The Gathering Project

Today, I’m really excited to share with you a cool project I’ve been working on for the past few months! One of my friends, Chelsea Rose Moore, and I have started a creative workshop that’s debuting on January 25th. It’s a one-day retreat in DC with four sessions hosted by local artisans from the Northern Virginia area. 

Do you like working with your hands? Making your home beautiful? Entertaining and organizing pretty events? I think you might just like the Gathering Project. We have four amazing workshop hosts who will be teaching you about their favorite things and then help you make them! Bonus: You’ll get to take home something you make from each workshop!

During the event, you will learn to style a winter table with Rebecca Gallop of A Daily Something, make seasonal drinks with Rebekah Pizana, craft a winter wreath with Amy Showalter, and paint signage art and lettering with Erik Landstrom. 

We really want you to come to our first event. We are also providing breakfast and lunch during the day! From 8-4:30pm, you’ll be hanging out in an awesome DC loft (The Loft at 600 F), which is super chic and artsy. We also have a ton of amazing sponsors including (but not limited to)  Eric Nielsen of Mahogany Print Productions, LoCo Joe’s Coffee, ScrapCuts, Lily and Val, Knead and Know, June Jars, Kaufmann Mercantile, and Birch Fields Photography.

Some of these sponsors have even offered amazing things for us to give away so you won’t want to miss that!

Hey look, it’s me and Chelsea! 

To sign up, click here and enter the promo code: friends for a 50% discount. I would love to meet you there, so get your tickets today!

Sharpie Therapy / 6

In case you’ve missed past weeks of Sharpie Therapy and don’t know what I’m talking about, check out my introductory post here! This week I’ve drawn out some of my  favorite J.R.R. Tolkien quotes. His birthday was last week and he has sure said some incredible things! Which of his quotes are your favorite?

Weekend Recap / 8

Well Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! It’s been a joyous season and I hope you’ve been able to have a few happy adventures as well. Thanks for giving me a little break on the blog. Bradley and I had a busy 2 weeks traveling to Indiana for Christmas and coming back just before the new year. We spent New Year’s Eve with Brooke and Levi, which was a ton of fun.

Thursday afternoon it started to snow and continued into the night.

This is how I look when it snows. My husband can attest to the fact that when it snows I’m like a little girl who got all she ever wanted on Christmas morning.

Last night we watched the Colt’s game with one of Bradley’s friends. If you watched the game or heard about it, you know it was quite the emotional ride. I’m definitely a fan, but I’m not as much of a fan as these guys. 🙂

Thank you Colts for pulling that win off. You made these two guys very happy!

What was your weekend like? Football, food or fitness?

Baking / Christmas Cookies

While Bradley and I were in NY for Thanksgiving, I picked up a few of my mom’s recipes that I grew up on. One of them was this Christmas cookies recipe. One of my favorites, they are called German Love and have an amazing lemon glaze on the top.

This is the physical recipe from her cookbook, handwritten a few times over.

Step 1: Mix butter, egg, sugar, and vanillaStep 2: Add flourStep 3: Add everything else, including a ton of spices (that’s what makes these cookies great!)

This is what it should look like after that. Now you’ll chill it for an hour or two. I tend to clean the kitchen while cookies chill, but you could also put your feet up and enjoy a sweet cup of joe with eggnog creamer if you prefer.

Step 4: After it’s chilled, flour a cutting board and roll out the dough to about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. As you can see, I like to over-flour things because I hate when batter sticks to me, the board or the rolling-pin. Step 5: Cut dough in to squares/rectangles, and other geometric shapes with a knife.
Step 6: Put them on a sheet ready for the oven and cook for about 10 minutes. They won’t grow so you can crowd a cookie sheet if you need to.

Step 7: Make a little glaze for the top, lemon juice, water and powdered sugar. I added red and green food coloring for extra Christmas joy.
Step 8: After the cooking come out, transfer them to a cooling rack.
Step 9: After the cookies have cooled, drizzle icing over top. I like to put a piece of plastic wrap under the cooling rack for easy clean up.

Enjoy with a cup of strong black coffee, milk or eggnog!

——

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon cloves
• 1 teaspoon all spice
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg

Glaze:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 1/2 teaspoon water
• food coloring

Directions:

1. Cream together butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla
2. Add flour
3. Add walnuts, molasses, lemon peel, cinnamon, clove, allspice, and nutmeg
4. Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 1-2 hours
5. Set oven to 375
6. Roll out on floured cutting board (1/8-1/4 thickness) and cut into squares with a knife
7. Place cookies on sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes
8. Take out and place on cooling rack
9. While cookies are cooling make glaze by mixing lemon juice, water, powdered sugar and food coloring
10. Drizzle glaze over cookies with a spoon and allow time to set

These are great cookies to bring to the family’s house for Christmas or if you’re going to a cookie exchange, whip up a batch! They are some of the most simple to make and simply tasty cookies out there.

What are you go to Christmas cookies?

Casual Day / Green Jeans and Black Boots

Today, I’m enjoying the last day of work before a long Christmas holiday! These last few days have been casual around GenJ so I had an excuse to wear these comfortable green jeans to work. Paired with black suede boots and a cozy sweater, these cold days have nothing on this new go to outfit.  Sweater: Old Navy — Pants: Target (similar) — Boots: Target (similar) — Necklace: Old Navy (similar: here and here)

Kinfolk Workshop / Natural Holiday Decor

Last Friday, I had the privilege of attending my first Kinfolk event. They provide different themes for each month’s gathering and December’s workshop theme was Natural Holiday Decor. Kinfolk’s website describes the event as follows:

We are looking to good old-fashioned nature to creatively refresh us, as well as to provide the materials needed for bringing something fresh indoors. The earth’s widespread palette of color and texture are a tried-and-true source for creating unique decor not merely for the holiday season.

Rebecca Gallop, my dear friend who I met in college and has since become a well-known blogger, prop styling, and wedding designer, hosted this particular event. She, along with the ladies of Sweet Root Village, taught us how to bring the outdoors inside and make them into beautiful decorations for the holiday season.

I’m excited to show you some pictures I took from the event! It was a great workshop where fellow creatives came together, ate a great meal, and made beautiful wreaths and garlands.

The location was just around the corner from the National Portrait Gallery and the Spy Museum and is called the Loft at 600 F. You’ll see how beautiful this space is in the next few pictures!

Here is what the entrance to the building looks like. Rebecca had set up this sign to direct us upstairs.

What did I tell you? This loft is darling and super classy! I can’t wait to host the Gathering Project’s first workshop here in January.

They decorated with natural greenery and those glass balls hanging from the rafters have tiny candles in them.

This was the workshop space where we crafted natural greenery in to holiday decor for our homes. 

The natural light in this space was gorgeous!

Rebecca shared with us a way to make beautiful greenery imprints on cloth! (this project featured: hammers and strong arms)

Favors at our lunch spots! Such beautiful taper candles by Talia Olmstead and a forage guide to greenery by Jennifer Olmstead.

Lunch showcased amazing soups, accompanied by a mixed greens salad and hearty bread. 

After lunch, we started the wreath and garland making! I couldn’t help but snack on some fresh pomegranate and delicious chocolate cake while listening to Lauren teach.

They brought so much fresh greenery from the generous Wollam Gardens. I used cedar branches for my wreath.

Finished product!

By the afternoon, the entire loft smelled of the natural outdoors.

As soon as I got home, this wreath went up on my front door. Such a nice touch to the apartment! If you ever get the chance to attend a Kinfolk event, I would highly recommend you do. It was so much fun to taste amazing food, learn a new skill, and meet other creative types! You won’t be disappointed.

Sharpie Therapy / 5

So many worship songs have such amazing lyrics. I can’t help but write them down. Today, I’m taking Sharpie Therapy to a new level and trying out some new fonts! What do you think? I’d love to see some of your favorite worship songs in sharpie art. Send them to joodlesdoodles@gmail.com and I’ll share them here in an upcoming Sharpie Therapy column. 🙂

Weekend Recap / 7

This weekend involved staying up late, good friends, and spending time around home with my husband. Friday morning at 12:00am, Bradley and I watched a midnight showing of The Hobbit part 2. He’s a huge Tolkien fan and I’ve definitely adopted a love for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit because of him. (Note: We did take naps before the movie, so this was one of the only midnight showings I’ve been able to stay awake through.)

Saturday I got to spend the day with Grace. Bestie and partner in Sharpie Therapy. I’m so glad she was able to come for the weekend! Wish we lived closer together but when we do get to see each other it’s magical (her word). 🙂

We met up with friends at Panera, had some great lunch, and Sharpie Therapied all afternoon. Spreading the love and the sharpies. Love these girls!

L to R: Abigail, Rachel, Tatum, Me, Grace

It started snowing so I began drawing. Nothing perfect but I had some fun with a chisel tipped sharpie.

Then on Sunday, Bradley and I headed to church and then spent the rest of the day fixing up the apartment, watching some football, and ordering family Christmas gifts. The picture below is today’s Sharpie Therapy picture. If you don’t follow us on Facebook, click through using that link and like us to see all our daily Sharpie Therapy art!

Workwear: Mint Blouse and Red Sweater

Jumping on the mint trend that has been roaming our closets for years now, I’m presenting this outfit full of color and class. Or at least I hope.

I love how everything worked together and the beige flats provide the perfect classic finishing to the outfit. I didn’t want to add a necklace because the red/mint top combo and the black/brown pants combo seemed interesting enough. Enjoy! Blouse: Old Navy — Sweater: Old Navy — Pants: Old Navy — Belt: Target — Flats: Target

Cooking / Guacamole

Guacamole has become a favorite in my house recently. I’ve made my husband a guac convert! He’s still not keen about avocados but guac seems to be a completely different story. 🙂

Today, I’m going to share my guacamole recipe with you! I wasn’t very good at getting the right balance of ingredients until a few months ago (maybe that’s why he didn’t like it). 🙂 We visited Plaza Azteca, an amazing Mexican restaurant, and watched them make the guac table side.  I have now learned all their secrets!

Ingredients

• 2 Avocados
• Bunch of roughly chopped Cilantro
• 1/4  Yellow onion, diced
• 1 tbsp Jalapeno pepper, diced
• 1/2 Roma Tomato, diced
• 1 Lime, juiced
• Salt, to taste

Directions

1. Place avocado, lime juice and a pinch  salt in a bowl and begin cutting together with two knives.
2. Add onions, tomato, and jalapeno and combine with a spoon.
3. Sprinkle in cilantro and another bit of salt and mix.
4. Sample with tortilla chips and adjust if necessary

• If bland: add a little salt or lime juice