Thanksgiving

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year for the first time. Nathaniel and I finally felt we had enough room after moving into the townhouse. It turned out so wonderful, our guests included a few friends, Nathaniel's family and Dave. It was a great match of people, the kids had a great time and the food was delicious (even if the turkey took 3 hours longer than I thought it was going to!)

My menu included:

Spice rubbed roast turkey
Homemade applesauce
Ginger cranberry sauce (and the canned stuff just in case)
Traditional bread stuffing with dried cranberries
Candied sweet potatoes
Gouda Mashed Potatoes (brought by my friend Monica)
Cheesy broccoli casserole (brought by Dave)
Apple chutney (made by my brother in law Gary)

And three kinds of pie:

Maple pumpkin
Apple blackberry
Pecan

I am not sure what I loved more, it was all so good!

Peeling the apples for the pie

The apple blackberry pie (recipe courtesy Martha Stewart)

Candied Sweet Potatoes
(we used to have these in my high school for Thanksgiving,
and I loved them, so I had to make them)

Spice Rubbed Roast Turkey

The kid's table, Maya and Ollie (my nephew) had sparkling grape juice to compliment our champagne :)

The table setting. I made the runner the day before from scraps leftover from my dining room chairs, it turned out really nice!

I made place settings for everyone with little leaves attached.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Please share some of the best parts!


photo's courtesy Gary Wahl, thanks, Gary!

Black Friday Through Cyber Monday

Hello hello hello! I am happy to announce a huge sale in both my shops! I am offering 10% off storewide and worldwide shipping! Plus an extra 10% off that for my wonderful blog readers :) just mention code "blogsale" at checkout! http://artkitten.etsy.com and http://susanschaffer.etsy.com

Holiday Craftacular

Tomorrow we have Thanksgiving at our house for the first time. I have refurnished the dining room chairs, made a table runner and bought all the fixings. Now to scramble and clean the house! I am very excited to have my in laws and good friends over to celebrate. The Saturday after Thanksgiving is the annual Holiday Craftacular here in Madison and I am exited to partake again this year. If you happen to live in the Madison WI area, please stop by and see me!

New Commission

This was a bit of a rushed order; customer purchased on Tuesday and it went out on Thursday, but I think it turned out pretty good considering!

Miniatures 2009: Portraits

Update: The show was a success! Check out pictures here.

I was invited awhile ago to partake in a Miniature Portrait Show, at The Art Studio - a gallery in Cutbank, Montana. The opening is this weekend and I wish I could go but can't really make the trip to Montana! Here are my two pieces for the show, they are 4" x 6" (maximum size for the show was 6" x 6").

I f you happen to live in Montana, please check out the show!

Sam - 2009

Lucy - 2009

Halloween Party 2009

spooky mice and creepy cemetery

Passing out the "brains"/ Maya and her friends

Specimen jars

I know it has been a long time since I have posted anything (I meant to, really I did!) but I have been focusing most of my energies on substitute teaching this year hence not as many products in the shops and no blog posts. It is hard to juggle a job, family and everything else! But I did manage to have time to throw a Halloween party for Maya this year and probably spent more time on the decorations than I should have (but they turned out so cool, I won't take them down until Thanksgiving!) Here are a few examples of the decorations (most of the ideas I got from marthastewart.com) and Maya and her friends having fun at the party. It turned out great! I made ghoulish punch in my canning jar/cauldron (with frozen ice hands) and a yummy green spider web cake (I wished I would have gotten a good picture of the food table, it was so neat!). The kids (all 15 of them, yowza) played pin the teeth on the vampire (Maya's idea) freeze dance, and the old Halloween stand-by, guess the body part (you know, spaghetti brains and peeled grape eyes) and at the end I told a ghost story. The kids had a great time and were thoroughly sugared up to send back home to their parents. For decorations I made tons of bats which hung from the ceiling and walls, creepy mice silhouettes for the stairs and baseboards, spiderwebs and spiders, a creepy cemetery scene, and my favorite: specimen jars with cabbage as brains and floating eyeballs and spiders. I bet you can't guess which is my absolute favorite holiday ;)

First Day

Maya had her first day of second grade today. She was so excited to go today, she would not stop grinning. She had her grandma, me and both daddies taking her to school, too!