A Lovely Package Exchange

This is the first year I'm participating in the {lovely} PACKAGE EXCHANGE graciously hosted by Danni from oh, hello friend.

Nearly 200 lovely bloggers signed up to exchange pretty presents by mail and I was matched with Carrie Koehmstedt from Carrie Loves and Sweet Faerie Designs. And oh happy day, her thoughtful gift was one of my favorites from Etsy: a Gourmet Sea Salt Kit from Cook Outside the Box.  

My offering was a bracelet from Wish by Felicity and little Moleskine notebook set since Carrie's favorite colors are turquoise and pink and she put the most adorable photo up on her blog:

[photo by Carrie Koehmstedt]

Thanks, Carrie and Danni for the holiday cheer!

I Heart Holiday Prep

Call me cheese-y if you need to, but I'm a lover of holidays...and especially of planning!

Aside from event planning for a living, back in 2010 there were big plans for Christmas time (even though only 4 out of 7 were accomplished) and prep for my first flower arranging job.  And back in 2009 I recapped my haul from Michael's when they opened a Manhattan location, so exciting!

Last night Justin kindly drove me out to Bayonne, New Jersey and patiently walked down every aisle with me in awe "like a kid in a candy store" as he said.  The Michaels motto is "Where Creativity Happens" and it's impossible not to agree while swooning at the Martha Stewart section.  I tried not to overfill the cart, but it was amazing knowing I had a whole car to drive me home.  So, here's the somewhat controlled haul (which includes the pretty ball ornaments above):

Mint Drops and Wilton pink gel coloring for a January Gingerbread House-Building Party and Martha Stewart sequin stickers, glitter glue and a snowflake stamp set.

Sparkly blue paper, striped pink paper, lavender blank notecards and (finally!) a paper punch in a nicely sized tag shape that I've been trying to find for a while: no need to ever buy tags again.

Styrofoam in tree, ball and wreath shapes, plus pipe cleaners to make even more snowflakes.

LOTS of ribbon (there was a 50% off sale!), glitter glue pens, mini pompoms and mini jingle bells in bright and subdued tones.  Do you know how hard it is to find mini jingle bells elsewhere in New York City?  When I needed some to make amigurumi cat toy mice and a reindeer I had to cut them off a cat collar.

I had coupons from joining their e-mail list and I also signed up for MichaelsRewards ("where Creativity Counts").  If you can read the prices on the receipt you'll see how little I spent for so much, PLUS in the bag were more coupons!

Maybe on my next visit I can get a discount on buying more time.  

Christmas is only a week and a half away....Happy holiday prepping!

Addendum!  Forgot to mention I also snatched up the premier issue of Stitch Craft Create Magazine, lots of great holiday inspiration here.

SweetAnd Condensed

Oh my, oh my has it been a crazy month: welcome to December! I feel blessed, I feel happy....I feel...tired.  I heart the holiday season there's just so much to do and so much going on... 

I love being busy though and made some cookies for the 2nd Annual New York Holiday Cookie Swap event today organized by Bloggers Without Borders to benefit the Cookies for Kids' Cancer charity.  So many great blog friends to catch up with and new ones to meet.  Oh and did I mention all the cookies?!  

So, someday I'll catch up on blog posts about flower arranging, (birthday present, 2 Thanksgiving dinners, 2nd year of amaryllis for a big fashion client), canning (Brooklyn Swappers event and Justin's first pickles), sewing (new book and material to make my first skirt), knitting (another beautiful book and lilac-colored socks), felting (have the tools, don't have the time), paper crafts (squirrel place cards and so many great friends who are into this!), craft fairs ('tis the season), friends visiting from out of town (yay!), holiday parties (double yay!) and holiday projects (oh so many in mind...)  

But this week is the busiest one of the whole month for catering, so I'll resurface very soon.

Here are some much better recaps of the event, enjoy:

Three Many Cooks: thank you so much for organizing such a fun, tasty event!
Justcook NYC: in which he made THREE kinds of cookies, oh my
The Diva That Ate New York: with a video!
Sweets by Sillianah: she even volunteered for the event
One Tough Cookie: my award for best presentation with her cookie TREE
Healthy Green Kitchen: mmm iced ginger bars...
Abby Dodge: sooo sorry I didn't grab a piece of her caramel 
macadamia coconut shortbread before they all got snapped up
Open Mouth Insert Cookie: an amazing picture summary of the assortment

Impress Me

Who hearts lettepress?  On Saturday my friend Suzanne and I took an introductory class at Studio on the Square with Mindy Belloff of Intima Press.

What is it about letterpress?  

One classmate said it was "delicious", another that in a world of flat screens and flat pages, it's nice to be able to feel something tactile and real.  

OK, that second person was me, but still...

in just a few hours Mindy taught us about the history of the art and the incredible amount of detail and attention involved in setting type.  

I always love seeing the tools behind the craftsmanship.

It was a little scary working the huge press, but Suzanne did a great job!  

We definitely want to go back to get more practice and learn more.

But we were very happy with our first efforts!

You can go to Mindy's blog to see how how she recreated the Declaration of Independence -- all set by hand!

Fun with Fruit

Happy November!  I've been so inspired by lots of fall fruits and events lately, everyone is as busy as little bees....I really enjoyed Pie Party Live hosted by Jackie & Ken -- great job, guys!  I even won a copy of the Sarabeth's Bakery Cookbook, hurray!!

I'd been meaning to make a pie (or 2!) but being sick for the whole month of October threw a wrench into my plans.  Eventually I got back to canning with some black grapes and red plums from a recipe in Canning for a New Generation.

Love how the kitchen smells when fruit is simmering...

Winnie suggested a way to use up a bunch of kumquats: 

candy them with cinnamon sticks and star anise, yum.

I also love her post because she rounds up some great DIY gifts.  

One of my favorite things about canning is that it makes such nice, little presents.

Back to the grape plum filling: got this Wilton pie press at Sur La Table 

and (I admit) used store bought pie dough to save some time -- NOT as good I agree, but infinitely faster.

And pretty quickly we had a bunch of hand pies!

They were best right out of the oven of course.

But I had to wrap up a few

for little breakfast presents the next day.

More canning adventures soon, I'm having so much fun!

Helping the Little Guys

[picture by Charlie from Skeinz]

Casually scanning Twitter the other day I saw a tweet by Brett Bara with a link to this article about the plight of penguins who survived an oil spill in New Zealand.  

[photo by Toby Zerna/Newspix/Rex USA seen on abc NEWS]

Even though I don't know much about that part of the world (aside from Flight of the Conchords) I found this especially touching: Skeinz yarn store was calling for knitters to make jumpers to warm the penguins before and after rescue workers cleaned them, and to protect them from preening their oil-soaked feathers and being poisoned.  What a great way to use crafty skills!

[photo from Adorablog]

A similar request 10 years ago from the Tasmanian Conservation Trust for 100 jumpers resulted in over 15,000, and now already Skeinz has reported on their blog they've received enough to reach "critical mass"!  Here's video news proof with cleaned up penguins swimming happily.  But if you've already finished a jumper, or just want to try your hand at creating penguin clothes, you can still use this pattern and send to Skeinz for the Wildlife Rescue Team to keep on hand if needed.

So hooray for penguins and for all the knitting and cleaning hands that helped them out.  I'll leave you with my amigurumi penguin: I crocheted him for Christmas 2009 from a Lion Brand Yarn pattern and I love him so. 

For further reading on penguins and crafting doing good:

• Dyan deNapoli, "The Penguin Lady" has a lot more to say about the conservation and rescue efforts.
• Book: Knitting for Good! A Guide to Creating Personal, Social and Political Change Stitch by Stitch by Betsy Greer, read more about her on her Craftivism blog.
• Book & EVENT!: Craft Activism People, Ideas and Projects from the New Community of Handmade and How You Can Join In by Joan Tapper and Gale Zucker.  Read more about them on their Blog and even MEET them in person for a signing at Lion Brand Yarn Studio in NYC next Monday, October 24th 2011 at 6:00 p.m. (RSVP required).
• and of course Many MANY more pics of penguins in sweaters as Googled by Gothamist

Vanilla Peach Lemon Abundance

My 4th canning venture went pretty well.  Justin was away, so Kate came over for Chinese food, wine and to keep me company in the kitchen.

Peeling peaches was easier than I expected, just a little boiling water bath, then a plunge into ice water and....

gasp!  Naked peaches!  They kind of looked like big egg yolks.

Pitting them went well too, I guess they were just ripe enough.

Kate and I chatted and caught up while we sterilized the jars

and filled them up with the sliced peaches.  I loved the laughter in the kitchen as we looked at our old high school yearbook -- we've known each other since kindergarten after all!

Then just a little piece of vanilla bean in each jar, processing in the boiling water and the vanilla permeated the syrup quite nicely.  Mila observed and supervised of course.

Next up, zesting some lemons

and thus, yup, you guessed it: naked lemons!  And lots of butter and some sugar.

For a quick dessert from Canning for a New Generation, I broiled some of the vanilla peaches with some whipped cream and demerara sugar.

Kate even brought birthday presents!  Lovely hand-painted tiles for JOY, HOPE, LOVE and WISH with pink wine and a hand-stamped and punched card.  She knows how much I love the thoughtfulness of handmade gifts, especially when they're pink!

And Justin got home safely from his trip to Seattle, bringing back this beautiful Curtis Steiner necklace of black garnet, copper and mother of pearl.  Such good taste he has...

We've built up quite a canned collection: there's the raspberry jam from a previous post, but the strawberry and sour cherry preserves are long gone.  So I thought we'd be all set and stocked up for the coming autumn...

and then this morning my genius pastry chef friend Eric gave me some of his grape jam, still warm from the kitchen.

Such good, seasonal fun, can't wait for my next canning project!