you think YOU have a problem...

Last night my mother sent me a text message saying "DO NOT go into Michael's or Jo-Ann Fabrics or you will be Christmas crafting until Easter". Too late. But I had a COUPON!!!

24 pack of Glitter. I have peridot and anthracite glitter!!!

I had to get some felt for making flowers for one of the THREE wreaths I'm making (inspiration by Knock Knocking, tutorial courtesy of Felt So Cute), and promised Jack we'd make a gingerbread house. Oh and the coupon. It was for 50% off anything from Martha Stewart. A few weeks ago Sadie and I were in Michael's ogling the glitter. We were looking at these tiny little colored glass beads in glass bottles. We didn't know what we'd use them for, but we agreed they were beautiful. We spotted a $30 box of glitter. It had 24 pretty little vials and names like verdelite and feldspar. We laughed at what kind of fool would spend $30 on a box of glitter. We did NOT laugh at what kind of fool reasonable person would spend $15 on it though.

microbeads

Did I mention the flocking powder in every color? I was strong and was able to resist, but I don't know for how long. Thin of all the things I could flock! 

I could make baby chicks!

or baby blue bunnies!

Ok, last but not least the Gingerbread house. Once we had come to an agreement that Mommy would do all the icing and piping and Jack would do all the cookie placement we were good. Before reaching detente there was a 3 year old pogo stick next to me shouting "Let me do it! Let me do it!" and "I'm going to make the whole thing all by myself!" Never mind that the directions for putting together the walls require holding it carefully in place for 2-3 minutes after quickly piping icing that is roughly the consistency of toothpaste and has the hold of a vice, onto just the bottom and right sides. It then requires the whole thing to set for an hour. Matame! I think he did a great job. Maybe next year I'll get amnesia and do it again...

J is for Jack

oh, so Barack Obama DID make it. I see. I stand corrected.

I went to Michael's in the Burbank today. I ate an In&Out burger in my car, in the parking lot. Which pretty much made me the biggest loser in the world. Call off the search, we've found the worlds lamest person. I was in between auditions, and had to eat, and I had to start my search for the elements to make up my awesome Anthropologie rip off tree topper.

Ok, so after spending AN HOUR in there, with Oprah's entire studio audience, I think I know why the tree topper costs nearly $400. I also saw what I would look like if I didn't stop eating In&Out burgers in my car. The tree topper consists of no less than 42,000 different things that cost $7.99 a stem, plus some kind of unidentifiable silver thread or floss or wire, that doesn't exist. They made it up. I had a thought that maybe I should order the stupid thing and take pictures of it, and then return it to the store. But that thought made me feel like I was on the slippery slope to becoming Sarah Palin or Joseph Goebbels or something. Not cool dudes, not cool.

Ok, so here are the contents of my basket. Please note the ten tons of leftover Halloween candy in the background. We only had 4 trick or treaters this year, which was thoroughly depressing. At least this year they were kids. Last year we had several groups of teenage cholas and their babies. The babies were all inevitably dressed as lil' devils and their child mothers were all dressed as sexy something or other. Sexy nurse, sexy fireman, sexy teenage mother. I'm getting old. I'm too ashamed to say how much it all cost. My plan is to use what I need and return the rest. I had a hard time narrowing down what I'd need in the store. Plus I was afraid one of those ladies was going to ask me what I was making if I hovered in any one spot too long, and I would have had to say "Something beautiful and expensive and nothing like the monstrosity you are here to construct!!! I'm different from you!!!!!!"

The dining room table is covered in glitter and faux teeny tiny ice cubes, and Nipper Knapp is pacing back and forth trying to remember the plot to arsenic and old lace, and his chances of acquittal.