Friday faves

It's been a while since I've done one of these, but they're back!

picture from A Spoonful of Sugar

It's the holidays, which gives me extra reasons to want to bake. And this chocolate chip vanilla cake looks easy, but so good.

picture from Gertie's Blog for Better Sewing

How amazing does Gertie's new hair look?!

picture from Kojo Designs

These fabric Christmas lights would make such a cute addition to my holiday decor. And it would be an awesome way to use up those fabric scraps.

via The Pioneer Woman

If you haven't seen The Godfather, you just haven't lived. Reading Ree's favorite scenes makes me want to watch it again now!

picture from Sometimes Sweet

I wish I was a kid, so I could have a magic suitcase of my very own. I guess I might just have to make one for my niece and nephew instead.

picture from With My Camera

My friend, Kerry, want to Hawaii last month, and she's been posting the pics on her blog. They are so gorgeous, Hawaii is definitely added to my travel list. Check out all of her Hawaii posts to see the awesome views.

via TomKat Studio

I love all the gift guides that come out this time of year, and the one from TomKat is always awesome.


This weekend is gonna be full of holiday shopping and just relaxing. I gotta start searching for those holiday gifts!

Thankful

I hope everyone had a very happy thanksgiving. Mine was full of goodness, family, food and, of course, pie.

I wanted to share what I'm thankful for this year. So, in no particular order, I'm thankful for...

1. My parents. I wouldn't be here without Mom and Pop. They are with me no matter what and I know I can depend on them for anything. 
2. Mom's stuffing. I only get it once a year, and it's the best.
3. My job. I get to work in the industry that I actually have a degree in and I know that is few and far between these days. And I'm glad to have a job when so many others are struggling to find one.
4. Sewing and crafting. I love making things, and being able to sew and craft is one of my favortie things to do.
5. My girl friends. These ladies are like the sisters I never had. They are always there to listen, offer advice or just to have fun and chat.
6. My nephew and niece. X and V are two of the most awesome kids in the world and they just make me so happy.
7. Baking. This year is when I've really gotten into baking, and I love being able to make something yummy for everyone and seeing them enjoy it.
8. Grandma. My roomie and partner-in-crime. She is just as great as taking care of me as I am of taking care of her. She will never know how important she is to me.
9. Wine (especially Moscato).
10. The blog-osphere. I love coming home and unwinding by reading the blogs I follow. I also love discovering new ones. I feel like I have virtual friends all over the world that share a bit of their day with me.
11. My health. I'm so grateful to be healthy and be able to workout and keep myself that way.

12. My MacBook. I can't imagine being without my trusty little MacBook, she lets me blog, run my shop and connect to the world.
13. My brothers. Annoying at times, but I know that when it comes down to it, we are a strong little unit, the 3 of us. They get me when others don't and we all know one truth, "money can't buy knives." (inside joke)
14. My camera. I love my new camera and how it's slowly but surely turning me more into a photographer.
15. My travels. I was so lucky to be able to travel this year, and the travel bug has just started in me. I can't wait to go and see more places, my travel list is getting mighty long.
16. Pinterest. Oodles and oodles of ideas and hours lost finding new cool things.
17. Tiffi, my dog. She was a gift from a friend many years ago, and she's such a part of the family that I can't imagine life without her now. And she's also the world's best alarm clock in the morning.
18. Liquid eyeliner (the elf kind). I love the look, and I'm finally getting the hang of applying it with this one.
19. Being able to have healthy food on my table, when so many others can't.
20. My red hair. When I was younger, I never really appreciated it, cause it made me stick out and be different. But now being a redhead is so part of who I am, I can't even imagine not being one. It's so part of me, I love the different-ness of it.
21. This blog. Being able to share things on here with my albeit small audience is really great. I love hearing back that someone really liked a post or thinks a project is cool.
22. And, of course, pie!

What are you thankful for this year?

Baking time: Thanksgiving pies

On Wednesday, after work I got right on track with making my pies. Now, I was a bit apprehensive. I hadn't bought backup pie crusts, in case my homemade crusts didn't work out. I had asked Jenni how hard it was to make crust, and she told me it would be easy, so I held my breath and went for it.

I got the ingredients ready. I was using this recipe from Ina and you didn't need much, just butter, shortening, flour, sugar, salt and water.

I picked Ina's recipe, cause it was all done in the food processor, and that seemed pretty easy to me. First, you pulse the flour, sugar and salt to mix them all up.

Next add the diced butter and shortening (make sure it's all been chilled).

And pulse til the butter is in "pea sized pieces." Mine looked a little more like a crumbly meal or little pebbles.

Then add the ice water until the dough forms a ball. (This one is almost there.)

Then I dumped it all out and formed it into a big disc, wrapped it in plastic and put it in the fridge to rest.

Then it was time to roll it out. This is where it got complicated, not the actual rolling, but finding a rolling pin. I thought Pop had one, and he thought I had it, but the rolling pin was nowhere to be found. I looked around the kitchen for something to use and a bottle of wine worked perfectly.

Getting the dough into the pan was a bit tricky, but I fixed the few tears that happened. And it looked pretty good, I think.

I made two batches of pie crust, since I was making two pies, an apple and a pumpkin. My crusts baked up all pretty.

The pie crusts were so easy to make. If you haven't tried making your own yet, just go for it. It's so much easier (and yummier) than you think.

Baking time: Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies

Mom asked me to go traditional this year with a pumpkin and apple pie for Thanksgiving, but I wanted to make something a little different too. And since, we didn't have time for a Thanksgiving lunch at work, I decided to make some cookies to share with my co-workers.

I wanted to make something seasonal, something more than just a chocolate chip cookie, so I decided on Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies. Since this time of year is all about baking from scratch (and let's be serious, it just tastes better that way), I stocked up on butter, flour and sugar and got started.

I used this recipe as a starting point. It's a pretty basic cookie recipe, just cream the butter and sugars, add the eggs and vanilla. Then combine the dry ingredients and add it to the butter mixture. Then you stir in the  cranberries and you're ready to bake.

I added some extra salt to my cookies, and also omitted the nutmeg and cardamon. The extra salt gave them just the right touch.

You can make tons of variations with this basic oatmeal cookie recipe. You can go more traditional with raisins, or use any other dried fruit. I think the addition of walnuts would also be yummy and go great with the autumn feel of the oatmeal and cranberries.

This has been just the start of my Thanksgiving baking for this year. Today I will attempt to make pie crust from scratch. Wish me luck!

Yoanna's surprise birthday party

My friend Yoanna was tunring the big 4-0 a couple of weeks ago, so her sister, Janet, asked us to help plan a suprise party for her.

We all work in the same place, so we had to be extra sneaky with the planning around the office, but luckily it came off without a hitch.

The party was at Janet's house, by her gorgeous pool. We went with black and purple for the decor, which looked really elegant at night. And I just loved the lights over the pool.

 

Yoanna didn't suspect a thing and was in total shock! She thought she was just going to a nice restaurant for dinner, but came right into her party.

We had an awesome time putting all of this together and celebrating Yoyo.

 

I have so much fun with these girls. We spent the night sipping on cosmos and lychee martinis and danced the night away.

We definitely decided we have to plan another party soon. We have the DJ and the bartender, all we need now is the occassion.

I'm in the Miami Herald

Guess who's in the Miami Herald today? None other than yours truly!

 

I was interviewed for an article on Miami Etsians a few weeks back and totally forgot about it. It's a great way to start of the holiday shopping season.

Check out the article and read all about it.

Disney time

It seems like I haven't posted anything in ages! But I'm back. Last week I went on a mini-vacation with Mom and Grandma. We went up to Disney World for a few days. It was nice to get away and I had a great girls trip with the ladies.

We stayed at the All-Star Movies (same place I stayed last year). I just love staying on property at Disney. This time we got the Fantasia building. The hat was so cute, though Grandma asked me what the egg was in front of our hotel was until she got a good look at it.


The first night we headed out to the Boardwalk for dinner. It was chilly (let's be serious, it was cold!), so we bundled up and took the bus and boat to the boardwalk.

When we got back to the hotel, we got some hot chocolate to warm up. It was yummy.

The next morning, Mom and I went exploring around the hotel for a bit after breakfast. I met Goofy.

And Mom was on TV with the Dalmatians.

Then we were off to the Magic Kingdom. Check out Grandma in her scooter. She was styling.

No matter how old I get, I always love Cinderella Castle. I've always wanted to live there.

Grandma's absolute favorite is It's a Small World (aka "El Mundo de las Muñecas"). So that was a must-do on our trip. And of course, I loved the French ones in the last room the best.

And just as we were about to head back to the hotel, we notice that the new Fantasyland was open! So we got to go inside and get a peek. This is the Beast's castle.

 

And of course, a statue in honor of the great Gaston.

Then we strolled over to the more seaside look of the Voyage of the Little Mermaid.

 

And we even got to ride it! I won't spoil too much for those that will be heading there soon, but it was great. It was so pretty and you know Disney, the themeing of it was awesome. It was great to see an area with rides for the the newer princesses.

We headed back to the hotel and then Mom and I headed back to the park at night. We started out at Storybook Circus, one of the other new areas in Fantasyland. (Check out that Lamber the Sheepish Lion poster!)

And for the first time ever, I rode Dumbo. Yes, I have been to Disney almost every year of my childhood, but never rode Dumbo. The lines were always entirely too long and it was out in the sun. But they gave Dumbo a facelift. They added another Dumbo machine and a new line which is under cover. Mom and I passed by and saw a 10 minute wait and decided to go for it. Mom kinda freaked out over being up so high (yeah, she's a bit of a scaredy cat), but once we were up and saw all of the Magic Kingdom from that height it was awesome.



I just love how the Magic Kingdom lights up at night.

And my little brother Angel would be totally jealous, cause when we got to the Tomorrowland Speedway, there was only a 10 minute wait too! I'm telling you the best time to ride at Disney is when the parades are going on. Everyone is looking at that and you can get on rides in no time.

After Tomorrowland, we had ridden all we could ride, so Mom and I grabbed some ice cream and headed back to the hotel. Since they already have the place decked out for the holidays, Cinderella castle was frosted in icicles. A great view to end the night with.

I had a great time heading up to see Mickey with Mom and Grandma. It was a nice little getaway that was badly needed!