Well, it’s officially the holiday season now and time for me to dust off my copy of Better Homes and Gardens Holiday Decorations That You Can Make, filled with over 300 projects to give your home that holiday spirit and make your family and friends think they’ve taken the time tunnel back to 1974.
Truth be told, a lot of the projects in the book are pretty dang cute. The stockings pictured above? Adorable. The Christmas slogan banner? Quite cheerful.
The "Tabletop Magic" chapter, well…that’s where things start to go a bit off. "Over 300 projects"…that’s an awful lot of projects. Maybe the editors were overreaching a little bit…maybe it would have been better to stop at say, 285 projects….298 projects even.
The Tabletop Angels shown here actually aren’t bad and a few sets of googly eyes, well, that would just make all the difference in the world. Isn’t everything better with googly eyes? But then, perhaps the Tabletop Angels are Amish?
The Expanded Aluminum Extravaganza seems quite a liberal use of the term "Extravaganza" but sure, whatever. Tonight Only: the Expanded! Aluminum! EXTRAVAGANZA!!! With special guest star, Scotch Plaid Loveseat!
Now here, here is where Better Homes & Gardens starts to lose me.
This? I am sorry but two oven mitts with candles behind them do not a table-topper make. I mean come on, even Kimberly and I could do better than that.
See?
And it wasn’t even that hard! Get with the program Better Homes & Gardens…
Of course we’ve saved the best for last. Yes, here’s a really special number uniting kitchen utility objects with religious iconography….it’s the Kitchen Grater/Madonna Shrine!
Two things that should never even be used in the same sentence – "Kitchen Grater" and "Madonna."
Well, unless that sentence is: "So I pulled out my kitchen grater to start fixing the cheese for our enchiladas and that new Madonna song came on the radio. Who is she trying to kid with that pseudo British crap anyway?"
Maybe more like, “I pulled out my kitchen grater, and right there before my eyes was a vision of the Madonna, in the grated cheese. It’s a miracle!”
I never realized before that what every Christmas wreath needs is googly eyes. Christmas wreaths? Fine, whatever, I’ve been known to buy them, and even display them – but never have I had that atavistic MUST HAVE that I experienced upon looking at a Christmas wreath that looked back at me.
They so need a home. My home. Where they can play at night with my cat, and reassemble into a wreath in the morning.
Oh my God…..where to begin?!
At first glance, that aluminum extravaganza looks like one of those carnival games. You know, the kind with holes you throw the balls into. Hey, that’s a novel idea, come to think of it – a “holiday” decoration and game in one!
Oh my goodness!
I have been so busy making Christmas cards, teacher gifts, flannel pajamas and fleece blankets I forgot to pick up a cheese grater and some googly eyes!
I really don’t have time for another craft project, but then again, I can sleep in January.
It’s not Madonna, its Saint Kimberly. She was martyred by being grated into lion food for the big Christmas show at the Coliseum
It’s not Madonna, its Saint Kimberly. She was martyred by being grated into lion food for the big Christmas show at the Coliseum
Kitchen graters are so, well, outdated.
But BH&G is giving me an idea for a “shrine” featuring Madonna and my old food processor from the 80s.
How long till the oven mitts catch fire? If they had googly eyes, they could sense their peril and flee.
Obviously what Our Lady of the Kitchen Grater–patron saint of Mexican cooking and that salad with the grated carrots and raisins–needs is a pair of googly eyes. And maybe a pipe cleaner halo.
You know although the sepia tone would not do it justice all thats missing from that sacred space is a kabbala string around Our Lady of Fomented Dairy Products waist.
Well, the oven mitt candalabra is an Advent Calendar – when the mitts catch fire, it’s Christmas Day!
I think–although I can’t be certain–that the Better Homes and Gardens people were trying to create some sort of luminara-shrine to Our Lady of (insert local geological formation here) hybrid. But I don’t think they succeeded.
On the other hand, part of a kitchen grater would make an excellent confessional window for a Barbie tableau.
You’re definitely supposed to put a small candle inside the kitchen grater. This will give Our Lady of The Monterrey Jack a spiritual, otherworldly quality.
Maureen could be right, because I recently saw a recycling project transforming kitchen graters into bedside lamps (lightbulb inside, etc.) Does anyone else find that grater excessively large? Look at it compared to the size of the table! And more pyromania when the candle burns down to the plastic gogglies????
Melissa – I don’t think the grater is large so much as the table is small, but it’s still bizarre. A kitchen grater turned into a shrime. Who woulda’ thunk it?
But back to the “Expanded Aluminum Extravanganza.” Who came up with that name? (”We need something technically descriptive that still brings to mind an elaborate, festive display!”) I would have called it “Christmas at the Jetsons”? Though I’m not sure even the Jetsons would want that thing.
I’m a bit surprised at the grater– Usually the Meat Grinder is the kitchenalia most often converted into bad decor.
I can’t recall anymore whether it was here or on James Lileks “Interior Desecrators” that had nifty ways to use a meat grinder as an object d’art. So why not Christmas it up with a mini Virgin Mary?
Oven mitts are SO *now*. They are everywhere.
ANYONE whos anyone has them!!
My gyno even has them in his exam rooms- the cutest footsie rests!!
Get with the trend girls!!
Wait – did they cut that cheese grater in half? Or is it one of them semi-circular jobbies? Because if it is the latter, those never stand up by themselves and if the former, how? The cheese grater I have is terribly cheap (it doesn’t so much grate as mash), but I still couldn’t cut it in half…
Hmm. It just isn’t Christmas crafting until someone has to be rushed to the emergency room, blood gushing from the gash in their hand, singing jingle all the way.
A kitchen grater as a bedside table lamp? Oh, clever. Such a good choice for say, a guest room. When someone fumbles around in the dark needing to light their way to the loo, they mince flesh on the lamp itself. Way to keep your house guests’ stay short.
RST
I was preparing the ingredients for my (in)famous Christmas Casserole, and I’d pulled the grater-that-looks-more-like a gift-bag from the kitchen drawer, when I heard the Madonna whisper to me (from the radio I’d left on in the living room). ‘Consider Provolone’, she said, calling to my mind the Parmesan from last year’s Casserole, and Uncle Morty’s surprised expression.
Still, it was quite a wake.
i am rather partial to perforated aluminum myself. reminds me of shops class. and that thing is indestructible!
I just found this site…OMG! I’ve rarely laughed so hard! But in the back of my mind all I can think is, “I hope no one views my homemade knitted gifts as being as bad as these!”
I can’t stop thinking about oven mitts.
Oh, my god….I’ve got candles, I *know* where the googly eyes got hid…I can put up decorations that will make the relatives feel like they’re being watched. That’s *another* way to make the houseguests leave quickly.
Though there ought to be a motion-sensor connected to a recording in the googly-eyed wreath so that when a person walks by a squeaky little voice says something horribly tacky like “Is that the guest or the dinner?”
I am a bit worried about what is between the oven mitts… a dish of eyeballs?
I am just wondering where is the spray painted, styrofoam macaroni and junk Christmas tree? The best craft ever to get rid of excess crap and a true icon of the 70s.
Oh, the oven mitt one looks SO familiar! I think it might have been a Sandra Lee tablescape. LOL!
Thanks for the giggles. I needed them today.
Aw, I like the googly-eyed candle wreath thing you made! A few of those projects look familiar. I think my mom might have had this book, or maybe another one with some of the same crafts in it.
My mother used to have a nativity set made of beer bottleds adorned in felt. Their heads are those small silk, thread covered balls we used to hang on the Christmas tree. I wish I could find the pattern. You girls could have a field day. I always felt it was a bit sacreligious to have the Virgin Mary made from a Budweiser bottle. It was even more odd that my tee-totaler mom would allow these in her home.