This is my tree collection, which I’ve been slowly adding to each year. I love the feather trees (and so do the dogs, which is why they’re in the back!). The little blue ones were my grandmother’s. This year I added the pink one and the gold one in the back right (it’s behind the white one and kind of hard to see). The big silver one is mercury glass.

This is my tree collection, which I’ve been slowly adding to each year. I love the feather trees (and so do the dogs, which is why they’re in the back!). The little blue ones were my grandmother’s. This year I added the pink one and the gold one in the back right (it’s behind the … Read more →

I’ve been doing holiday cookies in stages. I’ll make the dough one day, cut it out and bake it another and then we had a big cookie decorating night to decorate the gingerbread and sugar cookies. This year I bought some little squeeze bottles, thinking we could emulate Martha and make the cookies look like the ones Dani decorates on Martha’s show. Silly me. First problem – my mixer broke as I was making frosting. Then the frosting was too stiff, so we had to add milk (by hand!). Finally we got it to work. The bottles were great for outlining and making lines and designs. “Flooding” the inside of the cookie (as Dani, the cookie decorating expert on Martha’s show calls it) was harder. Sure you could squeeze frosting into the center, but then trying to spread it evenly with a knife was very hard. Still, I think the cookies turned out pretty well. I’m not a fan of a lot of frosting, but kids will be kids! It took us about 2 hours to get them all decorated. It was exhausting but fun!

I’ve been doing holiday cookies in stages. I’ll make the dough one day, cut it out and bake it another and then we had a big cookie decorating night to decorate the gingerbread and sugar cookies. This year I bought some little squeeze bottles, thinking we could emulate Martha and make the cookies look like … Read more →

I have a thing for sheep. Quirky, unusual, yet lovable sheep. They can’t be too big. They can’t have faces that are too human. And it’s most fun if I buy them on vacation. Here is my flock. Do you love it? It’s so big I’m going to have to expand to another shelf (the big blue on on the bottom left has already begun the migration). I have a silver money sheep from China (I did not bring that one back myself unfortunately!), a cranberry colored sheep I bought on Hilton Head, a cool one that looks like it’s made out of spaghetti that I bought in Montreal, the most amazing sheep with a face made out of a crossword puzzle from Vancouver, a great one with its head tipped from Maine, one with pink ears from Hawaii and many, many more. There are sheep made of lace, clay, cotton, paper mache, bristles, real wool and much more.

My latest addition is the fab pink sheep in the front right. My friend Melanie McMinn, felter extraordinaire made this for me in New Zealand. Check out her Etsy store. She makes all sorts of amazing, gorgeous felted creations, real works of art. I’m so happy to have one of her pieces in my collection!

I have a thing for sheep. Quirky, unusual, yet lovable sheep. They can’t be too big. They can’t have faces that are too human. And it’s most fun if I buy them on vacation. Here is my flock. Do you love it? It’s so big I’m going to have to expand to another shelf (the … Read more →

I try really hard to decorate beautifully, cook wonderful meals, and buy lovely gifts, but I don’t have a wrapping room (and how I wish I did!). The wrapping supplies live in the closet under the stairs. When I’m ready to tackle the holiday wrapping, it all comes out and takes over part of our bedroom. We set up a folding table and I sit on the edge of the bed and wrap on the table. When I’m actually wrapping, all the junk you see on the table is on the bed so I have the entire table for wrapping. It’s a horrible, ugly mess, but I live with it for a week or so while I work my way through the wrapping. I would love to have a room just for wrapping, but that’s not possible. So every year I live with this disaster, hating it. It’s so very un-Martha, yet I think I’m able to produce gifts that look lovely.

Do you have a very un-Martha area of your house this holiday season?

I try really hard to decorate beautifully, cook wonderful meals, and buy lovely gifts, but I don’t have a wrapping room (and how I wish I did!). The wrapping supplies live in the closet under the stairs. When I’m ready to tackle the holiday wrapping, it all comes out and takes over part of our … Read more →

Thanks to Pru at Perfecting Pru for choosing Iced Thumbprint Cookies for today’s project. Pru, I was thinking of you while I was making this because you said you chose this because you tried to make some other thumbprint cookies and they ended up in the trash. I was hoping that would not happen with mine or yours this time!

Mine did not go spectacularly well, I have to admit! First of all, the dough was just crumbs. I tried to make it into a disk and it just wouldn’t. I refrigerated it and tried again. I gave up on that and then tried to make the balls. I had some success. But when I pushed in the middle with my thumb, some of them just fell apart. Yikes. I put them in the oven and then pushed the spoon handle in them and that went ok.

These are iced with just milk and powdered sugar (and food coloring). I’ve never had thumbprints that didn’t have jelly/jam or a cherry in the middle, so this was sort of weird. Everyone agreed they were pretty, but we missed the center filling we’re used to. I liked the taste of the cookie itself, so if I made these again, I would put jelly in the middle – probably strawberry.

Thank you Pru for getting me started on my holiday baking. I have so much to do and only 2 weekends left before Christmas. Yikes! I will be baking chocolate chip, sugar cookie cut-outs, gingerbread men, Russian teacakes (which most people call Mexican wedding cakes), fruitcake (there is a secret family recipe for this and I make one to give to my in-laws and one for us), and I need to make and freeze our Christmas morning donuts. I’ve got a giant index to get done before Christmas and I haven’t wrapped a thing. The shopping is mostly done though at least! How are you doing with your holiday baking and preparations?

Thanks to Pru at Perfecting Pru for choosing Iced Thumbprint Cookies for today’s project. Pru, I was thinking of you while I was making this because you said you chose this because you tried to make some other thumbprint cookies and they ended up in the trash. I was hoping that would not happen with … Read more →

This is my final Martha giveaway of the year. 10 lucky winners will get a Martha Stewart Holidays double-edged snowflake trim punch (this creates a strip of die-cut paper to use as a decorative strip) AND a set of Martha Stewart Holidays treat bags (each package includes 8 bags, 8 paper boxes/trays that go at the bottom, 8 tags, 8 pieces of ribbon, and 16 adhesive strips). The paper cutter is super fun to use and makes such pretty strips of snowflakes. It’s perfect for scrapbooking, crafts or making cards. The treat bags are a great way to package candy or small cookies. It’s hard to see in the photo, but the bags have tiny white dots on them which are really cute.  The prizes are courtesy of MSLO and they will mail them out. Previous winners of my other contests have written to tell me how much they liked the punches and treat boxes they received, so I know you’ll love them!

Here’s how to win. Follow me on Twitter. Then leave a comment here with your Twitter handle, so I can match you up. If you are already following me on Twitter, just leave a comment here with your Twitter handle. You must enter by midnight ET on Friday December 10, 2010. I’ll randomly and blindly select ten winners by random number drawing (numbers assigned in order of comments here). Sorry, offer limited to U.S. addresses only and entrants age 18 and up only. One entry per person. Winners notified by email given when entering, not responsible for email transmission problems. You are responsible for notifying me of your correct  address if you are selected as a winner. Contest closes at midnight Eastern time on 12/10/10. Prize is nontransferable and may not be redeemed for cash. MarthaAndMe reserves the right to announce the name of the winners on the blog. Prizes will be sent by MSLO to winners and MarthaAndMe is not liable for any failure of MSLO to deliver.

This is my final Martha giveaway of the year. 10 lucky winners will get a Martha Stewart Holidays double-edged snowflake trim punch (this creates a strip of die-cut paper to use as a decorative strip) AND a set of Martha Stewart Holidays treat bags (each package includes 8 bags, 8 paper boxes/trays that go at … Read more →

Thanks to Karen at Karen and Charlie’s Kitchen for choosing this week’s pick-your-own project  – Thanksgiving tablescapes. I liked the one where you make a small pumpkin into a candleholder, so I did a trial run with that, which looks sort of lame since it’s crooked. I guess you need a straighter pumpkin to get it to work! I just hacked away at it with a knife to make the hole, then pushed the candle in. I like this idea a lot, even if mine wasn’t the greatest in execution!

Here’s a photo of a centerpiece I bought a few years ago (I think I got it at the grocery store to be honest!) and which I really still love a lot.

Thanks to Karen at Karen and Charlie’s Kitchen for choosing this week’s pick-your-own project  – Thanksgiving tablescapes. I liked the one where you make a small pumpkin into a candleholder, so I did a trial run with that, which looks sort of lame since it’s crooked. I guess you need a straighter pumpkin to get … Read more →

Teen Martha started college this fall, but is living at home. This big change in her life necessitated a big change in her room as well. She was done, done, done with her room that had 2 pink walls and 2 purple walls. She was done with her purple comforter. She was done with the big desk unit that was designed for a giant monitor when she now has a laptop. She was done with the lime green Roman shades. She was fed up with the clutter.

Step one was decluttering. She packed tons of stuff away and emptied out lots of books. Her curio cabinet, which housed her collections of porcelain hinged boxes, miniature shoes and other items, was taken away. The desk was dismantled. The blinds came down.

The first step was painting. She wanted stripes. Oh my. We primed the walls with white (twice). Then we taped it off so we could do a pink stripe and a green stripe. We let it dry, did another coat, and removed that tape and taped again so that in between the two stripes was a white sparkle stripe (two coats there too). The painting took weeks with all the taping, untaping and numerous coats.

We found the duvet cover on Overstock which was a huge bargain given that it is Tommy Hilfiger. She wanted plain roller blinds to darken the room (Walmart) and found some gorgeous white see through nubby drapes at Target (you can’t see these very well in the photo so here’s the link to see them).

The desk is all Mr. MarthaAndMe. In the dark ages, Mr. MarthaAndMe used to own an office furniture repair company and he also at one point worked for an office furniture design firm. He still has contacts there and one of those took us up to the dusty, hot storage room where we found two desk tops and a pedestal which Mr. MarthaAndMe and his handy brother cut down to fit as an L shape in the space Teen Martha had available, with the pedestal as support.

On our summer trip, Teen Martha bought some Chinese lanterns in Vancouver, and those hang in the corners.

She decoupaged her light switch cover with clippings from magazines (it doesn’t look like it matches in the photo, but actually the colors are really spot on).

The room isn’t quite done. She still wants a desk lamp and wants to replace the rug by the bed and get a new office chair.

But I’m pretty proud of how well it turned out. The desk seems to be working well, giving her lots of space to spread out. All of this cost under $300.

Teen Martha started college this fall, but is living at home. This big change in her life necessitated a big change in her room as well. She was done, done, done with her room that had 2 pink walls and 2 purple walls. She was done with her purple comforter. She was done with the … Read more →

I haven’t been cooking as much as usual, so I don’t have as much to share about food lately. The heat makes it hard and I’ve just been feeling tired of the constant dinner grind. So this morning, I thought I would share an interesting collection I’ve developed – rocks. I’m not fascinated by the scientific information about rocks – what they’re called, how they were formed. No, I just like them because they’re pretty. And they are a way of bringing home a piece of a place I’ve visited.

My fascination with rocks started when we rented a house in York Harbor, Maine for a week several years ago. The coast is very rocky there and the house was right on the water, with a very rocky and challenging shore. We spent a lot of time clambering around the rocks. So many of them were so beautiful that I started hauling some back to the house with me each time. This rock sits beside the doors to our basement and garage and I use it as a doorstop. I just love the wavy lines through it.

These are more Maine rocks. Thank goodness we drove, because I could never have gotten these home on an airplane! I love the pink rock and the amazing stripes in the blue rocks. I was like a kid in a candy store before we left – stuffing more and more rocks into the car. I did try to sift through carefully and only take the most beautiful.

A few years after the Maine trip. we rented a house on Cape Cod. Again, there were so many beautiful rocks! As you can see though, they are very different from the Maine rocks. I love the green ones the most.  Again, we were driving, so I didn’t have trouble getting them home.

These rocks are in a basket that came from Maine (I know, I should swap things around and put the Maine rocks in this basket.)

I put some of the smaller rocks in a rectangular glass container on a kitchen shelf. Next to it is driftwood I found on the beach there as well. Dude Martha and I spent a lot of time just walking on that beach, looking at rocks and exploring tide pools. As a kid, we vacationed in Maine, so a rocky beach is my ideal for summer vacation!

I was so enamored with the Cape Cod rocks that I took lots of photos of them because they are most colorful when they’re wet – right after a wave has washed over them. So I had to take some photos to preserve those bright colors. This photo sits on a shelf in my office and it makes me happy every time I look at it!

Our trip last summer to England and Scotland was magical. My entire life, I dreamed of going to Scotland. After we had crossed the border into Scotland, I said to Mr. MarthaAndMe that I couldn’t believe I was actually there. It was so beautiful that I had a tiny little cry. So when we got to Loch Ness and parked on the side of the road and climbed down some stairs to get to the beach, I couldn’t help but pocket a few rocks! They aren’t as colorful as the New England rocks, but they sit on a shelf in my office and remind me that I actually did go to Scotland.

I don’t have rocks from our trip to Hawaii (the goddess Pele would have been angry if I had brought home any lava rocks) but I do have some shells and coral, as well as a nice container of beach glass I found there.

This summer we’ll be headed to the Pacific Northwest – Seattle, Alaska and Vancouver. Maybe they’ll have some rocks I can bring home.

I haven’t been cooking as much as usual, so I don’t have as much to share about food lately. The heat makes it hard and I’ve just been feeling tired of the constant dinner grind. So this morning, I thought I would share an interesting collection I’ve developed – rocks. I’m not fascinated by the … Read more →

I made this decoration for the front door myself. I bought the basket, filled it with moss and then just stuck in some artificial little daffodils and some ivy to green it up.  I’m actually pretty proud of it!

I made this decoration for the front door myself. I bought the basket, filled it with moss and then just stuck in some artificial little daffodils and some ivy to green it up.  I’m actually pretty proud of it!