Wow.

It’s officially been a full year since I wrote my first post on craft lovely, and it’s been quite an experience to say the least.  I started a blog for many reasons, but the main reason being that I have a creative outlet (at a time when I wasn’t feeling so creative) that I had a commitment to.  I hardly knew if anyone was reading, but the fact that I made it part of my everyday life, Mondays through Fridays, to always post was something that I’m glad that I’ve kept.  There are days when my mind is flooded with ideas of posts, photographs, recipes, designs; and then there are days when I’m doggone tired and realize, “Shoot, I haven’t done my blog post yet.  What on earth am I going to blog about today?“  Not counting the time away I took from the holiday season, I believe I only missed 2 of my five weekly posts over the whole year.  It’s this commitment that I have to myself and to you loyal readers, that I’m most proud of… it’s taught me that whether or not you’re feeling creative, or even feeling in the mood to post, you stick to it.

It’s been extremely fulfilling to write on craft lovely, and I appreciate each and every one of you.  Thank you for your readership, your support (there’s been so much!), your comments and feedback, and most of all your friendship on this little corner of the web.  Here’s to starting off another wonderful year!

~ Colleen

{images in mosaic are from my Flickr}

Sunday was perfect: family, good food, lots of tea, a hot fireplace, and plenty of relaxing and gabbing.  The birthday tea party I hosted for my Mom went well, with the exception of some very missed and loved family members (who were all sick… and I hope are all on the mend!).  I did a little bit of decorating for the party, including making 2 paper garlands for the fireplace mantel (after being so inspired by this garland by Lobster and Swan).  Surprisingly, preparing for the party went well and there was no rushing or stressing at all (hopefully my new outlook on parties and holidays is paying off).  The soup was delicious, the sandwiches perfect, and the desserts and scones absolutely scrumptious.  I think everyone enjoyed themselves and got to relax and catch up with each other.  I’m now thinking tea parties should happen at least once a month… or even once a week, for that matter.

{for more of my perfect parties photos, check out my Flickr}

To celebrate my Mom’s recent birthday, I thought it would be nice to have a small get together with the immediate female family members and have a tea party this weekend.  Take out the fine china, make some finger sandwiches and soup, and of course have scones and desserts.  I’ve tried so many scone recipes and this one is by far, the best.

Here’s my best advice to any scone recipe… do not overmix the dough when you mix the dry and wet ingredients (or they’ll be absolutely ruined) and use your hands.  I cannot stress this enough.  It seems a little odd, but trust me in that it makes all the difference.  After so many of my attempts at scones came out horrible, I started watching videos of older women from various parts of the UK making scones and the one thing I noticed was how they mixed the wet and dry ingredients: with their hands.  This proves two points: sometimes hands are better than spatulas, and sometimes you can’t just read a recipe to really understand it.

Thank god for youtube… where else can you learn how to properly make a scone from a 65 year old woman from England at 10:30 pm in Massachusetts?

{image belongs to House of Annie}

It’s Valentine’s Day weekend and although I don’t really celebrate it that much anymore, it still appeals to me.  My husband and I have been married for three years but have been together for nine, so at this point it’s really just about picking up a card for one another.  However, if I could order the perfect Valentine’s Day this is what would be on my list:

• sleeping in late with my hubby
• making breakfast together, perhaps crêpes and fresh fruit
• visiting a museum, perhaps this one that I haven’t been to in quite a while
• going out to an Indian restaurant for a late lunch/early dinner
• coming back home and having a fire in the fireplace, snuggling in our pj’s on the couch, and watching a period film (I did say they were my perfect Valentine’s Day ideas, not my husband’s!  I wouldn’t spend it watching District 9, mind you.)

What are your Valentine’s Day plans?  Whatever they are, I hope you have the sweetest of weekends!
- Colleen

This weekend should be filled with lots of cleaning, designing, planning, and of course seeing close friends and family.  I hope it also involves a warm fireplace (it is freezing here today), staying in my pj’s, and some good hot cocoa.  To start off my day of designing, I perused my Flickr Favorites (something I should do more often).  It’s interesting to see the images as a whole, and this page is my favorite combination of other talented people’s photos:

What do you plan on doing this weekend?
- Colleen

Not sure if it’s the season for crows, but I’ve been seeing a lot of them lately.  One very early morning after dropping my husband off at work at 6:00 am, I was driving home and upon stopping at a red light I heard a very loud noise over my car heater and radio.  I shut off all the interior noise and rolled down my window, looked up at a tree in front of me and realized it was a huge flock of crows.  The tree was completely full, there must have been close to 200 of them.  The noise was literally deafening.  I sat there with my eyes and mouth wide open, wishing someone else could be in the car with me to experience this strange situation.  The image was so surreal with the sky still completely dark and the black silhouettes of the tree and crows against it.  This sound clip is similar, but honestly would have to be reproduced about 3-5 times to match the loudness of those crows.  I have also yet to find a photo that can match how many crows were in that tree.

Then, twice this past weekend we had flocks of crows in the backyard, sitting in the trees and again “cawwing” and squawking and making all sorts of noise.  I’m beginning to wonder why I keep seeing large groups of them, which by the way is called a “murder of crows.”  It’s making me slighty nervous.  I wonder if seeing large amounts of crows is an ominous sign for something…

{image shown belongs to MissusK}

Some images from my walk through our Audubon Sanctuary with my husband over the weekend.  Even in the middle of winter, there is still so much to see.

{for more of my snow images, check out my Flickr}

As much as I love all the sweet and rich foods of the holidays, every year by the time New Years rolls around I am sick of it all.  Cookies, cakes, candy, sweet breads, chocolates… even a “sweet” person like me hits a wall.  Before the new year begins I really start to feel lethargic and very unhealthy, and that’s when I know it’s time to get my eating back on track.  With perfect timing, I received my new issue of Body + Soul in the mail today (*thank you again, Lori!) and detox smoothies were on the cover.  With delicious ingredients like mango, cucumber, apples, and peaches, I’m very excited to make many of the beverages.  Not too sure about adding in raw cabbage… but I guess I’m willing to give it a try.

Click here for all the detox smoothie recipes from Body + Soul.

{magazine cover shown belongs to Body + Soul.  for more of my at home photos, check out my Flickr}

(a wintery scene from a storm in January 2009)

As 2009 draws to a close and being a complete lover of making lists, I naturally have to write my resolutions for the coming year.  Being able to keep them… well, that’s another story.  However, I have noticed that I was able to keep many of my goals from 2009 throughout the year, so I will attempt to complete more of my goals this time around.  And perhaps by making them more public (posting them on my blog, instead of my notebook or rolling around in my head) I will be more apt to keep them.  With a mix of simple and lofty goals alike, here’s what I’d like to focus on for 2010 (in no particular order):

1.  Finally take that sewing class.
2.  Add some food to my garden (at least a few veggies and fruit).
3.  Take a week off soon with my husband to recharge my “battery”.
4.  Cook more often and plan ahead for meals.
5.  Finally get colleenellse.com up and running.  Finally start taking freelance letterpress work.
6.  Be able to pay off more debt as well as save.
7.  Go camping.  Perhaps in Acadia.
8.  Walk everyday, and break it up with jogging several times a week.
9.  Train for a 5K race.
10.  Visit my brother-in-law when he moves to Cali this year.
11.  Be more creative.  Don’t forget why you went to art school.
12.  Practice yoga again, even by myself at home.
13.  Donate more to charity than last year.
14.  Enjoy the moment.  Don’t stress out so much.
15.  Create a budget and stick to it this time.
16.  Move.
17.  Learn how to better use my camera, instead of relying on picnik to fix everything.
18.  Read more.
19.  Don’t forget to say “I love you” to my husband and family everyday.
20.  Visit Europe with my husband.

Yes, #20 is pretty lofty for me financially, but I can dream, can’t I?  If The Secret really is true, than I better think big.

I’ll be back on Monday to continue my blogging journey in 2010.  Wishing you all a restful New Years holiday!
- Colleen

Last week’s Christmas celebrations had a wide range of emotions for me.  At it’s best, I was savoring time spent with my visiting extended family (particularly two of my cousins whom I’m best friends with and rarely do we all get to be together), watching the excitement of the kids in the family opening gifts, and enjoying a delicious challah bread french toast breakfast Christmas morning.  The worst: worrying over buying and finishing gifts last minute on Christmas Eve (I never seem to be able to learn from last year’s stresses), totally stressing out over my nephew’s stocking which I sewed incorrectly multiple times, and never eating the cider brined turkey I was so looking forward to (and invested so much time and money into).  Yep, that’s right… no turkey.  We listened to Emeril and took the turkey out at 160°, which we learned the hard way that it was still too early (but because I was frantically trying to sew a stocking, I wasn’t paying attention to the turkey and just told my husband to take it out).  My Mom assured me to simply put it back in the oven at my mother-in-law’s house, but after it had been out of the oven for about 1.5 hours, it took forever to heat back up again and never reached 180°.  I also forgot to bring more stock to baste with and the turkey began to dry out.  At 8:30 pm when it was time for dessert, my husband and I gave up.  I figured at least this weekend I could make turkey soup with it, keeping it out on the freezing cold porch, but thanks to Mother Nature it reached 50-55° on Sunday and it was not cold enough anymore to be safe to eat.

Going into 2010, I’m once again reminded that I am not perfect.  Although I am quite the control freak as well as a perfectionist, I am human and we all make mistakes.  Nothing can ever go as smoothly as we’d like, especially during the holidays.  I’m an a true romantic with visions of Christmas being as beautiful as a holiday card: snow slowly falling and I’m sitting by a cozy fire, carefully and quietly stitching up a handmade gift while Bing Crobsy plays in the background as I soak up the warmth of the holiday spirit.  This has never been the case, I don’t know why I continually think it will be.  I need to remember that many of my projects have a certain amount of stress and frustration involved as I try to figure out (usually last minute) how to complete them.  Life isn’t like Little Women where everyone sits by a fire, singing carols and giving simple gifts (with not a bit of today’s overcommercialized, guilt ridden “did I buy a gift for _____, because I can’t be caught without something for everyone”, holiday in sight).  I had an inkling that it might not be the best idea to try a new recipe (a turkey, at that) on Christmas Eve, but figured I would have the whole day to cook away in the kitchen.  I am a stubborn New England Yankee, liking to do things myself and trying to “do it all”, regardless of how much free time I have, and always wanting to make things from scratch (because obviously, homemade is superior to anything else – yes, I’m being sarcastic).  What I’m realizing is that as often as my husband says it to me (and I usually tune him out only to be cursing out loud and begging for his help once I’m up to my knees) is that I spread myself too thin sometimes, and I’m hoping this is something I can remember and learn from as the New Year approaches.

Even though my turkey clearly won the battle, I ripped out more seams and restitched things more than I could count, and cursed the holidays while frantically cleaning and getting ready while already being late, there were successes.  I managed to bake four types of Christmas cookies (which I received many compliments about, which helped to fix my bruised kitchen ego), finally and successfully finished my nephew’s stocking in the knick of time, and made a heartfelt, handmade gift with my nephew for him to give to his parents, who loved it more than any of their other gifts.  My attempts at enjoying the simplicity of the holidays didn’t necessarily work this year, but there is always the next time.  And with the happy holiday memories I do have, along with the ones I’d rather forget, I will move forward into 2010 and remember to enjoy it to the fullest …while not burning myself out.

{for more of my baking photos, check out my Flickr}