Yes, I'm back! (maybe, perhaps)

Hi!

You can see there has been a huge gap between my last post and the one I just published yesterday.  Like nine months.  Really.  My blog has become yet another tombstone in the abandoned blog graveyard.  So many of us start with the greatest intentions, and then life gets in the way and there you have it: what was once a lovely blog is now a ghost town, abandoned, cobwebby and forgotten.

Much has happened in these last nine months.  I got a full-time, grown-up job.  I became a winemaker, and my free time went whoooooosh!  I love the paychecks, and the structure this job gives to my life.  The responsibility is very gratifying to my ego.  However, I miss the play time I had for myself.  Time, one of the greatest commodities of life.

That said, I did want to follow up on the wonderful Christmas tree that the earth-conscious folks in El Granado were planning for 2012.  I contacted their spokesperson, like last year, and got some photos and information.  At first, I thought it would be weird to publish the article here, dusty and lonely as this blog was, so I pitched the idea to another, very popular, eco-centric blog.  They agreed, but due partly to circumstances and partly to poor planning, they flaked.  With December 25 gone, it became important to put forth the article, because there is such a thing as an expiration date on Christmas.  I took a broom and a mop to attack the cobwebs, and decided to revive the blog, if nothing else to fulfill the commitment I made to El Granado (one of these years I really must stop by).

So this is what happened.  I am not sure how involved I will be with this blog in the future.  It is NOT part of my 2013 resolutions.  But if I find something worth sharing, I shall reopen it, dust and all. 

Here's something worth sharing:

My husband works by this tire shop, and he took this photo to show me.  I love that the orange lights are not lights.  They are puffs of fluorescent spray paint. Brilliant!!!

I want to wish anyone reading this my best wishes for a wonderful 2013.  May your resolutions stick, may your loved ones be happy and healthy, may you spread good cheer around!

The Green Christmas of El Granado - 2012

A year ago I wrote about a small town in the south of Spain, El Granado, and their recycled Christmas tree tradition.  They are at it again, and for the fourth year in a row, El Granado citizens have decorated their town for Christmas in a very original and eco-friendly manner. In the center square, this year's 26-ft tall Christmas tree was made with 1,200 flowers made from plastic bottles

 The main flower chosen for the tree was the brown-eyed rockrose (Cistus ladanifer), a native species of the region. These flowers were made from the bottoms of 5-L water bottles

Among the rock roses you can also find other colorful flowers, made from plastic soda bottles

This project has been a true collective effort. The citizens of El Granado helped with the gathering, cutting, painting and installation of the flowers.

I am looking forward to seeing what they come up for Christmas 2013! I wish more towns and cities had the initiative to do something similar. With a little bit of ingenuity, it is amazing the beauty that can be created. Projects like these bring people together, and raise the collective awareness of how precious and how finite our resources are.

My sincere thanks to Maite Barroso, spokesperson for the town of El Granado, for her help and her wonderful photographs.

Recycled Christmas Cards

The whirl of the holidays enveloped me something fierce, and I have been scattered in many different directions. However, I was able to find some time to mentally jot down a few resolutions. My first one was to declutter. My second one was to finish all the craft projects that are languishing in the garage before starting new ones. It took me less than a week to break #2, but I am not ashamed, because by doing so, I upheld #1.

If you are a green hoarder like me, you amass vast quantities of materials on the grounds that you may be able to use them for a project "one day". You feel virtuous because you are keeping stuff from the landfill. In the meantime, dust and cobwebs accumulate on your loot. This is not very practical. It drives me crazy to hate clutter yet generate it.

Here's another piece of dirt on me: I am very frugal. I dislike spending money as a general rule, but I especially hate retail prices. So I have been watching the post-Christmas sales, because I was out of Christmas cards. Every time I was in a store I would look over in the Xmas direction. I never buy at 50% off, because you know they will eventually go to 75%. But this year that 50% sign seemed to be stuck.

The time came to take down the tree and the cards strung across the mantle. I throw a ribbon from corner to corner, and hang the cards with teeny tiny clothespins, like fresh laundry. This year we only got a few. I am very bummed, because I love mail, sending and receiving it (yes, it's not green, I know, but #1: not everybody is online and #2: it's one of my few non-green indulgences). Like a good hoarder, I put these cards in a box, with those from 2010, 2009, 2008... And then Resolution #1 stared at me in the face. I had to go into action

I went to the Dollar store and bought a few sheets of poster board. My husband always loves to ask me how much I paid for Dollar store items. HA! This time he would have been stumped, because each board was 50 cents! I also went to Michaels and found blank cards on the clearance bins. I am not exactly sure what the discount was, but I am very pleased that each package of 24 ended up being 99 cents. I bought enough cards for the rest of the decade.

So after putting all my materials together, I got something that looks like this

These cards could be as easy as you wish. In some cases, I simply cut the front using normal scissors and glued it to the blank card. Other times, though, I used fancy pinking-style scissors.

As the Christmas cards arrived this year, I also saved the envelopes that were colored or had shiny lining, because you never know... Once again I was hoarding for the sake of green crafting. They came in handy for this idea. I punched out some shapes, and created tiny presents

On Christmas Eve, after dinner, we opened presents with our friends. The living room looked like this

Santa was very generous. I looked at all that beautiful, glittery, expensive wrapping paper. It seemed like a shame to just make a huge ball with it. I pulled whatever pieces of tape I could, smoothed the wrinkles and set it aside. But in my recycled Christmas card mode, I had an idea. While watching Knight and Day (horrible movie! But it was filmed in part in my hometown, so I HAD to sacrifice), I cut ornament shapes from one of the wrapping papers. Then I glued them on a card made from an old folder, from the part where the pocket is. I used the rest of the folder to make more cards.

I also saved the gift tags. This card could not be any simpler

By the way, the string from that star is what I used for the bows on the little presents on the card above.

These cards are all so simple that they can be a fun project for kids. I am not a parent, but if I were, I would probably try to find a life lesson out of every situation. By making these, children could learn how you can create something useful (and dare I say, pretty), out of what lots of people throw away.

I am by no means done with this project, and I will add a few more photos soon.

And by the way, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Nochebuena - The Countdown

In Spain, Christmas Eve is known as Nochebuena (The Good Night). One day, when I have more time, I'll research the reason for the name. Perhaps it came about from the delicious foods that are eaten. Maybe because it is a night of good wishes and warm feelings. Whatever the reason, it is a special night for a Spaniard, in a sense similar to what Thanksgiving is for Americans: the family gets together, turkey is usually involved, lots of cooking...

We are hosting a small dinner party for Nochebuena. A group of friends will come over and we will drink, eat and exchange gifts. We wanted the menu to be primarily Spanish. On Friday I prepared this red cabbage soup, fried the bread stars (mine look far less professional than the ones on the photo: I cut mine freehand), and even practiced the feathered cream touches on top. Lombarda, or red cabbage, is something that I associate with the holidays, perhaps because I don't remember seeing it at home at any other time of the year. This is the first time I make this soup. This recipe is a keeper.

My husband is in charge of the main course, leg of lamb. I am not sure how he will make it, but as a lover of all things Spanish he will probably stick to rosemary and garlic. I believe he is planning on serving it with Brussel sprouts and this delicious sweet potato puree with braised leeks, which has been already made. One less thing to worry about tomorrow.

For the dessert, I will make warm chocolate pudding cakes with caramel sauce again, because they were such a smashing hit last time. I cheated somewhat, though, in that I bought some Mexican cajeta in one of the multiple supermarket forays we did today. Making caramel, one less thing to do.

No Nochebuena would be complete without some turrón. In the same supermarket where I got the cajeta, I found Turrón El Almendro, which is such a quintessential brand. What a surprise!

I took care of a few last-minute details, like decorating the windows with junkmail snowflakes. From the street, at night, they look magical. During the day they give interesting shadows. It gives me such pleasure to create something so pretty out of something so humble. I learned how to make them here.

I also made some Epsom salt luminaries out of empty jam and olive jars. On Friday I ran around like crazy, and by the time the lighting outside was good for a photo, I was on my third supermarket trip, so this is all I got of the process. Luckily, this tutorial will show you how to make them. My luminaries will light our dinner table.

I still have to make a mushroom compound butter, wrap a couple more gifts, sweep the floors, load a Christmas playlist on the iPod... I better go to bed.

I hope you have a wonderful Nochebuena!

The Green Christmas of El Granado

My sister posted a link on her Facebook page about a small town in Andalucía that goes green for Christmas. Because anything that has to do with recycled art interests me, I decided to learn more.

El Granado is just near the border with Portugal. To say that it is a small town is quite the understatement. Last year’s census has it at less than 600 people. There may not be many, but they are certainly conscientious about our planet.

For the third year in a row, El Granado citizens have decorated their town for Christmas in a very original and eco-friendly manner. In the center square, the 30-ft tall Christmas tree was made with more than 25,000 bottle caps.

If that wasn't enough, they also created this whimsical nativity scene

This project has been a true collective effort. The citizens of El Granado helped with the gathering, drilling and installation of the caps.

In these days of global financial crisis, this town has given everyone a great example on how to save money while doing it in an environmentally and financially sustainable manner.

In 2009 the Christmas tree chosen was a dead oak. The tree was decorated with old shoes, worn out circular saw blades, empty containers wrapped in aluminum foil, painted pine cones, and many other items. Perhaps because this was the first year the town didn’t choose a conventional Christmas tree, the citizens were very divided. Some loved it, some didn’t.

The nativity scene in 2009 was created out of rebar left over from the construction of the town hall. The rebar was welded into different silhouettes, which were then wrapped with lights.

Even though opinions were very divided, that didn’t stop El Granado, and in 2010 the Christmas tree was made with 580 empty wine bottles. The tree topper was a very large whiskey bottle. It stood over 25 feet high. This tree was so popular that a neighboring town, Villanueva de los Castillejos, asked to borrow it to display in its main square this very Christmas season! A tree made of recycled materials gets recycled itself. Could this be any more perfect?

I am looking forward to seeing what they come up for Christmas 2012! I wish more towns and cities had the initiative to do something similar. With a little bit of ingenuity, it is amazing the beauty that can be created.

My sincere thanks to Maite Barroso, spokesperson for the town of El Granado, for her help and her wonderful photographs.

¡Feliz Navidad!

ps: these guys throw a mean crafts fair! Nicely done!

Christmas Tree 2011

This is a very self-indulgent post. My sister asked me for photos of the Christmas tree, but rather than emailing her, I thought I could make a blog post out of her request.

Not a bad looking Douglas fir from Oregon! It measures somewhere between 6 - 7 ft (1.82 - 2.13 m), and it is quite chubby. I have a ton of ornaments, but this year I decided to be moderate, and ended up hanging approximately half of them. There is an entire storage box still in the garage. Most of my favorites are on, though

As a Spaniard, I have very fond memories of the Three Kings (Los Reyes Magos). These figures are made out of paper, and I love their faces, which remind me of the El Greco paintings

You won't find a whole lot of plastic on my tree. There is something special about homemade materials, like these cute felt creatures (although the ladybug has quite the sinister face)

Last year I participated in a crafts exchange at Crafster.org, and my trading partner, a lovely 18-yr old from Nebraska, sent me a trio of Kusudama balls. One was made from an old novel, another from a map, and this one from the pages of a magazine

This knitted stocking and a couple of other similar ones have been with me since college. I am not 100% sure how I got them. I want to say that the landlady from the apartment complex where I lived gave them to me

This ensemble is in honor of my husband's love for jazz music. The face of the drummer makes me laugh!

Of course, I could not possibly NOT have a cork ornament

Some ornaments have traveled a long ways, found by lucky friends in their exotic vacations, like this mistletoe paper cutout from Denmark

And like I said, there isn't a whole lot of plastic on this tree, but this is one of my favorite things: the Lifesavers garland. I bought it at Mac Frugals (now known as Big Lots) while I was in college. Perhaps the idea of trimming the tree with candy appeals to my inner 4-year old. The truth is I always look forward to hanging this garland. I love the fake sugar dusting on it, its bright colors, and how user-friendly it is. I have a love-hate relationship with garlands. They tangle. They slip. They don't want to stay put. So I am grateful for this one, flexible, colorful, tangle-proof, happy, silly.

So that's my tree.

There are many Christmas trees in my memory, but two stand out, and neither was very pretty, in the strict sense of the word. The tree we had while growing up was silver tinsel, and it looked like an uprighted bottle brush. When we moved to Spain, somehow the pole got lost, and my mom had a carpenter create a new one. I don't think the carpenter understood very well how the tree was supposed to look in the end, judging from how he drilled the holes for the branches. I should post a photo of it, for your enjoyment. We have tons of them. Every year we would snap a new photo, and my mom would ask if we were documenting the tree's growth.

The second tree I vividly remember is the one my friend Bert had for a Christmas party at his place. He was an exchange student from the University of North Carolina spending a year in Sevilla. I was a student too, thinking about going to college in the US. Bert bought a tiny artificial tree, no more than 2 ft tall, and at the party he handed everybody colored pencils and construction paper and asked us to create ornaments. There were many levels of expertise among us. Bert's mom said at one point, "I can't draw", which sounded odd to my English-as-a-second-language ears, because she was, in fact, drawing. I distinctly remember the ornament that our friend Marvin created, a little teddy bear, so perfect it looked professional. We also had a big bowl of popcorn, and we strung it into garlands, also a first for me. At the end, that little plastic tree looked beautiful, with its paper ornaments and the popcorn simulating snow, a touch of home for a whole bunch of American kids spending their first Christmas abroad.

Toilet Paper Tubes Christmas Wreath

As some of you may know, I love to craft, and I especially love to reuse and repurpose things that were otherwise destined to the garbage. This is why, when I ran into this tutorial, I got very excited.

Speaking of garbage, I have a confession to make. Every time I go to a Michaels store, I walk the silk flower aisles and pick up whatever flowers and leaves are on the ground. I always ask if it is OK to take them home, and the answer is invariably, "Sure, go ahead, they get swept up at the end of the day anyway". Thank you, Michaels, for letting me rescue these perfectly good flowers!

In the last few weeks, with the holidays approaching, many of the flowers I have gathered were poinsettias. I have also found glittery pine cones, red berries, holly, and the usual holiday suspects.

I followed the directions of the tutorial, and made a whole bunch of tp flowers. With glue gun in hand, I assembled them into a wreath shape, and embellished the resulting wreath with my Michaels finds.

My front door is white on the inside, and the red looks great against the white background. I'm very happy with the results. The hardest part was cutting the tubes. I did not listen to the tutorial, and used a pair of scissors instead of the craft knife. It is hard to cut cardboard with scissors, so I only did one tube at a time. But once all the flowers were ready, it took just a few minutes to assemble the whole thing.

It makes me happy to know that pretty much all this was destined for the landfill, and instead it is gracing a corner of my home. I had fun making this wreath, and it may not be the last one I make. I sure have enough tp tubes and flowers to keep going!

Thanksgiving weekend is usually when we start decorating the house for Christmas. On your marks, get set, go!