New Year's Eve and Day

New Year's Eve

This New Year's Eve, my husband had to work overnight, which was sad, but I wasn't going to let that cut down on the festivities!  Before our partying group headed out to dinner, we toasted with some New Year's Eve cocktails of Jameson and Diet Gingerale - which looks just like champagne - adorned with edible gold star glitter.  Some noise blowers in a glass paired with sparkly 2011 glasses really livened up the room.

Later that evening, I went over to my friend Margot's apartment for a New Year's celebration and her party was so festive!  Check out this link for more details!

New Year's Day

I made a fruitcake for New Year's Day, and hosted a few friends for a breakfast and movie day (so my husband could partake in the partying!).  I had some extra candied fruit leftover from the biscotti I made for Christmas this year (I know fruitcake has a bad rap....but everyone was surprised by how good this version was!).  Unfortunately those pictures came out too dark, but here is how I made the fruitcake:

1 pint container candied fruit (pre-diced)
brandy
fruit juice
1 box yellow cake mix
eggs & oil per box
edible glitter (optional)

Soak the candied fruit in brandy.  Meanwhile, prepare the cake mix, substituting fruit juice for the water called for on the box (I used pomegranate cranberry).  Drain the fruit, and add to the cake batter mixture.  Pour into a greased bundt pan.  Bake at 350° for 40-45 minutes.  Let cool on a cookie rack fully.  Flip over, remove cake pan, and sprinkle with edible glitter.

The above is a variation of a recipe posted on cooks.com - Thanks!

Flower Pillows

My friend Margot originally discovered a blog post about how to make your own flower pillow here at I am Style-ish.  (Sidenote, since I love puns: Margot emailed me to say "Since you have a sewing machine, it would be sew easy!"  Really nice one.)


So Margot and I bought some fabric, got together one Friday night, had a little wine, and managed to cut some circles out of fabric.  However, the next weekend, I did finish my two pillows as originally planned, but I have to admit it wasn't quite as easy as described on the blog.  (Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure if I didn't live in a tiny apartment that required you to pin the rows fabric petals in the living room and then sew the row of petals in the bedroom back and forth each time, it might have been a speedier process...).  But by the third one I made, it did get easier as I got into the swing of it!

The detailed instructions from V and Co. are found here.  The two main changes I made to these instructions involved the flower: (1) the fabric choice - I felt that velour and/or velveteen would look "richer" than felt, and (2) the number of petals - I used about twice as many petals as the original instructions call for.

The first version of this pillow I made was with a black, grey and yellow patterned fabric front (19"x19"), a black solid back (19"x19"), and a yellow velour flower (cut out large and small petals using drinking glasses).  Since I was making two pillows, I went simple with it (since I was making two) and just made the back out of one solid piece of square fabric (rather than fashioning a back out of two pieces of fabric with a flap that allows you take the pillow in and out).  I sewed the front and back sides together on three sides with a 1" seam, flipped it inside out, stuffed it with a 18"x18" pillow form, and then sewed the fourth side closed (at the bottom of the pillow).

Front of the pillow (19"x19") once the flower was finished.

I created the second version of this pillow for Margot (since she alas doesn't own a sewing machine).  For this pillow, I wanted to add in cording (also known as piping) around the edge to make it seem more fancy.  I had never done this before, but it was actually easier than I thought!  I found detailed instructions about how to cover cording here.  In case you're not sure what exactly cording is, this is what it looks like "in the rough":

Photo from fabric.com 

In order to be able to attach the cording correctly to this pillow, the back of the pillow has to be made out of two pieces of fabric with a flap.  I used a black, grey and white patterned fabric front (19"x19"), two pieces of black solid fabric to make the back (each about 19"x15"), and an ivory velveteen flower.

After I finished sewing the petals onto the fabric front piece, I started to cover the cording.  I cut a piece of cording that was about 80" (19" times 4 sides of the fabric front piece, plus a few extra inches just for safety).  Then I cut a piece of fabric that was about 3"x80" to be used to cover the cording.  

After the cording was covered, I trimmed the edge to make sure it was exactly 1" from the edge of the cording.  (That way when you sew it onto the fabric squares, the 1" seam matches up and you end up with am 18" pillow).  I then pinned the cording onto the front (flower side) of the front piece of fabric.  At the corners of the pillow, I cut slits in the fabric to make it fold correctly.

Once you've wrapped and pinned the cording all the way around the front piece of fabric, you can attach the two front and back ends of the cording  together by overlapping them a bit, cutting out some of the extra cording at the back end, and folding over the extra fabric from the back end onto the front end.

I then sewed on the cording using the special zipper foot that came with my sewing machine.  Next, I sewed 1" edges onto one side of each of the back fabric pieces (for the part you see in the middle of the pillow/put the pillow inside).  I then pinned the back fabric pieces (overlapping in the middle) directly on top of the front fabric piece/flower and cording.  I then sewed all the pieces together.

The edge of the cording is right underneath the back fabric to the left of the zipper foot

I flipped it inside out, stuffed it with an 18"x18" pillow form and voila!