Happy Thanksgiving - Better Late Than Never!

I hope everyone had a marvelous holiday with family and friends.  Please leave a comment telling me how you celebrated. 

We have a tradition of going to my Aunt's house (about 40 minutes away) the day after Thanksgiving for our celebration.  Thanksgiving Friday we call it :) This allows everyone to go to their in-laws to celebrate on Thursday, BUT mine are in Michigan, boo!

Soooo.... Thursday we watch football and lounge around in our sweats.  Timmy went out for Black Friday that night (to a store that opened at midnight) but he won't tell me where he went as it was to get a gift for me I believe.  I went to sleep. haha.

Friday we drove down to my Aunt's for our celebration - 26 people total, our largest yet.  I was in charge of all of the appetizers.  I made sausage and cheese balls with BBQ dipping sauce, cream cheese truffles with crackers, and smoked salmon bites. 

Here is a pic of my spread (minus the sausage balls which were at the other end of the table and I forgot to take a photo of). 

Hope every one's day was great! Tell me about it and whether or not you braved "Black Friday"!

Food
Sausage Cheese balls - double the meat, seriously. 
Cream Cheese Truffles - I would only make the green onion kind rolled in parsley when I do these again
Salmon Bites - these were amazing and gone in like 10 minutes - I JUST realized I forgot the cucumber haha, a tip, cut a hole in the corner of a ziploc bag to apply the sour cream, it just makes it prettier :)

Caitlin's Bridal Shower

Myself and the other bridesmaids hosted my dear friend Caitlin's Bridal Shower at my house on December 12, 2011.  I wanted to share with you some photos of the event.

A side note - I think I will stick to diaper cakes as my "wedding cake" made from bath towels did not turn out how I had in mind.  Overall I think it was a hit.  I sure hope Caitlin enjoyed it :)

A shout out to the FABULOUS Laura for taking all of the photos.  You can check out her blog here.

As well as another fabulous shout out to Lauren from Delicious Dish Events in Riverside, CA for the magnificent food - quiches, sandwiches, and salads - all to die for!

EXCITING NEWS!!!

I posted my first item for sale on my new Etsy store! Check it out here: www.etsy.com/shop/ErraticallyElizabeth

The lovely ladies at MissImagination.com are also hosting a challenge for each member to recruit at least one new member.  So PLEASE check out MissImagination.com.  It is a free online forum for women that I am a co-owner of.  We do have a craft section for those of us who love to craft to chit chat about our hobbies (and for some business).  It's a great place to "meet" other women with similar interests and a great creative and social outlet. 

Hope everyone had a lovely 3-day weekend.  Thank you to my hubby and all other veterans this Veteran's Day Weekend!

PaperCrafter's Makeover Monday Challenge # 1 - Wine Bottle Tag

I have completed Week 1's Makeover Monday Challenge hosted by Paper Crafter's Library.  Each Monday they plan to post a challenge which you can create using your supplies on hand.  I loved the idea of this wine bottle tag - a perfect way to dress up a wine bottle for a birthday or hostess gift, something I regularly give.

Here is my version of the wine tag - I used my scraps from September's Button Farm kit to create this tag - I'm very pleased with how it turned out.  The tag is 3x7 and is scored at the 2" mark with a hole punched in the top to easily slide over the wine bottle's neck.

Thanks for looking at my attempt, and thanks to Paper Crafter's Library for a FABULOUS challenge - I had fun and it's definitely an item I look forward to making again - fast, easy, and cute, what's not to like!?

here is the link to the original challenge

Wednesday's What's Up With That!? - Halloween Edition

Oh Halloween.  Apparently I live in the "go to" neighborhood.  Parents are literally dropping their children off in our neighborhood - I'm not sure why - I live in an average neighborhood, nothing fancy.  Shrug. 

Last year we had two hundred and twenty-something trick or treaters - this year 177.  It take A LOT of candy to feed these people. 

With that said, here are a few things that really grind my gears.

1) Parents with infants with bags for candy - who is that candy really for?
2) Teens who are way to old to be trick or treating anyways.
3) Kids/teens/etc. who are trick or treating and don't even put the effort into dressing up - like NO costume at all.
4) kids who come to my house multiple times.
5) people who step into your house or start asking questions about your house while peering into your house. 

Our front room is STILL empty - you don't know how many people were like, "why don't you have any furniture?" We just ignored the questions, but I wanted to respond with one of the following:
a) Why are you looking in my house?
b) We had to sell it all to buy all of you candy!

I had heard some lovely suggestions for next year.
- you know those signs at Disneyland that say "you must be this tall to ride this ride" - how about reverse that? you cannot be taller than this sign to trick or treat here.
- have two buckets - 1 bucket for the appropriate trick or treaters filled with the good stuff.  the other bucket for the parents, teens, or people who do not even try to dress up filled with used gum and erasers. haha. 

Okay, I won't really do any of that, but c'mon! What's Up With That!?

Halloween Fun

I hope everyone had a delightful Halloween!! Here is a pic of me and the hubs - can you guess who we are? :)

My parents came over to share in some good food and to help give out candy.  This year we had 177 kids - that's down from two hundred and twenty-something that we had last year. 

I made some delicious chili, cornbread, and pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  My girlfriend Jessica also stopped by to get in on the food action. 

We had a lovely time - although I must say that I am disappointed with the lack of effort that some kids put into Halloween these days. 

A few irritations I have are:
a) parents who carry around a bucket for candy with their newborn/infant child - c'mon, we all know who that candy is really for
b) teens who don't even attempt to dress up - I asked one girl what she was (as she was clearly not dressed up) and she smiled and said "a student" then her mom, also not dressed up, came up with her bag for candy.  My dad only gave these people one of the smallest pieces of candy he could find in our gigantic bucket.  A lot of the teenage boys wear their regular clothing and then a scary mask - is that really the best you could do?
c) slutty teens - it makes everyone uncomfortable when you show up in an outfit that leaves NOTHING to the imagination and you're like 12-17.  It's awkward.  Where are your parents!? sigh.

Okay, enough of the irritations, we did see plenty of adorable children, so that made all of the slight irritations worthwhile. 

What did you all do for Halloween?