Thanks to Lyndsey at Tiny Skillet to for choosing paper snowflakes for today’s project. I used to do this with my kids when they were little, but I didn’t know to do the part about folding it into thirds (that part was a little hard, but I managed!). I tried to do one exactly like the one in the picture. It was close, but not quite the same. This was really fun to do and I enjoyed it.

For several years, when we took down the Christmas decorations, I used to put up snowflake decorations. I had a collection of snowflake ornaments I hung on my all-season tree. I had a snowflake wreath, and some big snowflakes that went in the kitchen windows. I stopped doing it though because by the time we got to taking down the decorations, it made more sense just to move ahead and put up Valentine’s Day decorations.  Now I just hang the snowflake ornaments on the Christmas tree. I kind of miss just having some time to celebrate winter (before I start wishing I lived in Florida by the time February comes and I’m sick to death of it!).

The project for next week has been chosen by Ana at Sweet Almond tree and is an artichoke dip (great choice for holidays!).

Thanks to Lyndsey at Tiny Skillet to for choosing paper snowflakes for today’s project. I used to do this with my kids when they were little, but I didn’t know to do the part about folding it into thirds (that part was a little hard, but I managed!). I tried to do one exactly like … Read more →

I must confess that since we usually stay home for Thanksgiving, I don’t go nuts (ha! You’ll get the joke later in the blog) with table decorations. I use the good china, but generally stick with everyday silverware. Cloth napkins, maybe. This year, in my ongoing Martha makeover, I knew I had to kick it up a notch or two.

Candy Caper

First, I printed out the turkey candy bar wrapper template from Martha’s site that is shown on page 110 of the November issue of Living. I thought this was going to be slam dunk easy. Silly me. On 3 different trips to the store, I bought three different candy bars. None were the right size for this. The directions say to buy a 3 by 6 inch candy bar. Apparently all my efforts to estimate this size did not work! I have no idea why this was so complicated. The only way to make this one work is to take the wrapper to the store and find a candy bar that fits it. I gave up finally. No candy bars on my table. Sorry, Martha.

Going Nuts

Next I decided I wanted to make the cute acorn napkin decoration from page 54 of November Living. I couldn’t find any faux acorns, and we don’t have any real ones around here. Instead, I decided to use chestnuts! My mom always used to take me to pick them up when I was kid and she would tell me to put one in my pocket for luck. Once I had kids, she would take them to pick up chestnuts too. I have a basket of chestnuts in the family room that comes out with the fall decorations, so I just stole a few from it to do this.

Mr. MarthaAndMe got

out the drill and we drilled a hole in each chestnut. It wasn’t too hard to do at all! Then I pushed ribbon through (I used the end of a paper clip to shove it through) and tied a knot under each chestnut. Next, I just wrapped the ribbon around the napkin and tied it into a knot.

I think these are adorable and the added bonus is that they would work for a woodsy kind of Christmas setting too. This was so easy! I am proud of myself for attempting and succeeding at another craft (ok, so it was a minor one!).

Getting Centered

Martha had a “Good Things to Save Money” tip on her show recommending you just fill a bowl with apples for your Thanksgiving centerpiece. There’s also a section in the Nov. Living about making centerpieces from cabbages (trust me here, the cabbages in my grocery store do not look like the pretty ones Martha used).

I have a really cute faux pumpkin with flowers in it that I actually bought at the grocery store, which is my fall centerpiece. But to please Martha, I attempted to make my own from apples and pears. It looks kind of lame I think.

Placecards

On Page 54 of November Living, Martha also has leaf placecards. You take a plain card (she used black but I chose green) and cut a diagonal slit in one corner and insert a leaf there. Great, except all of our leaves have turned brown, crumpled into nothing, and been covered with snow by now. So I used a faux leaf instead. I think it’s actually kind of cute.

I must confess that since we usually stay home for Thanksgiving, I don’t go nuts (ha! You’ll get the joke later in the blog) with table decorations. I use the good china, but generally stick with everyday silverware. Cloth napkins, maybe. This year, in my ongoing Martha makeover, I knew I had to kick it … Read more →

On Friday, Nov 14, Martha made mushroom prints with Seal. Wow! I thought they were amazing and was excited to do with it with mini-Martha. I even thought we might be able to frame them and give them as a gift.

First stop  – the store. I bought two pieces of 12×12 cardstock for 50 cents each at Joanns. They had never heard of spray fixative and acted like I was a lunatic (don’t you hate that? Are they there to serve the customer or what?). I found that at Michael’s for $6.49. Then off to the grocery store where we bought portabellas for $2.07 and shitakes for 67 cents.

We came home and removed the stems.  Mini-Martha placed the mushrooms on the papers. We covered them with bowls for 24 hours.

The result? NOTHING. One portabella made a little bit of a mark. One shitake left a white mark. That’s it. Total dud.

Now, Martha probably had her mushrooms brought in that day from her own private mushroom patch, so I wonder if this craft depends on having absolutely fresh mushrooms. If so, it would have been nice to be told that (no idea how one would find those in November when there are no farmers markets open here in upstate NY). I’m really, really disappointed in this and so is mini-Martha. Thumbs down, Martha.

The other thing I have to say is Martha said you should save the mushrooms and eat them after the craft. Mine had started to mold! Yuck!

On Friday, Nov 14, Martha made mushroom prints with Seal. Wow! I thought they were amazing and was excited to do with it with mini-Martha. I even thought we might be able to frame them and give them as a gift. First stop  – the store. I bought two pieces of 12×12 cardstock for 50 … Read more →