Adapted from Jamie Oliver’s recipe from Jamie’s Christmas with Bells On.
I love Mr. Oliver’s way of throwing every leftover from a hearty roast dinner – even the gravy – into a big pot, adding stock, simmering, blending and calling it soup. I’ve made a few adjustment to his recipe to work in more leftovers and use more of the ingredients I typically have on hand after whipping up a roast dinner.
The new blog design is done! We put the finishing touches on and gave it a nice spit shine last night. Although it is nearly a full month late for the big debut date my hard-working husband originally quoted for me, it will coincide nicely with the completion of my new hair bow collection, and my full set giveaway.
This year, my husband and I will be spending the entirety of the Christmas season at home, just the two of us. This will be the third Christmas of our marriage and only the second time we have spent it in our own home. For many years before last, we would travel two hours to our hometown to stay with my wonderful mother-in-law for a few days over Christmas. My husband’s older sister would come with her husband and daughter to stay as well. It was a lovely family tradition and I was honoured to be welcomed so warmly, but with my husband and I now done University and working full time, we do not have the down time – or patience – necessary to participate in all four to seven Christmas celebrations held by every quadrant of our split and blended families. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves last year, so we invited some friends over that would also have been alone for the holidays, ordered some Chinese food and went to the movies to see Django Unchained. It was fun, but it didn’t feel right. This year we are doing things our own way, in a decidedly less rebellious fashion, and establishing our own traditions.
We bought our first real Christmas tree and I decorated our apartment with a specific colour scheme for the first time! Before this year, I didn’t have enough things / money to create any sort of theme. Every year, as I just put out all the decorations we owned, my husband would regale me with stories of the colour schemes his mother would put together for Christmas when he was a child. I chose red, white and straw for my first go.
Inspired by this little guy.
I’ll be trying to take a few days off this week to enjoy Christmas with the hubs before I start working on a big bridesmaid dress order, but it’s always so hard not to look forward to future projects at this time of year – especially with The Bacon Dress finally finished!
I’m not sure I’ve ever felt such a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction as I did the day I put the finishing touches on The Bacon Dress, a dress I’ve been working on for the past three months. I’m exceedingly happy with how it turned out. Now I just need one sunny afternoon over the holidays for my husband and I to put together a cheeky, bacony photoshoot and it will be available for order.
With Christmas nearly here, it’s time for me to start working on my bows for Valentine’s Day (one of my favourite holidays, as it usually falls on the same weekend as my birthday) before moving on to plans for the spring dresses. I’m thinking the new hair bow collection will revive the popular leopard print, solid black and black polka dot bows from last year while introducing two new bows in strawberry-milkshake-pink and glittering gold sequin.
The pink bow will be made with scrap fabric from The Milkshake Dress in Strawberry, which is how I’m able to offer my bows at such a great price.
The Milkshake Dress in Strawberry
