Have you all been having a lovely time this season?
Been doing a little decorating?
This is my “Five and Dime” area, decked out for the holidays.
Have you been feeding the birds? The muse? The face?
(I have on all counts!)
I have definitely been taking a holiday break from the blog (and a lot of other things) as I focused on other stuff for a while. Most of the other stuff has been good, so no complaints here! I’ve been pursuing a gentle blend of work laced with baking and decorating.
Laundry? Not so much.
We spent a good portion of November and December as stage hands, etc. for the local version of “A Christmas Carol,” which our kids were in.
I don’t know about you, but I am a Christmas Carol addict. I know every version and have read it a load of times, it’s an all-time favorite. So even though the stage production took up A LOT of time, it was very fun.
Here’s Scrooge watching the Cratchits and realizing the error of his ways:
Oh, and look! There he is on Christmas morning, all happy-like!
Our version had Charles Dickens as the narrator.
I made Christmas Carol-themed cookies for our concession stand, and for the cast party.
Here are Marley, Past and Present:
Speaking of cookies, I made lots more of them since we have a cookie exchange every year at the FRED office. It’s a good excuse to whip out the cookie cutters and molds.
Molds?
Yeah, molds!
These are some of my speculaas molds…the must-have accessory if you are a glutton for punishment and enjoy medieval baking processes. I mean, who doesn’t??
After many hours of having the dough “set up”, and then molding them, the cookies end up looking like this:
Closer up, you can see all the delightful detail.
It’s ALL ABOUT the detail when you’re making these.
Here are some of my traditional cutout cookies.
It’s not Christmas without lobsters, I always say. At least I say it this year!
These wintery months have brought a flurry (haha) of good press lately for some of my products.
Calf and Half has been featured on The Today Show (woo hoo!) and in the Chicago Tribune (Yowza!), and even in Oprah’s O at Home Magazine!
Ice Princess made it into the December issue of Good Housekeeping!
Well, isn’t that nice. I love me some good press.
I recently made a few new things for my Etsy shop:
These make me happy because I am starting have a real convergence of my art style overlapping with my craft style, and vice versa.
I think I am finding a stronger “voice”, sort of.
Nice.
Here’s another nice thing, made by a very nice kid who lives here:
Do you know who this is made out of snow? Guess!
In the meantime, I guess I’ll get back to whatever it is that I should be doing.
Oh, yeah…it’s tea time. I should be making tea!
