The Door Knockers of Firenze, Italy

On a recent trip to Florence, I started noticing the fabulous carved wooden doors and the decorative door knockers almost immediately. I decided to document them with photos. It became an obsession to stop for every interesting new one that I saw - and I didn't really cover that much ground. If I had stayed longer I am sure there would be many, many more to discover. I surprised myself  after noticing that I only photographed one door knocker twice. Not bad when you consider I took over 50 photos.

Gargoyles and other faces were a popular motif. 

These two Eygptian faces seem to be a very similar design but made from different materials.

Two gargoyles with the same face on different doors and made from different materials.

Fish and Gargoyles together

 Lions were very common and came in many forms.

Fuzzy Lion!!

This one seems very old.

Not sure if this has a lion face or it's just very ornate!

 Iron seemed to be the most popular material - although I am not positive all of these are iron - 

wonder if some of them could be bronze?

This was the smallest doorknocker that I saw

 

 

One of the doorknockers below seems to be copper, 

but the most common material after iron was brass.

 

 

 

 Not sure what material this one is made from. Looked kind of rusty.

Italy is full of amazing visuals and I could go back again with a good 

camera and just take photos of all of the design details. 

When will the temperature "Fall"

The calendar says it is almost Fall, but the temperatures in Southern California are hot, hot, hot.  And, that is how it always goes around here this time of year. It is difficult to switch gears and 

think about autumn decorating when the beach is still the only place to be. 

In San Diego autumn arrives late, but it is still my favorite season. When it finally arrives, 

I will put away the seashells and get out the pine cones. 

My favorite fall decoration

Last fall I put together this basket with a great piece of wood from the pile out back. 

I loved it and kept it out until spring. 

Sometimes I find a curvy piece of wood in the pile - doesn't happen too often

I'm looking forward to putting it together again and adding some new pine cones.  

The wood fit nicely around the basket handles and I attached it with twine.

Thrifty-Not

Just a little humor today from a local thrift store that thinks it is okay to charge more than twice the price  for something you could purchase for less brand new.  Do they leave the original tags on just to make us laugh? I guess they get away with it - so maybe they have the last laugh.

These placemats were sold for .98 cents each at Target on clearance. The thrift store is charging $8.99 for the four of them. More than twice the sale price.

The design on the front of the placemats

The sale price from Target

The price for four placemats - more than double what you could buy them for new.  

I truly have a love/hate relationship with thrift shopping these days . . . it's sad since I have been a die-hard thrift shopper since my teen years. This particular store recently underwent a big remodel (including a coffee bar addition) and their prices reflect that now. They always seem to have 40-50% off on their merchandise so they know they are overpriced to begin with. A deal would be 40-50% off "already low prices" - not their inflated prices. Yet I continue to go back again and again . . .

Julia Child's 100th Birthday

Today, August 15, 2012 would be Julia Child's 100th Birthday. Food lovers are sharing their memories of watching her on television, or reading her cookbooks - and reminiscing on how Julia cooked and charmed her way into our hearts.  I wanted to chime in too . . .

A few years ago, The Friends of the Fallbrook Library had a wonderful guest speaker, Alex Prud'homme. He was Julia's grand-nephew and he co-authored "My Life in France" with her. I had read the book for the "community read" selection and loved it. I was excited to hear Mr. Prud'homme talk about Julia's life in postwar Paris and Marseilles.

In the book she mentions the Paris cookware shop, Dehillerin, where she bought all sorts of kitchen essentials, including copper pots and knives. I knew when I was planning my buying trip to Paris (for my now-closed shop) that I needed to visit the store to see the copper cookware section. And, I wanted to bring something home without having to have it shipped. My purchase included two of the smallest pieces of copper the store stocked - I knew they would fit in my carry-on suitcase.

My little 3 inch copper pots from Paris (they need cleaning!) 

If you enjoy Julia Child (or love to cook) and you're headed to Paris, plan a visit to her favorite cookware shop. E. Dehillerin is located at:

18 et 20, rue Coquilliere - 51, rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau - 75001 PARIS

From Rossipes, here is a French-Italian dish my mother made:

Chicken Française 

It is much easier to have everything ready before beginning. Prepare the flour mix, the egg batter, and have the sauce ingredients measured, parsley chopped and lemons sliced.

FLOUR mixture:

1 cup all-purpose flour
big pinch of salt and black pepper
pinch of garlic powder
pinch of paprika 

In a shallow dish mix together the flour, garlic powder, salt, pepper and paprika. Set aside.

EGG batter:

2 eggs, slightly beaten with a tablespoon of water
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/4 cup grated parmesan 

Have another dish ready with the egg batter: Mix the beaten eggs and juice of 1/2 lemon with 1/4 cup of grated parmesan. Set aside.

PREPARE chicken:

6 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

1/4 cup olive oil

Pound chicken between wax paper to about 1/4 inch thick. Pat dry. Prepare skillet by heating and adding olive oil. Dredge the chicken in the flour, shake-off excess. Dip the chicken into the egg batter and add right into the hot skillet with the olive oil. Cook over medium heat until golden on each side. Remove from skillet and keep warm.

SAUCE:

1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 lemon, juiced
1/2 cup good-quality chicken broth
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped 

3-6 slices lemon, for garnish 

Wipe skillet clean and heat butter over low heat. Add wine, chicken broth, and lemon juice. Cook uncovered, stirring occasionally, until sauce is reduced. Stir in parsley and season with salt and pepper. Spoon sauce over chicken and top with lemon slices. 

Not a great photo, but it is the actual dish from the cookbook

Sew-Eco-Chic-Toddler

My favorite materials for sewing are someone else's cast-offs. I love to scout the thrift stores for great fabrics from blouses, skirts, curtains, etc. to use for making something new.

Lulu wearing the "summer look" with bloomers and a sleeveless t.

Here are a few pics of my granddaughter Lulu wearing a skirt I made for her from a thrifted blouse. I did purchase the rick-rack and elastic for the waist. The lace at the bottom of the skirt is part of a large collection of vintage lace I have been collecting for years.

Detail of the lace and large rick-rack trim.

The "winter look" includes leggings and a sweater.

Lulu is going to Italy with her parents for nine months and I am trying to make some cute clothes for her to take. They are leaving in about a month, so I better get busy.

Lúthien Luna's 1st Birthday Party - Part Two

As I looked through my past blog posts, I realized I had not yet completed a post for my granddaughter Lúthien Luna's 1st birthday party held in late January. Her party was just 7 weeks after my granddaughter Olive's 1st birthday and we wanted a completely different party theme and color scheme.

When I saw this balloon in October, I loved it and it became my inspiration for the party. I purchased the balloon months ahead of time and took it back for filling the day before the party. It was a "hippie chic" theme with birds, butterflies, owls, and peace signs. We selected the turquoise, green, and brown for our main colors from the balloon.

I made lots of yarn balls in various sizes to hang in the house from my ceiling fans and the twig garland. They are made with yarn, glue, corn startch and balloons were fun to make . . . but messy and time consuming. And, you needed a lot of patience!! The front door decoration included several small yarn balls, ribbon, and birds.

I made a gathered garland from crepe paper cut into different widths and sewn together.

To gather the garland I sewed down the middle with a basting stitch and bunched it up as I went along. It would've been too difficult (and time consuming) to try and gather the traditional way by pulling the threads after basting. Perfection was not an issue because once it is hanging it gives an overall great look and you do not notice any thing that might not be perfect.  Take it from me, a somewhat perfectionist!!

The owls made from empty paper towel rolls cut to different sizes. 

Fun idea I found somewhere online looking for owl crafts. Sometimes I find an idea to begin with and take it from there to make it my own. In this case I added all the layers for wings. If I was doing it again I would cut large paper circles to paste on before adding the eyes.

Paper bird idea was also found on a children's crafting site - paper clip legs were a bit tricky, but it is a fun project. A different bird design (below) with hole-punched eyes and glued onto moss (they have paperclip legs too but they are stuck into the moss.)

 

I made a hanging peace sign with some of the yarn I used for the orbs. It's a small embroidery hoop with cut coffee stirs glued on and then rapped in yarn.

The lunch theme was "finger food" and everything could be eaten out-of-hand or with a food pick. I made lots of food including little peanut butter on celery with chopped p-nuts on top, a veggie/dip tray, chips and our homemade Fallbrook Guacamole, roasted red peppers with baguette slices, stuffed salad shells, and several tea sandwiches . . . 

                                                          Smoked salmon tea sandwiches and Egg Salad Rounds 

 

It's easy to make your own "flags" for cupcakes using toothpicks and cut shapes - these were bamboo picks  - a bit more fancy than regular toothpicks.

The Cupcake Bar

The birthday girl helping Granmakin!!!

Even the bathroom was in theme with these little owl vintage Avon jars I found at the Great Park Antique Market.

You can see and read more here including Lulu eating her cake and some other pics of Lulu and Olive's 1st Birthday's. Oh and you can see both babies in their birthday outfits I made for them.

DIY Ribbon

During the last year that I had my retail shop in downtown Fallbrook, I started making ribbon under our Sew Eco Chic line of clothing and accessories. I found that ladies pants offered the best patterns and fabrics for making ribbon . . . (and I often wondered why any gal would select such a print for a pair of capris?)  I am talking about rather LOUD prints - and it was easy to find the thrift store racks over-loaded with these cast-offs.

saved old ribbon spools to use for newly made ribbon

I saved the ribbon spools from shop ribbon we had finished using and they were perfect for wrapping my newly made ribbon on.

some of my home-made ribbon collection

Simply cut strips of fabric from the capris or pants - I used a rotary cutter and was not too particular about being perfectly straight with my cuts. Using a serger, I just sewed up and down both sides of the strips of fabric (after first sewing the strips together to form very long strands of ribbon.)

I have not tried this yet - but I have some wire from the jewelry section of the craft store ready to lay down as I serge the edges. Voila, wired ribbon.

sew the strips together before serging the edges

some of my stash of capris for making more ribbon