But for those of you hip deep in the holiday season check out Not Martha’s huge holiday link list and Courtney’s Gift Guide by astrological sign.

Toodles!

CUSTOM MUPPETS PEOPLE!!!

Here’s a sneak peek of what awesomeness you could create:

On the cheap:

Seed Bombs by Visualingual on Etsy $7. For someone who wants to garden… for 5 minutes then relax. This store has every sort of seed bomb you can imagine: regional, herbs, dog and cat friendly! You get a pretty little customized bag (like the above) containing 5 gumball sized bombs that you chuck into desired area and the rain breaks it up and voila: flowers!

Finger Pointing Book Mark by Fred* $8 at Fred Flare. OOH or $6.95 at Amazon. Sweet! So much better than whatever scrap of paper you’ve been using as a bookmark that falls out when you take your book out on the subway or put it down before you go to bed.

*Fred and Fred Flare aren’t related so if you’re looking for more Fred product which, let me just tell you, is a really good idea because Fred products are wonderful, hilarious, and all good choices for On The Cheap presents.

Really, a whole category on socks?:

Yes. Indeed.

Hunter Welly Socks $30 with free shipping at Zappos. Various colors. Fleece inserts for your favorite inclement weather boots. If you don’t need the Hunter logo, there are cheaper versions that can be found for $10-$20 including Dover Saddlery (my sister is an equestrian) where the soon-to-be mine orange and red stripes can be found.

Smartwool Socks. $15-$30 depending on the type of sock. Oh Smartwool socks, how I love thee. They’re warm but not too warm, they’re odor resistant, they’re comfortable and durable (barring puppy attacks), and one day after Christmas townie bar powwow Jenn, Mandy and  I had a half an hour conversation about how wonderful they were.

Nom nom nom

Baked: New Frontiers in Baking Cookbook for $19.77 at Amazon. I read every single recipe aloud after receiving this. But I think I only need to read one to you to explain it’s greatness: Sweet and Salty Cake. It’s chocolate and caramel with salt.

New England Soup Factory Cookbook for $16.49 at Amazon. Their soups are super delicious and you know that’s all you really want when it starts snowing.

Bling Bling

Luxe AAA Wire Wrapped Necklace by missashleylu on Etsy (around $50- they vary by the stone). I love this. It’s so simple and elegant. There are a range of stones from opaque greens one to clear glass looking stones.

Disco Necklace also from missashleylu on Etsy for $45.99. I have literally stalked this necklace on TV. ADA Ruberosa wore a gold one on Law and Order for a couple of years now and then Nancy Botwin has been rocking one on Weeds (or at least in previous season– I’m not caught up yet). It’s just another great simple necklace.

Stylish Tech

Echo Gloves $30 at Macy’s. Other styles available elsewhere (Zappo’s, MOMA, Nordstrom) with ruffles and other touches (for roughly $10 more) but I went with the simple ones at Macy’s because Macy’s gives out coupons regularly. Anyway, pretty self explanatory: don’t risk frost bite or losing YET ANOTHER GLOVE because you need to take a really important call… ALRIGHT because you need to check facebook.

Camera Phone Lenses $20-$25 at Photojojo. Fisheye, Macro, and Wide Angle Camera Lenses FOR. YOUR. PHONE. Lenses are light weight, portable, well-made and magnetically stick to your phone so you don’t drop them the first time you try and use them.

For that room with the stove

Retro Magnetic Timer $12 at Anthropologie. Quit burning your cookies and turning your pasta into mush with this adorable magnetic timer that I can already imagine in the kitchens of several people I know.

Homemade Cookie Stamp $14.95 by Perpetual Kid. You didn’t make 3 trips to the grocery store for ingredients for someone to think your awesomeness came in a prepackaged bag. Or, perhaps you just want to add some pizazz to the cookies you carefully cut from the cookie dough log. Hey, they were still MADE at home!

Oh my goodness are gift guides hard to make! If I come across more cool stuff in my travels around the internets, I will let  you know!

The vendors I loved the most I thought I’d share with y’all. They happen to be 2 AMAZING hair/hat/headwear vendors and 2 jewelry-perfect-for-the-girl-who-doesn’t-want-what-everyone-else-has.

What was that? Did you all scream- START WITH THE HAIR FIRST? I thought you did.

First up:

Wicked Peacock.

(photo credit: Laura Parent)

I believe that is the owner, Silvana Costa, with some of her AWESOME pieces.

Here is a wedding photo from the site that I love as well:

(photo credit: Meg McGovern Hamilton)

Now there seem to be several examples on the website but I’m sure she has more. Silviana, if you come across this and you want to talk websites just let me know (I hope that doesn’t sound bitchy).

Next in the hair department we have:

GALVIN-ized Headwear

They have every sort of on top of head accessory you can think of. It’s like the Dr. Seuss of top of head accessories. Big hats, little hats, tall hats, short hats, crazy hats, feather hats. For example, I saw these at Art Beat, they are so cool:

It’s called “gossip curl”. Wonderful.

And I can’t believe I’ve lived my life without the following:

I would take up horseback riding for that hat. I’d wear it everywhere except yoga where it would undoubtedly fall off and get quite sweaty.

And on to the jewelry.

First we have:

Twigs and Heather (main site / etsy store)

Their stuff is so fun and cool and organic and different and amazing that I had to make you a little collage dedicated to their awesomeness.

Our second jewelry maker and final vendor spotlight is for:

Da Metals

DA Metals is as slick and precise as Twigs and Heather is organic. And they are SUUUUPER customizable so incorporating your wedding colors into your jewelry looks like a piece of cake.

Here are some examples of the shapes available and the color chart.

In other news, my other site is done and ready if anyone would like to take a look. I know I’ve been mentioning it forever. The Future Mrs. Darcy site is still in line to be updated and upgraded but my dear Brandy, at Modern Toile Photography, is next in line for tinkering. Hers is going to be (hopefully) easy to do but will make her site roughly a ba-jillion times better because I’m adding a bunch of galleries so you’ll be able to feast your eyes on all her fab photos and steal all the wonderful ideas her brides have had.

ALSO, my other dear Ren√©e (of Harry Potter inspired weddings fame, who I’ve mentioned quite a bit) emailed me last week to say she was in Michaels and saw this thing and thought it would be great for favors and other wedding things and thought I should tell everyone. I had to then remind her that SHE was the fabulous writer and quick give her some blog writing privileges and tell her whenever she is ready and/or willing to jump right in, so if you see a post that’s grammatically correct and free of spelling errors and wild tangents and you’ve think I’ve been abducted and replaced by a Linguo* the grammar clone— fear not! It’s probably just Ren√©e.

*In keeping with the Boston-theme of this post and the new “I randomly insert The Simpson’s things into a wedding blog” for some reason theme, I will mention, since I didn’t see it anywhere in my 2 second internet searches that Linguo, the grammar robot, happens to have a strong resemblance to the Harvard Lampoon building WHICH Conan O’Brien used to write for AS WELL AS writing for The Simpsons.**

**Did google images just update how it works while I was writing all of this and image searching? I think it did.

Like these fun glasses that make you wish you could register at Kate Spade and EVEN MORE SO that they were made by Urban Outfitters and 1/5th of the price:

I took a glass class in college in which we did glass blowing, stained glass and sand blasting (which I’m guessing is the above). Sand blasting is the easiest but do you know where your local let-anyone-use-it sandblaster is? Me neither. That’s actually a re-occurring thought I have. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a craft repository? You could learn then use wood working tools, screen-printing/letterpresses, and all sorts of fun craft things. I suppose they’re called “art colleges” but that seems like a bit much to go through. I’m not saying let anyone wander in and screw around with everything but I’m not sure they let you come back much after your courses are over.

And this isn’t from the web but since I’ve shown you Kelsey’s graduation invitations and party decorations, I might as well finish it off with her Thank You cards.

They’re simple but I dig it. They’re also small (5 x 3.5) so there’s no need to write a novel. I’m thinking of printing them up in sets of 10 and adding them to the store. Thoughts?

In website news, I’ve nearly finished rehashing my corporate site (kristenhcox.com- it’s still in development so the old one is still online) which means I’m getting close to taking everything I’ve learned to this site! First thing that will be changed– MENUS. It’s dorky but I can’t wait! These menus we have now have given me nothing but grief. Other key highlight- you’ll be able to see all the designs at once so no more next, next, next, next… It’s going to rock

Whew so it’s been a crazy week. I went to my parents’ last weekend (where Bailey had the most fun ever playing with my Mom’s dog, Jazzy, and swimming up a storm in the pool) and then my teenage sister and her boyfriend came to visit Monday-Thursday and since it’s hotter than death here my sister’s boyfriend stayed up in our air conditioned offices and long story short (too late)- I’ve been in severe computer withdrawal. I’m also desperate for people to make concise decisions. Is that something all teenagers are unable to do?

ANYWAY- ON TOP OF THAT I can finally explain the jewelry how-to since I’ve been purposely trying to be vague as hell. So. One of my friends does this thing where on the year that you turn the day of the month that you birthday is on, it’s considered your “Golden” Birthday and you get a corresponding number of daily presents each day of the month. Let’s use a real world example, shall we? Jen is turning 31 TODAY (Happy Birthday Jen) on July 31st so all month a bunch of us gave her 31 objects each day of the month. I had two days so I gave her 31 mini cookie cutters one day and decided that 31 of anything was a lot of something and she’s kind of OCD clean freak* so I wanted to give something consolidated. Like a necklace! With 31 beads on it!! Fabulous idea, n’est pas?! Oh wait. I have NO beading jewelry experience. I did take a metals class in college but that was more bending wire and using a blow torch (which I’ve since probably forgotten how to do).

So the first time around I just winged it and I basically finished but broke the chain by accident and all the beads started falling off which is completely un-related to the chain breaking and related to the fact I was kinda doing it wrong. Here’s how you do it right:

First I have some new tools (and found correct names for the others):

Your chain probably won’t have a failed attempt at beading on it though. Also the “flat head pins” are special jewelry pins (they’re not sharp) so don’t go raiding your sewing kit.

I had found some translucent purple, green and white beads that reminded me of glass and the ocean so I was going for a big cluster like coral or something. If that’s not your style- spread those beads out! And we begin:

Step 1: Take a pin and add your desired bead(s) on it. I sometimes had to use the small beads as a stopper because the larger beads had holes that were ever so slightly too large for the pins and some were falling off. The examples below only use the one beads though.

Step 2: Using the round nose pliers bend the pin so it’s at a 90 degree angle like this:

Step 3: Keep the grip on the bead the same and using your free hand bend the wire back over the top edge of the round nose pliers making a question mark shape like this:

Step 4: Add the chain to the end of the pin. Sometimes I’d move the chain to the curve of the wire so chain would be on the left and pliers keeping it on on the right but whatever is easiest for you.

Step 5: Wrap the end of the wire to coil around itself creating a loop for the chain that will keep the bead secure. (The photo in Step 6 without the pliers in the way will show the desired result)

Step 6: Admire your handiwork.

Step 7: Once I had a couple of beads on I wanted to make sure it was staying even from left to right so I attached the clasp to the smaller jump ring and both to the chain and the larger jump ring on the opposite side. I forgot to take any photos though so read up here on the proper way to use jump rings. It’s basically bend it towards you to open and backwards to close again. I’d model it on my leg and pick out a new spot for each bead.

Repeat Steps 1-6 until you have the desired look. Again- that’s my leg. I’ll see if I can get a photo of the birthday girl in her finished necklace so they’ll be a more proper end to the post.

There you have it. I think it took one and a half DVR’ed episodes of The Closer from start to finished (after I’d taken off all the beads done incorrectly the first time and repaired the chain).

Oh– repairing the chain. That’s what the wire was for. It was the same process as 1-6 but done to both sides to create two loops which each attached to one side of the wire.b

Anyway this was quick, cheap, and easy once someone told me the correct way to do it and could be a great bridesmaids gift option. OR to be even quicker, cheaper and easier- EARRINGS! If you make either or both or something similar, send me a photo and I’ll get a little gallery started.

*Hi Jen!

So as you see it appears my “crankypants” is mixed with a little “crazy shut-in” but that’s how I’m rolling this monday. I’m all put out because I’m half tied to the house today waiting for edits which means I can PRETEND that I’m missing out on awesome things which I probably wouldn’t do as opposed to sitting in front of my computer and cursing Windows Media Player plug-in from keeping me from watching the Lamb Cam. AND it’s past Easter, Mother Nature, I’m no longer impressed with your low-50s weather. Time to step up your game!

But since I had a good food weekend I thought I do a happy little book review.

I believe I received this at my bridal shower. I wasn’t quite sold by the cover and the fact it was a “Bride and Groom” cookbook but I love cookbooks so I was like “I’ll check this out later”. My bridal shower was in May in upstate New York and I was living in DC at the time knowing full well that after the wedding in September I’d be moving to Boston so it probably was also along the lines of, “I’m leaving everything in NY so I don’t have to move it twice.”

But fast forward to after the wedding living in Boston and let me tell you- this cookbook rocks my socks. The book jacket has pretty scallopped edges and the pictures are all lovely and, oh yeah, the food is great. I have made more recipes from this book than any other cookbook. I’ve made the:

• Pizza dough from scratch
• Flaky piecrust to go with the…
• Personalized chicken pot pies
• Guacamole
• Pesto– which went with…
• Goat cheese, sun-dried tomato and pesto torta (which I brought to Easter yesterday and was sooo good)
• Brie and champagne fondue
• Chicken “divine”
• Frittata with sun-dried tomatoes, cream cheese and basil
• French toast with hot buttered run-maple syrup
• Mom’s “flyaway” Pancakes with Melted Berries (my favorite of the book)
• Quick-and-Easy Drop Biscuits (the cheddar version which was so good that I opted for the left over biscuit today instead of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg)
• Harvest Apple Crisp
• Great Robert’s Whiskey Sour Slush
• Mary’s Bloody Mary’s (although I never have Clamato around so I just used V8)

And yes, the last two are correct, there are drink recipes in the back! Also I’ve made 15 recipes, although that’s out of many many more in the book, but FIFTEEN?!? That’s amazing. That’s got to be some sort of cookbook record. At least for me. But anyway–great cookbook– and totally an impulse buy for your aunts, friends, cousins while getting other registry gifts at Bed, Bath and Beyond or Crate and Barrel so HINT AWAY!!

The first is very art deco old school wonderfulness: Estilo.

When I went to go create these samples, for some reason the only things popping in my head were tongue twisters which, though fun to say, usually only showcase a lot of the same letter. I wanted to do a pangram (sentence with all the letters of the alphabet) with it as well but that sort of puzzlry is way out of my league and “the quick brown fox…” was feeling a little played out. Thankfully big huge type foundries have the same thoughts and have sponsors several contests about it. The pangram above is from a typophile.com contest and written by Joe Pemberton.

Second we have RTF Amethyst which I love as an alternative to the very used in wedding invitation: script fonts.

That tongue twister is also the one that I am the very worst at. Although I did read one while I was looking for new tongue twisters that I don’t think we ever did in theater classes and probably for good reason “I’m not the pheasant plucker, I’m the pheasant plucker’s mate, And I’m only plucking pheasants ’cause the pheasant plucker’s late.” Tee hee.

So there are my two new awesome fonts that are looking for wedding invitation homes.

Two slightly related projects on the horizon are: 1) to revamp the website to maybe add places for customers to add feedback, definitely to places for customers to add to delicious or digg, and maybe some larger rotating images on the homepage and 2) to come up with a quiz for new customers- specifically custom customers (these tongue twisters appear to have me on an alliteration kick). The other day I was talking to a bride trying to get an idea of what she was looking for in invitations but she didn’t really have a theme or a strong connection to the location of her wedding– all she really had were her colors. So I was trying to illicit a little more info from her but I kept asking for descriptive things that she wanted her wedding like romantic or modern but after talking with her for a bit I realized I’m probably not going to ask “Do you want your wedding to be elegant… or fairytale… or dramatic?” and have the bride go “No, actually, I’d really like my wedding to be trashy and fugly.”br /br /I think the biggest variation you get with people trying to describe their weddings is “classic” or “modern” which even of themselves– creates BIG ranges. So in the back of my mind I was thinking– “Man this all sounds so familiar. I feel like I’ve been through this before” and, no, not with my own wedding but when I bought that book that I had read about in Domino then coveted for a year and finally bought about 6 months ago– YUP– Style Statement by Carrie McCarthy amp; Danielle LaPorte.

I got about half way through and I did start getting an idea of what my style statement would revolve around but I couldn’t find any good words to encompass it (it was the concept of stories/imaginations– yes, the girl who designs wedding invitation for fictional characters loves stories– I know, you must be shocked but it was kind of a cool a-ha moment for me) anyway- and then ended up hiding the book on myself while I was frantically cleaning for guests.

I was recounting this whole ordeal to a photographer friend who does weddings as well who had just come from an initial meeting with a client and had had a similar situation and after asking a couple key questions about what the groom liked to do fell into a wealth of wonderful ideas where to shoot their engagement photos. It just so happens I am traveling back down below the Mason-Dixon where she lives so we are going to try and make this all happen this week.

Aren’t you excited? I looooove learn more about yourself quizzes. Actually I think I’m going to go work on my style statement right now.

And lastly– if anyone is looking for a good bridesmaid’s gift or a gift to give to a bride or, hell, an “I had a bad day and I need compensation” gift– Bath and Body Works “Perfect Cashmere” items are so wonderful. I just received the knit lounge set, the robe, and the slippers for my birthday and I AM LOVING IT.