reasonably priced. Upon looking a little more into it, I found out that the seller would create custom orders upon request. Score!

Did I mention that was last Wednesday? Right before the Thanksgiving weekend?  So guess what I found in the mailbox today?

Isn’t it just lovely? The set was made, mailed, and received all within a week’s time. I can’t even tell you how impressed I am with this seller. Not only are the pieces beautiful, but she was so pleasant to work with. And fast!

Well, I could go on and on, but I wanted to get a few pictures up and pass on the seller’s info in case anyone else was in the market for something like this.

The Etsy shop is called Sawdusted. If you don’t see the nativity set listed, go ahead and convo her and see if she’d be willing to do a custom order (that’s what I did!).

Yippee!

Ever been to the sponge docks in Tarpon Springs, Florida? If you’re ever in the Tampa area, it’s worth the the 30 mile drive to the lively Greek community known for it’s sponges….

among other things.

As I was smack dab in the middle of learning the ins and outs of plastic fusing, Craft decided to have an upcycling contest! As a result, my attention has been diverted to coming up with upcycled party decorations….using fused plastic, of course! Here’s a glimpse.

Can you guess what it is? Be back soon with more!

Happy Halloween! We’ll be back with some of the better pics once we’ve recovered!