speaking of chocolate—
I was the lucky recipient of Blair's chocolates recently and for research purposes, had to eat a lot of it. My findings are as follows: It's crazy good. I like the Ramen Noodle the best, but really they are all so very tasty. Perfect for stocking stuffers (I get a little sick of the

on the merits of glaze—
I made this cake for our new house this weekend. We have been in our house for one year now (it's not a new house, being born in 1968, but it's new to us) and we thanked our house for a good first year. We also shared what we liked best about our house, which was the bunk beds, so said the children. This is funny because we had the bunk beds in the old house too, but you know how it goes. Pete likes the yard (as do I) but my favorite feature is a bathroom off of our bedr

toy theater out of a moving box
I had two fixations in my head this last month—making a toy theater and making stuff out of old moving boxes from the garage. I made a crown and sword for Halloween out of these boxes and found it so thrilling (just using masking tape and a utility knife) that I immediately starting thinking bigger. I have made small theaters before (and there is a pattern for a cloth one in my first book

oh, I love pens.
Here's a cool online shop shout-out:I got a chance to sample an assortment of items sent to me from Jet Pens and I am so happy with them in that 4th grade school supply way—these are so fun. The girls are partial to gel pens, (these ones erase!) I love white pens on dark paper and also am really happy with the black ink brush pen I tried. Brush pe

Mailorder #5 re-issue! Now a PDF!
I am excited to re-release Mailorder #5, in its entirety, as a PDF you can print at home! You can buy it right here! And you can see examples made from this issue here in the Mailorder Flickr group.This is a fun issue that is all about cross stitch. And don't worry if you haven't done it before—it