Repli-Kate: Easy-to-Make Fall Garland

Thanksgiving is just a few days away, and as I prepare for two of our favorite people to visit again for the holiday, I'm dusting off some of the decorations I made for last year's festivities. My favorite is my leaf garland, so I figured I would share how you can make your own!

Last year, in anticipation of hosting my first Thanksgiving dinner, I went to Paper Source to check out their decorations and to stock up on some craft stuff (I.love.that.store.). While there, I saw this adorable garland of felt leaves. Thinking it would make an adorable addition to my decor, I checked the price tag and winced... it was much more than I wanted to spend. My disappointment quickly disappeared when I realized that this would be an easy thing to replicate - all I would need is felt, some brown thread, and a sewing machine. Easy peasy!

While I don't have step-by-step photos, I don't think you need them to be able to replicate this yourself. It's incredibly easy - even if you don't know how to sew (I had to look up how to thread my machine, that's how knowledgable I am). Here's what you do:

1.) Decide on one leaf design for each color of felt that you have and make a stencil out of something like a manila folder. On the folder, you'll either want to draw leaves yourself or you can use images from the internet. I went the internet route, since my drawing skills aren't fantastic. I searched "leaf coloring pictures" and had several simple designs to choose from. I printed them out on regular computer paper, cut them out, put them on the manila folder, and traced around the edges. Then I cut out the leaves from the manila folder and had my stencils :) It's possible you could skip the folder and just make a stencil out of computer paper, but I thought the thickness of the folder made it easier to trace onto the felt.

2.) Use your leaf stencils and a sharpie to draw the outline of leaves on your felt

3.) Cut the leaves out

4.) Thread your sewing machine with brown thread and pull out several inches of thread before you start sewing on the first leaf (so you have an end to use for hanging). Then, put down your first leaf and sew straight down the middle and off the leaf. Continue sewing for a couple of inches to provide some space and then put another leaf down and sew in a straight line over that leaf. Repeat over and over again until you get through your leaves and have a large garland.

That's it! That's all you do :)

Last year's Thanksgiving table

If you have leftover leaves, you can sprinkle them on your tabletop like I did above :) 

In case I don't blog before Thursday, have a fantastic Thanksgiving!

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Valentine's Day 2014

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day everyone!

This year, as usual, Joe and I vetoed gifts in favor of going out to a fancy dinner. We also do this for our anniversary. We figure it's hard enough to think of gifts for birthdays and Christmases, why rack our brains for two more dates on the calendar? Plus, we have too much stuff as it is. What we don't have a lot of (especially now) is time with each other.

Since Valentine's Day was on a Friday this year, we decided to do our fancy dinner on Saturday and hang out at home on Friday night. Why brave the crowds? Especially when season 2 of House of Cards had a 2/14 start-date ;)

So Joe made heart-shaped pizza and we chilled on the couch watching House of Cards. It was SO relaxing - which was something both of us desperately needed.

For our fancy dinner on Saturday, Joe made reservations at a northern Italian steakhouse. MMMMM.

I was super pumped because I figured out how to do a sock bun in my hair. My hair NEVER EVER EVER cooperates. I could spray tons and tons and tons of hairspray in my hair and it still doesn't hold. I had pretty much given up on ever being able to have my hair in any sort of "do" - until I learned of the sock bun.

We got to the restaurant a little early, so we had some pre-dinner drinks. I accidentally ordered a $17 glass of wine. Oops...

I'm trying to grow out my bangs... they are in a super awkward stage...

Dinner was DELICIOUS.

We started off with Philly cheesesteak spring rolls - which were yummy:

We also had salads (no pics) and for dinner Joe had the flat iron steak and I had a 12 ounce filet mignon. I should have ordered the 8, but it's been way too long since I had steak - I couldn't turn down an extra 4 ounces ;) For sides, we had gnocchi with pomodoro sauce and mac-n-cheese with truffle oil. Oh-so-fancy!

Of course, we had to get dessert too. A chocolate molten soufflé with vanilla gelato:

We definitely want to go back when my parents visit. Though it was pretty pricey, they have free corkage on Sunday nights and if we could bring our own wine that would cut down the tab a lot.

When we got home, Joe suggested that we watch Dirty Dancing. He knows I love it and he had never seen it before. It was really fun and during the last dancing scene we started dancing around the living room (cheesy, but what-ev).

Then we both went to bed at about 10:30. I think we are getting old haha.

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Re-Cap of My Parents' Visit, My Birthday & Christmas!

I hate being so erratic with my blog posts, but life has been crazy the last couple of weeks. It will certainly be a plan in the New Year to become better at follow-through with a lot of things - this blog and getting in shape, primarily.

Both of those things should be a bit easier because Hotel de Brier will be closed for a few months. I have LOVED having people visit, and I definitely can't wait until Stacey comes back in April, but having so many guests means that it is incredibly hard for me to find time to blog and I'm eating like a tourist several days each month. Plus, I don't have time to exercise when I am hosting people or cleaning in prep for / recovery from visits.

Our most recent guests were my parents, and they arrived Tuesday, December 17 (hence the reason for no posts since 12/16). This was a surprise because, for some reason, I got it stuck in my head that they were coming on the 18th. I found out less than 24 hours before they landed that I was wrong. Oops. I don't think I've ever cleaned my house so fast.

We did a ton of fun stuff while they were here, and started off by getting cheesesteaks at Tony Luke's on the way home from the airport (my favorite spot - so far - for this Philly staple). While there, I almost bought this shirt:

It's a bit hard to read because of the glare but it says: Tony Luke's Old Philly Style Sandwiches: We Hand Select our Beef and then there are some mobsters with a gun to a cow next to a car with an open trunk and one of the mobsters says to the cow "Get in Da Trunk". BAHAHAHAHA.

Joe still had classes until Friday morning, so on Wednesday and Thursday my parents and I were on our own. I entertained them the best way I know how - by taking them shopping :)

On Wednesday, we braved the Christmas crowds at King of Prussia Mall. It wasn't as crowded as I feared, but I was certainly glad we were there the Wednesday before Christmas and not the Saturday before!

***Side Note: Fun Fact*** The King of Prussia Mall is the largest mall in the US in terms of the number of retail stores ***End of Side Note: Fun Fact*** 

Thursday we visited the Chestnut Hill area of Germantown. I had never been to Germantown, and am so glad my mom wanted to check it out. The neighborhood is only about 25-30 minutes from our apartment (pretty much like everything else in Philly), and it is full of cute shops. I definitely plan to take Stacey there when she visits.

***Side Note: Fun Fact*** Notable residents of the Germantown area of Philly include Louisa May Alcott, Bill Cosby & Charles Darrow (the inventor of Monopoly) ***End of Side Note: Fun Fact***

A lot of the buildings are Colonial-style, so you feel a bit like you've stepped into the pages of a history book:

I didn't bring my camera, so I totally stole this photo off the interwebs. Click here for photo credit.

Friday, Joe finally finished classes for the semester (WOOT WOOT!) and so we celebrated with a run up the Rocky steps.

Well, to be honest - everyone ran up the steps but me ;)

After the steps, we went to Reading Terminal Market and ate some delicious pork sandwiches & ice cream. We also did some shopping (of course), but it was SO PACKED we weren't there long.

That night, we went to see a play called Cinderella: A Musical Panto. If you have no clue what a panto is, no worries. I had no idea either, and I've taken theater classes (hangs head in shame). According to Wikipedia (because I am too lazy to summarize myself), a panto is:

A form of musical comedy stage production, designed for families. It was developed in the United Kingdom and mostly performed during the Christmas and New Year season. Modern pantomime includes songs, slapstick comedy and dancing, employs gender-crossing actors, and combines topical humour with a story loosely based on a well-known fairy tale.^[1] It is a participatory form of theatre, in which the audience is expected to sing along with certain parts of the music and shout out phrases to the performers.

I was a little skeptical, because I was afraid it would be too family-friendly and not entertaining for us adults - but I was so wrong. The play was hilarious and it was a ton of fun to be able to shout things and see audience members be brought up on stage. This theater puts on a panto every Christmas season, and Joe and I plan to make it a yearly tradition while we are in Philadelphia.

Saturday, we stopped by the Italian Market - which Joe hadn't yet seen. It was pretty busy, but we were able pick up ingredients for risotto and had sandwiches at Paesano's - which I've been wanting to visit ever since I saw an Anthony Bourdain special where he went to favorite Philly food spots. It did not disappoint. Joe and I couldn't decide on sandwiches, so we got two and split them. We shared the Zaweech (sweet Italian sausage, caramelized peppers & onions, sharp provolone & pepperoncino) and the Bolognese (crispy fried lasagna, meat sauce, smoked mozzarella & sharp provolone - it also comes with a fried egg, but I am not an egg fan so opted out).

For dinner that night, my dad made a new kind of risotto and it was DELICIOUS. I'm going to get the recipe from him and try it out myself - I'll share it here when I do.

Sunday, we toured Eastern State Penitentiary. Readers of this blog know I've been a handful of times lately, so Joe and I decided to buy a membership so we can go whenever we want and bring guests for free :) We also get 4 free tickets to Terror Behind the Walls next year, which was absolutely a major selling point for me :)

Even though I go somewhat frequently, I still enjoy each visit. This one was particularly fun because we were able to take a (free!) guided tour. The guide was very good, and I learned a ton of new information and got to see things that aren't open to the general public.

Here are some pics I took:

This was the inmates' baseball field.

Joe enjoying the tour. He's so happy to be out of school.

Joe wanted me to take a picture through a hole in a wall - it turned out pretty sweet!

While I was able to get some good pictures, visiting Eastern State Penitentiary reminded me (yet again) that I really need to learn to use my camera. I've taken lessons & owned it for a year - but I still just use the auto-mode. I decided that since Eastern State is such a fun place to take pictures, I'm going to take advantage of our membership this year and try to practice actual photography there from time to time.

Monday, we decided to pretend was Christmas day since my parents would be back in California for Christmas. We woke up, had a big breakfast and opened presents. Then my mom and I went shopping (something we could never actually do on Christmas) and made it home just in time to get ready for a special dinner at Morton's steakhouse. The plan was for it to be a celebration of Joe finishing his first semester of dental school, but when I made the reservations and they asked if we were celebrating anything I forgot and told them it was my birthday. Oops. That meant that the menu was dedicated to me and not Joe. Sorry!

***Side Note*** It's not like I lied - my birthday WAS the next day. ***End of Side Note***

I had never been to Morton's before, and was so excited to have a chance to try it. It was delicious, and a perfect last dinner with my parents before they left the next day.

Unfortunately, my parents had to leave on my birthday (Christmas Eve) so they could be home with my brothers on Christmas. Since we couldn't do anything too time consuming and because it was raining, we just bummed around. Frankly, bumming around is one of my favorite things to do, so I was thrilled to spend my birthday morning/early afternoon doing just that. We watched several episodes of Full House, I opened my presents from my parents, and then I got to eat surprise In-N-Out for lunch!

My mom and dad had bought a couple of burgers and fries, froze them, and then transported them here in a cooler so Joe and I could have my traditional birthday lunch. I have awesome parents :)

Joe and I planned on dropping off my parents at the airport and then going to a movie, but some of the floors in our apartment building were getting refinished and I was worried the fumes would kill Buster so didn't want him left home alone.

***Side Note*** I am sure to be a very nervous ACTUAL parent someday ***End of Side Note***

Instead, once we dropped off my parents we rented a couple of Redbox movies and came home. We ate pizza, watched a movie, I opened my birthday presents from Joe, we ate cake and ice cream, and then we watched Aladdin (one of my gifts from Joe). It was an awesome night. Very low-key, but very fun.

Didn't Joe do a great job on my cake?!

Christmas morning we woke up and opened presents! Joe and I both thought the other did an awesome job with presents, and Buster was thrilled with his special Christmas meals & a bunch of new toys.

For dinner, Joe made Coq a Vin and it was DEVINE. We paired it with a bottle of our wedding wine to celebrate our first solo-Christmas, which was followed up by more alcohol and a post-Christmas hangover.

So, as you can see, we have been VERY busy. Now that all the craziness has died down, I've been spending as much time with Joe as I can before he has to go back to school on January 2nd. I probably won't be blogging again until then.

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas! See you in the New Year!

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It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

I don't know about you, but Christmas seems to be coming WAAAYYY too fast this year.

***Side Note*** Thanks for that, late Thanksgiving. ***End of Side Note***

The tree, for example, was bought way too late. I absolutely need a decorated Christmas tree in my house to feel like Christmas is coming. Otherwise my brain thinks I'm trying to lie to it and it's actually July or something.

Part of the reason for the Christmas tree delay is that I knew 8-footers were only $27.99 at Costco. I absolutely could NOT pass down such a good price, so Joe and I waited to make the 1 1/2 hour round-trip Costco trek until he had a free night. That free night didn't come until last Wednesday, so our poor apartment was tree-free for 11 days of December!

It was almost tree-free even longer, because when we showed up at Costco they only had one left. If we were just 10 minutes later we would have been S.O.L. because that's when another couple showed up looking for a tree. I was so happy with our luck :) I would have felt worse for the other couple, but they mentioned they drove 15 minutes - we drove 45.

BTW - these are happy smiles, not gloating smiles. The other couple came a few minutes after the tree guy snapped our pic. My gloating smile would have looked much more *itchy.

We ended up going out to dinner at Ruby's, which is a 50s-style diner that I used to go to as a kid when we would stay at my family's beach house in Newport Beach, CA. I had no clue they had Ruby's restaurants anywhere else, and was surprised to see that the Philadelphia suburbs have a ton of them - I've found at least 4! It was nice, because I felt like I had a taste of home (pun intended).

Since we didn't get home until late and we decided to be lazy on Thursday night (we watched both Home Alone 1 & 2), we didn't decorate our tree until Friday night. It was a lot of fun, Joe made hot chocolate and turned on the fake fireplace from Comcast on Demand. I put on Christmas carols.

Our Wedding ornaments. Gotta be Disney-themed ;)

The ornament we got on our honeymoon (ever since getting married, we buy an ornament on every trip we take. It's really fun to re-live those memories as we decorate the tree!)

I was petrified Buster would pee on the tree since he pees on anything vertical outside. But so far, so good.

The finished product! Those are just Joe's and Buster's presents. I clearly spoil my boys.

The tree has definitely helped put me more in the Christmas spirit - but what really did it was forcing Joe to watch my favorite Christmas movie from childhood:

The made-for-TV-movie Babes in Toyland starring Drew Barrymore & Keanu Reeves. I think my mom got it for $1 at McDonalds. Those were the days.

Oh! And can't forget that it has Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid as the "Toymaster."

***Side Note*** "Toymaster" is in quotes to avoid a MAJOR SPOILER ;) ***End of Side Note***

It's truly frightening in the way that a lot of children's movies from the 80's were, but I love it so much. My brother Kevin and I would watch it near-daily every December as kids. I haven't seen it in probably 7 or 8 years because I no longer own a VCR, so this was such an awesome blast from the past. You can actually watch the whole thing on YouTube, which is what Joe and I did :)

A little piece advice for the mommies and daddies out there: Don't show this movie to your kids unless they can handle images like those below (remember, they aren't as hardened as us 80's-babies were):

After watching Babes in Toyland, I am sufficiently pumped for the holidays. I told Joe that this must requisite holiday viewing. He's not thrilled with the idea ;)

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Thanksgiving 2013

Two weeks without a peep, ya'll must have thought I died.

Nope, alive and well. I've just been busy entertaining for Thanksgiving and working. But after going to Catching Fire (again) last night and realizing my last post was after I saw Catching Fire for the first time, I knew I needed to get back to the ole bloggity blog.

Thanksgiving was really fun this year, Joe's brother Eric and sister-in-law Shannon visited for a low-key holiday (my cousin joined us for Thanksgiving dinner since he goes to school in Philly). They were here from Wednesday night through Sunday morning - and it was a BLAST to spend so much time with them.

Before they got here, I decorated our table area to get things festive-looking:

That pumpkin is like 2 months old. I don't want to know what it's insides look like...

I went to Paper Source a week before to check out decoration ideas, and copied the sign from one they had and figured out how to make the felt leaf streamer thingy by myself. Those leaves were super easy, actually, and it forced me to learn how to use my sewing machine :)

After picking them up at the airport Wednesday night, we drank way too much wine and probably earned some time in Purgatory after a few hours of Cards Against Humanity.

Thursday morning (after sleeping off our hangovers until 10 or 11) we had to promptly prep the Turkey - which we allowed Joe to do.

 We planned to let the turkey cook several hours and then to start the sides about an hour before eating time (all our sides were quick ones to prep). But then this happened:

Yup, the oven started smoking and quick thinking was necessary to save us all from smoke inhalation.

We feared for the turkey, but luckily the smoke was just caused by some juices leaking over the roasting pan and burning off on the bottom of the oven. However, this turned out to be divine intervention, because we realized the turkey was done... 2 hours early.

Shannon and I jumped up and started rushing to prep the sides.

We still had fun, though :)

Until the last 5 minutes or so when it all went crazy.

But before we knew it, Joe was cutting the turkey...

And our Thanksgiving spread was ready to be dug into:

It was DELICIOUS

Buster even got a plate - er - bowl ;)

The rest of the weekend was spent shopping, eating, drinking, and earning more Purgatory time with hours and hours of Cards Against Humanity.

It was awesome.

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