Yesterday, Sheila and I hosted a Christmas Crafts Party for our friends. Most of the participants from my Burlap Pumpkin Class were there and we had a great time, up in Sheila’s fabulous craft room, creating away!

The gorgeous paper cone wreath you see above was made by the very talented and patient Christa. Only four of us tackled the wreath and Christa’s won the blue ribbon!

Or maybe we’ll call it the Red Ribbon since it’s a Christmas wreath… with a red ribbon! Congratulations, Christa, your “best in show” is well deserved.

Here you see Sheila giving instruction on two of the other crafts; a rag ornament and snowballs.

There were 15 of us and along with crafting, we of course had lunch! The recipes will follow in the coming days.

Today, we’ll start with the cocktail. I used some of my Cranberry Vodka to make Cranberry Mojitos. That recipe and more craft photos are below.

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Hey, Crafty Ladies (sung to the tune of Gangnam Style)

I had not planned on posting today… you know, kinda busy cooking up a storm for the big feast tomorrow. But after doing this quick paint job yesterday, I could not resist.

So…

How do you go about turning something like this…

…. into something like this?

Pretty fantastic, right?!

Here is all it takes. Well, these three things, little tap water, and about 5 minutes of your precious time.

The Krylon Looking Glass spray paint is supposedly discontinued. At least according to the salespeople at Hobby Lobby, Micheal’s, and Ace Hardware.  I snapped up the last four cans at Ace. It’s not cheap either. I paid $15 a can, but I did find it for you on Amazon for $11 a can. You’re Welcome!

My advice – if you want to do this project. Either call around to the hardware and craft stores near you or place your order on Amazon, pronto!

I’ve had the glass pumpkin for years. As a matter of fact, I have three of them. I was contemplating putting them in the Goodwill pile but then I spotted this technique on Pinterest and decided to “mercury glass” or “mercury-ize” them instead.

I love how they turned out!

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We had a creative and fun-filled extra long weekend. Our BFF’s from Illinois, Jeff and Jen, flew in on Thursday.

After years of them playing hosts to us at their gorgeous Wisconsin log cabin and at their beautiful home in Illinois, we were finally able to play hosts to them….for the first time EVER!

I know, that’s crazy, isn’t it?  Well, it was an absolute joy and just makes me wish they would come back at least once a month until we could pay them back for their more than a decade of hospitality.  Even at that rate, it would take us a couple of years to catch up!

On Saturday morning, I held the burlap pumpkin class that I threatened to hold in THIS POST … several of you expressed interest.

Thankfully, Jen and Shelia were two of the participants, because those two girls are super artistic and they were able to help the other participants make some really pretty pumpkins.

Peggy and I showed everyone how to put the pumpkins together, but it was Sheila and Jen who really lead the way, helping one lady after another, bling out their fabric squash creations.

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At the July Sweet Salvage Occasional Sale, I bought one of those things you see on the roof of that building above.  Now you may be asking yourself, “Why on earth would she buy a wind turbine?”

Or maybe you’re not asking yourself that. Not if you recall this photo I posted from when Dave, Marissa, and I went to the Alameda Point Antiques Faire in July 2011.  Yes, it took me a year to find one and then another couple of months to make it into my new Wind Turbine Hanging Light!

Before I show you mine, check out these three hanging as pendants in this business.

Via
(check out the link for more cool lights made from a birdcage, baskets, Mason jars, mixing bowls, and more!)

And now for the reveal…

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Do you remember this image from last October?  It is a photo of about a dozen of the velvet and other fabric pumpkins I made. HERE is the post with the tutorial on how to make them yourself.

Well this year, I have tackled the burlap pumpkin. I recycled used coffee-bean sacks to create the pumpkin, the bow, and the flowers.

Then I attached a natural stem and used twine to create the pumpkin ridges.

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There is this quotation I subscribe to –

The quote is often credited to the late great John Lennon. Upon further research, I discovered it actually belongs to the early 1900 author, Marthe Troly-Curtin. No matter, it is true.

While “wasting time” on Pinterest, I found this fantastic site. Blogger, Kristi of creativekristi.com, is a proud Military wife and mother of two, living in Maine.

Because of and thanks to Kristi’s help, you can now have your very own Les Petites Gourmettes “app” on your iPhone or iPad and it will take you directly to my website. OK, it’s not really an app.

You don’t download it from the App Store. Instead, it’s really just a bookmark, but it looks like a little app icon, with a sweet picture of a whisk (an actual photo I chose from my blog photos).  It looks clearer on your phone than it does here. 🙂

To get it – follow these 4 quick and easy steps: (quick – as in – less than a minute and easy – as in – my husband could do it! I’m not being mean, he’s seriously tech challenged – ask our kids!)

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… from today, is Halloween!

My Illinois BFF, Jen, called me at 8:34 AM this past Monday morning and was buzzing about a blog that she had just found and completely loved. There was a craft on that blog that SHE AND I HAD to do … right now! (yep, that is her above, I know, she’s super pretty, and yeah, I adore her!)

HERE is the blog … and the project … that we I did that very day.

And here is the story of exactly how that went down:

I jumped in my car, which was serendipitously filled with gas just the day before, and headed out to the closest  99¢ Only Store, which is exactly 3.3 miles from my house, to buy the necessary supplies. There, I found 11 black feather boas, 4 packages of black and gray gauze, 4 black glitter skulls, and 2 silver glitter skulls.  From there I drove across the street to Hobby Lobby and purchased 2 foam wreath forms, using a 40% off coupon for one of those wreaths. Total amount spent – $33.79 plus tax.

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I have a plethora of peaches and a ton of tomatoes taking up precious room in my refrigerator – what to do?  There is only one thing to do and that is to make my Famous Peach Salsa. I was shocked to discover that I hadn’t posted this recipe in the three-plus year lifespan of this blog.  How is that even possible? I’ve been making this salsa since 1993.  The photo above is of me making it at the 1996 Duncan Family Farms Peach Festival. Gotta love the overall shorts I’m sporting there!

Yeah, I’ve been rocking this salsa for nearly two decades!

And one of the people who love my salsa the very MOST is my BFF, Peggy.  She came over to not only enjoy the salsa but to finally “do something” with the crates that we acquired back in February. What crates, you ask?  Remember – THESE CRATES!

I turned mine into a rolling side-table and Peggy and I turned her two crates into rolling herb gardens… via Pinterest.

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Last weekend I shared with you my two projects – the porch curtains and some interesting gardening ideas.

BFF, Peggy, had a birthday on February 26th. Anne and I took her out to dinner the Thursday before her big day. We first went to Barrio Queen for appetizers and margaritas (so dang good!) and then walked across the street to FnB, where we had an amazing dinner. Sadly we did not get a picture of the three of us together, so the photo above is one I have not yet shared. It is from several years ago, taken in my kitchen, before heading out for a night on the town.

Anyhow… after our dinner, we “acquired” some seriously awesome wood crates. One of my boards on Pinterest is dedicated to the cool stuff you can do with wooden crates and pallets… so I already had my eye on these specific crates for some time. We each ended up with two crates and there was one more left over. All seven crates have been stored in my garage since that night. [Read more →]

Does this photo look familiar? If so, it is because I posted it back on February 7th as I was describing to you the wonders we saw at the Alameda Point Antiques Faire. These vintage Turkish olive harvest baskets were in the Big Daddy Antiques tent.  Here is what I said about them, “The one thing at Big Daddy’s that I really wanted to buy was at least one of these vintage olive harvest buckets. As we walked through the faire, I’d see people with them and be so jealous and sad that I couldn’t get one home.”

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