andrew & sheryl: its starting to smell like Christmas

i love Christmas, strings of lights, tinkling bells, fresh baked cookies,

peppermint candies, striped leggings, red & green,

holly & ivy, candy canes, sugarplum fairies, nutcracker ballet.

eggnog apple cider and pine trees.

gingerbread house with white icing & gumdrops.

presents, holly wreathe and bright red birds.

(from a justjohanna stamp

-i only wrote the parts i liked)

made soba today for the first time. kept craving for soba and jean convinced me it was easy to make! i'll admit i was kinda afraid of the soba when it was boiling, cos it stuck together a little. i wasn't sure if i should treat it like pasta when you boil it? ahwells. turns out, its was simple. and yummy. (:

(andrew i made loads so you can have some tonight if you'd like.)

i improvised, i realised i didn't have spring onions. and the soba would be quite plain without that extra pep, so i added minced raw garlic instead. and i had some mushrooms to go with the noodles.

and yesterday we had kenny rogers - gotta love that corn muffin! (its the highlight of the meal). i do believe i found a corn muffin recipe recently. will have to try it out before Christmas, maybe i could do a bunch for Christmas dinner! haven't been baking. i want to, but the oven has been rather wonky and dad is loathe to get a new one, so we'll see.

found some gorgeous cupcakes from this lady's flickr. i would like that cupcake stand please!

this is from alicia's blog from her new book. i love the culmination of crafty materials. speaking of which, my craft area (and room) is in a mess. i feel that urge to pack again. i know its crazy, but i do love packing and tidying up. (i'm so domesticated. HAHA. right) anyhow, the family is trying to decide if we should have a holiday this year or do some minor renovations. i'm okay with both. but i wanna do-up my room now. but i know that if i get anymore shelving or boxes, my room is not going to have any walking space. think i shall go pack after this post. (:

found this on the hambly blog. can you believe that bouquet was a wedding bouquet?! ingenious isn't it? but this is definitely not a bouquet i would wanna throw to the crowd. would make a lovely centrepiece. the middles of the flowers are apparently vintage buttons!

i used to keep my seed beads by colour in individual mini zip-locks. but over time, the zip-lock tends to have holes. so i gave up and just poured them by colour into bottles. kinda looks like that coloured sand art thinga-ma-jig, doesn't it?