Etsy, Ice Ice Baby

You can't beat a classic like Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" during the winter months.  Now that I brought it up, that song may be stuck in my head all weekend (way to go Red)... I digress... It has been so cold this week and I am not one to complain about winter, but even I have been annoyed by the temperatures.  But being a trooper, I heading up Millcreek Canyon for some cross country skiing on Tuesday (a little solo adventure to rejuvenate body and soul) and I am hoping to bust out the ice tools and climb an icicle this weekend (the upside to the cold is it makes it perfect for ice climbing duh).  And speaking of ice, our swamp cooler pipe broke this last weekend causing a waterfall  to cascade from the roof and then form into a hockey worthy ice rink right in front of our door (lame landlord didn't winterize).  In tribute (of sorts) I found a few Etsy items to lighten the icy mood.  Hope you enjoy.

1. Icicle Necklace from Sarantos
2. Ice Cream spoons from Beach House Living
3. Ice skates from Abbey Road Designs
4. Ice Cube notebook from Ink Bomb

More Craft Night Photos

Here are some photos of Karen's projects.  Loved that she put them with scarves.  Check out more from the Second Annual Ladies Only Craft Night here.

Love Affair with Gold

It is amazing how our opinions change. As I get older, am exposed to new ideas, different people and just learn more about myself I find it interesting how things I used to hate I now love.  I was struck by how much gold I have been wearing.  I used to hate gold.  Gold anything.  Gold jewelry, gold frames, gold dinnerware, anything gold. And yet as I look back at last week I found myself wearing a new gold shirt I got for Christmas, gold earrings (several times) and necklace I purchased several months ago and I was even tempted by some gold heels I saw at the store Saturday.  Sadly, I did not purchase the glittery goddesses for I have a strict "no shoe buying" rule for the next few months (I may have gone a little crazy this last year on shoes), but I was very tempted to say the least.  Call it a trend or call it infatuation, but I have found myself in a love affair with the color gold.  I actually prefer to say that my taste buds have matured.  So what better to help a recovering addict then to post some on my resent gold obsessions.

Can't wait to hang this Easter card my mom had framed for me

 (The card was my Grandmother's)

These gold based cups and carafes from Design Within Reach

Bowl from Tse & Tse

These are true shoe love

Anthropologie Measuring cups, really

Love local jewelry artist Katie Waltman

This necklace is on her Etsy shop

Just saw this today on Creature Comfort. So want this journal

Last but not least, my Grandmother's gold frame board.  

She used to have all the grandkid photos hanging in it. Someday, I will have the perfect place to put it.

End of year excuses

Hey, remember Christmas letters that most people send out? To tell you of all the great things that have been happening in their lives that year? And you know how some people have good intentions and then it never gets done? So they throw up their hands and say "uh, maybe I'll write one next year."We're those people. Sorry folks, we really thought about writing a Christmas letter. Especially since our letter last year was so much fun to write. This year we got caught up in all the Christmas cheer and completely put off writing a Christmas letter.

You'll forgive us though, right?

2010 Highlights for Blonde

Ice climbing for the first time. The Icicle in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

A few races this year: Canyonlands Half-Marathon, Teton Dam Half-Marathon,

and The Dirty Dash 1oK

And a little jaunt across the pond.

Red's Top Happenings for 2010

First time ice climbing

I started the year off in the best way I know how, outdoor adventure. I learned to ice climbing and took a couple weekend trips because I have "keeping up with the blonde" syndrome.

First time mountain biking

Purchased a mountain bike and spent the spring and summer on the trails, until...

First ER visit for myself

I took a nasty little tumble in Moab and spent an hour or two in the Moab hospital getting ex-rays and finding out my knees were banged, but not broken.

Check Out Other Stuff I did in 2010

• Second trip to Germany—Us Reds got together for a little family reunion in Germany. Read more here.
• A myriad of concerts—From Brandi Carlile at my favorite venue, Ingrid Michaelson and Dave Matthews Band, I really love the stack of ticket stubs I collected this year.

Brunette: Um, Brunette didn't write anything here. Not that she didn't do anything—she just didn't write about it.


2010 Altogether Now:

Our first yurt adventure. Loved it.

Watched Lord of the Rings on a cardboard TV.

Our fondness for Goblin Valley, Utah.

Have a great 2011. Love, the Blonde, Brunette, and Redhead

Etsy Find Just for All the Reds

How about a little something different for this week's Etsy find, something just for all the redheads out there.

Check out the red hair on this plate from Betty Raspberry.

(First saw this here)

Love this print from Peggy Wolf Design

And this one from Multiple Personality

Second Annual Holiday Craft Party

What do girls like to do besides talk about boys?  Craft.  We unknowingly started a little holiday tradition last year.  What started out as an excuse to have our friends make their own Christmas gifts, has turned into one of my favorite holiday party ideas.
Brunette is our craft goddess around our apartment.  When she is stressed and needs a little detox, she pulls out her craft supplies.  I'm being completely honest here.  I came home one day and found her gluing strips of paper to decorate a box that she uses to store random tools in her room.  Talk about someone who oozes creativity.  Last year she came up with the idea of craft night and we enjoyed it so much we had to do it again this year.
The craft...well I can't say we had an exact plan, because you could really do whatever you wanted.  The plan was to create flower belts and shoe clips.  But what we saw our crafty friends create were headbands, garland, hair bows and pins.
Here are a few of the end results.

Naomi's beautiful purple shoe clips with feather and button embellishments

Erika's clips she can use for either her hair or a belt

Red's over sized flower belt and feathery clips

Brunette's blue shoe clips

I'll share more photos as we get them.

Love, Love, Love: Snow Tires

I love, love, love my new snow tires. All $535 of them. My car is an excellent city car. It gets good gas mileage and handles famously on dry pavement, which is perfect in Salt Lake City about 70% of the time (I made that number up—no research was involved). The other 30% of the time, my car freaks out. It’s light and front-wheel driven. This makes for much sliding all over the road. Yes, before the snow tires, I was the person driving on the road that you thought was ridiculous for how overly paranoid and cautious she was in the snow, but it was out of necessity—my car in all-weather tires would slide half way across the road if I ran over a snowball. This winter, I went all out and purchased the full set of snow tires. Yes, watching all that money come out of my account was painful, but the peace of mind is worth it. This recent snowstorm (as I write this, road crews are still cleaning up after it) was a breeze. The only thing I had to worry about were my fellow commuters who do not have snow tires. Like the Toyota 4-Runner directly in front of me that was slipping all over the place—I kept my distance.

Highlights of snow tire bliss:
· I changed snowy lanes where it’s usually safest to stay in the grooves of the car in front of you.
· I turned corners without the back end overly sliding the other direction (which is a teensy bit disappointing, because sometimes that’s fun)
· I made it up the huge hill to my house (previously I’ve had to leave my car at the bottom overnight while it thought about what it did)
· And this morning I made it out of the drifts created by the wind and uncleaned by the non-existence of snowplows on my road.

Indeed, I am quite pleased. Snow Tires, I could kiss you.

Pillow Talk

Hope you all had a fabulous Christmas. What did Santa bring you? I got a rice cooker. It is pretty sweet and it makes delicious rice...yum.

So today I wanted to share some pillow talk. No, I'm not talking about the classic Rock Hudson, Doris Day movie (but I do love that movie). I'm talking pillows. Beautiful, fun, decorative pillows.
I don't make my bed very often. I'm not one of those "I'm just going to get back into it" types of people, it is simply that I am always running late in the morning. Making my bed falls somewhere down the list below eating breakfast and folding my towel which almost never happens. Even if it my bed is not made very often, I do enjoy a crisp freshly made bed with all the pillows to put me in girly heaven.
Check out these lovelys which will hopefully put you in a similar heaven (maybe not girly if you are a gentleman).

Find your state at Always Fits via Design Mom

Shop Dirtsa has the cutest pillows.
Check out the color blindness and scrabble pillows

Loves these pillows from Third Drawer Down Which you can see if you stay here

The "i" is my favorite part of this pillow from Pillow Factory

Throw away boring white pillow cases and get these Urban Outfitters pillows

Ornament Swapping and Calendar Exchange

What better way to get into the holiday cheer.  Give a gift.

Calendar Exchange
First I signed up for an annual calendar swap sponsored by Design Crush.  They pair you up and you send a calendar to your exchange buddy.  My calendar buddy was Amy, a art director in NY.  How cool is that?  I was super excited about getting to know her especially because she has one of my dream jobs.  We exchanged some emails, then came the difficult task to pick the perfect calendar perfect for Amy.  Well, who knows if I found the perfect one, because honestly I fell in love with every other calendar.

The calendar I picked for Amy - found here

Amy picked a great one for me.  I really enjoy the illustration.  As soon as I got it, I put it right up in my room.

Amy picked out this calendar for me...
she knows I love the great outdoors

Ornament Swap
At first I wasn't going to sign up for the ornament swap from Freshly Blended, but after exchanging emails with Amy for the calendar swap I decided it would be a lot of fun to get to know more people.  This time I would be put into a group of 9 other fabulously crafty women from all over the country.  We would each have to create a ornament and send one to each person in the group.  At the end of the experience we would all have 10 (including our own) unique homemade ornaments for our Christmas tree.
What my swapping buddies didn't know is that ornament they got I didn't make, nor was it the ornament I intended to send.  I came up with this really cute ornament that looks like a snowball add a carrot nose and coal eyes and mouth (not a real carrot and coal, but clay) and now you have an awesome snowman.  My example was so cute, but when I took it into production things got ugly.  What I thought would take an evening to complete turned into a week.  As I neared completion my ornaments started to fall apart.  I had to abandon the snowman ornament entirely.  I was now over committed with no time to come up with a new idea and get them finished before I needed to mail them.  Luckily, I have great family who came to my rescue.  My mom and sister came up with a snowflake ornament and mass produced them for me.  I hope this wasn't cheating, but there was no way I could have finished the ornaments without losing a little sanity.
I forgot to take a photo of my ornament before it went out, but I took photos of everyone beautiful ornaments.  See for yourself.

Ornaments from my crafty new friends.

Sadly, this one did not survive the trip

I look forward to participating in the swaps again.

Santa please bring me

Dear Santa
It is Christmas week and I have been a good girl this year (mostly).  Can you please look pass how I burned up my brother's brakes in the German Alps and for calling my fellow students at community college "misfits".  If you can find it in your heart to bring me these things I will be better next year, promise.
Sincerely your loving,
Red

He would be nice.
 Bearded and wearing a Cardigan

He could take me here

We could curl up under this blanket,

Nibble on chocolate designed with all our favorites flavors from Chocomize,

And if he wanted to give me this

or this I wouldn't be sad.