Marrying my Obsessions

So by now we all know that I have a thing for succulents.

(Wait, you didn't know?  See here and here for confirmation of said obsession.)

Another little obsession of mine is milk glass.  (Discussed here and here.)  In fact, I have an entire shelf in my garage dedicated to thrifted milk glass:

So when I found this a couple of months ago on Pinterest, I was pretty stoked.  (Original source here.)

For those of you who didn't click on those links--and you should really click on the links, people--I'm talking about succulents planted in milk glass!  How great is that?

So yesterday while the kiddos were in school I took a little trip to Home Depot and picked up these:

At $1.99 apiece for the little ones and $2.49 for the bigger one they were a bargain.   The milk glass was also inexpensive, I think these three cost about $6.00 total at Goodwill.

Toss in a little cactus soil, insert the plants and, voila!  Instant centerpieces...

...perfect for a wedding, or in this case, a marriage of two obsessions!

Sharing:

http://girlinthegarage.net/2013/09/throwback-thursday-1/

Pizza Muffins

 One of the unexpected joys of blogging has been my daughters' reaction to the blog.  Not only do they love to read it, but they are constantly making suggestions for new posts.  "You should totally blog that, mom," has become a common refrain around here.

Last week the younger of the two announced that she had an idea for a recipe: pizza muffins, pizza baked in a muffin tin.  I told her we'd give it a try.  "But will you blog it?" she asked.

Little girl, this one's for you!

Like many of the things I make around here, there was a lot of winging it with this recipe.  (I often picture more experienced cooks reading this blog and shaking their heads in disbelief.)

I started with the prepared pizza dough from Fresh and Easy.  Trader Joe's also has wonderful pre-made dough and theirs comes in whole wheat too.  (Apologies to my mother who made us pizza from scratch, including homemade dough, every single Saturday night of my childhood.)

So after spraying my muffin tins with cooking spray, my daughter and I made twelve balls of dough.  We rolled each one flat and put them in the tins.  They kind of shrunk up and pulled away from the sides but that didn't matter in the end.

Wow these muffin tins look grungy.   I swear I wash them.  Let's just call them "well-loved."   

You can top/fill your muffins with whatever ingredients you'd like.  The first time I made them I actually used ground up meatloaf as a filling and it was wonderful.  (And yes, that's the same meatloaf recipe found here.)  This time we used pepperoni, olives, sauce and mozzarella.

We had different combos in each cup.  We put in the meat first (for those that had meat), then the olives...


...and then the sauce.

Finally we topped the whole thing with cheese and popped them in the oven.

Not only did my daughter come up with the idea, she also helped clean up while the muffins were in the oven.  Love that kid.

They emerged looking beautiful (despite the grungy muffin tins ;)

And they were as tasty as they were pretty.  If I make them again I might use a little less dough and a little more filling.  Beyond that, I'd say they were perfect.

Many thanks to my little chef for the inspiration!

Update:  For those who asked.  I simply used the baking directions (time and temp) that came with the dough.  I did not pre-bake the dough and it seemed to work out just fine.

Thrifting

Last week I was driving by the Salvation Army when it occurred to me, "Why am I driving by the Salvation Army?  Why am I not stopping the car and going in for a little peek?"  After all, my thrift-store-averse daughters were back in school.  Why wouldn't I go?

Well I'm glad I followed that instinct because, guess what?  It was half-price day.  (I couldn't afford not to shop ;)

The first thing I spotted was worth a picture... but not worth the $695 (!) price tag.  (Of course it was half-price day, but a $347.50 accordion is still an accordion.  And I don't need an accordion.)

 

And in case you were wondering, I did check ebay to find out what one might sell for.  I couldn't find this exact brand so it's anyone's guess if this price was a good one.  I will say that people list old accordions for lots of money on ebay.  However, if you check the completed listings you will find that the overwhelming majority of them go unsold.  So, yeah.  I left it behind.  

Also left behind?  This side table.  

I can't remember the price but it wasn't much--especially at 50% off.  I was imagining it either refinished or painted.  The truth is that I just don't have a place for it, though, so I had to walk away.

But I didn't leave empty handed.  Oh nosiree.

What did I come home with?

For starters I got a giant punch bowl.  It needs a good cleaning as do the 12 glasses and ladle that came with it.  I have been on the hunt for a big punchbowl ever since I encountered this at a bridal shower:

Although I already have a perfectly serviceable punch bowl, I've been obsessed with finding one large enough to accommodate a bundt cake shaped ice cube.  (Because bundt cake shaped ice cubes are awesome!)   Mission accomplished.  I probably wouldn't have bought it at its original price of $20, but for $10 I was all over it.  Pictures will follow in a later post, I'm sure.

The purchase I am most giddy about is this set of card catalog file drawers (Price: $4.50 total):

At first I wasn't sure what they were.  Then I opened them up.  As a librarian's daughter, I recognized them right away.

Oh the potential!

They had clearly already been repurposed by the previous owners for use in a workshop or garage.  I suspect the paint job isn't original either as all the ones I see on the internet are painted black, grey or a sort of industrial green.

I am envisioning them spray painted a crisp white (or possibly aqua) with shiny chrome hardware.

But here is where I must make a confession.  And this isn't easy for me to put out there.  I might get my blogger's license revoked for this one.  Heck, I may never be allowed on Pinterest again.

But here goes:

I am an awful spray painter.

Whew!  It feels good to get that off my chest.  Does anyone know of a support group?  Or at the very least can one of you awesome spray painters give a sister some tips?  I used to think it was my lack of patience that was the problem.  Then I tried a few more projects.  I used thin even coats and waited between them.  I sanded things and prepped them.    I did everything I was supposed to do.  But it didn't matter.   My paint-jobs always end up bubbly and... just bad.

So if any of you awesome spray painters have some advice I'd love to hear it.

Better yet, you could just come over and do it for me.

I'll serve punch :)

In the Bloglight

Hello and welcome to `a casarella!  Come in and make yourself comfortable.

For those of you who have been around for awhile, please pardon the formality.  (We have company and I don't want to scare them away!)

The guests are visiting from Hometalk's Blogtalk page.  (Not familiar with Hometalk?  You old-timers should mosey over there and check it out.  This post will just be review for you anyway.)

And to my new guests, welcome!  I'm excited to have you here and tell you a little about myself and my blog, 'a casarella.

'A casarella, for those of you who don't speak Italian, means "a little house."  I borrowed the name from a plaque which is affixed to the front of our home.  It was placed there by the previous owners but we liked it and, given my Italian heritage, decided it should stay.

You can read more about this in my very first blog post, found here.

It seemed like a perfect name for a blog.  You see, I'd been contemplating a blog for several years before I actually started mine this past January.  I began reading blogs almost ten years ago when they were really quite novel.  The first blog I ever read was (and is) called Dooce.  The blogger, Heather Armstrong, was a newlywed when I first found her and some of her best posts (in my opinion) revolved around the tiny house that she and her husband were renovating at the time.

Well, things have changed.  Dooce has long since moved out of her tiny house and although I enjoyed watching her decorate and renovate her next two houses, I found many other blogs where I could get a more concentrated dose of home decor and DIY.  After years of poring over sites like Young House Love, Bower Power, Making it Lovely and Remodelaholic, I decided to take a stab at this blogging thing on my own.

As a teacher-turned-stay-at-home-mom it seemed like a great fit.  I could exercise my brain by writing about the things I was already doing as a mother, wife and home-owner.  What could be better?

And thus 'a casarella was born.

As much as I love home design, I could not sustain a blog on that alone.  Though we've done a few big projects around here (like this pre-blog balcony remodel that I wrote about back in February):

...and we're planning a few more (stay tuned for a solution to my office dilemma as well as a revamp of my daughters' playroom), my most popular posts seem to be about small crafting projects:

DIY laundry room art.  Blogged here.

Make your own flower petal lantern.  Blogged here.

...recipes:

Meatloaf-stuffed peppers in the crock pot.  Find the tutorial here.

This cake is as easy as it is beautiful.  Find the recipe here.

...and fun things I've done for my kids:

How to make a "Punch Box."
This poorly photographed (yet extremely thorough) tutorial is by far my most popular to date.  Find it here.

Probably my favorite project: the slumber party birthday cake.  Find it here.

...and their teachers:

I made this for teacher appreciation week
but a whole bunch of people on Pinterest think it would be a great Christmas gift!

Blogging has been a source of great joy (and sometimes great frustration) over the past few months.  Finding balance between my "blog life" and my "real life" has been a struggle.  On top of that, there is a lot to learn: everything from photo editing (definitely not my strength) to coding in html.  Had I known how much there was to learn when I started, I might not have started at all.  Thank goodness for that ignorance!  My advice to aspiring bloggers?  Go for it!  Don't be afraid to learn as you go.  And don't be afraid to reach out to other bloggers for help and advice.  The blogging community has definitely been a great (and unexpected) source of the joy that I mentioned above.

So, Hometalkers, that about sums me up.  Thank you so much for stopping by and I look forward to learning about you in the near future.

Decorating Paper Bag Book Covers

On Wednesday my older daughter started middle school.  And if I didn't think that I'd bore you to death, I would probably write a wistful, ten page post detailing my thoughts and feelings on the subject.

But given that her week was okay (and I'm emotionally spent from thinking about it) I'd like to focus on an aspect of middle school that we've both enjoyed (and possibly the most random topic ever): covering her textbooks.

(Look, it involves cutting up brown paper bags.  As a craft blogger (sorta, kinda), I'm obligated to get excited over this stuff.)

Anyway, when I found out that she would be needing to cover her books, I thought back fondly to those days of yore when my mother and I would sit down on a September evening, a stack of paper bags in front of us, and cover my textbooks.

But then I remembered something!  These days you can buy book covers.  (Spoiled 21st century children!)  And those covers come in all kinds of cool colors and patterns.  Surely my new sixth grader would want those over brown paper bags.  (Wouldn't she?)

Well, it turns out that my kid is ten-kinds-of-awesome because, no, she didn't want those pre-fab covers.  In fact, when I told her that she could have those or the ones that my mom and I used to make, she chose to go old school.  (And I'm pretty sure she didn't do it just to humor her poor, nostalgic mother, either.)

Now if you've never covered a textbook with a brown paper bag, I'm going to direct you to Youtube where there are numerous how-to videos that you can watch at your leisure.

Because what my daughter and I really enjoyed was the decorating.  (I might have begged to help.)

We used all kinds of fun items including Washi Tape, Sharpies, Stamps, jewel stickers--anything we had lying around, really.

Here are some books that she decorated:

And here is the back of one that I did.  (I obviously have a thing for Washi Tape Buntings these days):

Thanks for indulging this mama at the end of a difficult week.  I'll be back to share some more first-world problems real soon!  ;)

Making a Washi Tape Bunting Tutorial on SnapGuide

Back in April my brother sent me a link to a free iphone app called SnapGuide.  I blogged about it here and then promptly forgot about it.  Then last week I was playing around with Washi Tape trying to make a little bunting to adorn a birthday present.  My iphone was sitting next to me so I thought, what the heck, maybe I'll post a tutorial to SnapGuide.

To say that this was not my finest crafting moment would be an understatement.  I did the job hastily and imperfectly (the present was for an eight-year-old who was very likely not even going to notice the bunting before tearing into her gift).

The same could be said for my tutorial which, though easy to make, was quite basic as it was really just an experiment.

So imagine my surprise when I began getting emails from SnapGuide telling me that people were "liking" my tutorial.  I also got several comments including one from a young lady in England who was inspired to make her own.  I have to admit, I'm really enjoying this "social media" aspect of SnapGuide.  And even if you're not interested in doing your own tutorial, there are plenty of interesting tutorials to browse through.

You can find my tutorial here.

(And no, they didn't pay me to write this.  Something about not buying the cow when the milk was free...)

Truth or Dare Ball

Contrary to popular belief, we do more than eat here at my house, especially if there's a party going on.

As mentioned in my last post, my daughter recently had her first slumber party and did a lot of the planning herself (with the help of Pinterest).  One of the (many, many) things she pinned was this.  (Original source found here.)  Our inspiration site called it a "Toss and Talk" ball but the girls and I dubbed it a "Truth or Dare" ball.

We originally planned to buy a plastic ball at Walmart as suggested but then realized we had this great blow-up ball hanging around in the playroom.  I liked it because it had little sections that we could use as natural dividers between questions.

Our guests averaged about eight-years-old so I wanted to make sure that the questions (and dares) weren't too risque.   (I actually Googled, "Clean Truth or Dare Questions," and judging from the number of results I got, I was not alone in this quest.)  Other dares included, "Try and pick up the person next to you," or, "Remove the sock on the person to your left and do, 'This Little Piggy' with their toes."

The game is easy: the girls stand in a circle and toss the ball.  The person who catches it answers the question (or does the dare) that is in the same box as her right thumb.  The kids enjoyed it and it's a fun and inexpensive way to break the ice and get the party started.  (And to work off the cake ;)