Blizzard!

My driveway:

The picnic table on our deck:

We got about 18" of snow. Farther out on Long Island, it hit 2 feet! This was our first blizzard since the 90s. All I can say is, I'm glad we knew it was coming. Katherine traded her Camaro for my SUV, so it was a much safer drive home from work for her late last night. She said the roads were terrible and people were sliding all over the place. I was so glad when she called to say she'd arrived safely at Erick's parents' house. It's a few miles closer than her own apartment, so she decided to spend the night there.

The last photo is of our street corner:

CD Coasters

Do you remember this apron from last year? It was made for a dear friend who loves "A Charlie Brown Christmas." I had some of the fabric left over, so when I found a tutorial for CD Coasters, I knew what to make!

The apron: http://sortafrugal.blogspot.com/2008/12/gift-for-friend.html

And here is an excellent tutorial for the coasters: http://scrapdash.blogspot.com/2008/03/cd-coasters-tutorial.html

I made my patterns a little differently, though. I simply traced 3 circles with a CD. I made one larger for the outside, one slightly smaller for the batting and one exact for the back. And I made mine in this order: glued the batting on first, then sewed on the top (over the batting so the top of the coaster is padded--obviously, I used thin batting (low loft?). You could use felt.) and finally, a piece of felt on the back. Her way is much faster and easier, but I like the padding on top!

Here is the finished product:

I'll be sending them to her this week, with some homemade cookies. I even found a square Christmas gift box that these fit into perfectly!

Another Cookie Day

I made another batch of spritz cookie dough on Friday and made them up today. I have to be honest, in the long run I don't think that battery-powered press is any easier than a manual one. I think it might be because the main part (where the motor is) is really too big for my hand to get around it and get a good position to press the button. Well, anyway, at least the cookies are done. But I hafta say, my wrist is killing me. (And I ate way too much cookie dough. Dang, that stuff is good.)