Have you ever gotten mail from Australia?? If not…live vicariously through me today… cuz it’s pretty fun! The only other time in my life I can recall mail from Australia is when I was little I had a real life pen pal. We wrote each other letters about the sorts of riveting things that 8 year old girls write about. Her name was Simone… and I remember something about horses and gymnastics classes.

And *then* it was wrapped like this! Red and white twine! And tissue folded to look like an envelope! CUUUUTE!

My lovely package was from a lovely girl named Nancy X who runs an incredibly cute blog called Wolf and Willow. She ran a little contest asking who your childhood hero was. And while I had to rant on about the “Pippi Longstocking” that somebody else wrote about (we watched Pippi’s movie all.the.time as kids) I ended up writing about my Grammy. (You can read my comment here, click on show more comments at the bottom and it will pop up). She liked my story, and sent me a fun little prize… all the way from Down Under.

All of it is branded with the most adorable vintage childhood storybook illustrations that are just so stinkin adorable.

What was inside the package, you ask? Well, how about this adorable cotton pouch? Nancy had even asked my favorite colors… and I got one that was hot pink and turquoise!!

And I also got this adorable handmade card. Is this dog not so sassy and adorable? The paper and envelope are really rich and shimmery too, which makes me happy.

And more vintage children’s illustrations!! LOVE!

You can see now why my mail merited a blog post today!

BUT, believe it or not… that wasn’t all! See that logo?? Does it make you giddy like it does me??

Starbucks is discontinuing their Duetto Visa, which I have. So, as their way of thanking me for being a good customer and to apologize for shutting down the credit card, they sent a booklet with coupons good for one beverage of my choice every month for the next six months. Oh yes they did.

Happy Mail Day to you all.

Our first dance was actually last year, on his birthday, at his cousins wedding. The song? Frank Sinatra’s “My Funny Valentine.”  I think that makes an appropriate caption for this picture:

(I think he was a little tired of getting his picture taken… what do you think?)

Sometimes I like to pretend that I’m Martha, and I collected a few ideas from the internet and elsewhere that I just had to make happen this year.

First, I got SO inspired by these Red Velvet Cake balls by Bakerella. And let me tell you, they were a HIT!

You begin by baking a red velvet cake from the box. Let it cool and then crumble it all up in a bowl. You mix in a tub of cream cheese icing and incorporate it. I went ahead and used my fingers, which is messy, but probably the best option. Then you roll them into quarter sized balls, place on a cookie sheet and chill in the fridge for several hours. Then they look like this:

Then I melted chocolate almond bark in a bowl in the microwave and began the dipping:

Then, decorate away! I used valentine’s sprinkles, some white almond bark that I dyed pink, red hots, crushed pistachios, white sugar and these adorable pearl-like sprinkles.

I had some leftover white almond bark, so I made a few of these yummies. Take two Ritz crackers, spread peanut butter between them and then dip in chocolate– sooo yummy. I think its the sweet and salty combo- so good and easy!

After they were done, I threw some in some packages to send to my family, including these cute robot cards I made!

My sister got these cute flips:

And everybody got some of these tattoos from the dollar spot at Target, which they were instructed to apply and take a picture to send me. I especially liked my brother-in-law who had them all over his arm (thanks to his lovely wife, I’m sure).

On to the NEXT project!

It was something in the kitchen, involving these–

What could I be cooking with pink water balloons? Well, everything is better with chocolate, right?

I got this awesome idea from this cute site and couldn’t resist! Basically, you melt chocolate chips, transfer them to another bowl (that step is important, I found out after all my balloons kept popping b/c the bowl was hot!) Dip them in chocolate and set them on parchment to harden. Then comes the fun part–

And you end up with this beautiful-ness.

At the party I loaded them up with homemade whipped cream and berries.

I think she liked it.

I also made a heart-shaped cookie cake, well, because I had the pan and it felt sort of obligatory. Plus, they needed to blow out candles on something! But obviously, I do not excel in my cake decorating skills

We currently have three bouquets of flowers at our house. People love us. It’s wonderful.

I do have more to report, but I’d say that is sufficient Valentine eye candy for now

]]> http://www.jgrace.net/valentine/feed/ 3 http://www.jgrace.net/halloween-party-the-sorority-house/ http://www.jgrace.net/halloween-party-the-sorority-house/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:12:27 +0000 JGrace http://www.jgrace.net/?p=706 My house is all kind of crazy these days. One of the reasons is that we have four girls living here. One of these aforementioned girls, when we were organizing the storage room found some of her Halloween decorations, and proceeded to get really excited about the idea of having a Halloween party. We had a party last year, but the decorations this year were pretty much the bomb dot com. And yes, I just said that. A group of 10 year old boys confirmed us when they came up, raving about the strobe light flashing in our hallway and saying “Duuuude, this is awesooommmme!”  “This is toootally the best house we’ve been to tonight!” “This is probably gonna be the best house we see this entire night!” It was pretty awesome. And hilarious. So, lets give you a little taste of the “Sorority House” Halloween decor.

As trick or treaters walked up, these creepy light up skeleton heads greeted them.

And then they may have seen these disgusting 2 or 3 foot bats hanging above them.

What did you say? You want a close-up of the little nasties? Oh. Okay.

I was getting tired of taking pictures of all the gross, creepy things, so I thought I’d take a picture of some nice fall-ish-ness. These two things are MY contribution

There’s our cute little doorway and some of my pretty mums. Oh wait, the mums even got sabotaged by the Halloween police.

Ahhh… pretty pumpkin-ness. (And no, I never even carved my pumpkin this year. Oh well, that just means it can be a Thanksgiving decoration too, right?)

Now we move inside the house…

These are my roommate Shannon’s creation: witches finger cookies!

As if the singing skeleton head surrounded by witch fingers were not enough, somebody decided it should have a cockroach crawling out of its eyeball.

My contribution: caramel apples and all the cute paper signs and best costume awards (read: excuse to not do my homework and be crafty instead!!)

I do have to admit, these goblets were pretty sweet.

Is this next one not quite possibly the grossest thing you’ve ever seen in your life?? The tongue felt DISGUSTING!

Okay, so my least favorite “decoration” of all? The random disgusting roaches my roommate scattered around (read: in the refrigerator, our purses, in the corner… anywhere it was bound to freak us out.)

Waterfall of eyeballs.  

Candy in a cauldron. Yessss!

Yes, we sorta bought the cheap candy. Do not judge.

I wish you could see Gabe’s whole costume. He was a care bear. Oh yes. And Gabe is like 6’8″ or something. He definitely won “Funniest Costume” for his efforts. I wish you could see Chiquita Banana woman behind him… she had a whole basket of fake fruit on her head! On the right is the “Bathing Beauty.”

Chick magnet!!! And she was a cute little chick.. with tail feathers!!

So, we didn’t think to take a roommate picture til the end of the night. We are looking pretty haggard by this point, but we had a referee, Angela from the Office, Swine Flu, and “I, Rot”

Quail Man from Doug, anyone? It was awesome.

And yes, we are disgusting. I concur.  I’m not sure whose idea this was, or why we all went along with it.. but it is what it is lol.

Anywho.. on a recent trip to Target (honestly, is there anyone out there that doesn’t just love that store?) I picked up a few things to decorate with. I transformed our kitchen and eating area into a little Valentines scrumptiousness, and I thought I should share

Well, there’s the window cling-ons.

And the really cute placemats…

Oh and did you see the flowers on the table? My uber sweet boyfriend sent me some pink stargazer lilies– which are only my FAVORITE!! This is round 2 of the flowers… there were more in a different vase that I had to toss already, but four of the ones he sent were buds, and so they are now blooming. It’s like the gift that just keeps on giving!

Oh– by the way, this next shot is SOOC (straight out of the camera…no editing whatsoever). It’s a tad overexposed, but I thought it was pretty and had sort of an ethereal quality about it… so I didn’t even touch it!

Oh, and this next one is SOOC too!

I found this heart shaped teacup and saucer that must belong to my roommate. I washed it out before the picture, and it left these sweet heart shaped rings on the counter… how fun is that! This pic is processed two different ways… the second one using the Boutwell’s In-Faux-Red action.

And then there’s the tea towels. I just love these lil darlins!

Yes you need to see that cupcake-y goodness up close.

Oh– and this pic is from a couple of months ago… but it’s about chocolate, which definitely means it goes with Valentines Day

Do you know what this is, people? You should all be very, very jealous right now… because this is a box of chocolates from my boyfriend’s family’s store. They have been making homemade chocolate and ice cream and all kinds of other yumminess for 100 years. Too bad there’s no more chocolate left in this box…

I’m thinking of getting my craftyness on this Valentines and making a few things in the most recent issue of Martha Stewart Living. One of those is these adorable antique Valentines. Back in the day they would make these “purses” that you wrote poetry along the edges to be read as it was unfolded. What a quaint, romantic idea, huh?!

And my last little fun surprise for you… Did you notice that pot on my stove? Well, I really was cooking. I made a batch of Aunt Jana’s Chicken Tortilla Soup.  It is a favorite in our family, and we make it every Christmas Eve. I love it so much though that I’ve probably made it 5 or 6 times this fall/winter. Since it’s so chilly out there, how about you stay in and make you a nice pot of soup??

Aunt Jana’s Chicken Tortilla Soup

• 6 T. vegetable oil
• 8 corn tortillas, chopped
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 c. chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 med. onion, chopped
• 1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes
• 2 T. ground cumin
• 1 T. chili powder
• 3 bay leaves
• 6 c. chicken stock
• 1 t. salt
• 1/2 t. cayenne pepper
• 4-6 cooked chicken breast halves, cubed

Garnishes: Shredded Monterey Jack cheese, Avocado (pitted peeled and cubed), Sour Cream, 2 corn tortillas, sliced and fried crisp

Directions: Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Add tortillas, garlic, cilantro and onion. Sautee 2-3 mins. Stir in tomatoes. Bring to a boil and add cumin, chili powder, bay leaves, and chicken stock. Return to a boil. Reduce heat. Add salt and cayenne. Simmer 30 mins. Remove bay leaves and stir in chicken. Reheat. Garnish with Mont Jack, avocado, sour cream and tortilla strips.

Let me know if you give the recipe a try! Or heck– just leave me a comment to say hey! I’d love to know if you’re reading!!!