Mosaic Monday - My Sister's Christmas Present

I've been waiting to show this one to everyone since before October. But of course I couldn't because it was going to be a Christmas present from my mom to my sister Lisa and I couldn't post about it until after Christmas. Trust me...it was soooooooooo hard to keep this secret in the bag!

You will want to make sure to take a look at my Sunday Favorites post from yesterday before or after you read this one if you haven't taken a look at it yet. You can just click here to go there.

I really don't think I need to say a whole lot about this present my sister received for Christmas. I think the pictures pretty much speak for themselves.

First this mosaic including my favorite picture of my sister and my mother and three small pictures of her present which I include below so you can click on them to get more detail.

Here's the whole thing. It measures about 5 feet long by 3 feet wide. I'm not sure what my sister is using it for yet, but it would look great on a coffee table or as a table runner.

This is a closeup of the middle portion. You can click on the photo to enlarge so you can see more details. Doesn't that look complicated? I'm sure it was.

Here's a closeup of where the roses meet. Aren't they pretty. I'm astounded that you can put this together just using a wire crochet hook and a super long piece of twine...basically.

Here's another closeup, this time of the right side of the piece.

Here's another closeup of the middle part where the roses meet up.

And some more detail of the end of the piece. I don't know what to call this because I don't know what my sister is going to use it for. It's kind of big to be called a doily and I know there's a term for it, but I can't quite remember right now.

And a close up of the rose, in case any of you want to try to recreate it. I know there are some of you out there that could probably do it just from the photograph, right? I know my mom could.

And that's my sister's Christmas present. Lucky her! I know my mom is working on something else right now...Hmmmm, I wonder who that one is for? Any guesses?

Head over to visit Mary at Little Red House who is hosting Mosaic Monday.

My Mother's Talented Hands

If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands? ~Milton Berle

It's amazing that with only two hands mothers do as much as they do. My mom is a perfect example of that. Growing up I always remember my mom busy doing something, sewing, cleaning, cooking, painting, crocheting...and since we're at crocheting I'll stop because that's what I wanted to talk about today and share with you.

My mom has always been great at crocheting. She once did the whole Last Supper in crochet. And I'm not talking some little piece that goes in a little frame...this was a HUGE piece which was framed and hung in her kitchen for many years. It probably measures 6feet by 4 feet. It looks something like this one, only much more massive.

Unfortunately I couldn't photograph it because right now it's sitting in the frame on the floor behind her very heavy china hutch in her kitchen. But it's mine. She gave it to me many, many years ago. I have no idea where I will hang it because I really have no walls in my kitchen, but I will knock out a window and make a wall out of it if I have to!!!

But ok, before I start knocking out windows and building walls, let me just get back to the subject of my post today. My mom has started crocheting again and her first project was this little beauty for me :-)

A beautiful butterfly panel. It's pretty big as you can tell from the photo below. This isn't a love seat it's a chair and a half and this fits clear across it. I would love to display it differently but I haven't found quite the right place yet...but I will.

Mom is currently working on another project which I hope to post for you as soon as it's finished. I think it's going to be about as big as the one above, and she's only half done.

My mom taught my sister and I both to crochet, and I've made a doily here and there. I have posted one here. But I have no where near the talent or determination my mom does.

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to leave a comment!

Be Well!

Sweets and Things

“So long as the sugar is on the tongue, you feel the sweetness in taste. Similarly, so long as the heart has love, peace and devotion, you feel the bliss.” ~ Sri Sathya Sai Baba (Indian Spiritual Leader)

Yesterday's post was about sugar. While I was trying to find an easier way to do that post by finding a website I could just link to I found a lot of really great stuff about sugar and sweets that I wanted to share.

I didn't put it in yesterday's post because after scaring you (and me) to death about how much sugar we eat, I didn't want to tempt you by showing you creative and beautiful ways to use sugar.

But today is another day, so onward and upward!

First, some pictures from Home Sweet Home, Expressions in Confectionery Art.

They even have ebooks you can purchase to learn how to create your own Confectionery Art. Sounds like a lot of fun, but just imagine if you had to eat all your mistakes?

Then I found this beautiful picture and I had to read more about it! And you can too at Prima Donna Bride.

She shows you how to make these beautiful little sugar cubes here. They are so super simple that I think even I could make them! Wouldn't they look beautiful on cupcakes, wedding cakes, as decorations on tablesscapes for weddings and showers?

And for those of you that don't want to eat sugar cubes, how about bathing in them?

You can find these lovely little effervescent cubes at L'Occitane En Provence. These little guys are individually packaged squares containing essential oils (mint, pine and rosemary) blended with sugars and stimulating centella asiatica to 'fizz' upon release into water.

Captivity ~ Day Four

Weirdest thing is that yesterday and again today when I woke up I have this raspy, 6 pack of cigarettes a day voice...and I don't smoke! I think it's because when I lay down all the radioactive iodine lodges itself in my throat and chest and I don't even realize it til that first phone call of the day which today was my sister because there's no one here when I wake up so I don't talk until the phone rings. Tonight I'm going to try sleeping sitting up on pillows like I did for about a month after my surgery.

I swear I had so many plans with what I was going to do during this week of being home and tomorrow is my last real day because the weekend is just a normal weekend and I always have Saturday and Sunday off and Monday I have to go back to the doctor for the full body scan and the Geiger check and then hopefully Tuesday it's back to work.

Here's a list of what I wanted to get done:
1. Clean my flower beds (hula-ho them)
2. Modge Podge Plate Craft
3. Finish blue and gold afghan I've been crocheting since my daughter was a freshman in high school...she's now 27.
4. Crochet the little beer caps I've been saving for my crocheted grape project.
5. Wash my kitchen and bathroom curtains
6. Iron my new green blouse and black striped pants
7. Sew the binding back around my favorite tv-watching blanket.

Now here's what I did get done off that list:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ummmm, none of it :0(

But I did:
1. Write a post everyday on my blog
2. Read all of 2009 and 2008 posts on my new fav blog dooce.com
3. Clean top of Fridge
4. Sort through bowls and put some in the yard sale pile
5. Finish books 1 thru 3 of the Twilight Saga
6. Watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (loved it! and love Brad, *sigh*)
7. Watched Paul Blart - Mall Cop (no *sigh*, just watched it out of love for Kevin James)
8. Sat outside in the sun Today and Tuesday
9. Took several naps
10. Cleaned out my Yahoo inbox

So there you go. I have accomplished some things.
and...
I still have tomorrow.

It was a great weekend!

I've really been having a lot of fun the last two weekends thrift shopping with my mom on Sundays. Eddie Ross and Rhoda at Southern Hospitality have really gotten me in the mood. And even more so since Eddie is coming to California for a shopping excursion at the Rose Bowl Flea Market. I'm trying to get a little group together of me, my daughter April, my sister Lisa and my co-worker Angelica, so we can all go and meet him and shop with him. It should be so much fun I'm really hoping we can all pull it together and go!

But til then, let me show you some treasures I found the last few weeks. This isn't everything, but it's just some of my favs and the ones I can show you since I don't plan to give them as gifts. These are MINE Baby!

First off is the lovely watercolor picture by the artist Laurie Korsgaden. This photo doesn't do it justice, the colors are so vibrant and yet soft. I love it! I hung it in my bedroom to make me happy first thing when I wake up!

I also found this beautiful Candle holder, another item with beautiful, rich, vibrant colors. I love it! Even without a candle it looks to me like a work of art!

See the beautiful detailing on the bottom... and oh yes, I did crochet the doily/thingy it's sitting on. See...I am a Jack of All Trades. Thanks to my wonderful mother who taught me so well and patiently how to crochet.

and here's a close up view of the top.

Well, these are all the ones I can show you that I took pictures of. But I also bought two books that I love. One is "Napkin Folds ~ Beautifully Styled Napkins for Even Occasion" by Bridget Jones and Madeleine Brehaut and the other is "Decorative Murals" with Donna Dewberry. I just love the whole napkin folding thing even though I have never used cloth napkins. They just display so great when doing a tablescape. Speaking of tablescapes, remember my first post about them?

Well I wasn't really thrilled with the way my first one came out but today my daughter came over and saw it. She thought it looked a little bare and she was on her way to Kmart and told me she would see if she could find somethings to jazz it up a bit. Well she did, bless her lil ol heart! See...

Thank you April, just what I needed, a little pop of color. Now I love it! And, Welcome Home!

Jack of All Trades, Master of None

Napolean Hill, one of America's earliest Motivational Writers says, "The jack-of-all-trades seldom is good at any. Concentrate all of your efforts on one definite chief aim."

That's me. Jack of all trades, master of none. I like saying I know a little bit about a lot of things but not a lot about just one thing. Is that a good thing? Or a bad thing?

It might be a good thing to concentrate all your efforts on one definite aim in your career or business, but not in your personal life and hobbies and interests. While it may be good to be an expert knitter or sewer, wouldn't it be better to be just a so-so knitter and so-so sewer and so-so cook and so-so painter and...well you get my point. Try lots of new things and have fun with them, rather than getting all intense and stressed out about trying to be perfect at just one of them. What do you think?

I like being just so-so about a lot of things. That being said, I have a new interest. Blogger hosts a Blogs of Note award that it gives out daily to a blog they think is worthy. I try to check out the blog of note each day and some of them are great and some of them are things I'm not interested in at all, but it's always fun to check.

The other day, I checked out a blog of note about Tablescaping! What is tablescaping you ask? Good question, I'd never heard of it either. So I clicked on the link and Tablescaping is simply setting a beautiful, interesting, unique, special table for either a special event, or as this blogger does, just for everyday use. Go check out this blog and look at all the great tablescapes and see if you don't get some idea of your own. I know I did. Let me share.

I decided to try my hand at a Valentine's Day table, see what you think. I first got the idea because I have the Corelle Pink Heart dishes like these...

I've had these dishes probably since 1990 or so. And I love them and use them as my everyday dishes. But then I remembered some dishes I bought about 8 years ago while shopping at a Goodwill with my mom.

They have beautiful flowers and a butterfly which I love, so I thought I would try these instead, since they aren't my everyday dishes.

I didn't have a pretty tablecloth or runner I could use, so I stuck with the crocheted tablecloth thingy I've been using on my table, since the color is neutral and it's kind of romantic.

I then looked around my kitchen to see what else I had that would work and be valentiny. Remember the post I did about the champagne flutes my daughter gave me? I mentioned some amber colored glasses, they are really more rose colored, although they do photograph a bit more orangy.

And see the pink napkin above? On Friday I went to the American Cancer Society Discovery Store (a nice way to say thrift store). It's an awesome and wonderful store and I went there again today. I'm hooked! It's so well decorated and the displays are made with such attention to detail, I love it. Anyway, I bought four pink napkins, just cause I like pink, I had no plans at that time to do a tablescape using them, but they sure came in handy!

And here's the whole table. The angel blowing a kiss in the middle was the centerpiece for my niece Sarena's quincinera in August of 2005. I have two of them and I just love placing them in different places around my house. The other one is in my bedroom right now, on a nightstand, blowing me kisses before I go to bed :-) I think I still would like a different centerpiece and I will show you what I did differently at the end. The pink candles I've had forever and had never used them. I have some lilac ones exactly the same, and the hearts strewn about are candies.

Here's a closeup of the napkins and the silverware, I didn't put any knives on it. I don't know why, maybe whatever I plan to serve for Valentine's day won't need cutting?

The napkins look rather plain don't you think? So i found this wonderful website that teaches you lots of different ways to fold them. I did the one below because it was the simplest and also the only one that I saw that didn't require an iron and starch, (I just don't do irons and starch)!

So here is the finished table. Except the angel still doesn't seem right. I think I need to add some pink flowers to her, or maybe something totally different???

How about this? This was my purchase today at the American Cancer Society Discovery Store. I saw it Friday and secretly coveted it. It was $18.00 and that seemed pricey to me, but remember what happened last time I saw something I wanted and I didn't buy it? Well I took a chance again with this item. When I was there on Friday I saw a sign that said that on Super Bowl Sunday they would have everything in the store 25% off. So I figured I would wait til Super Bowl Sunday and if it was there it was meant to be...and it was there!! Yippee!!!!

So here's the final table, sorry about the lighting but it's late in the evening. It still seems kind of bare to me. I think I'll email the Tablescaping lady and have her take a look at it and give me some ideas. I'm thinking maybe if I take the cover off the cake stand and put pillar candles in shades of pink and white in varying heights it might help. What do you think?

How to make Bows, for any occasion and also recycle old magazines and a wrap-up of my exciting weekend!

Whew! I'm pooped! Today was a really, really busy day for me. Actually the whole weekend was. Yesterday I finished up my Christmas shopping with my sister. We had a nice breakfast together and I colored her hair, not at breakfast you understand, because we had breakfast at Denny's and Denny's kinda frowns upon people running a beauty salon from their booths, plus you don't have really good water pressure in their sinks and you have to keep waving your hand in front of that little do-hickey that makes the water come on and off, but anyway, that was yesterday. Today I colored my own hair. No grayness in any of my Christmas pictures, lemme tell ya! And since I'm going to be off the 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th and 28th I decided I would finish up all my gift wrapping, do my laundry, scrub my tub and shower and sweep and mop and vacuum my floors so that I could enjoy all those five days without worrying about doing any housekeeping at all!

So, finally, about 7pm I got online to check my email and stuff and I was kinda stumbling around and I found this really cute little video of a really cute little girl, oh well, not such a little girl, but little compared to me OK? And she's going to show us how to make Bows and I just love her accent and her personality. Hope you enjoy!