Hi, my name is Piper, and I’ll be your date tonight (aka IHP December DT Challenge)

This month’s IHP Design Team challenge was to make something inspired by fancy fashion. I found a vintage glittery white dress online and decided to dress up a champagne bottle for a festive occasion. You can see the dress below.

I created a simple pattern first with plain paper, so as not to waste my precious supplies. Once I knew what my goal was, it only took about 15 minutes to get it done. But oh, the days I spent trying to get to that point! As Kate, says, that’s why they call it a challenge!

The glittery white paper is from the Petaloo glitter pad. Kate has a few different assortments in the store. I punched 6 holes down the sides of the “bodice” and ran some white Glimmer Ribbon through it, looping it over the neck of the bottle and tying it in the back. Then I took a piece of burgundy crepe ribbon and wrapped it around from the front to the back and then to the front again, tying it there. Did that make sense? I actually fed the ribbon first through a couple of the holes on the sides to keep it in place, then did the wrapping and tying. Clear as mud, right?

Anyhow, hope you feel a little inspired yourself! Wouldn’t this be a great way to present a bottle of bubbly this New Year’s Eve? If you want to post your own version of a fashion inspired project, make sure you use the keyword “ihp1210” in the SCS or PCP gallery so we can find it.

Now go take a look at what the rest of the design team came up with:

Cathleen
Deb
Gretchen
Kendra
Loretta
Lori
Lynn
Megan
Tracy
Kate

Have a sparkly day!

For the love of a dog…

This is how I spent my afternoon today. I’m home with a miserable cold, and had to stop to sit down several times throughout the process, but it’s the holidays, and some things just need to be done. There’s no shortage of puppy treats and gifts available online, but there’s nothing like something from Grandma’s kitchen, right?

So while everybody else was home baking holiday cookies, I made doggy biscuit treats for my grandpuppy, Sugar. And a few for my brother’s dog, Rusty, too. I am THAT crazy lady who went and bought the cookie cutters in 2 sizes!

In case anyone is interested, the recipe was from the King Arthur's Flour blog. Very easy, and you probably have all (or most) of the stuff in your kitchen already. I actually had to go out and buy a new jar of peanut butter because it’s been so long since I’ve used the real stuff that it had gone rancid in the cabinet!

Counting down… Is anybody less ready than I am?