Thanksgiving Dinner Prep

We are hosting Thanksgiving dinner for a few family members this year.  I love decorating and cooking for Thanksgiving.  The colors we decorate all year round in our house are very similar to fall colors.  I actually find the food we serve for Thanksgiving to be the easiest to cook of all the holidays.  Year after year I go back to Martha Stewart's cheese cloth and wine technique for the turkey.  The side dishes get a little tricky towards the end with the timing, but it all seems to work out just fine!  It's a small group this year, just 7 of us.  I find it doesn't seem to matter if it's 5, 7 or 12 - it's the same about of work....maybe just one or two additional side dishes.


Here is a picture of the dinner place cards I have made.  I use this basic design often and just change up the colors based on the holiday.  This year I decided to make menu cards as well.  I'll place them in the dining room where we eat, on the server and also in the kitchen on our large island for the guests to get a glimpse of what will be served.

The company I work for is closed Thursday and Friday.  I have decided to add to my time off and took Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving!  I'm spending the three days cleaning our house and prepping for Thursday.  Just finished ironing the table cloth!!!!  I scheduled a few annual doctor appointments in there (eye doctor, cats vet appointment) as well.  I figure it's a good time since I'm off work anyway.  I also can not clean for a solid three days, I'll simply lose steam.  For good measure I scheduled a massage appointment for tomorrow morning.  A little treat for myself prior to the feast!

If you live in the US, I wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Christmas Gift Tags & Tin

Today I bring to you, yet again, another altered Tazo Tea tin...surprise!!!  Obsessed?  Maybe... well ok, yes!

This time I'm using them to hold a collection of Christmas gift tags I have created.  I used my Cricut  Very Merry Tags cartridge for the base tag and the reindeer shapes as well as Papertrey Inks 2008 Holiday Tags Collection for the stamping.  On the back of each tag I have stamped 'to' and 'from'.

I covered the tin as usual using holiday patterned paper.  On the top of the tin I used stamps from PTI; Fresh Alphabet to spell out 'tags' and an image from their 2009 anniversary set which coordinates with the Mat Stack 1 die.

I've given this little gift to family members for the upcoming holiday so they will be sure to have enough tags while they are wrapping their gifts.  This tin is actually my own stash.  I like that I can just pull out my tin filled with tags and they are read to go!