Sugar Land, a neighboring suburb, has a menorah lighting each year. We had a lot of fun and wrapped up the night with Ben & Jerry's! Ha!

I'm making more latkes tonight for dinner. With roasted chicken and sweet peas. Yumm!

Once I got it turned off, Isabella went to tell Scott, then came back to help. Everyone pitched in. As I started to clean, I stopped and said "Wait! I need a picture!" Scott said no, we had no time. Because I thought the party was at 2pm and now it was about five after. So we cleaned the floor, the walls, the wood blinds and windows, the table, oh the chairs, got new bowls and new napkins for the food. I think we got it cleaner than it is when the housekeepers clean it every two weeks. And THEN, we started wondering where the heck our guests were because honestly, by now, I was ready to just grab a glass of wine and give up.

Isabella went to get a copy of the invite and that was when we discovered I had been wrong about the timing of our own party for over a week. Sigh. I'm such an idiot. I could have had photos of the exploding chocolate fountain after all.

Got candles? Check. Heck, got the menorah even out of the attic? Check. Got oil for all the deep fried goodness that will be happening this next week or so? Crap. I forgot potatoes at the grocery store. I'm an idiot. I knew I should have made a list. I've got the gelt for the party, but they don't look purty yet. I'm thinking I'll do that on Saturday. Nothing like waiting until the last minute.

So, usually, tomorrow night (Friday night) would be this wonderful, super special evening where we light the first candle and figure out how to say the prayers and sit and play the dreidel game, which I always lose because I never can remember which letter is which. BUT. This year there is a KINK.

Last Friday, we had SNOW. So a Girl Scout event got canceled so that we non-snow drivers didn't have to get out on the slick, iced roads. Don't laugh. It NEVER ices here. Scott says we can't even drive in the rain so there was no way in hell we were getting out on ice. At any rate... the event was rescheduled to... drumroll please... you got it. This Friday. And yes, I asked if it could be moved to some evening other than the first night of Chanukah because seriously, that's a bit like scheduling it on Christmas Eve. But no, it could not be moved and their reasons were legitimate to a certain extent, albeit annoying. So we gave Isabella the choice and she wants to go to the event because she wants to earn the badge. So we said okay. I'm a teensy bit annoyed that we said okay, but this is one of those difficult moments. If we say no, then she resents Chanukah. If we say yes, some of Chanukah gets turned into a second class holiday. Sigh, there is no win. I guess I will just be glad that there are EIGHT NIGHTS so we aren't losing the entire holiday. So anyhoo, we're going to the event, then we're coming home, lighting the candles late, and letting her open a gift, which honestly, will solve all the woes of Chanukah, I'm quite certain. Ha.

So, you're running out of time, peeps. Make those lists. Check them twice. And I'm not talking about a fat guy in a red suit people! Oil! Candles! Potatoes! And like my dear friend Lizzie says... Batteries for the camera!!! Got'em Lizzie, thanks!

P.S. Don't forget to go to my store starting tomorrow night to grab the free kit! Every night for eight nights! Its crazy I know! But you won't want to miss a single part of the kit! Its A LATKE FUN!!! I crack myself up.

Lots of metal and word art and stitching and goodness for documenting your traditions. Nice textured papers too! And... YOU CAN GET THE ENTIRE KIT FOR FREE!

Each night of Chanukah, starting at 6pm on Friday, the 11th, a piece of this kit will be available in the store for FREE. That piece will be FREE for 24 hours, until the next piece goes on sale. Now, PGD is cool because sales start at the time I set, based on YOUR TIME ZONE! So, the first piece will be in the store early for my time zone (like midnight Thursday) so that someone on the other side of the world can get it at exactly 6pm their time. Get it? So if you log into the store before 6pm Friday, you will see the piece of the kit, but it will be $1.00, it won't be free until 6pm YOUR TIME. If you miss a piece of two, you can pick them up for $1.00. If you miss the entire kit, it will be in the shop after Chanukah at our regular kit prices. But of course, you will want to get it for FREE! So log in each day, grab the piece, and by the end, the whole kit is yours! Does this make sense? Did I explain it right? Leave a comment if you are confused and I will try to help! I'm really excited about giving this one away for those of you who are paying attention!

But today's post is special, for my Chanukah readers. Although it was made by my friend Liz, who is on my creative team, and who is not Jewish. Liz celebrates Christmas, but she is so awesome, she made this complete 9 page brag book with two separate covers, just for YOU. Its got 8 pages, one for each night, and the menorah even has the correct number of candles each night. Its wonderful and awesome and I absolutely adore her for doing it. For me. For you. For anyone who wants it. If you download it, please say thank you to Liz as I know she worked hard to make this beautiful and appropriate and fun!

But now I'm going to tell you a secret. My recipes are a disaster. They are all on different pieces of paper, small, large, printed from the internet, ugh. Makes me a bit nutty thinking about it and every year, I have to dig through the pile to find the Sufganiyot recipe and I lost and found the bimuelo recipe THREE times before I decided to solve the problem, once and for all. I created a Chanukah recipe book AND I included blank pages so it can grow later! AND I made all of it into templates for YOU to download as well! So here goes nothin' baby! And um, if you ask really nicely, I will do another one for Passover because God only knows where my chocolate matzah recipe has run off to.

So first, you need recipe cards. But I have issues with recipe cards. They're usually not large enough and without a picture, I don't know what I'm cooking. So... my cards each take up a whole letter size piece of paper, with room for a 4x6 photo at the bottom and all your recipe info at the top. I tried to give you plenty of lines for ingredients, although I KNOW the instructions section might be a bit small. Hopefully, these will work for you. So, after you download the free recipe cards, print however many copies you want. There is a left and a right, so you can put these back to back inside page protectors. I highly recommend the page protectors because this will be in the kitchen, after all. So print them and slip them in the page protectors. If you really don't have enough room on the card for all the directions, you could finish on the back of the card and then pull it out and turn it over while you're cooking. The inside of your Chanukah recipe book is ready for your recipes.

Please, do not right click and save this image. Its small for the web and will absolutely NOT give you a nice print for your book. Please DOWNLOAD HERE to get a full size image for your project!

Now, the outside of your recipe book is really up to you. I made mine with a digital kit that is coming out in my store next week and if you PAY ATTENTION, you can get the entire kit for free. You just won't know how to do it until the first night-ish of Chanukah so you have to keep coming back to my blog.

Anyhoo, I printed a paper from my new kit. I have a 12x12 printer so I printed it full size. If you don't have a large format printer, just print it on letter paper and use that to decorate whatever you want to decorate. I printed mine on smooth white cardstock, 2 copies - one for the front cover and one for the back cover. I adhered those on chipboard to make my covers a bit more sturdy. I then printed 2 copies of a second paper from the same kit and adhered those to the insides of the front and back covers.

I am a big believer in using up your stash. Really. So I dug through my alphas and found the insides of the Tattered Angels Natures Beauty Chipboard Alpha (the outside is gorgeous butterflies) to add the word Recipes. I used Adirondack Color Wash in Denim and Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Blue Skies to "paint" them. I adhered them with Zip Dry Paper Glue. I didn't have enough of the letters to spell Chanukah (not enough H's and no A's left in my stash at all) so I used Photoshop to print the letters in a cursive print on one of my kit digital papers, printed it on white cardstock and then cut it out. If you have a Cricut or similar, you could print the paper and use your diecutter to do this. I don't have one anymore so I made do with handcutting. I added a few more little embellishments and now I'm supposed to show you my recipe book. Guess what? It got ruined by a glass of raspberry crystal lite which honestly, did not belong anywhere near my craft room. Sigh. I'm sorry, you will just have to trust me. It was cute. And the good thing is, I have the recipe cards so I can make it again. I would love to see yours!

I hope you're enjoying all my Chanukah preparedness posts, please leave me some comments so I know someone is reading! And really, PAY ATTENTION... there's a good chance you're going to get a freebie next week!

For ANOTHER Chanukah idea (or Christmas because I made two versions), check out my post at Scrap N'Art today. Holiday music can be annoying, or it can be wonderful. The best way to make sure your holiday music is exactly what you want it to be, is to make your own playlist and then pop it on a CD to listen to wherever you go. Okay, you IPOD people, I know it could be even easier than that, but in my car, I need a CD, so there. And of course, you should make the CD as cute as possible to bring extra happy holiday cheer to yourself and your loved ones. Check these out!

Today, I'm just gonna show you how I used the tags from yesterday and a couple of different papers to wrap gifts. My favorite is plain white paper, ribbon, and a tag. But I also like to support Jewish products in the stores AND especially with Sally Foster because honestly, if I have to sell buy the stuff for Isabella's school fundraiser, they need to have product I want. So if I stop buying it, they'll stop making it and then I will just be bitter because everything in the catalog will be red and green. So anyhoo, here's a wrapped gift. Seriously, keep it simple people and life goes so much more smoothly!

I told you it was simple. But are yours done? Show me what YOU do, perhaps you go all out with gorgeous, amazing wrapped presents? I would love to see!

Okay, you ready? Project #1 is gift tags. You've seen them all over the internet for Christmas and sometimes it's easy to adapt a project for Chanukah. Sometimes its not. So I'm just gonna do them for you and hopefully give you some inspiration to make your own custom Chanukah tags. Here we go. Our daughter gets a gift each night of Chanukah. Some are big, some are small (I mean, really small, folks) but I wrap each of them and she loves opening them and has learned that it doesn't really matter what it is, its the thought behind it. This year, I am wrapping all of her gifts in plain white paper, adding blue raffia and these tags.

These were super simple to make so here's the tutorial.

Supplies needed:

• Claudine Hellmuth Sticky-back Canvas (or you can alter this, I talk about options below).
• Jewish themed stamps
• Number stamps, I used the Close To My Heart Precious Alphabet
• Martha Stewart glue pad, Versamark, or other watermarking/embossing stamp pad
• Martha Stewart micro glitter, or other micro glitter
• Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Powder, I used Walnut Stain
• Eyelets, I used Close To My Heart eyelets in Copper.
• Crop-a-dile, heat gun, scissors, pencil
• One small piece of chipboard or a tag-shaped diecut

1. I created a tag template out of cardstock. I don't have a diecut in this shape (and have now realized how badly I want one). I cut a rectangle 3" X 1.5". I then cut the corners on a 1/2" angle. Voila! Tag template. I will save this for future use in a little basket I have on my desk of little miscellaneous shapes, cuts, etc.

2. I turned my sheet of sticky-back canvas over so I was looking at the white paper backing. I traced the tag 8 times in a row. I then lined up the tag and did a second row upside down right underneath the first row, bottoms touching. I should have taken a picture, I'm sorry, I'm new at tutorials. This allowed me to cut out the shape and FOLD it back to back. If you don't have any sticky-back canvas, you could do this project using any canvas or even cardstock. I like the look and feel of the canvas but I certainly adore textured cardstock as well.

3. Cut out the shapes, keeping two tags together. Remove the backing and fold in half. This gives you a canvas tag, front and back. If you cut them all out individually because I suck at explaining myself, that's okay! Just attach them back to back. Your 16 tags should now be 8 tags, with canvas fronts and backs.

4. Stamp a jewish stamp on the tag using your glue pad. Sprinkle the micro glitter over the glue and tap the extra off. Voila! Shiny, sparkly jewish stuff on your tag! LOL. Wait a few minutes for the glue to dry.

5. Stamp your number stamp, using your glue pad, in an open space on your tag. It can overlap the glitter stamp a bit, might look nicer that way. Sprinkle the distress embossing powder over the stamp and tap the extra off. Use your heat gun to set the embossing powder. If you have never used the distress embossing powder before, it will not get shiny like regular embossing powder. It stays rough and old looking. I love it and use it a LOT. If you like shiny, use a shiny embossing powder. This is your project! Let your canvas cool off for just a minute.

6. Use the crop-a-dile or a hole punch to punch a hole in your tag and set an eyelet.

Your tags are done and ready to add to  your gifts! Hope you enjoyed this project and I would love to see your own gift tags! Link me up!