This past weekend, my BF from college drove over to visit and was sweet enough to help with my Twilight Party. She’s always been a git ‘er done kind of girl, but since having twin boys, I think she’s kicked it up another notch. THANK YOU, K for the help and the laughs! She hadn’t been to one of my Twilight parties before and wondered if she should have packed vampire teeth. She’s a very good sport, but it’s not that kind of party.

For bloody-rimmed glasses:
Pour some lite corn syrup into a saucer and add a bit of red food coloring. Stir. Add more food coloring until the desired color is reached. Dip the glass into the mix and spin. Stand the glass up and clean the outside so guests do not get sticky from the bloody decoration.
(Thank goodness K found the corn syrup, I couldn’t find it and we almost didn’t have bloody glasses!)









Found cool red/black drink on Pinterest for the signature cocktail. It is called “Dark Knight Rises”.
Attempted to buy black vodka (berry flavored) at liquor store.
Proprieters looked at me like I was crazy. (turns out the brand is Eristoff)
Bought black food coloring and clear raspberry vodka.
Added food coloring to vodka (if you must know, I unintentionally added more than was reasonable).
Made drink (ice, 1 oz Cranberry juice, 1 oz lemonade, 1 oz black vodka in that order).
Black food coloring bled into the entire drink (it luckily, did not seem to stain my teeth)….I have dubbed this the Jacob Black Cocktail. Enjoy!
Ps. Happy BD2 Opening Night, Twilighters!

Let me start this off by saying that I get unreasonably excited when people bring me things from far away. So, when I saw a Handmade Ornament Swap hostessed by a lovely blogger down under, I jumped in with both feet. I didn’t dive, mind you. That’s a good way to hit your head.

Our swap hostess is Christina Lowry and here is what I was inspired to knit.

I met Anna at Vogue Knitting last January and fell completely under the spell of her mini gnomes. This is technically my second gnome. The first one had a pretty serious mishap with his pants where his legs were joined together so, he was frogged in a hurry. And this one doesn’t look nearly as good as Anna’s on the cover of the book, but as Bones said to me, “um, that’s probably her 900th gnome”.

After making the second gnome, I asked Lisa for feedback and she said: “WHAT is he stuffed with?”
me: “um, white yarn. It’s what I had.”
her: “well, that’s my first bit of feedback.”
I bought some polyfill on my way home.


Gnome the Third does look a bit more tidy.
moral of the story: What’s on the inside is important, just as Mom always said.

Ps. Here’s a link if you’d like to see what other folks are making.

Tags: Anna Hrachovec, Christina Lowry, gnome, mini gnome, ornament

The nice thing about November here is that we still have blooming flowers. We also still have biting gnats. food for thought.