Let's Sparkle this New Year!

The holiday's are about family, friends, great food and of course tradition!
For us, New Year's would not be complete without fondu and watching the Times Square ball drop!

This year, we are ready to watch the ball drop with these Times Square ball stirrers!

All it took was small styrofoam balls, glue, big glitter, "Happy New Year" confetti, skewers...and drinks!

Many drinks! 

The best part about making these was when our 4 year old nephew told Uncle Andrew, that he had sparkles on his balls!

5, 4, 3...open sesame.
Happy New Year!!!! 

Kevin!!!!!

Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!
This Home Alone candle came out even better than we we're hoping!

We had an idea to make candles with all our favorite Christmas movies, but the holidays got the best of us and we never got around to doing any others.

Maybe next year!

We went to Staples and printed an image of the movie poster on transparency paper.

Then we trimmed the image to fit around the candle and taped it with double sided tape.

Check out our "Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal" sign!

Keep the change, ya filthy animal!

Our first on screen appearance!

We had such an amazing time hanging out with our friends, Dustin and David at The Vegan Roadie!

It was our first on camera appearance and we had a blast!

Check out the video and enjoy this little Christmas episode!

We are not vegan at all but the food was so good!

Don't forget to visit The Vegan Roadie!

Wrap it up!

Brown paper packages tied up with string...and anything else we could find!

We're going classic "Sound of Music" wrapping this year!

Stamping, crafting with clothespins, washi tape, yarn and twine!

We made our snowflake circles using a pencil eraser.

Reindeer games!

Merry Christmas, Ya Filthy Animal!

The Home Alone movies are some of our favorite Christmas movies!
We knew we had to get it into our holiday decor somehow.

Using form core, a craft knife, a glue stick, spray adhesive, gold paint and glitter we created this graphic wall art for our entry way!

We didn't trust our handwriting, so we printed out the quote nice and big.  
We used a tiling ap to help split the quote across multiple sheets of paper, making it the perfect size for our wall. 
We pieced the quote together and with a glue stick, lightly glued it on a large piece of foam board.
Once it was set, we used a knife to cut out the words....this took forever...and ever...and maybe ever...actually, I think we are still cutting it out. 

Once it was all cut, we pained the letters gold and sprayed them with adhesive, then covered them with glitter!  
We're thinking about sealing them somehow, so all the glitter doesn't fall off, but for now its raining glitter, Hallelujah! 

To hang it we used 3M Command Strips. 

And a Happy New Year.

You're a good box, Charlie Brown.

We don't know about you, but we love seeing Charlie Brown everywhere and the USPS is killing it this year with their adorable Peanuts shipping boxes!
"Lights, please."

Let's be honest, we didn't buy the box to ship anything...we bought it to add to our Christmas decor, darling...just what we need...more stuff. Good Grief.

We turned it into a light box by poking a strand of Christmas lights through random stars...kinda like a Lite Brite!

It's soooo cute! 
The pictures don't do it justice.

Of all the boxes in the world, you're the Charlie Browniest.

Cuban-o Eggnog-o!

Créme de Vie - Cuban Egg Nog!

(To the tune of "fa la la la la la la la"

Rum rum rum rum rum rum rum rum rum!)

This is a Cuban Christmas staple!  And reminds Andrew of Christmas' past. 

It's a super sweet strong eggnog that is usually sipped...just like Cuban coffee!

Here's what you need!

8 egg yolks

1 can evaporated milk

1 can sweetened condensed milk

2 cups sugar

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup Bacardi white rum (or more, but it will thin it out)

Here are some loose instructions! It's pretty fool-proof!

In a small pan, make a simple syrup by mixing sugar and water together over low heat. Cool till room temperature.

In a blender, mix egg yolks, evaporated milk, condensed milk, simple sugar and rum.

Once all blended, bottle and refrigerate! It makes about 5 cups.

The longer it sits...the smoother it gets.

We double the recipe when we make it because it goes fast!

Feliz Navidad! Salud!!!

Mini Christmas Magnets!

We'll have a kitschy Christmas...in our kitchen!

Reindeer really know how to fly!

Such an easy way to bring some holiday cuteness into the kitchen!
We're going magnet crazy!

A perfect accessory to any fridge!

Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!!!!

Turkey Book Worm!

We've seen this idea for Halloween but thought it would be a cute easy idea for Thanksgiving!
We found an old book we were willing to cut up and got to work!

First, we opened to the center of the book, then traced a turkey silhouette on the page.
We backed the page with a cutting mat and cut out the turkey using a craft blade.

Be careful not to cut off the bottom so you can fold up your turkey!

Gobble, gobble, gobble!

Sriracha. Maple. Bacon. Cheese. Ball.

This is not a drill!
Sriracha Maple Bacon Cheeseball!
An addicting appetizer, perfect for any holiday...or everyday.

We we're inspired by our local bagel shop in Astoria that has honey bacon Sriracha cream cheese!  It's sooooo good!

Ingredients
2 packages of 8 oz softened cream cheese
1 1/2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese
6-8 slices of bacon, cooked, crumbled and divided
1/2 cup green onions, chopped
1 teaspoon salt 
5 tbs Sriracha (to taste)*
3 tbs of maple syrup (to taste)*
1 tbs Worcestershire sauce (to taste)* 
1/3 cup of crushed pecans
2 tbs dried chives 

*The more liquid ingredients you use, the harder it will be to form a ball...but if you want more Sriracha, why not turn it into a dip?

• In a small bowl combine Sriracha, maple syrup and Worcestershire sauce.

• In a medium size bowl, stir together cream cheese, shredded cheddar, 2/3 of bacon, green onions and salt until evenly mixed. 

• Combine both bowls and mixed well...go on try it, we know you want to!

• Once evenly blended, scoop mixture onto plastic wrap.  Use the wrap to form a ball and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

• Once chilled, place crushed pecans, dried chives and left over crumbled bacon on a plate and roll your cheese ball until fully covered.

• Place back in the refrigerator until serving.

• Devour!

Make one gigantic ball or split it in two!
They will also freeze well.
Love this remake of a classic retro appetizer.
We can't stop eating it!

Chalk board leaves!

A couple of years ago we made a ton of paper leaves. 
After cutting out so many leaves out there was an abundance of leaf stencils.
Then this happened...

Inside each stencil we used different colored chalk, then smudged the colors together with our fingers!

Mmmm...breath in that autumn air!

We love sweater weather! 

Here are some more leafy ideas!
-Paper leaves on parade!
-Turkey leaf!

Hello, November!

Halloween is over and there's a chill in the air, but it's not yet time for Christmas flair.

We're setting up for Thanksgiving with these easy DIY paper candle wraps.

We picked out appropriate late fall construction paper and drew on a quick plaid pattern with our Sharpie.

We love gray and gold for this time of year.

We can't wait to use these on our Thanksgiving table!

Can you please pass the gravy?

Creepy Crawlers!

Eek! A bug! 
Spook up the fridge and bulletin board with these easy magnets and pushpins!

Halloween dollar store finds...

With a little bit of love and hot glue!

Those roaches are disgusting.

There's only one problem...it's hard to tell the fake roaches from the real ones! 
Ba-Dum-CHING!

Vintage Halloween doorway decor.

We'll take vintage Halloween over gory Halloween any day!
We have lots of vintage cutouts that we never know what to do with.

Inexpensive ribbon with washi clothes pins it is! 

Enter...if you dare...to have fun!