i love my gocco

I absolutely love love LOVE my new gocco printer! I received it as a Christmas present from my wonderful, most thoughtful boss. (more co-worker gifts to come!) I am trying to conserve by lamps, since the printer is no longer being manufactured, but I just couldn't wait to start using it. I drew out a little winter scene of emilee rose-esque trees and loved the drawing. Though, I realized after the drawing was complete that it resembled the black apple just a little too much. What to do...what to do? Add polka dots of course! And so I set out of my goccoing adventure.



This was my first test print. Since it was my first print, I should have:

• read through the instruction manual first
• used one color
• and used the color that came strait from the tube

But that is just not how I do things! I mixed my own colors to match the pool Waste Not envelopes that I bought, and used a hunter green for the contrasting color. Printing was a cinch!

I don't have any sort of drying rack, so I just taped the cards to my wall to dry. I can't wait to send them!

a day in the life of tilly the cat

While I completely understand that reading about a cat's day is not exciting at all (unless you are a crazy cat lady) but I highly suggest that you continue reading about Tilly's Monday.

"My mom leaves me pretty much every day to go to some place called work. I cry and cry at the door in hopes that she will actually stay just one day. But that is never my luck.

So then she is gone and I have the house to my self. I go back to the kitchen to eat a little breakfast, but lately mom has only been giving me dinner because she says that I eat too much. If I'm hungry, I'm hungry, right?

After a hearty breakfast I lay around the house waiting for mom to come back home so that I can follow her around like her own shadow. Sometimes she says that she gets annoyed by it, but I know that she secretly likes it.

Once mom gets home, she goes strait to the computer. She sure is busy most of the time. When she gets home, I just want to be near her as much as possible. Sometimes I will jump onto her desk and she will pick me up and put me in her lap.

So, this past Monday, I jumped up onto her desk, just like every other day. Except this day, she put a candle right where I like to jump. Do you know what it feels like to be a kitty on fire? Because I do! I jumped over the candle and it must have caught my coat on fire! There I was: a kitty in flames! I freaked out, not knowing what to do, and squirmed as much as possible to figure out what was going on. Mom was freaking out too! She grabbed me, which startled me, and so I jumped off of the desk to safety. It's good that I did because the fire went out as I did so. I ran to the bedroom to just be by myself and process the whole situation. Mom came in with a wet washcloth--she knows that I don't like water--and rubbed my coat in the towel. It actually felt pretty good.

The next thing I knew, she was chasing me around the house trying to pick up to put me in my carrier. I scratched her pretty good, just so she knew that I didn't like it. Mom took me to some place called a hospital, where they had other people touch me way more than I like to be touched.

Once I got home from the hospital, mom finally decided not to go back to work and just laid with me in bed. It was so nice just to cuddle up with her. Oh, the doctor at the hospital said that I was ok, but that mom should just 'keep an eye on me,' whatever that means.

And that was my Monday. I'm doing OK. I'm just so glad that the fire went out before it got to my skin. I have some funny looking patches of hair on my coat, but nothing too bad. Mom assured me that it will all grow back. I've seen her hair look pretty funny a lot, and it always grows back, so that seems promising. The plus side to all of this is that she is spending a lot more time with me when she is at home. I knew I could make her feel bad."

Yes, I did just write a story from my cat's point of view. I am that crazy cat lady. But, Tilly was on fire! It was the scariest thing that I could imagine! She is one crazy kitty...but I am so glad that she is doing well.

cookies & cocktails

(the hostestess with the mostestess!)

First and foremost, thank you to everyone that came to the cookies & cocktails party! I had a blast and I hope that everyone who attended did too!

I really really really really wanted to throw a holiday party this year. I discussed the potential of a party with my bestest friend, Erika. The party was a go. We had some girly cocktails (and a mommy mocktail for the lovely Lisa) and lots (!!!) of cookies! We asked that all of the ladies that were invited to bring a cookie to share with the group. At the time, a cookie tasting party sounded a whole lot more fun than a cookie swap. But after appetizers and about 10 cookies later we sort of regretted that decision. But even with bellies about to burst, I think we all had a good time!



I made pretty little banners that hung around the room.



This was the voting station. Cookies were voted on the tastiest, most creative and cutest. Each winner was given a little prize to take home. The tastiest cookie went to Lisa who made a delicious sugar cookie with a lemon glaze! Yum yum! The most creative cookie went to Peyton who made a no-bake cookie full of coconut, oatmeal, peanut butter, and, of course, chocolate! The most creative cookie went to (a lady that I actually never formally met, what a super bad hostess I was!!!!). She made some sort of cinnamon ginger cookie with a blackberry jam filling. The best part about her cookie is that she had NEVER baked before. She said that she found the recipe on facebook and just brought it so that she didn't come empty handed! What a sweet heart! All of the cookies were absolutely amazing!



The cocktails table became a disaster area about 15 minutes before any ladies arrived. Erika nor myself had ever made a martini before. We made up a recipe that included Absolute Vodka, a pomegranate martini mixer, a splash of pineapple juice and ginger ale. We added the ginger ale after we shook the other ingredients of the martini. I made one for myself and it was the best drink I had ever made. Erika said "ooh make me one too!" and so I did. I poured all of the ingredients into the martini shaker, closed the lid, and shook. As I was shaking, the shaker exploded (and I didn't put in the ginger ale yet!). Juice went flying all over the table, my arms and dress, and all over the rug that Erika's roommate had JUST put on the floor, seconds before the disaster. Everything was going sooooooooo perfectly all day. And then I ruined it. We quickly cleaned up the mess, threw the rug in the wash and went on with the party. My arms and hands were sticky for the rest of the night! Way to go, Emily!

Okay, so maybe there was another little disaster...I made beer bread earlier that day. When I started to cut it the interior of the loaf was completely not cooked! The only thing I could do was to throw it back in the oven and make beer bread toast. I thought it was going to be awful, but no one noticed...or if they did, they were polite enough not to say a word!

Erika made some marshmellow cloud brownies...too good!

This was the food table before all of the cookies arrived.

And this is just some cute holiday decor!

holiday handmade and the stress of christmas

I can't even begin to describe the amount of stress that the holiday brings each year. I keep having to remind myself that my Christmas is super easy...I don't have family coming in town which means that my house really doesn't have to be as clean as it should be. I don't have that many people to get gifts for, just the fam. But all of that doesn't really matter because there still seems like there are a billion and ten things to do!

Some of which are (and need to be done this week if not within the next couple of days!)

• Finish making all of my gifts...only 4 or 5 more to go!
• Wrap all of the gifts and put them under the tree so that I can share a beautiful photo of my very first Christmas tree!
• Finish up a custom doll (okay, that needs to be done ASAP!)
• Finalize the design for my best friend's save the date/holiday card
• Re-design my holiday card and print it on my very new Gocco printer! (More to come about that...)
• Address and send out my cards.
• Stay sane.

Christmas is in 11 days from today. ELEVEN DAYS! I am spending Christmas this year in Houston with la familia and actually need to get all of this done in only 9 days. Whooped-de-do!

This year I decided to take the handmade pledge. What this means is that I have pledged to only buy handmade gifts or make my own gifts this year and have also asked for my friends and family to do the same. There are many reasons that I took the handmade pledge and here are a few:

• ONE: I'm broke. And making gifts is (sometimes) way less expensive.
• TWO: I hate the idea of junk. Just look around your house. How many things do you actually need? Very little. And how many gifts have you received in the past just because you want them? Probably a lot. Please don't get me wrong here, because there are tons of presents that I receive that I absolutely love and may not have any specific need for them, but I love them anyways. But buying handmade or creating gifts makes to really think about what you are giving.
• THREE: Handmade comes from the heart. Pure and simple. Handmade gifts take time, energy, and love to make.
• FOUR: They are unique and can be one-of-a-kind.
• FIVE: Handmade just rocks!

With all of that said, I have been oohing and awing over gorgeous embroidered hoops by designers all over etsy. I particularly like the designs by Chez-Sucre-Chez and September House. And so I made my own little embroidered hoops for my co-workers. I also thought that just a hoop wasn't really enough, so they each got their own matching embroidered tea towel! Each gift was made with lots of love and lots of thought!