ever go to a potluck that is full of families...little kids running around, foaming at the mouth like rabid beasts, hangry, lord of the flies style, because every one has brought dishes that are dressed to impress but not so kid friendly? i have.

i was making such a dish.  my little guy running around my house, already a bit rabid, because i was so busy preparing this dish that i hadn't prolly so much as looked at him in half an hour.  i stopped and had an "aha moment".  grabbed a bag of grapes(washed), some kitchen twine (you could use embroidery thread, dental floss or double up some bakers twine) and a very large embroidery needle.  i sat Loji down and started beading grapes on necklaces to give the kids at the potluck we were going to.  he was so stoked!  

just knot one end, string a few on and they will be begging to take over.  it's a win win.  he sat down, had a pre-game snack (i dared him not to eat one...he ate half of the entire bag), got a bit artsy, stopped bugging me to please, oh please sword fight him, i got to continue with my pintrest fail in the kitchen, and the kids at the soiree whom he gave them to....wowzers.  i believe Loji was engaged to at least 4 of the little girls there by the end of the evening.  just make sure they are long enough to fit over their heads easily.

the only downfall, is that they will love them so very much that they will not leave you alone once they are through with theirs, because they will want another.  and another.  warn them that everyone gets one or make more.  

pears. they are culinary jewels; the humble variety.  i'm not going to get all Tom Robbins'y on you or anything, but his love for beets, which i share, could be compared to my love of pears. mmm. the granular, but smooth and buttery sweetness of a perfectly ripe bartlett...week in the knees baby.  i love their velvety texture and love cooking with them because of it.  

savoury.  sweet.  boom.  lets do this!  i make these lil babies all the time.  serve them with dinner on our Thanksgiving plates, bring them to potlucks, and chop up any that are leftover and top homemade waffles, pancakes or crepes with a dollop of greek yogurt and pure maple syrup the next day!!! oh geez.  my mouth is watering.

• preheat oven to 400 degrees
• slice your pears in half lengthwise. bosc is best but you can use pretty much any variety (except asian) for this.  they do not even need to fully ripe.  the slow roasting will bring out the pear flave ever so perfectly.
• using a mellon baller or a small spoon, scoop out the seed core in the middle.  you can leave the stems on.  i think they are pretty.
• squeeze a half of a lemon over them.  this will prevent them from oxidizing and turning brown.
• drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  i go hard on the pepper.  love the earthy spice with the pears.  
• i put them in a cast iron, personally, but if you do not have one, a baking dish is fine.
• pop them in the oven and roast until they get all delish, soft, and roasty looking.  about 35 mins....sometimes i let them go forever....sometimes i want them to be firmer. sometimes i forget to serve them on the dinner plate and act like i toooootally meant to do it and blend up some whip cream with maple, a vanilla bean (or extract) and a tini sprinkle of black pepper. oh. my. gawd. sooooo divine.
• enjoy. rinse. repeat.

okay, so i lied...i couldn't just shelf every little fun thing i did this month and save it for next year.  but, this one kinda doesn't count because you can make this anytime of  year and use it for so many things!  plus, it gets extra points because you can make it with almost anything you have lying around the house. 

what you'll need:

• some sort of twine, string, strip of fabric, or ribbon.
• some sort of paper. such as: paint swatches, book pages, your kids drawings, photos, phone books, chinese take out menus...you get my drift? i double dawg dare you to make one out of a menu all stained up by kung pow!!!
• paper punch....this is one thing you do kinda need. i am obsessed with them. good ol' martha stewart has an epic line of them...but there are sooo many to choose from at michaels and other craft stores. get some. you will use them for nine thousand projects.
• glue gun, glue stick or just about any glue you have. i've tried many. i like the glue gun cause it dries so fast. second runner up, a glue stick.

so, here's a picture tutorial...a lil snap shot DIY. but, basically, punch out stars (or what ever shape you have) and start gluing them to your ribbon (or twine or whatever fabulousness you have decided to go with).  make sure you put the shapes sandwiched together, whithe your twine in the middle, somewhat in line for a clean look.  you can make them as long as you'd like.  i used them on our xmas tree and also wound them up on cute cards and gave them as winter solstice presents to my ladies.  oh, they also look great wound around a beautifully wrapped gift as a super bonus.

do it up my homies! lemme know how it goes!

we live in a forest by the sea.  i'm so far way from where i grew up, in sunny southern california where the holidays are much, much different.  up here, you'd think that it was christmas all year round, because deer, holly and pines are everywhere.  but it isn't. i mean, duh, obvz....but wow. when winter comes and the days get short with starry skies hanging low....every time you walk outside it literally smells like christmas trees and cocoa.  it is magic.

i was so inspired, creatively, this season. i was crafting and cooking and shnuggling with my fam non stop. kept myself so busy that i hardly blogged anything i did. the shnugz were that good! 

so, i will save all of it to post and help inspire you next year but will leave you with this. this old board, paint chipped and cast off. the thing somehow made it into my living room and stayed there for about 2 months before i finally threw the thing outside. my man wasn't doing it. so i did. 

the next day, however, i had the idea to do this whole scene on the wall by our tree, "oh, what fun!".  so, i went and grabbed the old sad board and gave him a wash. if he had a tail, it'd be wagging. went at it with a thick tipped sharpie and viola! such an easy wall piece. 

happy holidays er'buddy and here's to loving you all right up in the new year!!

i am obsessed with these gift bags right now!  they are so fun to make and the possiblities are endless.  you know me, i am a sucker for upcyling, so taking books that we are done with and turning them into these treasure scores is making my toes curl. (yes, sometimes it's that easy.)

i recently hosted a gift wrapping workshop and have been diving deep into the world of unique and clever wrapping tech and tiny treasure embellishments.  in preparation for the class, i googled "how to fold a gift bag" and got a DIY blog in what seemed to be taiwanese.  my taiwanese is a bit rusty, but it didn't matter that i couldn't read it; the pics pointed me in the right direction.  i figured i'd invite you to the gift bag party.  these pics are much more enlightening and leave less to the imagination then the ones i found that that showed me how.  enjoy. post pics of the ones you make on Martha Starfish fb page! i would LOVE to see what you come up with!!

when you fold it like this, be sure to have one side be a bit longer to overlap the other, creating a lip to glue down.

it is a bit tricky to figure out the folds up the sides the first one you do...but you'll get it.  it's easy once you do.  i think you'll be obsessed with these babies too.  anything you put in there is going to be super amped in greatness.  guaranteed.  i mean, if you are hopping on the "gift card" boat...seriously...you need to put some friggin back into it and make a cute homemade bag to put it in.  spare a couple m&ms or homemade yums while you're at it.  they'll weigh it down.  happy holly daze my compadres!

now, fold over the top. fill with something wonderful (no pressure) and seal with washi tape, yarn, ribbon, a sticker....whatever.  if you wanna get trixy with it, use and exacto knife to cut 2 slits and then string a ribbon or twine through it and tie cute bits and bobs to it. boom. mega cuteness.

hey you!  hows it?  you knee deep in winter wonderlanding yet?  i am.  last week, meh, not so much. this week, game friggin on.   the countdown is on mang!  but for me, it's less about days till xmas and more about crafts, gift projects and fun festive things to do with friends and fam.  literally doing the heimlich on our calendar this month to get up and make me some more days already! seeming impossible to fit it all in.  but!!!! those halls......i'm deckin' them.  who's with me? (the crowd goes wild....no...jolly with carols and nog cheers!)

k, so, mason jar snow globes.  love them.  have wanted to make these forevz and i gotta say, the only thing holding me back was not having the perf little bits and bobs right in the moment of whimsy.  you know the moment i'm speaking of.  when you get inspired to make something in particular, your eyes get bigger, cuter, crazier as you rummage around looking for all those bits.  for me, it was not having the perfect little scene to put in the jars.  all the holiday stuff i'd find  wasn't the right size or was too cheesy.  defeated, my crafty halfie would go down and i'd just make something else.  

well, a couple thrifting expeditions this past year have been fruitful in the finding of the cutest vintage creatures for this project. i paid 25 cents for the little angel i've used here and for all three of the deer, 50 cents!!! 

tip: i used to always get annoyed seeing holiday items at thrift stores post xmas, but since i've been wanting to make these for so long,  i'd check out the sad abandoned ghosts of xmas' past.   once in a while i'd find a tiny treasure but realized that it was the winter theme that was what was inspiring me, not xmas, hence the deer in the snow.  so, get clever with what you put inside.  i have a few vintage ornaments that wont fit in any jars i have, so, in a vase, or on a cake stand they go.  get creative. "make a scene!"

don't buy snow!!! make it!!! make your own fake snow for holiday crafts and decor!!

taaaa...daaaaah!!!  aren't they cute?  i hope the pics tell you all you need to know.  if you want there to be water in them, like traditional snow globes, be sure to glue everything down, including the lids. they'll have to be sealed with water proof glue of some sort.  i, however, am cool to make these fresh each year in exchange for the storage space and use of the mason jars throughout the year.  save the snow.  This is such a cute craft to do with my lil man!  we are going to make more tonight.

i couldn't fit all three deer in the jar, so up on top he went.  i loooove him there!!! 

k....now go make you some snow globes! 

guess what i made this snow out of.....a white plastic bags.  yup.  kind of excited about it.  i can't stand plastic bags!!!  i feel so guilty when i stop by the store and do not have my cloth bags with me. i seriously have nine hundred and fifty three thousand cloth bags.  now...what to do with them... hmm... but first... here's a cute repurpose for all those scrunchy plastic bags that make they're way into your home and wish to become something in life...for those plastic bags sick of carrying around other peoples sh*t! ...for those plastic bags that just might want a festive holiday season too... okay..seriously...i could go on for days...

to make:

• take a 3-5 white plastic bags and cut off any coloured logos, you don't want yellow snow. ha. had to.
• roll them all together and cut in thin strips into a big  bowl and keep cutting it up with your scissors or put it through the food processor at that point.  vrooom.  voila!  snow. 
• fluff it up and store it wisely.  little ones, humans and animal friends, can obviously choke on such things.  so, please store in a responsible fashion. also, reuse every year.  please take care in disposing of plastic materials! our fishy friends down the waterways can choke on little bits, as well. 
• please never buy fake snow again silly goose!

good morning....

wanted to show you guys a lil prezie i just made for my friend Gabby. going to have tea with her in a minute and thought i'd bring her a lil something.  i did this with a tin can, washi tape, some soil, a baby from my spider plant and a hammer and a nail.

first off, i sort of have a love hate relationship with spider plants. they're kinda meh but produce these cute baby plants that literally fall off when they are ready to become grown ups and venture out alone into the world. so, i put them in a tiny vase (a mason jar) until they grow some roots and then pop them into tin cans i gussy up for thank you gifts and plant sales at my sons school. here's a photo DIY that is pretty self explanatory. enjoy....

potatoes are pretty much amazing.  they are kind of a big deal.  cheap. comforting.  they make cameos on breakfast, lunch, and dinner plates. basically i curse them for existing.  i also want to set up an altar, ancient egyptian style, and leave offerings of butter, chives and herb gardens at it's feet. yes, at it's big potato sphinx feet.

this recipe is super yummy and literally has 3 ingredients (besides salt and pepper).  for reals, i make this for holiday dinz all the time.  it's that spesh, but also is a healthy potato dish and laughs in the face of other potato dishes that lavishly soak themselves in creamy baths of caloric cray cray.  not this one.  you think you are indulging, but really, you are at the heavenly boom boom room of spud paradise deluxoid. 

first, dust off the mandolin you know you have somewhere, but can't really remember where. figure it out, it's easier than you think, and get ready for kitchen fun times. it is very sharp, however, so wait on pouring that second glass of wine until after your spuds are sliced right up. thinner the better. i peel them prior. this recipe just works better without the skins.  how many potatoes you will need really will depend on their size. i have made this dish with every type of potato and gotta say, use your fave. they all work beautifully. have a sack of them by your size and make a mound of coins. i usually start with about 8-10.  

you will also need to mandolin a couple onions.  white, yellow, again, use what you like.

start layering. salt and pepper between each layer. start with 2 layers of potatoes and then one layer of onion rounds. keep that up until your baking dish is pretty full. leave a 1/4 to a 1/2 inch at the top for the stock to bubble a bit...mmm...yum.

then, you will take your stock, in this case, i am using homemade fennel chicken stock, but you can use whatever you've got, and pour it over your potatoes until it is just covering them. now, pop it into the oven covered with tin foil for 20 minutes.  should be all bubbly and delish when you uncover it and throw it back in for another 20-half hour till its golden brown and the edges of the potatoes are slightly curling up. it will cook down till these beautiful layers fuse together and you can cut perfect slices of heaven onto anxiously awaiting plates. you will swear you're eating some creamy gratin, but really, it's just the starches from the spuds and onions coming together in a beautiful symphony of comforting goodness. enjoy!

here's a lil quickie guys. we were drentched in hot fun summer times for a while there and then boom. crash. (lightning strobes and sounds). rain for like, three days. phewf.  gave me some time to catch up on and get my man hooked on the show i am watching, orange is the new black. (more lightning sounds...actually, to be honest, more like cute pitter patters of summer rain, but you know...)

so, anyway, really wanted to throw the corn on the bbq but didn't wanna ask the man to brave the storm. my (not very) subtle hints i was dropping about craving the cob were not working and turning into "that's what she said" jokes... why had i showed him my new show? slay! 

had an idea. turned the stove burner on, husked the corn, fire roasted dem babies in just a few minutes. kinda was giving myself mini pats on the back as i turned them with my tongs in all their toasty summer glory. mmm.   shaved them into a mexi salad with left over quinoa, crumbled goat feta, a poached egg, a dollop of greek yogurt, cilantro, salsa and arugula...and hot sauce...duh!

could somebody grab me a beer? the next episode is about to start!!