First, Christmas. It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work. In my previous post you can see our $2 Christmas tree. We never did take a photo in front of it together, but we did roll it up to save for next year. We're thinking it's gonna work out as a fun tradition. That is, if we manage to have enough construction paper because, geez that used a lot of it.
Of course, what do you expect when you make it over 4 feet tall?
Christmas was a wonderful time to be thrifty, and I am excited about two present ideas this year. One, was not fully my idea. I was looking on Google to try and find a fun present to give that didn't cost a lot of money and I found a suggestion to give a 'movie night.' The person who suggested it said to put a blanket, some popcorn and candy, and a movie into a pretty basket (and any other things you might associate with a movie night). And I thought that was a super idea, so I went for it! A few family members received our thrifty gifts and they were well received. We picked movies from the Walmart bins (and had a GREAT time digging and picking them out), and I used fabric paint to decorate a fleece blanket. Then we split up a few boxes of popcorn, and BAM! Awesome non-expensive family-friendly present. It made me happy.
It wasn't until Christmas day that we had to come up with our second idea. It seems we were part of a cousin-exchange and my husband forgot. Whoops. With guilty hearts we used the new gift we recieved (Pyrex mixing bowls with lids! So very useful), and tried to find a gift to give.
Thus, when the stores were open again we were back at Walmart. And I had an Idea! (Yes, capital I. Idea!) I swear there was a lightbulb above my head that clicked on with a *Bing* and began shining away. The gift had to be shipped, and as I learned with the first presents (whose shipping was incredibly close to the actual gift cost) it needed to be light weight. We bought two throw pillows and another fleece blanket and took them home to personalize.
I crocheted a few coordinated colored flowers, sewed them on, and BAM! Custom made throw pillows and blanket. Shipping cost? Too much as always, but better than the cost of shipping a blender. And, the thought behind it made it shine that much better. Especially since it's going to show up two weeks late.
Here are photos!
David's job was to make the card, and this is the adorable one he made.
Less than a week later we had another plan. This time we were headed to Raleigh (a good 2.5 to 3 hour drive) to see the new movie Avatar at an IMAX theater. I'll admit, I thought David was over the top to come up with this idea. I mean, why not just watch it in a normal theater like normal people? But nope. Such is this man. The movie wasnt until 10pm and we arrived (two friends in tow) at about 5 pm. With time to kill we decided to eat out (Cheesecake Factory!) and then explore the local mall. Which was absolutely beautiful and had all of my favorite stores ( I miss you Victoria's Secret), including....
THE LEGO STORE!
That's right folks, an entire store of LEGOS! They had sets of PEOPLE, they had a whole wall of PIECES separated by type and color (my organizationally anal dream!!) and they had a cake mold. It was silicon and red and in the shape of a lego man. David's friend went to buy something at the front of the store for a family member and came back with the mold for us as well!
Now, if you knew my man and his family you would know that they can't do anything the easy way. David decided that not only must we make his friend a lego cake (which I am very much pro doing as a thank you), but he decided that all the parts must be the right color. Thus the trial and error ensued. There was icing everywhere. Bowls with blue, red, and yellow cake all over the place. And tape. Because it became my job to figure out how to block the colors from running all over.
Our first attempt?
Looked like this:
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Notice the smiling face. And the awesome color separation!
Of course, there ended up being a catch.
As David proceeded to tell me, "Jess, we can't ice this"
"Why not?" I asked.
"You'll lose all the details! You wont see the face or anything."
Thus, dear reader, notice the little white dots along Lego man's feet? That's icing. Which was pushed into the cake using a giant needle syringe that we found in the cooking section at our favorite store. Well, it's basically our only store.... stupid empty little town. But that's neither here nor there.
Now, the best part of this Lego cake was eating it! AND we even had left over batter. Which I put together to make us a rainbow cake. It was beautiful.
Wanna see?
Unfortunately it wasn't exactly even. Lol. I blame the cake, and not my pouring skills.
Anyway, more soon. I have a lot of crochet projects to show off and link to! Hooray!
Until next time....
