Another book club meeting

Before we knew it it was time for book club again.
I always look forward to it.
So glad we came up with this idea for the cold winter months.

As usual amazing things were had.
This month's book was A Street Cat Named Bob.

Our opinions were split right down the middle.
The three who had cats growing up LOVED it.
The three of us who did not have cats/dog people didn't like it at all.

Obviously we are super cool and happen to like charts and graphs lol!

But who cares?!
Books club is really an excuse for us to eat, drink, and chat.

Our theme was English Picnic...how cute is this setup?

Apparently this is a British thing (says our British expat friends)....we weren't sure if they were pulling our legs!

British candies

Scotch Eggs...there is no actual Scotch in them...they are eggs wrapped in sausage

My obsession Nadege bakery and their Salted Caramel Tarte...AMAZINGNESS!

Can't wait until the next one.
Though I'm a wee bit nervous because I'm hosting.
Can you believe the girls (who ALL live downtown I know I'm super jealous!) are all coming up to my area?!
Mixture of nervousness and excitement.

Book Club Number Three

Book club number three was here before we knew it.

This month's selection The Lock Artist

Picture from Goodreads.com

 Hosted at Laurel's place last Thursday.
With only a few days left until Christmas.

 Laurel's grandmother's cookie recipe

Yummy!  These were brought by E

And these by S
And this may have been moments before I dropped one of those cookies face down on the ground (face palm)!

It wouldn't be a December book club without an egg nog toast!

And it wouldn't be out kind of book club without some kind of official grading system!

We are super cool in case you didn't realize!

Here is the bar graph I received via email the next day from P.
We each gave a score from 0-5 on each of four critical categories lol!

Clearly this month's book club is the winner so far.
And everyone was really happy with their book club 2012 ornament (read here if you missed it).
These monthly meetings are something I definitely look forward to.
I can't wait until January's meeting...

Crafty McCrafterson

So yesterday was December's book club and I thought I would do something sweet for the girls.  So I decided first to look for book ornaments.
Ummm yea pretty impossible to find...at least from where I looked.

So I set off to figure out how to make some.
Here's how it went...

Started off with some wood chips.

Put some together...lined them up...

Stuck them together...with double sided tape...hate glue guns (I always burn myself)...

Then used some paper

That I scored and cut and used double sided tape again to make the first "book"

The middle book I made with three "layers" and I used this book for the ribbon of the ornament....I thought it  kind of looked like a book mark that way.  I just repeated what I did for the first book...

The third book I made four layers...and gave a label for the top!

Stacked all three...The top book is called "Hot Mess" because it's an inside joke from us girls.

 To the book spines I wrote, Book CLub 2012 xoxo Teagan

And voila...a three book ornament (representative of the fact that we have read 3 books).

All lined up ready for the girls!

There you have it...my first homemade ornament in years!
And the response was great...the girls seemed to like them.
Love our book club...I will post tomorrow so you can see all the goodies we had.

November's Bookclub

November's book club was great too!
This time at one of the British Expat's downtown condo.
This time the book was "Let's pretend this never happened" by Jenny Lawson.
(Also a blogger by the way...well like a real blogger not like this excuse of a blog lol!)

Pic from here

Super excited to read....especially because as Lawson says, this book is about "the surprising discovery that the most terribly human moments—the ones we want to pretend never happened—are the very same moments that make us who we are."  
We definitely like it more than the first book BUT we decided that it is difficult especially with our criteria of a book that we all wanted to be something none of us had read before.

Seeing as a lot of the book took place in Texas this was a TexMex theme.

Champagne with Hibiscus flowers...amazing!

Hummus, Olives and Artichoke spreads

Snacks!

The table spread plus Salsas and my special Guac!

Close up of the salsas and guac...my contribution.

E's raspberry lime margaritas...yum!

Laurel's special 

S's delicious and spicy Boca Negra mini-cakes!

Another super fun and amazing bookclub.
So happy to be hanging out with these cool ladies.

October's Bookclub

October was our very first book club.
We had decided to read; Paris A Love Story by Kati Marton.

Pic from here.

And while we all agreed we didn't really enjoy the book we all had a great time!
It was hosted by the two Canadian cousins in their third floor flat.

How cute is this little table and the fun bronze candle sticks!

Wine, cheese, veggies...all amazing!

Following our French theme...French Onion Soup...before...

After!

The after of the cheese platter!

Champagne cheers :)  

What would a French themed night be without my favourite...Macarons!!!

We laughed we talked we bonded.
And I left that night so so so darn happy!
And I couldn't wait for the next one.