Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Cookies, candy, cakes and pie. It seems the holiday season has no shortage of an endless supply of sweet treats conveniently lurking around every corner. Each holiday season, I like to bake a few of my favorite recipes to share with friends and family as an expression of gratitude and friendship. But this year I got to thinking -- how can I package my treats in a festive yet functional way?
While cookie bags and "take out boxes" made for treats are all the rage, I knew I wanted something whose life would extend past the holiday season. Decorative tins were also something I considered, but knowing my dusty stash lives in a hard to reach cabinet, I thought I could do better.
Finally, when I spotted miniature ceramic loaf pans at a local home store, I knew they were just the thing. These petite pans were the perfect size for gifting sweet treats, yet the treat would be packaged in something that the recipient could continue to use year round for the obvious loaf baking, but also as a candy dish, drawer organizer, jewelry vessel, or anything else they might think of.
Last night I whipped up a batch of one of my holiday favorites -- my Aunt Marge's White Chocolate Christmas Bark. (In case you missed the recipe, here's how you can quickly and easily make this treat that's the perfect marriage of salty and sweet.)
While allowing the white chocolate, pretzel, and peanut bark to cool, I peeled the price tags off the loaf pans and gave them a good washing with soap and water. After the bark fully cured in the fridge, I broke the sheets into manageable chunks that would work well in the containers.
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Monday, December 17, 2012
After we completed the lengthy preparations to get Wendy's great-grandfather's chair to the point of finishing, then completed the tenuous finishing process using aniline dyes, we figured the hard part was fully behind us. All that was left was to affix the support webbing for the seat as well as the burlap covering. Easy enough, right?
Before we got to this final step, Wendy and I had quite a bit of disagreement. We've actually been going back and forth on this issue for years. And I mean, quite literally, years. When we first received the chair, we had no idea what sort of seat had adorned the piece of furniture. Wendy's initial thought was to finish it with a piece of flat plywood covered in a bit of cushion and fabric, much like a typical dining room chair. Though this approach was an early possibility, when I began working on the chair I realized that it both wouldn't work and wasn't right for the shape and construction of the seat.
It wasn't until I actually paid attention to the curved front and back of the chair that I started to realize a more appropriate option. The seat was meant to be more of a U shape than a flat bottom seat. The side support rails of the seat area lent themselves to this shape as well. Any wood bottom would need to be shaped to fit in this opening, which would have been difficult at the very least. You can see the curve in the bottom when the chair was completely disassembled.
Secondly, as I removed nail after nail from the seat frame area, I also saw remnants of fabric that appeared to be burlap. After further inspection, I came to the conclusion that the chair 's original seat might have been woven fabric, covered in a padded cushion. Growing up, Wendy remembers the original seat of the chair was covered in a striped satin or silk, but the supports had long since deteriorated leaving the chair unusable.
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Saturday, December 15, 2012
This Reader Reward is now closed. Congratulations Sarah, who had a premonition she might win and says she'll use the certificate to pick up a new pair of Hunter boots.
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...a certificate to The Shoe Hive to make my feet sexy!
As part of our Twelve Days of Christmas giveaway, we're happy to bring to you a $50 gift certificate to The Shoe Hive. From Kate Spade shoes and bags to Bettye Muller wedges and Aquatalia boots, The Shoe Hive brings you elegant designer shoes and accessories. Avoiding anything too trendy but far from boring, the unique selection and impeccable service set them apart. This is the perfect place to purchase shoes for all of your holiday parties, a new travel bag if you are escaping the cold this season or gifts for your best girlfriends.
Holidays at the Hive: Celebrating a Great 2012! from The Shoe Hive on Vimeo.
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Friday, December 14, 2012
The Reader Reward is now closed. Congratulations Anne, who says she'll have a difficult time choosing just one thing with her gift certificate!
On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me...a Red Barn Mercantile certificate to decorate and make my home cozy.
As part of our Twelve Days of Christmas giveaway, we're happy to bring to you a $50 gift certificate to Red Barn Mercantile. Red Barn Mercantile opened its doors in September 2007 with a single vision in mind: Sourcing old and new items so its customers can create signature whole-room designs at great prices.
More than a furniture boutique, its owner, Amy, and the rest of her staff provide personalized service, bringing you the highest quality furniture and gifts, unique conversation starters, wall hangings and accent pieces, whether they come from little-known flea markets, or the latest designers.
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Friday, December 14, 2012
This holiday season we've shared all of the various decorations that currently adorn our home. From the large living/dining room Christmas tree, to the smaller mercury glass kitchen tree, we've gone all out this year to ensure we're celebrating Christmas to the max from a decor standpoint. But there's one tree in our home that we haven't mentioned that has a bit of a special place in our hearts.
The little tree I'm talking about is a small three foot tall artificial tree that now sits proudly in our upstairs back window and looks out over our back yard. The ornaments that hang on this tree are the small ornaments that Wendy and I bought for the tree in our apartment for our very first Christmas tree as newlyweds living on our own. Our first tree was quite small, so the ornaments were small as well. Much like our current larger tree, the ornaments were all blown glass, but they are all about one quarter the size of normal ornaments.
Though the ornaments are too small for our normal tree, we couldn't bear to part with them as they fondly remind us of our first several Christmases together. Therefore, several years back, we purchased an inexpensive artificial tree to display in our home. However, for the last several years, this little tree has been MIA. About four years ago the tree's cheap plastic base broke and left the tree wobbly and constantly falling over. We found a really nice oil rubbed bronze metal bucket at Restoration Hardware several years back...
...but our little tree was never able to sit securely in that bucket. We attempted to correct this problem by shoving plastic bags and scrap wood around the base, but not surprisingly, this didn't work. Go figure. (This is a full disclosure blog, so I'm going to show you this lame photo of wood and plastic bags that was somehow supposed to stabilize the tree. Sometimes, when I do stupid things like this, I wonder how I'm able to breathe and walk at the same time.)
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