Office Christmas Party

So tomorrow, my department is having a Holiday Sweater Party (aka wear your most over-the-top holiday sweater) and white elephant gift exchange. We're also supposed to bring goodies to graze on all day, and I figured this was a good opportunity to try out a new recipe. I've been wanting to make a rum cake for quite some time, and I already had a bottle of rum extract that I bought for a different recipe a couple weeks ago. Conveniently enough, the side of the box featured a recipe for -- what else? -- a rum cake! So here's the recipe, along with some baking tidbits from my own experience sprinkled in.

Easy Rum Cake
1 pkg. (18 1/4 oz.) yellow cake mix
1 pkg. (3 1/2 oz.) instant vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
1 cup water
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
2 tbsp. imitation rum extract
1 cup chopped pecans
Butter Rum Glaze (recipe follows)

Beat all ingredients, except pecans and glaze, in large bowl with mixer on low just to moisten. Beat on medium 4 minutes.

Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Sprinkle nuts in bottom of pan.

Pour batter into pan.

 

Bake in 325-degree oven 1 hour or until cake begins to pull away from sides of pan. Cool in pan 15 minutes. (1 hour was just about right; the cake was light and fluffy and a nice golden color.)

Meanwhile, prepare glaze (see recipe below). Invert cake onto serving plate. (Before I inverted it, I also brushed some glaze on what would be the bottom of the cake.)

Here's a photo of the inverted cake. I was paranoid that it was going to stick to the bottom of the pan, but it came out perfectly (cue sound of choirs singing). The culinary gods are really looking out for me today.

Pierce cake with fork. Spoon warm glaze over warm cake. Cool. (It's important to pour the glaze on while it's still runny, so it will really soak into the cake.)

Butter Rum Glaze
Mix 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup butter, and 2 tbsp. water. Stirring constantly, bring to boil on medium heat and boil 1 minute. Remove from heat. Stir in 1/2 tsp. rum extract.

Baking this cake made the house smell amazing all day. If the aroma is any indication, it should be dee-lish! Normally I'd taste test it before I let other people eat it, but it looks so pretty that I don't want to slice into it yet. So I'll have to let you know how it turned out tomorrow. Here's the finished product in all its rummy, yummy glory.

By the way, I felt that there wasn't enough glaze on top of the cake, so I made another 1/2 batch to drizzle over the top. Hopefully that wasn't overkill. Next time I make this cake, I'd like to try it with real rum - I just didn't have the right kind on hand.

Oh, and just in case you're wondering what I'll be wearing to the party... I'm going to pair this sparkly red turtleneck (which is not that offensive in itself) with this lovely vest -- both scored at Goodwill. It was about all they had left as far as Christmas attire; apparently, holiday sweater parties are all the rage. I still think the vest is lacking something, though, so I plan on adding some white pom-poms and red sequins (from Hob Lob, natch) for extra flair. Maybe I'll even wear my santa hat to top it all off.

Do you have any fun office parties or holiday sweater parties to attend this season?

Creative Christmas Candlescapes

I was browsing the Better Homes and Gardens site and came across a feature on holiday candle displays that caught my eye. These are just a few that I would totally copy in my house!

Hazardous? Potentially. Beautiful? Definitely!

This makes me wish we had a fireplace and mantel. I feel like I'm missing out on so much decor potential!

Reminiscent of a cool, icy, winter wonderland

Love the contrast between the pure white candles and the earthy twigs.

 Why stop with just one or two candles when you can have nine?

Perfectly festive - and a great use for a cake pedestal!

Wine glasses pull double-duty as candle holders when placed upside down on a nice serving tray.

Place votive or tealight into skinny cylinder vase. Place skinny vase into wide vase. Add fake snow and other accents to create your own candlescape!

 

So simple, but so fun!  I love mini ornaments.

Any of these light your fire? Or maybe you've already used one of these ideas -- and if so, kudos to you for your creative candlescaping skills!

The countdown to Christmas continues...

Wow, it's already been 5 days since I last blogged. Between work, Christmas shopping, an office Christmas party, and attending two college graduations, this past week has been a blur!

I've been meaning to post a few pics of our front porch holiday decor. It won't exactly win any awards, but ya gotta start somewhere! Here's a look from the sidewalk - as you can tell, it was starting to snow a bit. Just adds to the festive look, right?

Our porch is very deep, which is nice, but you can imagine how empty and lonely it looks when it's NOT decorated for the holidays. Oy. We still need to get some chairs and a little table out there! Perhaps I'll hit up craigslist next spring to see what treasures I can find. But I digress.

 

We bought this wreath for 50% off last year after Christmas, and I was so excited to pull it out and finally be able to show it off! We couldn't find a wreath hanger that would work over our front door, so we ended up buying a $2 clear suction cup hanger at Wal-Mart, and it does a dandy job. I really like our wreath! The snow-tipped needles add just enough sparkle, but not so much that it's overwhelming.

And this is why I adore our big picture window around this time of year!

Ooooh, ahhhhh!

So there you have it, folks. If you have any [economical] tips or ideas on how to dress up our porch a little more, do share! There is an outlet outside, so we could add some lighted decorations, too (but I'll probably wait to snag something on sale post-Christmas).

On another note, I managed to get some more Christmas shopping done today, so I feel a little less stressed. Only a few more gifts to go. My idea of making creative DIY gifts for everyone didn't really pan out, due to the fact that I procrastinated this month, as usual. Thank goodness for Bed Bath & Beyond and 20% off coupons, am I right??

 

Flashback: From Down 'n' Dirty to Green & Glorious

I've been so caught up in Christmas decorating and shopping (and blogging about Christmas decorating and shopping), that I forgot about enlightening you with the story of our sod installation. (I'm sure you've all been waiting on the edge of your seats.) While not as fun as talking about Christmas, I must follow through with my flashbacks. So settle in... it's another long read!
For those of you who are following along, we had just had our water well drilled (way back on May 22, 2008). Once that was completed and hooked up to the sprinkler system, we were ready to transform our barren yard into a lush lawn. After mulling over our options, the instant gratification factor of sod outweighed the lower cost of seed. Living on a dirt lot was getting old quickly. Just to remind you, this is what our house looked like right after we moved in.

But first (isn't there always a But first?)... we had to essentially re-grade the ground to make sure we had the best surface possible to lay the sod. This involved four main tasks:
1) Renting a tiller to tear up the hardened soil so the sod could take root easier
2) Using a drag harrow to loosen and even out the soil
3) Hauling in more dirt to fill low areas and make sure the grade sloped away from our house
4) Grooming the dirt for a smooth surface. This involved dragging a wire fence of sorts behind my brother-in-law's lawn tractor. It also involved me and my father-in-law holding onto each other's arms for stability as we stood top of the fence to weigh it down while we circled the yard. I'm sure the people driving by were very entertained by our DIY methods (and no, I don't have a picture of that part).

This is what 4 tons of dirt looks like. Not that much, really. Until you have to shovel it all.

 

The prepped dirt. Listen closely... can't you just hear it crying out for sod?

Finally, after all of the prep work, it was time to have our sod delivered from the sod farm. We scheduled the date only to have to re-schedule it again after a heavy rainstorm the night before--turns out they can't cut the sod if it's too wet. So we could do nothing but schedule it again and hope for dry weather (which is usually what we get around here). But alas, another thunderstorm rolled through, delaying our plans once more. I felt like everything was working against us, and I was afraid all our hard work was washing away right before our eyes.


The third time around, it all worked out. On June 21, 2008 -- nearly three months after we moved into our house -- the grass was finally on its way (cue dramatic music). By the way, if you've ever wondered what 780 rolls of sod looks like, wonder no more:

As you can see, we enlisted some help for this project. Along with his parents, Luke was able to wrangle some of the players from the 8th grade basketball team he coached. They got to build some much-needed muscle, and it only cost us a pizza party. Win/win.


Getting started was pretty intimidating. We had to work fast, so the sod wouldn't dry out. But after developing an assembly line of sorts and getting into a rhythm, it went quicker than I thought. The boys carried over the rolls of sod (which were deceptively heavy), and we butted them up next to each other to make sure there were no gaps. 

A few hours later, everyone was sore and dripping with sweat, but our lawn was now a lush, green carpet. I had never seen anything so beautiful. Weeks worth of intense, dirty labor had culminated to this moment. And to make it even more satisfying, we used every last roll of sod and didn't need any extra. Props to Hubby's mad estimation skillz.

Immediately after the sod was installed, we had to soak it with water like crazy, to the point of being squishy to walk on. This is where having a well came in handy; otherwise our water bill would have skyrocketed. We also fertilized it with New Lawn Starter, and implemented a regular, heavy watering schedule for the next few weeks. I had irrational fears that all our sod would just start browning and dying, but we must have done something right because it's still green!

And so ends our sod saga (was that a sigh of relief I just heard?). After this, we took a big break from any lawn projects, even though we still had no landscaping to speak of. But after paying for a sprinkler system, a well, and sod, the ol' pocketbook needed a breather, too. (Even though we saved a lot of money by installing almost everything ourselves.)
I'll have more to share later on, as we've finally gotten around to some landscaping this year. But for now, it's making me tired just re-living this part. If you've made it to the end of this post, thanks for sticking with it!

That's a Wrap

Hi. My name is Amanda, and I'm addicted to wrapping gifts.

Ok, I feel better now.

I just finished wrapping my first few Christmas gifts and I am very excited about it! I like wrapping other people's gifts almost more than I like opening my own. There's something about the idea of transforming a plain box into a thing of beauty. The paper, the ribbon... It's like a work of art. I've even been guilty of wrapping empty boxes just to put under the tree.

Anyway, here's a look. I used some iridescent craft ribbon I already had on hand to tie a couple of pretty bows. Simple enough. But then I glammed them up by adding a dangly "charm" in the form of a mini, mega-sparkly star ornament from Crate & Barrel. I think I may wince in silent pain just a little when it comes time for the recipients to tear their gift open.

I can't help but give a little sigh of satisfaction every time I look under the tree. These little packages are so purty, I thought they each deserved their own glamour shot. (Sorry the pics are a little washed out... my camera sucks.)

I love how the ornaments add a little extra embellishment, but also double as another mini-gift. And if it's sparkly, that's even better in my book. There are so many cute ornaments out there, it's such an easy (and inexpensive) way to add some personality to each present. I also really like these colorful light bulbs from Crate & Barrel (just under $1 each!), which would make perfect gift charms, too.

And just for fun, here's another picture of the presents... with our cat Phoebe peeking out from behind them. One of her favorite places to lounge during the holidays is under the tree, especially when there are presents to hide behind! I'm sure this will be the first of many Phoebe-sightings on my blog. 

Wrapping gifts: do you love it or hate it? How do you accessorize them? And most importantly, am I a total dork for being more excited about what's on the outside than on the inside?

Blog decor!

So, I wasn't crazy about my old blog background (or any of the other Blogger templates, for that matter). And being a newbie to this whole blogging thing, I didn't really know how to go about changing it. After some Googling though, I found that it's a lot easier than I thought it would be to add a new background! (I'm sure most of you knew that already, but let me have my moment.) So thanks to ShabbyBlogs.com, I now have this fabulous Christmas tree to brighten up my blog for the next few weeks. The red and gold theme even matches the decor in our house! B-E-A-utiful.

Goals for this weekend: Decorating the front porch, which should be a pretty easy project. And we also need to get started on Christmas shopping.  Eek!  I'm trying to come up with DIY (read: economical) gifts for everyone, but I'm having a brain blockage. How about you? Have you crossed off everything on your list, or will you find yourself wrapping presents on December 23, wondering what happened to the past three weeks?

Deck the Halls... or the corner

When we initially looked at this house, one of my first thoughts was that if nothing else, the front entryway with its large picture window would be the perfect place for a Christmas tree (even though Christmas was still 10 months away at the time). Here's what it looked like as of last week. [Side note: Because of the light fixture that was already there when we moved in, we believe this space is technically supposed to be the "formal" dining room, although it's much too small for that purpose. I have many issues with this area and it's functionality (or lack thereof), but that's a post for another day.]  

Anyway, here's what it looked like as of last week.

Over the past couple of days, I've tried to fight the urge to put up all the Christmas decorations at once, and spread it out a little instead. Some sort of exercise in patience, I suppose. We don't have enough to transform our entire house; we mostly have a "Christmas corner." But I plan on taking advantage of some post-holiday sales to work on that! I still have a few things I may set out here and there, but this is what it looks like now:

I think it has such a warm and inviting glow, don't you? Oh, and our tree is fake and pre-lit. And I love it. It's pretty realistic as far as fake trees go, and it's even got some pine cone accents to boot. Our ornaments don't really follow an overall theme; we've got red and gold, plus a few random ones that have some sentimental value. One of my favorites is part of a set of three (Peace, Noel, and Joy). So pretty!

 

And here's our sideboard, which is decorated somewhat simply. We had to scootch it over to make room for the tree, and I thought it would bother me not having the West Elm sunburst mirror centered anymore, but I think it works. I'm digging the tinsel trees that I made earlier this week! Mah-velous. And yes, I was having too much fun taking all these pictures.

 

Today, I took advantage of another 50% off sale at Hobby Lobby (one of my favorite--albeit dangerous--places to waste time over lunch break) and picked up some fake snow and mini ornaments for a grand total of $3.70. I put these in a cylinder vase, and voila! Simple yet stunning! I only wish I had a bigger vase.

 

I loves me some faux snow.

Oh, and here's the other tabletop tree I made, which I put on an end table to add a little sparkle to our living room. As you can see, red and gold are the dominant colors in our Christmas decor. I'm not sure we could pull off pink or some of those other contemporary holiday colors in our house. How about you? Traditional or trendy?

And finally, the kitchen table. Again, very understated... some gold pine cones in a glass bowl that belonged to Luke's grandma, because it's nice to incorporate pieces that have some meaning behind them. I may need to embellish this a bit more when we pull our table out to its full size though.
 

So, you'll notice that I didn't post any pictures of stockings. We do have a couple; we just don't have a good place for them--or any stocking holders to hang them on, for that matter. I've seen some really cute holders, but they are so expensive! Aside from waiting until after Christmas to find some on sale, anyone have any other ideas? 3M Command Hooks, perhaps?

I've also been itching to try and make the Eddie Ross ornament wreath that everyone's raving about, especially after seeing some really amazing versions around blogland! If I don't get around to it this season, that will be on my to-do list for next year. There are just so many great ideas out there!


We're also going to dress up our sad, empty front porch with some holiday cheer, so I'll post pictures once that's done, too. Until then, happy decorating!