Crafts Gone Wrong

The fine folks over at Fave Crafts asked me to contribute a little something to their monthly craft question column. This month's question, What is your worst crafting disaster? Lucky for them I have (at least) three. Check it out here.

Men anpil chay pa lou

I know most of you have probably already donated to the crisis in Haiti and that last week I mentioned Craft Hope for Haiti's shop. I came across this today and wanted to share.



The shirt reads, "Men anpil chay pa lou" which means "Many Hands Make the Load Lighter". The shirt was designed by Thomas De Santis and Ivan Tarrazo Sanchez and is being sold at Threadless Tees. As of January 25 over 7000 shirts have been ordered raising $70,000 for Haiti. They have agreed to print 15,000 more including kids sizes. Get your orders in now and help out this wonderful cause.

Image courtesy of Threadless

Shots of Pie

Good things come in small packages, right? Well in this case I agree. Check out this adorable, fun, delicious and easy recipe for pie in a jar! It's like little shots of pie...seriously. I would love to set this up and have people over for a "drinking" game. Find something better...I dare you.

Image courtesy of Our Best Bites

Sacked!

Last nights PR episode got right back to what I truly love about the show. Using interesting materials to make amazing fashion. The burlap sack challenge was a great idea and the things the designers turned out were beyond impressive. Jonathan (above) whipped up this lacy number. I was impressed that so many of the final dresses (or pants) looked nothing like potato sacks once they were dyed.
Speaking of Project Runway, did you catch the Golden Globes on Sunday? Two previous designers were showing on the red carpet. Chris March designed Meryl Streep's gown - not a human hair in site.
Christian Soriano designed the dress that Christina Hendricks wore. His trademark ruffles were certainly represented.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Craft Hope for Haiti

The devastating earthquake in Haiti last week has sent us all scrambling for ways we can help. If you are looking for suggestions here is a great one.

Craft Hope is a faith-based, love inspired project designed to share handmade crafts with those less fortunate. They have developed an Etsy shop in which 100% of the proceeds will go to Doctors without Borders in Haiti. All of the items for sale have been generously donated by the crafting community. So far they have raised over $10,000! If you are looking for a great gift (homemade baby items, jewelery, etc) please check out Craft Hope's shop before hitting the mall.

Recipe: Eat Your Veggies!

One of my New Years resolutions was to eat and cook more veggies. So far so good, but at only 3 weeks into the new year we are getting pretty sick of the usual carrots and green beans. My cousin Jennifer is a total foodie. I'm talking hard-core. Her shelves are lined with all kinds of recipes and cookbooks and she is always whipping up some tasty treat when we get together. I asked Jen to put together a recipe to share with you guys. Here is what Jennifer said:

This is an easy, cheap and a sneaky way to add veggies into your diet. I had originally used a Rachael Ray recipe as inspiration (called "Christmas Pasta"), but her recipe called for too many different types of meat and it wound up being complicated and expensive to make. This is my easier (and healthier) version. No plagiarism... all of the amounts and ingredients are mine at this point...

Lightened Up Christmas Pasta Sauce

Recipe Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
1 small sweet onion, chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped (preferably from the heart)
10 mushrooms, cleaned and quartered
4 cloves garlic, minced
4-5 links chicken sausage removed from casings (any flavor)
2- 28 oz cans of crushed tomatoes
2 cups red wine
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste
1 Tbsp Trader Joe’s Pasta seasoning blend **
¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped
¼ cup fresh basil, torn into small pieces

Preheat a dutch oven over medium high heat.

Heat 2 tsp. of olive oil in the dutch oven and add the sausage. Cook the chicken sausage until browned, breaking it up into smaller pieces as it cooks. Once browned, remove the sausage with a slotted spoon to a plate covered with a few layers of paper towels. This will help to drain out some of the excess fat from the sausage.

Add the onions, garlic, carrots, celery and mushrooms to the dutch oven. Saute the vegetables in the leftover oil from the sausage until softened and opaque. Add the red wine to the dutch oven and deglaze the pan with the wine. (The red wine will loosen the browned bits of flavor stuck to the bottom of the pan. Working quickly, scrape up all of the browned bits with a wooden spoon to add that flavor into your sauce.) Return the sausage to the pot. Then add the crushed tomatoes and season the sauce with salt, pepper and pasta seasoning blend.

Reduce heat to low and simmer for as long as you can. This sauce benefits from a long cooking time, but will taste delicious if served after only 10 minutes of simmering as well.

Serve over your favorite pasta. Garnish with basil and parsley.

** If you don’t have this on hand you can use 1 tsp oregano, 2 tsp dried basil, and 1 tsp dried parsley instead.

Thanks Jen!

MaxxSilly Loves: Treasures for Tots

You know I love any site that gives me inspiration and ideas on how to re purpose something. It's all about being green and working with what you have here at MaxxSilly. When that site shares ideas on how the get my little one involved and re purpose things for her it is even better.

I am loving Treasures for Tots! Angie comes up with great tutorials and projects that you can make for and with your kids. I am loving these socks she turned into sleeves on an inexpensive Target t-shirt. Adorable. Oh, and having a super cute supermodel daughter doesn't hurt either. Angie has some great projects already up for Valentine's Day that are on my list.

Keep up the good work Angie!

Image courtesy of Treasures for Tots

Working the Runway

I am already loving Season 7. Yes, one episode in and I can tell that the vibe of NYC is going to keep these designers inspired.

The designers all seem to be pretty impressive. There are too many right now to choose a favorite but I thought Emilio's winning look was the best of last nights bunch. I actually like Anthony's dress that was in the bottom three and could see many women wearing it, well, minus the "champagne holder" on the side. While Ping's designs are a little out there for me, I am interested to see how she does in a challenge where she has more guidelines than "show us what your vision is."

My biggest hope for PR this season is that they explore some new challenges. One of my faves was from season 1 where they redesigned the post office uniform or the Barbie challenge from Season 2. My thought was to bring in a Girl Scout Troop and make the designers re-invent the classic GS uniform. This would force them to have to tame down the sexiness and work with in guidelines - a serious challenge for most.

What did you guys think? Any faves so far?

Image courtesy of Lifetime

Time to Make it Work...Again

Didn't Project Runway just end? Oh, I'm not complaining, I am beyond excited that tonight it returns for Season 7 and it is back in NYC! I found last season to be a total snoozefest but in reading about these new designers I have high hopes for some amazing ensembles.

You can read more about the contestants here.

Project Runway is on Lifetime at 10PM.

Phat Photo for your Phanny (aka How to Decoupage a Chair)

Sorry for the title - I was really feeling the alliteration at that moment.

I was doing some research on decoupage for a project I am planning in the next couple of weeks and I came across this very cool project. It uses an art poster to decoupage a plain old plastic kitchen chair. Love it! My to do list just got a little longer! Blerg.

Image courtesy of Better Homes & Gardens

Graceland

The white living room which leads into the music room

Happy Birthday Elvis.

The king would have been 75 today or is 75 today if you read the National Enquirer. Graceland is number 2 on my top five places to visit in the US – Dollywood being number one. Don’t judge.

Elvis purchased the house in 1957 for $102,500. George Golden was hired to decorate and Elvis had requested dark purple walls and white corduroy drapes for the living, dining and sun rooms. In that same year the Welcome Wagon ladies arrived to welcome the King and his folks to the neighborhood. One of them was quoted as saying, What we saw of the Presley home was perfectly gorgeous, not gaudy as we had thought it would be from reading about the colors. The living room has red rug, blue walls and white draperies, and there’s gold trim on practically everything. Elvis’ music room is right off the living room, and it’s mostly white.

The Jungle Room

Elvis Presley created many lavishly decorated "theme" rooms at Graceland. In addition to the posh, mirrored living room, Elvis Presley designed, a Jungle Room with an indoor waterfall and a trophy room to display his awards and flashy clothing, and also to race slot cars . His parents had a vegetable garden and chicken coop on the property as well. Elvis redecorated the home many times and at the time of his death in 1977, the dominant color was red: red walls, red draperies, red carpets.

Graceland is the second most visited home in America, the White House being first. The house was named a National Historic Landmark in 2006.

To learn more about Graceland click here.

MaxxSilly Loves: Skip to My Lou

In these cold winter months we are all stuck in the house because of snow, colds or well, this is New England, so it's really just snow, and the little one needs an outlet for all her energy. While running up and down the hallway shouting "Ready, Set, Go" for a half hour is a delight, sometimes mommy needs something a little more quiet. That is where Skip to My Lou comes in.

I stumbled upon Cindy's blog and am adoring all of the cute little projects that parents and kids can do together. Sometimes even us creative types need help! There are some great ideas for the holidays and parties as well. I never thought knowing how to make a newspaper hat would come in handy until now. Thanks Cindy and keep up the good work!

See it:Julie & Julia

Can you gain ten pounds from watching a movie? I mean, just sitting on your couch, wrapped in your new Snuggie. No popcorn, no snacks...just watching a movie. I think I gained ten pounds from watching Julie & Julia this weekend.

As someone who a)doesn't like to cook and b) is scared to cook, I found this movie inspirational enough to try some new recipes as my new years resolution. Yup, I have been inspired by the queen of French cuisine and plan on tackling some new dishes in the next 12 months. I won't be making anything I can't pronounce but I am going to try. I will (hopefully) have some happy stories to share about the process.

Did you like J&J? I liked the Julia more than the Julie. She seemed whiny (although Amy Adams is adorable in anything).

Check out this weeks post of "Living In" over at Design* Sponge. Amy Merrick shows you exactly what you need to have a kitchen like Julia's. If anything I hope the film inspires us all to eat more butter!

Vancouver Here I Come!

Happy New Year kids. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! I have truly enjoyed the r, r & p (that's rest, relaxation and pie) that I have had for the past week. Now it is back to business. Bring it 2010!

Lots of plans for this new year! I have some rooms to redecorate and a whole garden to redesign once it thaws out from the snow. The last week has been spent looking into some new blogs that I will share and whole lot more. There will be some changes to the look of MaxxSilly in the next few months as well. Exciting stuff. Of course, I also need to squeeze in rehearsals for my debut in ice dance for the 201o winter games. So much to do - I'm already exhausted.

Looking forward to spending 2010 with you!