xmas gifties

i made some containers/cookies as gifts this christmas. i searched for disgruntled holiday leer, added snark and stuck them to the front of cute glass cracker jars.

here is the final product:

the top layer consists of mexican wedding cookies (homemade) and the bottom layer is walnut brownies (box). the cookies tasted a bit salty to me so i drizzled melted chocolate over the tops. i would suggest omitting the salt or maybe find another recipe all together.

MEXICAN WEDDING COOKIES 1 c. butter 4 tbsp. powdered sugar 1 tsp. vanilla 2 c. flour 1/4 tsp. salt 1 c. chopped nuts (fine) Cream butter and sugar; add vanilla. Add flour and salt; mix well. Fold in finely chopped nuts and chill dough in refrigerator about an hour. Shape into balls about 1 inch in diameter. Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) about 15 minutes or until light brown. Remove from pan and while still warm, roll in more powdered sugar.

wishing you a bleak and horrid holiday

the tree color/ theme for this year was black/red/ white/gothy. for the last 3 years it has been demanded by pumpkinbutt to be Creature from the Black Lagoon...which isn't bad at all but we decided to try something different this year.
i only had a few hours to pull it together. i am sure that way more could have been done... dripping blood icicles? ehhh. maybe not. that's a bit extreme. It is basically red and black ornament balls with plastic black rats,bats, spider webs and skeletons.
it's simple but turned out fairly well. here are two riveting close ups :

vintage stinky, rubbed off felty, christmas wreath

there's been minimal crafting and free time within my world for oh.... two years or so. i happened upon an opportunity to get together with best gal pal, dixiedoll heather last week for some holiday craft cheer. yay!
i have been scouring thrift stores for 7 or so years collecting little vintage christmas stuffs. i didn't care if the eyes were missing, Rudolph had a non repairable bent antler or they reaked of that old plastic smell. misfit ornaments need a home too! I accumulated a decent sized box worth... but wasn't sure what was the best way to use them. Until I remembered seeing a huge wreath in an antique mall several years ago that was covered in these kinda odds and ends. Aha!
heather and i rummaged through the box and made wreaths together. Behold my results:

The box is still about 2/3 full. I plan to do some more adding to the wreath eventually... it's just not there for me yet. heather ran off with her wreath before i could photograph it. heather bought the wreaths at big lots for 10 bucks a piece. her's was red and she went with a simple approach, inserting a smaller plastic holly wreath in the middle with a plastic fireplace with Santa sitting on the mantle in the middle lower section. Very cute indeed! when i get an image i will put it up.