Decopodged Recipe Box - Blue Toile!!!!

My BFF and I were shopping at Michael's a few weeks ago, when we ran across this awesome blue toile tissue paper.

Look...isn't it beautiful? I just love blue toile! And...to find it in tissue paper form...oh my. Well...what to do with the toile??? Hmm??? Let's see..here's a cute little recipe box. Cute, but definitely won't fit into my blue and white kitchen, whatever will we do???
Decopodge it!!!! First we had to cover it with blue and white. The tissue paper was thin, so the original print kept showing through. I think I used about 5 layers of the white and 3 layers of the blue.

Here it is somewhat finished. It still needs something...What about blue ribbon?

Tuesday Tute: Memory Board

I have seen memory boards all over the blog-o-sphere, not to mention at stores everywhere. I decided to create my own.

Since I'm trying to be a good blogger...I took lots of pictures!

First, get a piece of sturdy cardboard. You can use a piece of plywood if you'd like, but the cardboard is easier to work with.

Wrap the cardboard in batting. I used some clearance "snow" from last year's Christmas section at Wal-mart. Since my batting was thin, I used 3 layers. You can make yours as "fluffy" as you would like.

Using what I have...I just stapled the batting to the cardboard.

I have to show off the gorgeous material I used...

Wrap the material over the batting and staple to the cardboard. It doesn't have to be perfect. You will be covering the back a little later.

Here she is all wrapped up.

Then using different lengths of ribbon, you will begin your crisscross.

I used the handy dandy stapler again.

Keep going until you get the look you like. If the ribbon isn't in the exact place it should be, just pull the staples out and move it. Easy peasy!

Once you have all the ribbon in place. You will need to sew down each point where the ribbon crosses. I just knotted the end of the thread, stuck it through and tied it off tightly in the back. You could probably staple down the points, if you'd like.

Just because I like to be girly, I found these itty bitty bows in the same ribbon at JoAnn's. A little bit of hot glue from my trusty glue gun stuck them to the points.

I attached a length of ribbon to the top of the memory board to hang it. Then I made a pretty bow with my Mini-Bowdabra and attached it to the middle of that ribbon. ie: the area that would hang on the nail...at the wall.

Then I took glue gunned down fabric to the back of the board, covering all the raw edges.

Here is a close up of the pretty, itty bitty bows.

And there you have it...the gorgeous memory board.

Hopefully, I can give this to the friend I made it for...before she sees this on my blog. Hmm?

Have a great day!

More fantastic hubby dishes

So the hubby can't stay out of the kitchen. It's as if the new plates made him decide to get creative. I don't know, but Crimson and I are LUVing it!

This was a dish he made last week. I should have posted about it the night he made it, but I thought I'd give you a double whammy...

We have apple spiced pork tenderloin, butter sautéed green beans and soy angel hair pasta. DELISH!

The next meal I'm going to show you came from an episode of Bobby Flay's Throwdown. This is called Country Captain's Chicken...or at least the Hubby's version of it.

It has a very tender chicken breast, tomatoes, green bell pepper, parsley, raisins,

slivered almonds, garlic, onions, bacon,

a bunch of spices, and it's served on a bed of softly cooked white rice!

another DELISH dish!!!

Is your mouth watering yet?

I keep telling him he should open his own restaurant, maybe if enough people tell him this....he'll listen?!?!?!

Well, hope you have a great day!

Not really MIA

Good evening! I hope you had a great weekend! Not that life every really slows down, but I finally have a moment to type. What have we been doing you ask, well let's see...

First there was a cheerleading competition..

Then there was Halloween...

(sorry the pics are sideways...didn't feel like playing with Photoshop tonight)

Then...we were given a piano (Thank you Rene's mom and aunt!) and had to move it. This thing weighs a TON...according to all the manly men that helped with the move!

(Isn't she beautiful? Rene's mom refinished her. The sound that she makes is angelic! LUV it!!!)

After the cheerleading competition, our team went to the playoffs.

(I really should have taken more pics of her hair. I split her hair into pigtails and then split the pigtails in half. I french-braided the four sections separately from the outside to the middle, then joined them into a ponytail. it looked so cute!!!)

I couldn't leave out the silly pic of moi! Go Lions!!!!

(Don't you just love the wig and the mile long sparkly eyelashes???

I'll be back tomorrow with a post about some of the hubby's fantastic cooking! I think the next post will be about a Christmas surprise I'm making...

Good night!

Just a little corbel

There once was a sad little corbel.

All broken, sad, and blue (well, brown actually), but then someone found him.

Took him home and used some glue.

Now this sad little corbel is as good as new!

This poor little corbel was at the Goodwill for $2.00!!! The price tag on this bad boy said $29.99!

Suh-weet!!!!

Right now it has a home on my antique vanity. I may, eventually, incorporate it into an actually curtain ensemble. For now, I just like looking at my pretty little corbel.

Happy Wednesday!

a la Rose'

Okay...I'm going to brag a little here...my hubby really spoils me. He has to be the most amazing cook in the world! (are far as all the cook's that I have had the pleasure of trying their food)

We went out to eat at this upscale restaurant on Friday night. My upscale and your upscale may be different, but we're talking around $40 a person. The ambiance of the restaurant was great...nice music, candle lit, nicely appointed tables, and they asked if you had a reservation when you walked in the door.

Since we were having a date night, we were in the mood for a nice romantic meal.

This restaurant seemed to fit the bill, until...

It took forever to get our food. The "warm biscuits," they served with butter, were cold. The dishes that they brought with the biscuits, had specks of something green on them....they weren't clean. When we finally got our main dish, my "seasoned to perfection" rare rib-eye steak was medium to medium-well and did not taste like it had any seasoning on it. I put A-1 on top of it and still had to dip the steak in A-1...that's how not seasoned it was. Hubby got a pan-seared mahi mahi that absolutely had no taste at all. You didn't know you were even eating seafood!

We went in expecting something amazing. Everyone raved about how great the new restaurant was and how the head chef trained in France. There was even a write-up in the local paper about her.

I can easily say...we won't be back!

Back to the part about me being spoiled...I was so disappointed about this restaurant. We wanted to have this nice date night, but after we got our food all we could talk about was the food. I told the hubby that he could have cooked a much better meal and we could have bought all the stuff to make the meal we were eating, plus the dishes we were eating off for less than the $80.00 we were spending on dinner.

Hubby took this as a challenge!

The next day we purchased the square white dish set I had been eying for a while. Then, we went grocery shopping and bought all the items to make our fabulous meal. Last night, hubby cooked it!

Oh!!! It was aMAZing!!!! We had grilled steak, sautéed mushrooms and sweet onions, steamed and sautéed asparagus, sweet potato cakes, pan seared tilapia, and last but not least mussels in a tomato garlic sauce! I loved every single bite!!!!

Just look at these pics...doesn't it just make you hungry thinking about it?

Ahh the smell...wonderful!!!

Plus, I got my dishes!!!! They're pretty too, right?

As for the title of today's post... a la Rose', well hubby has been thinking of starting his own restaurant and/or going to culinary school, for a while. I think he needs to start one or the other. A cook this amazing, needs to share his food with the world...or at least our little part of it! I thought a la Rose' would be cute, what do you think?

Hope you have a fantastic Tuesday!

A.Rose

More birthday goodness...

Yesterday, I told you about the sweet gift my hubby bought me. You can read about it here. When I got home, we exchanged more gifts. The first thing I opened was a car charger / battery booster for my iPhone. I know a phone charger doesn't seem like much, but anyone that has an iPhone knows...if you use the internet on it for very long...you will run the battery down. I tried to find a pic of the kind he bought online, but wasn't able to...and I threw the box away, but it's pretty neat. You can plug your phone into it to charge in the car, or pull the booster off and hook it into your phone on the go. It's like having a back up battery. Really cool invention!

He also got me an assortment of Ghiradelli chocolates. I LUVVVVVVVVV Ghiradelli chocolate. It's the most creamy sweet indulgance you can find. (Especially the caramel kind!) Talking about them makes me wish I had brought a couple to work with me. Oh well, they will be waiting for me on the coffee table when I get home!

I should also mention that before he found the cool iPhone charger, he had bought a plain ole' car charger for me. So..he gave it to me and told me I could take it back and get myself something else. I'm thinking about one of those purse organizers...

In case you're wondering what I got the hubby...remember yesterday was his birthday too. Well, besides the ginormous hunting blind, I also gave him a chef's hat and chef's apron. (He has been talking about going to culinary school, which I wish he would. He is an amazing cook!) He wanted this little chopper scooper uper thing too, I'm not sure what you call it, but I bought one for him. Last, but not least, I gave him some money. He was very happy!

I joined our church choir last night. Let me just say WOW!  I was in the choir in school and at the church I grew up in, but that's been over 10 years ago. I have sang karaoke and solos at a friend's church, but not in a choir setting since high school. I figured out that I'm going to have to do breathing exercises before next week's practice. I'm not sure how many people are in the choir, but I know there are definitely over a hundred. It's truly amazing to hear them sing. I'm so proud to have been asked to join! Crimson will be joining the children's choir, she starts Sunday night. Wish her luck!

One last thought...there are only 70 days until Christmas!!!!!!

Happy Thursday!

A. Rose