Sweet And Sinister

I am so thrilled to have been invited by Kari Ramstrom to participate in Artsy Mama's dazzling blog/swap event! Sign up for the festivities here.  Over a dozen artists are sharing their ideas for creating wonderful autumnal and Halloween projects.

Big Plans

This is one of my junk pumpkins from last year. I have been busy gathering supplies and planning my Halloween decorations for this year. I hope to unveil them very soon!

Deke's 11.5 and Economy Flowers

The plants in our urns were on their last leg and I needed to replace them,
so I made a croquet mallet bouquet.
I have actually never purchased a croquet set,
they have all been found at the curb!

Today we are celebrating Deke's 11 1/2 Birthday!
Do you celebrate Half Birthdays?

Happy Bastille Day!

These are pictures from a little French party that Lulu had. The guests sampled French perfumes and dined on a little pastries and grape juice. I covered the table with real rose petals, a very economical table decoration.

Happy 4th

We are heading to Chicago tonight to see the fireworks and may even take the kids to the Taste of Chicago. It all depends on how intestinally brave we are feeling! E-coli on a stick and fried salmonella are mighty tempting!!!!
I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend.
Your Pal,
Linda

Happy May Day

I love the May Day tradition of leaving little baskets of flowers for friends and family. When I was in kindergarten, I remember making paper cones and filling them with flowers. I would attach ribbon to the cones, and leave them hanging from doorknobs on May 1st.
Gone are the May Day picnics, parades, maypole dances, and all of the other wonderful traditions surrounding this day. I wonder why this holiday fell out of favor? It is perhaps the loveliest way to celebrate Spring.

Spring-A-Ding-Ding

Martha's beautiful muffin liners

I buy the cheapest bags of speckled jelly beans
and throw away everything except the blue and green ones.

Ready for Spring cupcake decorating!

I've trotted out all of my light blues, greens and creams,
now I'm just waiting for Spring!!!

Preparing for Cupid

Our kids have been visited by so many magical gift givers, The April Fool leaves them a gag gift on April 1st, a leprechaun leaves them gold and green gifts on St. Patrick's Day, Uncle Sam on the 4th of July and of course, Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy visit. Valentine's Day is of obviously when Cupid comes to our home. Cupid always finds it very difficult coming up with a Valentine gift for Deke, there are a limited number of red action figures out there.
We will certainly begin our Valentines Day with heart shaped chocolate chip pancakes and strawberries and pink strawberry milk. Do you have any Valentine's traditions?

Making Valentine Cards

Supplies included vintage cards and photos.

Just a few of the finished cards.

Vintage cards everywhere!

Lulu spent the weekend making her Valentine cards. She used old sheet music, charms, buttons, stamps, you name it! We ate little brie and apple sandwiches with apricot jam, the perfect food for this special occasion.
Do you make your own cards?

Champagne Coupes vs. Flutes

The height of the champagne coupe popularity came in the 1930's.

In the The Seven Year Itch, Marilyn dips her potato chips in her champagne!

I hosted two birthdays parties in the past couple weeks and I served champagne at both of them. I needed to get more glasses for the parties and I was torn between getting flutes or coupes. I much prefer the look of coupes with their wide saucers and the ease in drinking from them. I know that champagne connoisseurs feel that a crystal flute is the only way to enjoy the bubbles and bouquet of the sparkling wine. The coupes encourages the champagne to warm and the bubbles to dissipate too quickly. I ended up going with the Hollywood glamour of the champagne coupe. I picked up all of the glasses at different resale shops in my neighborhood, the best deal was five crystal glasses for $2.50!!! I also found seven of the most beautiful etched glasses for under $10.00. These glasses always seem to come in odd numbers and they are extraordinarily inexpensive. Dom Perignon will probably never be served in these and I follow Marilyn Monroe's taste of champagne with potato chips.

Happy New Year

Wishing all of you a very happy and healthy New Year!

Happy Bonus Christmas!

Deke was very good this year so Santa brought him all of these!!!

Lulu was also on the nice list!!!

This is one of the gifts I gave my husband.
I found two of these very cool aluminum piano stools.

December 26th is Bonus Christmas Day at the Crispell home. We started doing this years ago as a way to help with the feeling of let down when the holiday is finally over. There is so much anticipation and preparation leading up to Christmas, and when it's over you are left with a weird feeling of loss. The best gift on Bonus Christmas is a gift that you find marked down to practically nothing in all of the day after sales! Target has great holiday gift sets on sale today and I will have to scoop a couple up. Hope you had a wonderful holiday and an even nicer Bonus Christmas!!!

Misgivings (Missed Giving)

Do you lose gifts that you have squirreled away for the holidays? When I find a gift during the year I store it in my "prize closet" and retrieve it for the holidays. Unfortunately, I always seem to lose something in the closet. I am currently tearing the house up looking for a sock monkey, a gold Richard Nixon pin covered in faux pearls and a signed book. I only have five days to find them, yikes!!!!

Pizzelles

One of the loveliest holiday cookies is the Italian pizzelle. My grandmother, Josephine Ungaro made the most delicious and delicate version of this cookie. It is usually flavored with anise, lemon or vanilla. This year I am going to dust off my pizzelle maker and try my hand at turning these cookies into cannoli shells. I will have about a one second to shape the warm cookies around a wooden dowel before the cookie hardens. Wish me luck!

CANNOLI FILLING

3 LBS. Ricotta
1 3/4 cups sifted confectioners sugar
1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
2 TBS. chopped citron
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate bits

Beat Ricotta in a large bowl for one minute. Add sugar and beat until very
light and creamy, about 5 minutes. Add Cinnamon , citron, chocolate, and mix
until throughly blended. Refrigerate until ready to use.
It may be prepared a day ahead of time.


Pizzelles

6 eggs
3 1/2 c flour
1 1/2 c sugar
1 c butter melted
4 t baking powder
2 T vanilla or anise extract or lemon
My Mother-In-Law adds a shot of whiskey to her recipe

Beat eggs. Add sugar, beat again. Add melted butter and vanilla or
anise. Beat in flour and baking powder. Cook in pizzelle iron according to instructions.
Quickly place warm cookie over metal cannoli tube or wooden dowel, to make cannoli shell.
Makes 2 dozen

Do The Math

This weekend I made sugar cookies and I had to quadruple the recipe, yikes! I got a headache from all the crazy math skills I had to whip out. I could have asked my 10 year old to help, he could do it in a fraction of the time (pun), but that would be pathetic of me. I always hold my breath while the first batch is baking. If my little reindeer start growing 20 times their original size, I know my arithmetic was a little off. Are you baking for the Holidays???

Big Bird, No Leftovers

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday. My sister-in-law Jan cooked the most spectacular Thanksgiving dinner, and her table looked so festive with her collection of Fiesta Ware. She generously offered many times to pack up a cooler with leftovers to take on our 5 hour trip back home, but I declined. What was I thinking???? Who doesn't love cold stuffing for breakfast the day after Thanksgiving? I am an idiot. I think I am going to make a bonus Thanksgiving dinner this weekend, just so we can enjoy the leftovers.

Family and Red Shoes

We are journeying to be with Michigan family for Thanksgiving. It is always a bit sad for me returning to my hometown, I miss visiting my Dad and I don't know my way around any more. I do look forward to showing my kids the campus and fondly recalling my childhood memories of seeing some raucous anti-war protests. I am also looking forward to popping into Red Shoes and meeting Catherine in person.
Hope all of you have a lovely holiday.

Sam & Ella

How times have changed, I treat raw meat like I'm handling plutonium.

Sam and Ella carve the turkey for Thanksgiving.

The Parade

Because of my husband's job running "Super Great Doll Place", we get to ride in the Festival Of Lights Parade every year. Mickey Mouse rides on the first float and waves a magic wand to light the trees on Michigan Avenue. The big parade was yesterday, and we had the pleasure of riding with brand new Disney characters Bolt and Mittens. This beautiful spectacle is capped off with a fireworks display over the Chicago River. It is quite extraordinary to see the reflections of the fireworks in the high rise windows. It is pretty darn cool.