Christmas Shopping!

Last night Roommate #1 and I went to work on our Christmas shopping lists.  I would say we did pretty well.  We were gone for about 5 hours and hit TONS of stores.  We went to a local store Apricot Lane, Cost Plus World Market, the Mall, TJ Maxx, and Kohls.  Then we ended the night at one of my favorite places to eat Buffalo Wild Wings!  It was quite the night, and the good news is that I got a few people done!  WOO HOO!

I do have to say that before I was not into TJ Maxx as much BUT after spending a little bit of time in the store it is AWESOME!  I will be going back after Christmas for myself and getting some new snow pants for sure, if not more!  I just could not believe the prices in the store.  They are crazy cheap!  I did buy one thing for myself last night, some ear muffs.  The kind that goes behind your head, the brand is 180s, at TJ Maxx for like $7!  Let me tell you that was a great investment because as we walked out of Kohls last night and it was snowing.  This morning there was probably an inch or two on the ground when I walked to work this morning!

How is the weather in your areas?  I would love to hear about them!  So grab some cocoa and snuggle by the fire and stay warm this Christmas season!

XOXO,

Course 2 Class 1

Tuesday night cake decorating class started up again!  It was super fun!  We made button flowers and pansies.  I have to say the flower thing is a lot harder than it looks!  We did get to play with fondant and gum paste though so that was kind of fun, if I do say so myself.  Surprisingly enough fondant tastes good by itself, it is really sweet but the texture is kind of weird, which is why most people do not like it, especially between the cake and the butter cream!

Here is a picture of the flowers I made.

I used neon fondant in pink and orange.  I definitely thought they would look better than they do together.  Oh well, at least I gave it a shot right?  The pink and purple flowers are my moms.  Hers look awesome!  Next week we are doing roses out of royal icing!  This should be interesting.  My last attempt at roses was really discouraging, but it just takes practice.  I cannot wait until we do the lily though.  That is going to be super exciting I do believe!

In other news, I have started Breaking Dawn, the final book in the Twilight Saga.  I have to say that the books are so well written that it makes it hard to want to be finished with the series, but then I get to watch the movies, as soon as my DVD player gets repaired.  I had a little string of things, mainly electronics that were breaking last weekend, my DVD player being one of those things.  Luckily, I found a local repair shop that might be able to get the job done so I do not have to ship it off to the manufacturer.  Hopefully it ends up being cheaper as well!  We shall see.

Other than that it has been pretty quiet around the home front.  Everyone in the house is preparing for the Christmas holiday; we have a whole present room between the 3 of us.  It’s pretty sweet actually!  I need to get on my wrapping.  I love wrapping presents, it is just so awesome, the bad part is when I run out of things to wrap I want to go shopping for more presents and that is not always so easy on the budget!

How are you guys preparing for the holiday?  Are you done shopping?  Have not even started yet?  Anyone doing any holiday baking?  I would love to hear!

XOXO,

Weekend Recap

This last weekend I participated in the craft fair at the Festival of Trees in Billings, Montana.  It went ok.  Not the best show ever, but who am I to say I have only done 2 shows in my entire crafting career, so I am chalking it up to inexperience and just getting to know the venues a little better.  Trying to keep it positive, I will try to do the show again next year and see if it is any better.

Here is what my table looked like. It needs some improvement.

My goal for the next craft fair season is to have more inventory and another line, something flashier and eye catching to bring the customers into my booth.  I would also like to get some card shelving, like you see in the stores, but a smaller tabletop version to start out with.  We shall see what I can find.  Right now those are my ideas for improvement, do you have any suggestions for my table?  I would really appreciate any input from you!

So the craft fair was Saturday, so Friday I spent the evening setting up and making sure I had everything ready to go for the day.  Then Sunday I went Christmas Shopping!  It was really fun.  I spent 4 hours of my day shopping and I got SOOOO much done!  It really should have been IMPOSSIBLE to go to that many stores in 4 hours, but the good news is I made a HUGE dent in my shopping list, so that makes me feel a lot better!

Tomorrow we resume our cake decorating class!  That is super exciting!  I cannot wait for that to start again!  Christmas is coming up so fast I can hardly believe that is December 2011 already, it feels like it should just be getting to the 4^th of July or something!  Here at SkyleRae’s we have big plans for 2012, so stay tuned!

How were your weekends? Any craft fairs or anything exciting? Let me know, I would love to hear from you!

XOXO,

I Suppose I Should...

…Update you on what is going on in the life of SkyleRae.  It has been rather quiet around here lately.  We had the Thanksgiving holiday, Black Friday, and now I have a craft fair on Saturday that I am trying to prepare for.

I have also recently become addicted to the Twilight Saga.  I am already on book 3: Eclipse.  I held out for so many years and then Roommate #1 asked if I wanted to go to Breaking Dawn Part I.  I went more or less for something to do.  Turns out I really liked it, and now have been feverishly reading the books.  Twilight and New Moon arrived from Netflix this week, so I will have that to watch after I finish reading the books, which from the looks of things will not be very long.

I have to say the books are very well written.  Stephanie Meyer really knows how to invoke emotion of the reader.  So far she has invoked anger, sadness, happiness, pretty much EVERY emotion you can think of.  I really enjoy that the story is told from Bella’s (the human’s) point of view, which I think is what makes it relatable and SO GOOD!  So if you have not partaken in the Twilight Saga, I would recommend that you do.

I had an excellent Thanksgiving.  I had family come from all over to celebrate.  So that was really nice.  Then we did the whole Black Friday thing at Midnight, which I was against at first and then realized it was the only time my aunt could go so we went.  I spent a whopping $60.  I got a luggage set for $50, a set of pans for roommate #2 for $6, and then a coffee for $4.  Yep. That was the extent of my Black Friday shopping.  My aunt and mother went nuts though.  That was good for them I suppose.  I ended up being up for 36 of 38 hours between Thursday and Friday.  Not the smartest thing I ever did.

I decorated this cake for one of my cousins that came over.  That was fun and she really liked it! 

We resume taking cake decorating classes next week.  Our instructor went to Hawaii to celebrate her 30^th wedding anniversary so we took this week off!  HOORAY!  I am excited for Course 2: Flowers and Cake Design.  I guess we make flowers the entire time and then decorate a cake in the final class.  This should be super fun.  I am super excited for this, I want to learn more flowers and how to design a cake.  So I am super excited for class to start again.  

The craft fair on Saturday is the Festival of Trees at The Shrine Auditorium.  It should be a good craft fair to participate in.  I will be selling cards, gift tags, mini cards, flat cards and then some cupcakes that my mom and I have decorated.  So if you are in the Billings, Montana area you should come check it out. 

What else have I been up to?  Well not a whole lot to be honest.  Trying to get Christmas shopping done, preparing for the craft fair and reading, yep that is about it.  Nothing too exciting.  I will try to get pictures up this time of the craft fair setup.  I hope everyone is having a great holiday season! 

XOXO,