On a completely unrelated note

Have you ever gotten a tacky gift? I'm sure you have. A few years back my best friend and I decided to celebrate the joy of tacky gifts by creating a Tacky Gift Competition. Visit here to get more information on how the competition started and its rules.

My reason for telling you this today is that it's voting time. Both she and I have purchased our tacky items and I'd like your help to determine a winner. Take a gander at the tacky beauties below and then if you're so inclined, please head to the tacky treasure website to see even more photos and place your vote.


Which is tackier? Jesus of the Sea? or Googly Eyed Fisherman with crotch protruding pole?

You decide!

Stamped Clothespins

I've got a lot of clothespins hanging around my house and I've also got a fair amount of rubber stamps. This weekend I put them both to use to create some fun stamped decorative clothespins.

Here's how I made them.
Supplies:

Rubber stamps or clear acrylic stamps
Wooden clothespins
ink pad or ink markers

I chose a variety of rubber stamps though you could easily do this with the new clear stamps as well. As you can see, even if your stamp is larger than your clothespin you can still make some pretty cool effects.

I found the easiest way to stamp the clothespin was to place the stamp rubber side up on my table and then apply the ink. I used these ink markers which are very convenient and allow me extra control over what section of my stamp gets inked. Of course a traditional ink pad would work as well.

Once you've inked your stamp in the color of your choice, simply press the paper clip down onto the stamp. I used fairly firm pressure and rocked it very slightly to make sure the design transferred to the wood.

And simple as that you've got your decorated clothespin.

I think the swirl one is my favorite.

They'd work great to clip a gift tag onto a present.

Or a gift bag.

Think how cute they would be holding closed a small bag of homemade holiday goodies! You can smack a magnet on the back and use them to clip notes on the refrigerator. Decorate lots of them and use them to clip your Christmas cards from friends and family onto a ribbon or string. The possibilities are endless.

Eat The Cookie Mother!

Another entry about food. I'm sensing a theme - but it is the holidays after all and this weekend my friends and I had our 2nd annual Baking Extravaganza. We got together and made tons and tons of goodies and then divided them up amongst ourselves to give as gifts for daycare providers, neighbors and co-workers.

Here are some of the spoils of the evening.

I focused on sugar cookies this year. I baked over 150 and my back and hands are still sore from icing them all.

The best treat of all though has got to be these chocolate mint brownie cookies. They're really good but one of the girls was quick to point out that with their lovely coat of powdered sugar they looked like the arsenic dusted cookies from the Flowers in the Attic movie. That movie freaked me out as a kid. Not so much the cruelty and death but that bathtub scene - ewww - it haunts me to this day. I'm all for family togetherness but I'm not letting my brother scrub my back in the tub okay.

Anyway, these cookies will forever be known as the "flowers in the attic cookies" within our little circle of friends.

This is for you girls:

Teeny Tiny Nanners

Okay, this post is absolutely non-craft related, but I had to share.

Look at these absolutely adorable teensie-tiny-eensie-weenie little bananas I found at the grocery store the other day.

I must admit, a little “Awww!” escaped me right there in the store when I saw them and I had to get them. They taste like regular bananas, perhaps just a tad bit sweeter. I’m not sure there is a huge demand for miniaturized fruit, but they’re cute and a great idea for school lunches since they fit in a lunch box/bag much better than a regular sized banana.

I’ve been obsessed with them for days and I started to wonder about some of their advantages over the typical larger banana. Here's what I came up with:

1. They create the perfect number of slices to top off your bowl of cereal or stack of pancakes. See that half of a banana in the background? There would be no leftovers with the mini banana to taint your fruit to cereal intake ratio!

2. They boost the egos of really tiny monkeys – now they can carry around a whole banana instead of half of one – even animals feel shame you know.

And last but certainly not least!

3. The little peels would be perfect in the circus acts of really tiny clowns.