Bo Does Mountains

You know the way I love books? Well, that's the way Captain America likes airplanes. He can't get enough of them.

And that's how we got the newest addition to our family.

Meet Bo. Short for Bonanza F33a.

Isn't he a beauty? And the plane ain't half bad either!

Captain America traded in our first plane and brought Bo home a couple of months ago. We've already taken him a few places, but this weekend we decided to go on our longest trip yet--to the mountains of Colorado.

Those of you who regularly fly the friendly skies in one of those big jet airliners at 35,000 feet don't know what you're missing at 13,000 feet.

That scenery right below your toes!

Another thing you're missing in an airliner is wearing an oxygen mask. It's a necessity when you're flying high in an unpressurized plane like Bo. Here I am modeling the latest in tube technology and looking remarkably like someone's grandma. Oh wait, I am someone's grandma!

Our first full day was spent in the quaint old mining town of Creede, known primarily as the place where the Coward Robert Ford was gunned down, which I'm pretty sure puts me at one degree of separation from Brad Pitt. So there's that.

The next day we went to Williams Creek Reservoir in the San Juan National Forest. 

In Houston the temperature that day was 96 degrees and 94% humidity. (That is not a typo.)

At Williams Creek Reservoir that day it was about 78 degrees and 11% humidity. 

That's why we are smiling in this picture.

It was such a pretty Colorado weekend, one morning I sat out on the porch and before I knew it, I had made this! After I decorate the endpapers, it will be ready for your Christmas decor. 

Wait, what? Christmas already?

Yes! I'm pleased to announce that on September 10th, Reading With Scissors will be at the Shop 'til You Drop Marketplace, so I'm already making holiday products. I'll be featuring some of them here over the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

Speaking of staying tuned, one of the easiest ways to find out what's going on is to sign up for my new email list. The first email will be coming out shortly. There's a sign-up form on this page, so go ahead and don't miss out! There will be goodies. Just saying.

The Trouble with Tribbles - Folded Book Edition

It's December and you know what that means...it's time for the annual supper club progressive dinner.

There is nothing better than a hayride through the neighborhood to look at Christmas lights punctuated by some out-of-this-world food. Highlights this year were the marinated cheese at Vicki's house and the Churro Chex Mix at Babette's (seriously) ...and the decorations at Barb's house, of course.

Check out the white and silver sparkly buffet in her dining room! It was outstanding...as was her French Market Bean Soup.

And speaking of outstanding...here is Barb's tree out standing in her living room. It's about 12 foot of spectacular! Covered in ornaments from top to bottom...

...including some made by yours truly. Remember this one from 2012?

Or how about this one from last year?

For the Christmas 2016 supper club ornament, I headed out to Office Depot to get some books cut down like this...

..and turned them into these.

I have been making them for the past several months while sitting on conference calls, and watching TV, and waiting for water to boil, and sitting at stoplights. They are addictive. 

I started out just making a few different shapes.

And then I made some bigger ones. 

And then some big and little ones

And pretty soon...ACK! I started to feel like Capt Kirk in a pile of tribbles!

I blame my friend, Jan Agnello, for being my enabler on this one. Jan has this very cool antique business, Storyology Decor, deep in the heart of Georgia where she's been featuring Reading With Scissors books for several years. 

This year she asked me if I could make her some ornaments. After a little experimenting, I figured out how to make them. If you check out the Storyology Decor Facebook page, you can see how cool they look on Jan's fuzzy Christmas tree. She decorated her ornaments with vintage chandelier crystals and paper flowers.

My supper clubbers got beads and tassels. 

And as old school as beads and tassels are, they still add a very merry pop to a mid-century mod aluminum tree.

On the 24th Day of Christmas My Phanie Gave to Me

It's the middle of December. Where did the time go? 

I've been buying, and wrapping, and baking, and cutting, and folding and...

I'M NOT READY!

Thank goodness that I finished some things before the season got into full swing.

Case in point. This advent calendar I made for QuarterPounder.

And yes, I made more flat boxes! I am a pro at them now. These just don't have roofs on them.

But they do have sparkly snowflakes and and fuzzy presents--and book pages, of course.

Oh, and the numbers are covered in GLITTER! 

QuarterPounder wasn't really sure what he thought of the whole thing.

But he seemed to think the finger puppets inside were pretty grand.

And the bib and the Rudolph book were a hit, too!

Side note: Here is my goal for next year.

Learn how to take a picture of a rectangle that isn't skewed. This one kinda makes me dizzy when I look at it for very long.

Speaking of dizzy. I gotta go. The pecan pie in the oven is dinging and Amazon just left another package at the door.

I'M NOT READY!

But if you've got extra time on your hands, check out all the cool ways to decorate a Silhouette Advent Calendar on this Pinterest page!

Little boxes made of ticky tacky--and GLITTER!

Captain America is always teasing me about having too much book sense and not enough common sense. This mainly happens when we are comparing old report cards. He has no other defense. But it's true that back in the day I got good grades, which I mostly attribute to being a good test taker. I managed to pass the tests that my teachers gave me. I scored really well on the ACT and did just fine, thank you, on the SAT.

But over the years there were three tests I notably did not do well on, and by "did not do well" I mean they ate my lunch.

The first was an eye test when I was in third grade. OK, I know an eye test is not the same thing as a math test, but tell that to an overachieving 9-year-old. They came to my class, made me peer into a dark box with a light on the far side, and asked me how many trees I saw. Trees? What trees? There are trees? Soon after I got my first pair of glasses.

Then there was the driver's test that I flunked. That is a story for another day, but let me just say that there is nothing more embarrassing than coming back to school after flunking the driver's test. If hell is reliving your most embarrassing moment, that may be it. Hills? There are hills? No one ever taught me how to park on a hill and what the heck does it matter when there are no hills to park on anyway??

And then there was that Army test they gave us in high school. I can't remember the name of it, but I remember the lasting hit it did to my ego. I was a senior and feeling overly confident about my test taking ability, until I started reading those questions about gears (If Gear A is turning in a clockwise direction, which direction is Gear D turning?) and questions about flat boxes. You know, questions like this one? For the life of me I couldn't put those boxes together in my head. It bothered me that I could not figure those out. Bothered me so much that I'm still talking about it  some 30 years...wait, I mean 15 years later, of course.

Side note: This is why I love Captain America - because he can do gears and flat boxes in his head. And he takes out the trash. And kills bugs. When he is not on the other side of the world.

Anyway, all my life I've said I do not do flat boxes....until I saw this post about Putz houses last year on my favorite blog, All Things Paper. I don't know what it was about all those little white houses that caught my eye, but I knew this Christmas I was going to conquer my fear and make a whole bunch of them.

And last week I finally did it.  Look!

Aren't they the cutest things?!?

The patterns are part of the tea light village set from the 3dcuts.com website. They worked perfectly with my fancy-dancy Silhouette machine.

I love the variety of all the buildings.

And the extras included in the kit are grand, too. Check out that fence and all the trees--it's all part of the kit. Such a deal!

So I finally figured out how to get over my fear of putting flat boxes together. The keys are:

A. Buy a kit with great instructions and lots of pictures.

B. Reward yourself with

I just happened to have an empty Graze box sitting on my countertop and it soon became my glitter station. (I have a glitter station!!)

Check out all that sparkly goodness!

This is as close to snow as we'll probably see in Houston this year, so this is my white Christmas.

The whole scene is as pretty as a picture sitting on my shelf.

And look what happens when you turn on the tea lights at night (and turn your Disklavier piano radio to the Holiday station).

I mean seriously, why didn't someone tell me how fun flat boxes could be a long time ago? More importantly, why didn't someone tell me I could have my own glitter station??

Let the holidays begin!

A Very Retro Supper Club

December is the time for Christmas traditions and at our house that means the supper club progressive dinner. This year the main course was at our house--Vegetable Beef soup, green salad, and crusty rolls. It was really good, but you'll just have to take my word for it. I was so busy being the hostess with the mostess that I didn't get any pictures taken.

Each year we exchange small gifts and here's what I gave this year--festive boxes filled with Warm-Spiced Pecans with Rum Glaze from America's Test Kitchen. (I know, right?!) The pecans were from G&W Family Farms. (This Miss Holly's farm.) And the boxes that I cut with my Silhouette machine are from Jamie Crips.

I love these boxes. So easy to cut and assemble, and when made with double-sided cardstock, the tops are especially cute!

I also gave my friends these very retro ornaments featuring book spirals made from RDCBs.

And featuring book snowflakes from RDCBs.

And book hearts.

These dandies are one of the first things I've ever designed myself on my Silhouette machine.

When I catch up from the holidays, I'll try to post a tutorial for them. If I can ever figure out how to do them again. :)

So I didn't get any pictures of the food, but when I saw Captain America and our friend, Captain Bob, actually doing dishes, I raced for my phone to snap that photo.

The dishwasher was loaded before we even left for dessert. Merry Christmas to me!

Santa Got Run Over By a Birchbox

It's December and you know what that means...Barb's cookie exchange!

My contribution this year started out looking like this...

...and ended up looking like this.

These beauties are called Easy Salted Caramel Turtles and I found them on A Pumpkin and a Princess. Note that the Easy part of Easy Salted Caramel Turtles is a relative term. There are only four ingredients, so how hard can they be to make, right? Well...

Everything started out all Food Network-y. See how nicely the little gobs of caramel and pecan fit on the spoonfuls of melted chocolate?

But word to the wise...let them dry before you try to move them and make sure that you have enough room on your countertop at your final destination or they will slide off your parchment paper like a toddler at the kiddie park. 

I wonder who the lucky recipient of that extra crunchy turtle was?? 

Just kidding!

(No, I'm not.)

(Yes, I am.)

(Sorta.)

And you want to know what a really talented cook I am? Check this out. 

I fashioned all this deliciousness while wearing a full body Santa apron. It covered me in red and fur from my neck to my knees. When I finished, I went to change clothes, and there was a spot on my white shirt! 

What, you say, didn't you just tell us you were wearing an apron over your shirt?

I know, right?!?

So I whipped off my shirt, looked into the mirror--and I kid you not--I'm staring at a big spot of chocolate on my belly.

What, you say, you mean there was chocolate on your belly that was under the shirt that was under the apron?

I know, right?!?

I would have taken a picture of it, but 

a) that is one selfie you don't need to see. Trust me. And

b) you know me well enough to know that it's true.

I kind of remember when I was breaking the turtles apart a piece of Ghirardelli went flying down the front of my shirt. 

Yep. I'm that good. 

Oxyclean, if you're looking for a spokesperson, I come with my own testimonial.

Me: Are you plagued by belly chocolate ruining your good white shirt? Oxyclean will get it clean!

Anyway, I realized a couple of years ago if your cookies are suspect, the best guarantee of getting people to grab your goodies at the exchange is to put them in a cute package.

So I was browsing my favorite papercraft blog, All Things Paper, and Ann Martin pointed me to Kate's Creative Space where I found the cutest, easiest Santa bags ever. I made them just like Kate says only instead of watercolor paper, I used book pages, of course!

Word to the wise: Anytime you see cutest and easiest in the same sentence--make that craft!

The fun part of these bags is they involve make-up! I used my "How 'Bout Them Apples? Cheek and Lip Cream Palette" that showed up in a Birchbox that my kids got me.

A little dip here...

...and a little dab there...

And ta-daaaaah!!! The cutest, easiest, delicious-est Christmas cookie combo ever. 

Make that craft! And those turtles! (Just watch out for belly chocolate.)

I Can't Do Math - The Christmas Edition

I am reading this book right now about this plane that went down in the Dutch New Guinea jungle toward the end of World War II. The survivors of the crash met up with island natives who had had no contact with the rest of the world--ever. 

In today's passage the author is describing the natives and reported that they could only count to three and after that everything was "many."

I've found my people!

At least you would have believed it if you had been at my house this week when I was baking for the annual cookie exchange. Remember last year's exchange? Well, this year was tons better because now I have DIL#1, my daughter-in-law, to help me bake.

Our recipe this year was Caramel Apple Cider Cookies that we stole borrowed from our soon-to-be cousin over at A Little Alana. Kudos to cousin Paul for snagging someone with such mad baking skills. We will be stealing stuff from Alana for the foreseeable future.

The recipe starts with caramel, and frankly we could have just stopped right there and had a winner in my book. The hardest part of the whole baking process was making sure we had enough caramels to fill 7 dozen cookies.

But that's where the problems started. I was never great at my 7 times table and a total loser at my 12s. As the good people in New Guinea would have said, "We just need many."

Thank goodness DIL#1 was there to guide me through. "We need 84," she said. And good thing she mentioned it because at that point we had already used up all our dough and were only at about 70. So we pinched and rerolled and soon we had many. They looked so good coming out of the oven...

...but the hardest part was flipping them upside down to cool to keep the caramel from sticking to the rack.

I take that back. The hardest part was not popping every one of those gooey bites of deliciousness in our mouths before we got them wrapped up.

After the cookies were done we started punching out snowflakes for our cookie bags, like these.

The plan was to punch two small flakes from yellowed paper and one large flake from whiter paper. Earlier in the week I had gone to Michael's to get the large and small punch. When I got home I realized that I already had a large snowflake punch, so I took it back.

On baking night DIL#1 punched away until we 12 white and 24 yellow snowflakes. Then she had to go away to work. :(

I took the snowflakes to my craft room to glue them on the bags. I laid out the 12 large white and the 24 large yellow. Wait. There were supposed to be 24 small yellow.

I checked the punches. I checked the snowflakes. All the snowflakes were the same size. Then I looked again. The large punch and the small punch were both 3" punches. 

So yep you got that right--I bought three snowflake punches and all three were 3" punches. Even my New Guinea friends could have counted that!

I combed through my boxes of punches and came up with another even smaller snowflakey looking thing like this:

It would have to do. Next, I ran to the store to get ribbon to tie the bags shut like this.

And in the end they looked like this.

The ribbons are not the same size because I also cannot measure. They say... 

"Let's snow?" Really? I've never snowed before. So I maybe I can't do math, but I can do English.

Captain America even got in on the act and help me fill the bags with cookies. He was not a fan of Caramel Apple Cider cookies ("Why can't you just make chocolate chip??"), and threatened to add Cheetos to each bag so recipients would have options.

He needn't have worried. After an hour of everyone tasting delicious cookies of all kinds at the cookie exchange, the Caramel Apple Cider cookies all found good homes.

And the fun part was I came home with 12 new kinds of cookies for to share with DIL#1 and munch on this holiday season--AND a new cookbook full of cookie recipes.

Captain America and #1 Son liked that part especially.