Papercrafting and Decorating for a Neighbor's 40th Birthday Party

Papercrafting my home for the holidays

I bought an evergreen wreath recently at Trader Joe's and I had candy-striped miniature ornaments to adorn it on my outside door. Well I also recently decorated my library with wreaths I saw on the Paper Source website--wreaths that cost $20 a kit. I figured out how to make them myself with white cardstock and red construction paper and discarded books and decorated similarly for my home. The wreath at the bottom was from a clearance kit I bought from Paper Source two years ago.

Glassmaking

I recently signed up for a glassblowing class at the Bay Area Glass Institute in San Jose. I loved the first class of gathering glass on a punti and taking it to a glory hole and the bench to use the jack and tweezers to create these flowers. However, last Tuesday's class of actually using a pipe to blow glass...well I thought this just blows. Hated it. I only made one glass ornament and was not interested in making any more. I'm hoping to eventually enjoy the rest of the class if I can master making an acceptable-enough bubble on which to layer on more skills to create other projects like a vase.

Christmas presents!

I haven't canned since my twenties when I had a boyfriend with apricot and Meyer lemon trees and the zeal to buy a canning kit to make preserves and Preserved Lemons for a Moroccan chicken recipe. For Christmas holiday 2011, I decided to jar Zydeco Beans (dill pickled beans with the zing of jalapeño, habanero, and a serrano chile) and pickled red onions coupled with a recipe for Braised Beef Short Ribs with Pickled Red Onions enclosed for my holiday gift-giving. Mighty fun! A neighbor said she loved the spicy Mexican carrots I pickled, and so I want to make more of that. I turned to the book, Tart and Sweet by Kelly Geary and Jessie Knadler for inspiration (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/230735120)