Setting the mood for fall

You scream, I scream, We all scream for Halloween!

Kate here. I love fall, LOVE IT! The only problem I have with fall is that I know the cold of winter is just around the corner. As a warm weather kind of girl, I need something to help me ease into the chill of fall. Between Halloween and the multitude of fall festivals in Richmond, there's enough to keep my mind off of the cold, dark nights that are on the horizon.

I've always been a fan of Halloween. I loved (and still do!) dressing up in creative costumes and decorating the house in spooky decor. Blending items purchased from the store and getting a little crafty, I've created something I'm calling "Halloween Shreik." Since I'm a fan of owls and bats in general, they get to play lead in the spookfest (although ravens are really taking over- a cool bird AND a Poe reference? Awesome!!)

Last year was my first Halloween aided by Pinterest. I found some free printable labels such as these and ran with it. Some were "seasoned" with tea and coffee grounds to give them an aged look. Some bottles and tins were spray painted, others left alone. Store bought fabric, candle holder, tray and cocktail shaker help fill in the space. Note the photo in the 2nd photo- taken at the now empty Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia PA. Talk about a spooky place! The port bottle in the top photo had a skull and crossbones etched into it using the same technique as the vases I made for my mom's birthday.

Potions!  Mostly from recycled bottles and jars.

Our bar got a little more flavor this month!

The mantle is always a fun place to decorate for the holidays. Ravens perch on spooky fabric and keep the bat bouquet company. Book jackets were printed on cardstock and aged with a lighter and coffee grounds. Small paperbacks keep the new spell books in shape.
 

The front hall went a little batty this year. I taped bat shapes onto the lamp shade for creepy effect. The framed photo was a creepy hologram I scored on sale last year. Paper bats (some purchased, others cut with the Silhouette), fly from the front door and up the stairs. A blown up image of a cemetery in Savannah was transferred to a canvas using textile medium. The front door was easy. I bought a grapevine wreath from the craft store, spray painted it black, and added fake cobwebs and glittery spiders. For Halloween night, we plug in a fog machine to really set the mood in the yard.

 

Inside the lamp shade

Photo of Bonaventure Cemetery

A cobwebbed wrapped grapevine wreath with some spider friends greet guests.

Last year's foggy front steps. It's easy to make your own awesome skirt!

Lastly the dining room. I was so excited last year to get the skeleton servers from Target! I personalized the buffet with painted pumpkins, an owl painting given to me from our talented friend Ashley, and a photo of the first Halloween my husband and I were together (zombie Lucy and Charlie Brown. It was the best costume ever). On the table, more pumpkins accented by candles. I used candy corn and dried black beans in the jars for some added texture.

A few other fun surprises can be found around the house, I just didn't have the room here to show you all! Over all, my favorite Halloween shriek decor are the photos of Halloweens past. I plan on adding to that collection every year!

Now that my house is in order, it's time to focus on the other fun things of fall, starting with the Richmond Folk Festival! It's the main event in Richmond this weekend- even if folk music isn't your thing, it's a great place to people watch and you're sure to find some freshly popped kettle korn!

Cheers, 

K&H

Sunday Funday!

Easy breezy Sunday!

Cocktails & Glitter rocked it out on Sunday and it was...wait for it...you guessed it...AWESOME!

We started the day off with a 5-mile walk around Robious Landing Park. This is a gorgeous park with great views of the river and beautifully maintained trails, pathways, parking lots, bathrooms and picnic shelters. Not only was the exercise enjoyed, the weather was perfect! 

After a quick stop to change we went to the Olive Oil Taproom newly opened at the Shoppes at Bellgrade. There is also a location in the West End. Essentially this is a tasting room for olive oils and vinegars, really an interesting concept! The staff was friendly and informative, and the atmosphere pleasant and welcoming. Each dispenser was well marked with information and pairing suggestions. If you choose, and have the stomach for it, you can taste over 50 olive oils and vinegars ranging in various levels of infused flavors and degrees of robustness. Straight shots of oil and vinegar were a bit much but when mixed together and paired with a small piece of bread those we tried were pretty good. We had a few misses but overall enjoyed the few we sampled. After you taste, if you wish to purchase anything you have 3 different size bottle options to choose. The smallest bottle is the perfect size for a unique hostess gift. The next time we have a recipe that calls for olive oil we are going there to get the good stuff!

Olive oil is a healthy fat but on its own is not a healthy or satisfying meal. So off we went to garb a bite for lunch. We went to the Urban Farmhouse and Market Place. Heather has now been several times and each time has been disappointed and under-whelmed by the food, this visit was no different. Kate was not impressed either.  The food sounds great and inventive on the menu but once on the plate it falls flat in inspiration and taste. The setting is ideal so future visits, if any, will be for sharing a bottle of wine on the patio or a cup of weekend coffee and newspaper reading.

With lunch over it was time to get crafty!  One of the greatest things to ever hit Richmond is the fabric store UFab and now that greatness has invaded the Southside! The fabric fabulousness is just too much to handle!  We both left with visions of fabric projects dancing in our heads, as well as, with a few remnant pieces for random little sewing projects that are sure to be future blogs. 

With all the fun stuff out of the way it was time to get down to business.  The whole point of the day was for Kate to teach Heather how to use her Silhouette, the fancy craft machine she purchased way back in February. Kate has used it several times with great success so to save Heather some technology frustration, it was time for a one-on-one tutorial. This machine is amazing and the person that invented it is a crafting genius! Thank you Silhouette inventor whoever you are wherever you are!! Highlight of playing with the Silhouette we made Cocktails & Glitter temporary tattoos! Now it is time to take on a crafty idea and put the Silhouette to work!

Coming up this weekend is the Color Run 5K at RIR where we will huff and puff our way to the finish line. Also be sure to check out the RVA Street Art Festival at the old GRTC buss depot on Cary Street.


Cheers!

K&H

Countdown to Spring

Hello!

Happy almost spring everyone!  It's been a busy week here in Richmond. We had a Happy Hour, checked out the River City Rollergirls, got our craft on, did some running shoe shopping, cheered on VCU, celebrated St. Patrick's Day and enjoyed a spa day...phew! Here are the highlights for your reading pleasure:

• We got together on Thursday with some friends for Happy Hour at The Savory Grain. Opened last month by the beautiful and talented Jami Bohdan, the wife of a former coworker. It's a lovely space and we are so impressed with what they have built! This is a wonderful "date night" spot, and has a fantastic dining room available for small groups. The bar is stocked with plenty of local beers on tap, which were $2 off during Happy Hour.
• On Saturday we went on a double date to check out the River City Rollergirls at the Richmond Convention Center. This was our first bout (Roller Derby word for game or match), and it was exciting! There was a fun, enthusiastic and diverse crowd to cheer them on. Once we understood the rules, we really got into it! One of the highlights was checking out the player's alter-ego names on their jerseys. Though we are still deciding our Roller Derby names, we have no plans on joining, just cheering them on. We ended the evening with burgers and beers at Northside Grill.

We're bruised just watching!

• Kate finally finished a craft project that's been on her plate for awhile. When the craft table materials were bought, 2 magnet boards for crafty inspiration also wound up in the cart. Plain old magnet boards are fine and dandy, but fabric covered boards are better!  Check it out in She's Crafty!
• Heather and her Boo did some running shoe shopping over the weekend. They checked out Lucky Foot, a locally owned and operated running store. They specialize in proper fittings based on your foot and running style. It was one of the BEST customer services experiences ever, and we highly recommend checking them out. The icing on the cake was the free beer in celebration of St. Patrick's Day.
• We're proud of VCU and where they finished in the A-10 conference tournament over the weekend. We wish them luck in the NCAA tournament. Go Rams! Bring on the HAVOC!
• St. Patrick's Day was low key for us as far as the usual celebrations. Heather & hubby were buying shoes and watching the VCU game, Kate & her hubby took care of house projects. Next weekend we'll hit the Irish Festival in Church Hill.
• And the BEST part of the week was Spa day (or Spaaaaaahhhh day!). As a thank you for hosting Meghan's shower, we were given certificates to Glo Med Spa. Heather had the Deep Pore Glow Facial and Kate had the Body Contouring Massage (aka the skinny massage). The soothing atmosphere and knowledgeable and friendly staff made for a relaxing afternoon. Thank you Meghan!!

That's all for this week! If you have Roller Derby names for us or you, please comment below or on Facebook. Check in next week for our next awesome adventure!

Cheers!

K&H

 Marching On!

We had a lovely week of snow days (well one snow day); working from home, snow cooking, traveling to visit friends and loving the 60 plus degree weather over the daylight savings time kickoff weekend. After this cold and dreary winter, we both spent as much time as possible outside Saturday and Sunday.

Heather prepares for a day of cooking

Dutch ovens want to play in the snow too!

Mmmm- nothing like chili on a chilly day

Kate's kitty Lola watches as the snow starts to stick.

Kate's backyard

3 days after the snow, springtime!

  
Heather, her Boo (yes, they call each other Boo-it is hilarious, well, they think it's hilarious) and our friend Ashley with beautiful baby Vivienne in tow enjoyed workouts at the park followed by outdoor snacking on the back deck and patio. It was perfect!

Kate and her hubby drove north for the weekends to visit our friends Jimmy and Sarah in Philadelphia. Jimmy's band was performing on Saturday, which was a great excuse for a visit, like they really need one. Aside from rocking out, we ate some great meals, explored Philly, and just hung out!

We didn't take a lof photos, BUT came across an awesome stash of US Weekly magazines from 1991.

Mary Catherine sorted the hundreds of photos of our baby shower craftiness that we bragged about last week. A few images can be found on our She’s Crafty! page. We really did rock that shower!

Instead of a happy hour at a bar/restaurant, this week, we tried a little something different. We hosted our own wine tasting with a couple of girlfriends at Kate's house. We had a specific new brand of wines we wanted to sample, and we are bummed to say we were all disappointed. On the positive side, we had a great time with our girlfriends and thankfully had good back-up wine and yummy charcuterie so the night was not a complete loss! We are not completely ready to throw in the towel on this brand (well, we are for the wine portion of the brand!) and are going to explore it bit more before dishing all our thoughts. More will follow in the coming weeks.

It's hard to believe that we are already upon St. Patrick's Day! We hope you have a safe and fun one!  Don't forget to wear something green and kiss someone Irish…just be sure they are cool with it first! 

Don’t forget all the great festivals this month! And in case you need information on things like St. Patty’s Day Etiquette, a beer guide, hangover cures, how to call out of work excuses, driving safe guidelines (don’t drive) and other fun stuff, check out this Richmond.com article.

Cheers,

K&H

March Madness!

March Madness Cocktails and Glitter style! 

 

We are now in the third month of the year as well as the third month of blogging.  We are getting a better hang of it each day and hope you are still enjoying what we are putting out there.  Any and all feedback is welcome.  If you haven’t already, be sure to “follow us” on Pinterest and “like us” on Facebook!  

In the month of March we will be…

• Adding more content to the blog, Pinterest and Facebook. 
• Loving having sunlight in the evenings, don’t forget to set your clocks for daylight savings this weekend!
• Increasing the frequency and intensity of workouts. Those pounds are going to drop!
• Making a couple of crafts, maybe we will finally get around to those wreaths we got snowed out of making in January!
• Having a big Happy Hour...maybe even two!
• Cheering on the RiverCity Rollergirls at our first ever roller derby, March 16^th.
• Treating ourselves to a spa day.
• Traveling and visiting friends.
• Celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17^th. 
  
• Celebrating the first day of Spring, March 20^th.
• Enjoying the unofficial kick off to the festival season, The Irish Festival, March 23-24^th.
• Rocking out at The National  to see Three Sheets to the Wind, March 29^th
• Celebrating Easter, Easter at Maymont, March 30^th and the Easter Parade on Monument Avenue, March 31^st.

And that is just what we know of right now! Pure madness, awesome fabulous madness, awaits us this March!

We started this month of madness by hosting, along with our friend Mary Catherine, a baby shower for our dear friend Meghan. The theme was Star Wars-chic and it was awesome! Our guest of honor and her husband are fans of Star Wars and based on the very cool gifts they received and the shower theme, apparently, all their friends and family are aware of this fact. The idea of the theme started off small with Mary Catherine designing the shower invitation with a baby Yoda and a couple of subtle Star Wars references. After a snowy coffee date to plan we had come up with a menu of  “grown up” kid foods such as peanut butter and jelly sushi, baked brie with Yoda stamped on it, tater tots, chic fil a chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese bites, cupcakes from Pearls and of course fruit and veggies. 

 

Kate used the coolest craft tool in the world, a Silhouette, to make a Star Wars mobile and a banner tying in the reference from the shower invitation.  As part of the mobile there are baby pictures of the parents-to-be at all stages of childhood. This was a neat touch and everyone loved looking at the photos. Each of these will be hanging in the baby’s nursery.  

Mary Catherine has a fabulous flair for the vintage and we were able to use her collection of antique cake stands, drink dispensers for cranberry-pineapple-almond punch (see Pinterest for the recipe) and family heirloom green depression glass plates. We were all very pleased with the way it all came together and have no problem saying it was very cool and not nerdy at all...well maybe a little nerdy but in a nerdy-chic kind of way!

 

Another personal touch we added was that we had each of the guests decorate a square building block. All the guests got very creative and the end result was special one-of-a-kind toy for the baby. Adding to the special-ness was that the blocks were handmade by the father-to-be’s own father. Keep this craft in mind for a baby gift or party favor. 

We will post pictures of everything before the week is up!

Cheers!

K&H