I am torn... should I start with the dramatic story of my Pioneer Woman cookbook signing saga or do I wade through crafts first and then stun you with the ever-so-dramatic story?!?!?
Since I am co-posting today with my good friend Sara from Our Best Bites... I think she would be ok with me posting the Chili Spice Mix recipe down at the bottom so I can jump right in and tell you the sordid tale...!
Pioneer Woman (P-Dub) Book Signing
It was a dark and stormy night in Dallas. Seriously. I think it was 42 and raining cats and rabbits.
MomChops came to get me from work and we made it to Borders by 4:30 (P-Dub was scheduled to be there at 7). When we walked in they directed us towards the counter so we could get our wristbands.
ummmm wristbands????
Yeah.
Wristbands.
Who knew?
Were in the 300 group... as in there were more than 200 people ahead of us.
I got my camera out when we settled in and started taking a few pictures.
This girl spotted me... (see her to the right of the pillar... way way way back there)
...she did this strange hand thing...
I was guessing she might be in the Happy Hands Club...
...but was not sure until...
...she gave me the secret Happy Hands Club wave!
Being in the club myself I spotted it right away!
She's not supposed to use the secret moves in public....
But we were amongst friends...
Once P-Dub arrived everyone started squealing as they spotted her...
...3 people who I was standing in line with all at the same time asked...
(and I am totally not even kidding)
"Did you see her????"
"WHAT COLOR IS HER HAIR?!?!?!?!"
There was genuine concern in their voices folks.
If you follow P-Dubs twitter and FB you know what I am talking about... Chicago. Sigh.
Those of us who were tall enough to catch a glimpse all said in unison.. "BROWN!"
...and I think there were mixed feelings about that revelation.
Once she said a few words she settled in to start signing books.
She was surrounded by people.
Everyone was smiling...
Everyone was happy and relaxed...
...and then I spotted them...
She was wearing the most amazing boots EVER!
Sheesh... I don't even wear boots but I was seriously in love with these babies!
She was just sitting there in these KILLER books smiling away and signing books.
I swears. They were fabulous!
So I headed back to my 208th spot in line to wait...
..and that's when things got dicey.
...and then the red wristbands started showing up in force...
...and of course they got to go in front of us.
This is the red / yellow line of demarcation.
I counted the baby as a force against us...
He might have been cute but he was a RED people!!!
RED!!!!
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
DOWN WITH THE REDS!
(that was our battle cry)
I started to meander around...
Watching people get their killer P-Dub book signing t-shirts...
...and practicing their Happy Hands Club waves.
Some were even shopping for Christmas gifts too.
You could not help yourself...
There were AWESOME gifts everywhere!
...ok so maybe there weren't....
..but I swear... I took this picture inside Borders on the night of the book signing in the year 2009.
This is not a joke. This stuff was actually in there.
I was torn between getting RonChops the shiny pink chihuahua bank or the pig in a hardhat bank.
Such a tough decision!
What would you have done????
So... after a very short time... and because I had been sick as a dog for well over a week...
We left.
Ah yeah. Let me clarify that a little...
We left without getting our books signed.
We had been sitting there without moving a muscle for well over an hour.
...and there was NO hope in sight!
So this really super nice girl we were in line with (HI KRISTY)... offered to take my book, get it signed and mail it to me!
I am totally not even kidding!
She even wrote to me when she got home at MIDNIGHT to let me know she had my SIGNED book and would be sending it my way! I loves her.
Midnight folks.
...and we were 200th in line...
So that's the end of the story.
I saw her. I saw her boots. I heard her speak. I saw more of her boots... and I went home like a lame potato (with a stuffy nose and major sinus headache... that's my excuse).
The end.
(and if you never come back because I left the book signing I'll totally understand)
But...
...if you can forgive me and you want a rockin' chili spice mix you can gift to your BFFs...
keep on reading!
Chili Spice Mix
Like I said way up top...
I am co-posting today with Sara from Our Best Bites!
She wrote to me a few months ago asking if I wanted to team up with her again on a tag for a Chili mix gift idea she was putting together!
So of course I said YES!
You will need to start with some small bags.
I found these fellas by Wilton called Mini Treat Bags.
You can get them online HERE or at Michaels, Malwarts or JoAnns.
(notice how I got the "mega" pack)
(something tells me you are going to be seeing a lot of these fellas around these parts!)
I put all of my spices into a bowl and mixed them up good!
(you can get the spice mix recipe from Our Best Bites HERE)
I then used a funnel to put them into the treat bags.
I folded the tops twice and stapled them too!
Down below you are going to find a few templates for toppers for these treat bags.
You will want to print the decorative side on heavy card stock paper
(I use 110lb paper in my photo printer)
Once you have that done, an optional step is to flip the printed decorative side over and run it through your printer again to print the recipe for "Hearty Chili" that Sara sent to me (it's in the PDF too)!
This way you are giving a gift of the spice mix AND a super good chili recipe to boot (speaking of boots...)!
I digress!
Trim down the sides of the bag toppers...
Run a crease down the middle...
...and then take your spice mix and nestle the top of the bag into the crease of the printed tag....
(notice how the chili recipe is peeping from under there)
I then simply stapled the bag topper to the bag!
BUT... that's kinda ugly so we have to fix it up some right?!?!?!
I punched two holes on top of the tag and ran a ribbon through each of them.
You take the right side and run it back through the left hole (so the ribbon is coming out the front)...
See how the arrow is pointing????
You then do that with the left side and you should have something that looks like this....
TA DA!
(and if it doesn't look like this call Pioneer Woman at 1-800-KIL-R-BOOTS)
Any woman with boots like that has got to know how to tie a ribbon on the top of a chili spice mix right???
So here you have the front side!
...and here's the back side with the extra fluffy ribbon gone wild!
(don't use extra fluffy ribbon or you'll be cursing me)
OH... and cause I LOVES to get fancy...
...I included some extra shapes you can cut out (if you are feeling crazy crafty)!
You can adhere them to the fronts of the packages with a pop-dot!
(you know you wanna get fancy crafty like that!!!)
It just makes it that much more special!
I made three different options! You can see them all below!
In the tree version I did some of the cutouts with the stand and some without in case you don't want to trim around the stand (let's not make this any harder than we need to right!!)!
You can download the PDF with ALL three designs + the Hearty Chili recipe below!
But wait... there's MORE!
If you can't find the little bags and want to put the spice mix into straight side small mason/ball/kerr jars instead... you can use these circle tags as your jar toppers! There are two pages here. The first page has the tags and the second page has the "Hearty Chili" recipe! Just cut out the recipe and tuck it under the banded lid!
Head on over to Our Best Bites to get the recipe to make the mix! You just gotta!
Thanks for dropping by today! I'll be back Monday with another Holiday craft project!
P.S. Update on Miss DogChops skunktacular smelliness! She's actually cleaning up rather well thanks to all of your super fabulous suggestions! She's been doused with Listerine and smeared with a paste of hydrogen peroxide + baking soda! I have not been able to find the skunk-off shampoo yet but we are going to track that down this weekend! Thanks again you guys! You had me giggling with all of your skunk stories! More HUGS than you can stand!!
P.S.S.T. MomChops and I should not complain about being only number 208 and 209 in line for the P-Dub book signing! I hear there were upwards of 900+ people there! Would you have stayed????
O.M.T. (ok sorry I know this is terribly long)... just a tip. If you are going to see P-Dub make sure you call the book store ahead of time to see how they are going to handle it. We could have gone in the morning to get one of the wristbands for the early birds! So make sure you check on it before you go!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo!
