White Elephant Gift (Topper)

Two weeks from now one of my favorite people in the world turns twelve.  

And currently this little person is obsessed with elephants.  That's right, it's all pachyderms all the time around here.

So it made sense that I would incorporate elephants into her birthday.  And since I'm still a little obsessed with the present toppers that I told you about here, I decided to do something similar for this most important of occasions.

Without further ado, I give you the White Elephant Present Topper:

(And since elephants are social creatures, I made a whole herd.)

And here are some pictures of the topper doing its job (you know, "topping"):

Success! (Well, sort of... okay, not really)

So in this post I told you the story of my latest craft fail...

I assumed the problem was my paper stencils, so I decided to try vinyl instead...

Unfortunately, when I went to remove the stencils, the ink peeled off right along with them.  I'm determined to get it right, however, so I'm going to try again, this time with plain old Sharpie.  

But in the interim?  

Well, when I made the stencils, these little number stickers remained.  So I stuck them on my dish so I have something to aspire to.  Hopefully the finished project will look a little something like this...

I still have no idea what I'm going to do with it (which has my husband wondering why I keep trying) but now it's just a matter of stubbornness.

I'll let you know who prevails: me, or the dish that is determined to remain all white.  ;)

Craft Fail!

Sometimes I get an idea for a craft project and I just know it's going to be great!

And sometimes, I turn out to be dead wrong.  

Sit down by me and let me tell you the tale of one of those times.

It all started a few weeks ago in Berkeley, California when my brother and his wife took me to Daiso, also known as "The Japanese Dollar Store."

While there, I picked up one of these:

I think it's supposed to be for sauces & condiments.  I wasn't sure what I was going to use it for, but for under $2, I knew it had to be mine.  (Yeah, that Japanese-dollar-store name is a bit of a misnomer; it's more like a Japanese-dollar-fifty-store.)

About a week later I received this for Christmas:

Unfamiliar with the Silhouette?  Think of it like a printer, but instead of printing designs on paper, it cuts them out.

And that gave me an idea.  I decided to make number stencils using my Silhouette.  Then I would stencil numbers on my new dish using a porcelain pen.  

Admittedly, I still didn't know what I'd use it for, but I did know that it would look really cool.

So I made my stencils from card stock...

And taped them to the dish with painter's tape.  I could have made the stencils from an adhesive vinyl but this is what I had around the house so I improvised.  

Then I took my porcelain pens...

...and stenciled the numbers in each little compartment.  I could already see the potential!  Do you see the potential??

Sigh.

But then this happened:

When I went to remove my stencils the paper stuck to the ceramic and made a huge mess.  What a disappointment!  The only thing I can think of is that the adhesive from the Silhouette's cutting mat transferred onto the card stock causing it to stick to the ceramic.

The good news is that I was able to remove the ink & paper (as seen in the first compartment) and am going to try again--this time using vinyl.

If anyone knows why this might have happened I would love to hear from you.

I'd also love to hear about your craft fails.  (Misery loves company, you know...)

Sister Act

After Christmas I posted the following status on `a casarella's Facebook page:

One of the ironies of my blog is the fact that I am the least crafty (&/or artsy) of the bunch when you compare me with my siblings (and siblings-in-law).

I wish I could say that I was exaggerating but I wasn't.  

Don't believe me?  

I give you exhibit A:

Isn't it beautiful?

The picture is called "Hello Down There" and it was painted my by my talented sister, artist and art therapist, Linda Turner.  Inspired by a trip to Italy, this image is also reminiscent of my beloved Southern California with its rolling hills and Cypress Trees.

I was so excited to receive it this holiday season.  My only dilemma is where to put it.  I thought I had the perfect spot but then I found two more perfect spots.

I guess it's a good thing I have so many talented family members...  :)

DIY Ornament Storage

Is there any worse job than taking down Christmas?

(Having just seen Les Mis, I guess the answer is yes, but you know what I'm talking about...)

Taking down Christmas is depressing.  I think this is a universally agreed-upon fact.

It does, however, appeal to that little (okay, big) part of me that likes to organize.  So imagine my dismay when I realized that I had more ornaments post-Christmas than I did pre-Christmas.  This was upsetting not because I had too many ornaments but rather because I had too little storage.

A quick trip to my garage and I came up with the perfect solution:

One shoe box...

Plus some left-over drawer organizers for my socks....

...equals a perfect ornament storage solution.  Just a small thing to brighten up this otherwise miserable chore.    :)

2012: The Year in Review

So I wasn't going to give in to the peer pressure.

Really, I wasn't.

You see, bloggers all over the internet are doing year-in-review posts and, initially, I wasn't going to join them.

Now I don't want you to think that I'm some kind of party pooper.  I swear I'm tons of fun.  It's just that I'm only eleven short days away from my blogiversary, and I was kind of envisioning a round-up post for that occasion.

But in the end, I couldn't wait.  

Call me impatient.

(Call me a blogger who has nothing planned for her blogiversary.)

Whatever you call me, do it after you check out this post ;)

I decided to limit myself to one post per month for the round-up.  It wasn't easy to pick just 12 out of my 105.  I didn't always pick the most "popular" posts because I wanted to mix things up a bit.  (Plus I'm kinda sick of looking at some of the more popular ones ;)

JANUARY THROUGH APRIL

Clockwise from upper left: January, February, March, April.

Above you see posts from January 2012 through April 2012.  

• For January I had to pick my very first post.  If I had known then how much this blog would grow and how important it would become to me, I would have been shocked.  Check it out if you'd like to see how it all began.  
• For February I chose my one and only Wordless Wednesday post.  (For those of you who don't read a lot of blogs, Wordless Wednesday is kind of a "thing."  But it's a thing I don't usually do because I tend to be kinda, well, wordy...  ;)  This particular post was about a trip we took to Joshua Tree National Park.  We just booked another trip for February and I can hardly wait to go again.  
• For March I chose NOT to highlight my punch box post because, really, how many times can I drag that puppy out and parade it around the neighborhood?  Instead I picked a post about the flower petal lantern I made for my daughter's room which I know a lot of other people enjoyed as well.  
• Finally, for April, I picked what is probably my favorite post of all time.  Sometimes the words come flowing right out of me and sometimes I have to pull them out kicking and screaming.  My first succulent post was one of the easy ones.  Plus it was funny.  And it was one of the first times (besides Joshua Tree) when I was actually proud of my photography.  

MAY THROUGH AUGUST

Clockwise from upper left: May, June, July, August.

 Apparently I did a lot of eating this summer as almost all of my posts were food related.  

• May was a hard month for me blogging-wise because my trusty laptop died, leaving me to blog on my phone.  I did enjoy this little post on berry infused ice cubes, though, so I decided to go with that one.  
• June was the month my older daughter graduated from elementary school.  To celebrate I made these nifty chocolate graduation caps.  Thank you Pinterest!
• In July I made an old standby recipe: Raspberry Brownie Cake.  It seems that quite a few people made it for Christmas this year  because it was viewed a lot during the last two weeks of December!
• While the succulent post was my favorite post, my favorite project was the sleepover birthday cake that I made for my younger daughter, so naturally that was my choice for August. 

SEPTEMBER THROUGH DECEMBER 

Clockwise from upper left: September, October, November, December.

• In September my daughter decided to get in on the creating and blogging.  She came up with a recipe for pizza muffins which I blogged about here.  
• October was all about Halloween and my younger daughter's DIY jellyfish costume.  Read about it here.  
• When I threw together this little post I never imagined it would be so popular.  But this is the internet and apparently the internet loves a good mason jar ;) so, here ya go...
• Finally we have these fun little present toppers.  It was hard to choose a post for December because I also really loved the paint chip gift tags and my present wrapping party.  Not exactly Sophie's Choice I know, but I did warn you in my very first post that this would be a blog about first world problems ;)

So that's it.  My year-in-review.  

I am truly looking forward to 2013 and all of the fun and creativity that will come with it.

Happy New Year everyone!

DIY Present Toppers

Sometimes I see things on Pinterest that just stop me in my tracks.  Especially tantalizing are projects that are simple yet beautiful.  So when I saw these little present toppers (original source found here) I just knew that, no matter how busy I was this holiday season, I would be making some of my own.

Now I loved her little animals, but I wasn't able to find any moose or reindeer figurines.  I was, however, able to find some Christmas trees (at Michael's) and I thought those would do quite nicely.

It was really just a matter of hot gluing the trees to some clothespins and then spray painting them silver.

How cute is that?!

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