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.

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!

Supper Club Crafting

Tonight was our annual Supper Club Christmas Hayride. Thank goodness it is only annual. I am stuffed to the gills. It is a progressive dinner each year, with appetizers at one house, dinner at the next, and dessert at the last--and all of my friends can cook! Not a bad morsel had all night.

The real fun part is in between houses we take a hayride through the neighborhood and look at the lights, like these perennial favorites. In this one every window has a different scene and the front yard is stuffed with fun.

This guy hangs lights from the tall, tall pine trees that grace his front yard. (You can see how high these go. That's the top of his roof near the bottom of the picture.) He works for the same company that I do. I asked him once how he gets those lights up that high and he said that it was a great secret. So everyone continues to try to guess. My latest theory is a bow and arrow, but I heard someone tonight posit tennis racquets. Until we figure it out, I will just enjoy them and their mystery.

We supper clubbers usually give each other little gifts. Here's what I gave this year.

Yes, definitely a Pinterest-y Christmas.

I wrote about making trees like this before, but I think I've gotten better with practice.

First of all, I've learned where the glue goes, so now the layers pop. I also alternated the book pages with left over scrapbook paper to good effect, I think.And I added a loop at the top in case someone wants to hang it.

The inspiration for the Christmas ball came from one of my favorite blogs, All Things Paper. I took that idea and added circles of book pages, because, I think we all know that everything goes better with book pages.

 (And seriously, check out these artichoke lights by the same artist, Allison Patrick. Love those!)

Obviously I'm still on a turquoise kick because the ball and the tree both match my latest book.

How did I make that happen? Well, it's a great secret, but I can guarantee you that there were no tennis racquets involved.