Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Carmela Soprano would be so proud.....

My homemade sauce made fresh every Sunday morning


Homemade crepes made one-by-one to be sure they are all the same size




Rigotta cheese mix













crepes rolled and covered with homemade sauce ready to go in the oven..........

MANGIA, MANGIA, MANGIA

Monday, August 22, 2011

Before & After

I needed a mental health day from my day job today.  I decided to be creative. This is what I started out with...

collected wine corks, scrap of burlap,
primitive star from Pat Catans and
5 x 7 picture frame from a yard sale


THE AFTER

-I took the glass out of the frame

-roughed up the frame with sand paper

-cut a scrap of burlap and hot glue to the frame

-glue all the wine corks to the burlap

-added jute all around the wine corks

-added the word salute' (means cheers in Italian) to the star

-glued the star to the wine corks

FINAL DESTINATION....sitting on top of my stove
Come back and visit for more creations made on my mental health day!

I'm linking up to: http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/2011/10/make-spoon-wind-chime-welcome-to-143rd.html#more

Sunday, August 21, 2011

PACK YOUR BAGS

We have a saying in our family it goes like this "pack your bags you're going on a guilt trip. I grew up in a very Irish/Italian family, my mother being the Italian one.  Italian mothers have a special gift of sending you on a guilt trip and you never even get to leave the house.  Of course this talent  curse only effects the female offsprings of the family.  The male offsprings don't get to enjoy the ride.

With the holidays just around the corner I will taking a lot of these trip and I won't have any frequent flier miles to show for them.  Bring them on "Mother" I'm ready for you this year.  One advantage of being the youngest I can always ask if all my siblings are attending the party, shower, picnic, dinner or church bazaar.  If I hear that one my "older" siblings is unable to attend the event, I feel I should get a free pass. "NOT" Well let me just tell you that doesn't work in my family.  I've learned many years ago to just put on a smile and attend the function of your-mothers-choice.  Life is much better when your Mama is happy.


My wonderful Mother will be 90 years old on her next birthday in just a few months so I will be taking as many trips as she would like and I will truly be smiling along the way.  I really do have the best Mother in all the world and I feel truly blessed to belong to such a loud large family.

As far as traditions go, I'm looking forward to passing them all on to my children.  I know they are really looking forward to this one in particular.  Love you K & Z.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

I must confess...

I have a little bit of an obsession with the letter "O".

My last name begins with the letter "O".

It all started when I was shopping in Kirklands and I wanted to purchase a rug for my front porch with the letter "O" on it. I looked all through the rugs and couldn't find an "O".

I asked the sales clerk if I could order a rug with an "O" on it. She apologized and said that they didn't carry any O's in the entire store.

"What" I said "that is discrimination." Well I didn't really say that but I was thinking it.

So that started my mission to find other stores that sold anything with the letter "O". I didn't have much luck so I started to make my own "O" decor.



I must have repeated this story to my family a few too many times, every Holiday since that time I get presents with the initial "O".

Hubby says no more "O's" but I'm not listening.







I like my last name and the letter "O".

Monday, August 15, 2011

HOW ABOUT SOME WINE?  Okay how about some wine themed centerpieces and decorations?  I made the wine centerpieces from all yard sale finds.  The wooden bowl was 10 cents and I painted it white and distressed it.  The grapes and wine corks came from a yard sales (that my good friend Jen at creating with the J's) picked up for me.  The candle was 50 cents and I tied a little bit of burlap on the candle just for fun.  The wine bottle in the pictures is also recycled.  Another bunch of grapes and a label printed from the computer.  I love, love, love repurposing.  Thanks for stopping by, keep checking back I'm working on some new things.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Steelers Football

I LOVE FOOTBALL.    I am so excited that the 2011 football season has started.  I love everything black and gold. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania and we are huge Steeler fans.  So I thought it was only appropriate for my first post to my blog to be Steelers related.  The first pre-season game is tonight.  This is a table that I repurposed from a $2 yard sale find to this: