The Nomad Soul's Guide to Christmas Gifts

Christmas gift ideas for wanderers, adventurers, vagabonds, and dreamers....

Some of these hail from my own personal gallimaufries (a word everyone should use at least once), and while a few are feminine, many will please both ladies and gents.

Compass Glass Magnets from Paper Source

Scrimshaw Whale Box, National Geographic

Global Collection: Africa by 7Gypsies
Great for scrapbooking or framing.

"Not all who wander are lost." Necklace by UnderGlass, Etsy.

Paperblanks Handtooled Lined Journal, Paper Source

Marlyn Schiff Vintage Button Earrings from Lilac Bijoux

Longitude by Dava Sobel

A polkadot teepee of cotton canvas for the tiny nomad in your life

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"The Wild Geese," handmade at Wild Goose Studio in Knocknabohilly, Ireland

How to Have a Smashing Crepes Party

So, in my last post, I had sketched my experiences with fiddling around with crepes - or, as one of my more French-savvy friends pronounces it, "cleps." It turns out that my crepe-frying beginner's luck was put to good use at the party, for which my friend Sarah wisely quadrupled her crepe recipe!

We had already pillaged the local grocery purveyors (Messrs. Safeway, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe's) for a variety of sweet and savory toppings:

• Strawberries
• Raspberries and blackberries
• Sliced mango
• Strawberry Chobani yogurt
• Melted Ghirardelli chocolate
• Chocolate chips
• Sprinkles
• Mango slices
• Bananas
• Nutella (divine with sliced bananas!)
• Gluten-free granola from Trader Joe's
• Ham
• Goat cheese from Whole Foods
• Goat cheese and herb spread
• Cava's red pepper and hummus spread

Wow, a lot more sweet than savory. What a horrible problem. :) Interestingly, our guests devoured the strawberries faster than any of the other toppings!

The Crepe Bar

Berries and Chocolate Crepe

The decor for the party was simple but elegant, inspired by Anthropologie's eclectic style and the crisp spring weather. Thanks to Whole Foods' floral department, fresh sprigs of purple-blue snapdragons and tufts of fun green bushy stuff made a nice bouquet for the side table. 

Construction Site

Riviera Blue Splash

I stuck small white and blue flowering "mini-bushes," technically Riviera Blue Splash from Homestead Gardens into various small glazed pots and even a large empty lantern, scattered an array of battery-powered votives in an army of miniature lanterns around the dining room, and added a few semi-tarnished silver pieces for extra character. My friend (whom the party was honoring) smuggled back a centerpiece from a wedding she'd attended the day before, and voile! Gardeny-springy-bohemian-decor! 

Decor on the Side Table

I deliberately omitted all pink from the decorations, since it was after all a co-ed party. It's not my favorite color, anyway. But at the same time, the guest of honor was a girl (still is), so why not keep it feminine?

Centerpiece and Garland

The mademoiselles

Crepe Expectations

Tonight, I delved into the art of making crepes for the first time ever, using a recipe from Living Without (dumb, negative-sounding name but great allergy-friendly recipes).

I used the multi-purpose gluten free mix by Bob's Red Mill, one of my favorite GF flour brands (hearty, tasty, fluffy flours and blends). This blend included bean flour, which is always a great addition to mixes due to its silky texture.

Interestingly, the recipe called for grapeseed oil, which I have never used before. It is pretty neutral to the taste, so served well in keeping the thin crepes from sticking to the pan without actually adding an overly oily taste.

I found out that the two tablespoons of batter didn't cut it in my eight-inch pan, so I just eyeballed it. I ended up with crepes that varied in thickness at first, but always stayed at a fairly delicate width and hopefully wouldn't be mistaken for pancakes (that'd be demoralizing!).

Delicious with something as simple as jam, especially since this is a low-effort trial run. I could see partaking in a more topping-diverse crepe engorgement in the future - according to one of my friends, people really can have fun with Nutella, bananas, chocolate, berries, yogurt, you name it. I could eat a hundred of these things!

A Dickensian Christmas

"His own heart laughed, and that was quite good enough for him."

This Christmas, I took inspiration from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, designed a Victorian themed decor accented by literary details throughout a merlot and rosé color scheme. Old books, vintage silver, fresh roses and poinsettias, and handmade papercraft embellished the decor.

For Christmas dinner, we had Devonshire Crab Soup (delicious!), Annapolis crab cakes, Chebe rolls, and a fresh salad with baby arugula, sliced strawberries, and homemade balsamic dressing.

Natural-colored tapers in a vintage silver 

candelabra paid homage to the Victorian theme.

Handmade place cards

Dimming the room's ceiling light made candlelight the

 main attraction. A photo frame quoting A Christmas 

Carol emphasized the Dickensian theme.

Lush, multi-layered decor.

"Old Marley was dead: to begin with." 

~ First line of Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

Merlot-colored lace overlays were the perfect 

Victorian touches on the side buffet and the dinner table.

Fresh red roses in a cranberry glass pitcher stood 

alongside the poinsettias.

Handmade collage wall art, featuring a photograph of 

my great-grandmother Doris Stillman Frazier at 

the age of eighteen. So glamorous.

More handmade collage wall art. I raided fashion, 

decorating, and bridal magazines for the flower photos,

and used scrapbooking papers and embellishments for

everything else. I had fun drawing the elaborate ink 

borders on the red card stock.

Brainstorm of a Wanna-Be Event Planner

This year, I began watching David Tutera's My Fair Wedding. Incredible, so fun to watch, and the man's a genius, with the receptions he creates looking more like dreams, paintings, or theatrical spectaculars than predictable wedding decor. Plus, he gives each bride a wedding that suites who she is. So, that got me thinking... how awesome would it be to be an event planner! 

So, what aura would I want to create, if I could plan whatever I wanted and no one cared (like that could really happen with all those bridezillas!)? But every event planner needs a trademark look regardless of theme, right? Hint of a garden theme perhaps, since I love Winterthur and Longwood Gardens? Fairy tale because I'm a Disney buff? Old Hollywood due to my classic film love? A nod to Celtic style, since I love Irish music and culture and take pride in my Scottish heritage? Heck, if I go down the heritage route, I could just as easily pick Central American, Portuguese, the list goes on and on. Gah! 

And then everything started clicking. I don't know why it didn't click before. See, when I entertain, I am obsessed with using candlelight, whether it's blush-colored tapers in cranberry glass holders for a Southern-themed Thanksgiving, or those dramatic red tapers in my antique silver candelabra when I hosted a classic film night, or just a few glass votive holders on the stairs.

Soft candlelight for Thankgiving,
inspired by SouthernLiving.com

I love Mt. Vernon by Candlelight, Annapolis by Candlelight, Bruce Munro's "Light" installation at Longwood Gardens. 

"Field of Light" by Bruce Munro

I pretty much jump for joy when I see fireflies (nature's candleight!) or attend a midnight church service that has everyone holding candles. Dear me, have I discovered a hidden obsession? Whoa. Anyhoo, apparently candlelight's my thing. Hmmm....

Mount Vernon by Candlelight

And I love theater, opera, ballet, Broadway shows, you name it - and when I saw the 2004 film adaption of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, I was mesmerized. But, it's not the opera house that I'd want to base my wedding reception on. Again, it's candlelight. After all, when I looked up some reception decor based simply on opera, or even Phantom of the Opera, I was surprised to find that I wasn't feeling all the red velvet. Love red velvet, but more as a hint than an overwhelming sea of it! But the beauty, mystery, and romance of the fabulous, candlelit Phantom's lair - with more emphasis on candlelight than lair, of course - would be a gorgeous ceremony and reception theme. Back to candlelight again! And the gigantic chandelier. I have always been in love with chandeliers, starting with the one my grandmother had hanging over her dining room table, and I have loved that aura of fire and crystal ever since. So, I've got candlelight and chandeliers in my head as a theme, and loving it. 

It would also let the bride wear a gorgeous formal gown, which is always cool. As long as there actually are not any references to Phantom of the Opera. Much as I love it, that would just be corny.

Here are a few fun idea pictures that I found on ProjectWedding.com:

Alice in Wonderland

I found a hilarious Alice in Wonderland mug at the Annapolis Bookstore, right on Maryland Avenue in historic downtown Annapolis. The Annapolis Bookstore is a gem. I have found scores of used and nearly new Agatha Christie novels, a like-new copy of Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters (a gorgeously illustrated Cinderella-style story set in Africa, which I loved as a kid), and some neat, engraved "This book belongs to..." bookplates, not to mention an old-style inkwell, gold-colored ink... just about everything that can draw book lovers in like magnets.