An Evening in Tuscany

My hubby is turning forty, so I threw him a big party in our backyard Friday night.  We both love Italy, and since we have done our backyard in the Tuscan style, I decided to have a Tuscan themed party.

For the invitation, I used a picture of my honey "holding up" the leaning tower of Pisa that we took a few years back on our trip to Italy.  I added the caption, "Look whose beginning to LEAN a little?"  On the inside was the invitation to help us celebrate before he becomes an ancient ruin.  People got a kick out of the invitation.

About a year ago I found all these pretty blue paper goods at Target on 75% off clearance.  I snatched it up, and have been looking for a reason to use them ever since.  I thought it looked like beautiful Italian pottery.  The colors in it - blue, yellow, and red - I used for inspiration for the decorations.  I also found a pretty bouquet of sunflowers and such in just the right colors at Trader Joe's.
I wanted to do something bright and bold, and inexpensive, without going the crepe paper and balloons route.  It was an adult party, and I wanted it to be a bit more sophisticated.  I found these great paper lanterns online at Luna Bazaar, and later I found the big yellow ones at our local Cost Plus on clearance for only $1.99 each!  The lanterns weren't Italian but they were bold and bright, and perfect for what I wanted to do. 

 I just love the way they look all lit up at night, bobbing around in the breeze!  But they didn't really fit the string of lights I had.   They kept falling off and I was getting frustrated.  Then I used some packing tape to stick them on really good.  It did the trick.  Not one fell of during the whole party.

I also used some of the faux tomato plants I found at TaiPan.  You can't do Italian without tomatoes, and I love the colors!

 My happy find was the tall grape plants, on stakes, already bearing fruit, at Home Depot of only $19.95 each.  Nothing says Tuscany like grape vines.   We will plant them in the yard now that the party is over.  Can't wait for those to get ripe!  Behind the bar, our raised vegetable garden was all planted with tomatoes, basil, peppers and eggplant, and it made a lovely back drop. 

I HAD to make one of my famous fabric banners for the party.  I couldn't help myself!  I just love putting the different fabric patterns together to get just the right look.  This time it was blue, yellow and red.  It said "Ciao!"  which is a greeting of hello and good-bye in Italian.  You know, "good-bye thirties, hello forties, good-bye eyesight, hello reading glasses, good-bye hair..."  You get the idea.  Actually, I was only thinking "Hello guests, good-by guests" when I made it.

For food I had a panini bar.  I love, love, love panini, and I piled the table with all my favorite breads, cheeses, meats, and other favorite panini fillings.  We had three panini grills going and it blew a fuse!  Ooops!  Luckily one of our guests was an electrician, so we weren't in the dark too long.
There was a ton of food.  Pretty spears of roasted asparagus wrapped in prosciutto, my favorite Caprese salad with tomatoes, basil leaves and fresh mozzarella.  My mom brought some yummy gnocchi.  If you haven't ever tried gnocchi, do.  You are in for a treat!

I also served crab salad in endive spears, fresh melon and grapes, and tiny polenta bites and tomato pie, and lots more besides.  For all the food, I found recipes that were really, really easy, but also really tasty.  And I had a lot of help in the kitchen as guests arrived and offered to assist.  They are all so good!

While the guests feasted,  I had to sneak into the house to finish preparing dessert.

Yes, I said dessert.  Haven't you ever had spaghetti and meatballs for dessert?

Well, when the spaghetti is on top of cupcakes you would try it, especially if the noodles are made of frosting, the marinara sauce is made of strawberry jam, Parmesan cheese is white chocolate, and the meatballs are made of Ferrero Rocher chocolates.  They looked exactly like meatballs!  I found the idea in Hello, Cupcake!, a totally fun cupcake book I just discovered.  I think the cupcakes were my favorite part of the whole party - and no cake decorating skills required! 

It was a terrific Tuscan party for my terrific man.   He was worth every bit of effort!

Boy, do I love to entertain!  (But now I am ready to take a long break!  Maybe for his 50th.  Maybe sooner.)

Ciao!

A Little Lit with the Ladies

Attic Gal Rachelle says:

I have been busy entertaining this week!  On Thursday evening I hosted our book club.

  We read "These is My Words" by Nancy E. Turner.  It is the story of a woman named Sarah Agnes Prine and her adventures in the frontier of the Arizona Territories in the 1880s and 90s.  A terrific read!!!

The weather was unseasonably lovely so we met outside, which was perfect!  For ambiance I brought out my old trunk  found out saleing (remember this post?) and filled it with old quilts and draped it with my 1880's crazy quilt (see this post).  I added some old books, and a jar of homemade soaps - all of which are very important to the story of Sarah Prine.

It only took minutes to gather everything from the house, but really added to the evening, I think.

Food was simple too.  I used an old quilt for the tablecloth.  I made some pecan pie in honor of the pecan grove they had in the story.  Here is the recipe for my AMAZING and super easy pie.

Honey Crunch Pecan Pie

Pecan filling:

4 eggs

1 cup light corn syrup

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

2 Tbsp. butter, melted

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup pecans, chopped

Crunch topping:

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

3 Tbsp. honey

3 Tbsp. butter

1  1/2 cups pecan halves

Preheat oven to 350.  For filling, in medium bowl mix eggs, corn syrup, brown sugar, sugar, butter, vanilla and salt.  Stir in chopped pecans.  Pour gently into prepared crust.  Bake 35 minutes.  When pie is baking, prepare topping.  In a small sauce pan, over medium heat, combine brown sugar, honey, and butter.  Cook 2-3 minutes, until sugar is dissolved, stirring constantly.  Stir in pecan halves.  When pie has baked 35 minutes, take it out of the oven and gently pour  topping over pie.  Return to oven and bake about 10 minutes longer.  Cool and serve.

I also served warm homemade bread, with homemade jam, Cox whipped honey brought straight from Utah by Tara, and my dear friend Shari even made homemade peanut butter!  There really is nothing better in this world than warm, homemade wheat bread with homemade jam, farm fresh honey, and homemade PB!  Heaven.  Really.

We had a great discussion.  For fun, I found 25 of my favorite quotes from the book, put them in a basket, and everyone picked a few they liked, and took turns reading them for the basis of our discussion.

We had a great literary chat, and everyone agreed it was a really terrific book!

Are you in a book club?  What have been some of you club's favorite reads?

If you are not in a book club, join one or start one.  It's easy.  I love having an excuse to sit down and read something besides Dr. Seuss,  and then get together with such neat ladies each month.

Happy reading!

Glass Etching: a Tutorial

Have you ever tried etching glass?  It is remarkably easy, and the results are impressive.

I first etched glass when I was about 11 years old.  I made Christmas ornaments out of little glass squares.  They turned out great, and my mom still hangs them in her tree every year.

First, you will need etching cream.  You can probably get some at your favorite craft store.  They didn't carry any at our JoAnn, but they had it at Michaels.  At our store they kept it locked up, so be sure to ask a clerk if you can't find it.

Etching cream is rather pricey.  This is the medium size bottle and it was $27.  But I'm no dummy.  When I saw the price at check out, I ask the lady to put it back and I came back two days later when I had a 40% off coupon.  Love those 40% and 50% coupons!  But if you just want to try it, they sell a small bottle for about half that price, so you don't have to make a huge investment to get started.

You will also need regular clear contact paper and a non-metal tool like a tongue depressor, popsicle stick, or plastic butter knife to spread the cream.

When it comes to the glass, usually the cheaper the better.  Anything treated or tempered usually won't work.  I got those pretty square plates at Target after Christmas for 75% off.  The box was Christmasy, but the plates weren't.  I found that jar at a garage sale.  The dollar store is also a great place to find glass to etch.  You can also etch mirrors, glass in picture frames, etc.  Use your imagination!

First, you need to cut your contact paper into a stencil.  I used my Big Shot.

Carefully stick the stencil you made onto the glass.  Remember, you use the negative.  The cream sticks where the stencil isn't.  The contact paper protects the glass from the cream.  Be sure to press down the edges really well so the cream doesn't seep underneath.

Spread the cream over the negative space in your stencil.  You don't need a ton, but just enough to make sure it gets good coverage.  Be very careful not to get any off the edge of the stencil onto the glass because it will etch any glass it touches.  Also be very careful not to get it on you skin or in your eyes.  If you do, rinse immediately with water.

All the directions are on the bottle.

Then comes the easy part - just wait 5 minutes...

Then rinse it all off with water.  Make sure you get it all off.  Be sure not to rinse it off in a porcelain sink (at least not a lot of it).  Do it in a steel sink, or outside with the hose.

Peel the stencil off to reveal the image.  It will look better as it dries.

See what I mean.  Easy.

But I am Attic Gal Rachelle, so I couldn't just stop there. I was just getting started.  I die cut a bunch of butterflies. 

If you don't have a die cut machine, you can use punches, or even an exacto knife to cut your own stencil.  You can also use tape to make stripes, or the negatives of sticker sheets.  Use your imagination!  Just remember that you need the negative of the image.

Then I followed the same steps.  1) Stick on the stencils

2) Apply cream  3) Wait 5 minutes  4) Rinse

TaDa!  My butterfly jar is complete!  Isn't that cool?

Really, the possibilities are endless. 

Etch away, ladies.  Etch away.

Stamp Swap

Last week was the last Stampin' Club class of the series that I have at my house each month.  As tradition, I have each stamper bring a swap - 6 identical cards to trade with the other stampers using techniques learned over the last 6 months at our club.

Here are the swaps:

My dear friend Dayna made this sweet card.  It says "to thy own self be kind."  She said that as women we do so much for so many, and thinks we need to stop and be good to ourselves sometimes.  So true.

The flower is raised and lightly watercolored.

Same with the inside.  So pretty.

April made this delicate card. The large image was embossed with Versamark and detail clear powder.  It is very fine and pretty.  Then she cut it into thirds to make the panels.  I love the rhinestone brad in the center of the flower.

Suzi made these sparkly little pocket notes. The picture doesn't do it justice.  The starfish was watercolored with blues and browns, then embossed over with a clear glaze.  Then she glued two different color blue glitters on - one around the edge and a lighter glitter as the rays extending from the middle.  Then she topped it off with a little pearl.  So pretty!

Mom made this card.  It is very simple, but the surprise comes on the inside.

When you remove the belly band, the card opens and looks like this:

But then the card opens more revealing this hidden inside:

This card is kind of woven together.  It is very clever and a fun card to handle and play with.

Here is my card.  Again, the picture doesn't begin to show you the glory of this card.

It is hard to see it but the rose is sparkly.  I embossed the rose onto white shimmery cardstock with white embossing powder.  Then I sprayed it with water so it was really, really wet.  The with a small paintbrush I dabbed orange and yellow re-inker inks into the pools of water for a blended watercolor look.  The color comes out so bright when it dries, and the colors stay in each petal because the embossing acts as a dam to keep the color inside.

The background is dry embossed using a embossing template with my Big Shot.  The leaves are also die cut with the Big Shot.  I love the striped grosgrain ribbon.

I also also gave everyone an etched glass plate I made using the "Tulipe" die cut and etching cream.  If you have never etched glass before it is way easier than you'd think.  I will do a tutorial for you later today, OK?

I just added a little die cut butterfly to the plate just for fun.

Everybody did such a great job on their cards!  What a group of creative and talented ladies!

A Pocketful of Posies!

On Wednesday I threw a mother/daughter dinner for the young women from  our church in my backyard.  It was really a great evening, and the theme was flowers.

For a craft we made pretty fabric posies with a huge pile of different fabrics and a two gallon tub of old buttons that I am proud to own.  I just love old buttons!  My kids will dig through that tub for hours finding their favorites.  

We simply ran the fabric through my Big Shot die cut machine, with a few of my Bigz flower dies, then they sewed them together with the button using a needle and thread.  They got to choose between putting their flower on a hair clip or a pin back.  The girls made flowers for their moms and vice-versa.

Here are a few of their creations:

They are super cute in the hair, but you can pin them on a hat, purse, or jacket.

I put my toile posie on the fun polka dot bag my mom gave me for mother's day, and included the red ribbon the gift came wrapped in.  Love it!

Everybody's flowers turned out darling!  And after they all left, I just couldn't put all the fabric and buttons away without making a pocketful of posies of my own:

Which are your favorites?

I love the yellow and blue toile of course, and the yellow striped one is just sweet.

Black and white is always a great combo.

Hee Haw!  The denim  ones are just fun!

The orange one is one of my favorites.  I really like the monochromatic flowers!

Show a little posie patriotism for the 4th.

The pink and brown one on the bottom just makes me happy, and the bright pink with pinstripes and bling is very classy, don't you think?

But the natural muslin one on the bottom is my favorite I think, and the brown velvet one above it is simply luscious!   I am going to have so much fun with these.

Try making some posies of your own with some scraps of fabric.  I liked the heavier weight, textured fabrics best.  If you don't have a die cut machine, you can always trace a pattern and cut them out, or even freehand cut them.  I really don't think you can go wrong.  Just have fun with it!