A Great Blog, Great Shop & Great Girl ♥

Happy Sunday everybody!!

Do you recognize the girl in the picture? She's the awesome Kristine from the The Foley Fam's Blog. If you don't know her, you should click on her picture {above} and read her blog.. she's so funny and sweet that you will start following her for sure! ;)

I have been really lucky to be sponsoring her blog this past month. She has supported my blog and shop this whole month. I'm very happy to have had the occasion to "meet" her {via blogs}, she's on my reading list everyday.. {do you have a "reading list" of blogs that you love?}.

She also has a beautiful ETSY SHOP. She makes adorable hair-clips and head-bands... sooo sooo pretty!!! I have 2 of them and I promised her I would take pics and showed them to the world! Here they are... my girls wearing her clips:

and then....me!! :)

I hope you're enjoying this beautiful Sunday as I am!

Much love to all,

My Bubbly Lasagna

Hi everyone!!! Remember when I said it’s really hot in California?.. well, it still is… And remember when I said that my oven is always on no matter how hot it’s outside?.. well, it’s on!!

Today I made one of my favorite dishes. I used to ask my Mom to make it for my birthday when I was still living at home. It’s an easy and delicious recipe..  the Traditional Italian Lasagna. Yes, it’s true that with pasta you can put any ingredient you want.. but the original Lasagna dish is very simple, the main ingredients are the so called “Ragu’ Sauce” {homemade meat sauce..not the, according to my taste, disgusting already made sauce in the jar} and the “Bechamelle Sauce”.

For MY RAGU’ you need:

• half onion
• 1 stalk of celery
• 1 carrot
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 lb. of ground beef
• 1 large can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 splash of red wine
• salt

In a large pan, on medium heat, saute’ the onion, celery and carrot (previously minced) with a splash of Olive Oil. Add the meat and a little salt. When the meat turns brown add a splash of wine and let it cook for 2 minutes.

Add the whole can of crushed tomatoes, add another pinch of salt.

Let it cook on medium-low heat for at least 35 minutes.

BECHAMELLE SAUCE:

• 1/2 stick of BUTTER
• 3 spoon-full of FLOUR
• 2 1/2 cups of milk
• 1 pinch of SALT
• grated NUTMEG (if you have it)

Warm up the milk in the microwave. Melt the butter in a saucepan at medium heat. Add the 3 spoons of Flour, always stirring. Add the warm milk little by little {never stop stirring!} until it becomes smooth and creamy. Add a pinch of salt and a pinch of nutmeg.

The Lasagna noodles I use are the NO BOIL BARILLA ones. They are the best!!! Also when I was in Italy, I used to use them all the time. I never met anybody who uses the boil kind (the first time I saw them was when I came to America)..

Grease a lasagna pan with a little butter, alternate the ingredients: a little bechamelle at the bottom, noodles, meat sauce and bechamelle, noodles, meat sauce and bechamelle… the top layer needs to be only meat sauce. Grate a whole bunch of Parmigiano {parmesan cheese}.

Cook in the oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.

ENJOY!!!!

xoxo,

Longing for Fall

Is it really FALL? It sure doesn’t feel like it here in California. This morning it was a little cloudy and the air was fresh.. almost chilly.. but just after a few hours.. back to the normal 90 degrees!!

Well, I baked all day anyways… {my husband not too happy about it, ‘cause the oven makes our little house SOOO hot!}… a yummi baked pasta for lunch and cupcake brownies for merenda {aka snack} accompanied by my Cappuccino. I took a picture to show the beautiful coasters I recently won in a Giveaway. Look at them!! They were made by Heather Rains, a sweet girl from California who writes about her life in her wonderful BLOG. Aren’t they sweet? I love the retro flower design…

A few days ago I won another giveaway… it’s so much fun and I feel so blessed to receive little gifts from all over the place!! Every time it happens I think it’s a present from Heaven to bright up my day.

I’m also happy to tell you that I’m giving away another COZY from my shop. You will be able to pick the one you like the most! If you’re interested.. go check out the awesomeness  of  this GIVEAWAY.. on Kristine’s Blog!! You’ll love all the prizes…

Well, it’s getting late and my chores are calling me… I want to finish this post with a beautiful quote from St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, one of my favorite Saints. {Today we celebrate His feast}. And also a beautiful picture of what Fall should normally look like…. =)

"Oh, how precious time is! Blessed are those who know how to make good use of it. Oh, if only all could understand how precious time is, undoubtedly everyone would do his best to spend it in a praiseworthy manner! (PADRE PIO)

I wish you all a beautiful week!

xoxo,

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COZY GIVEAWAY!!!

Hello!! Hello!!

I just want to let you ALL know that I’m giving away one of my Cozies:

The Ladybug in the Clouds!

If you want to win one just participate in this awesome giveaway in Megan’s BLOG: “Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson”.

And with my Cozy there’s other beautiful prizes you could win!

Go check them out HERE!!

xoxo,

編みぐるみ or.. Amigurumi :)

I've always liked the cuteness of the so-called "amigurumi" and I've always wondered: What does it mean? Maybe you already know, but I had to go check on Wikipedia and the explanation is this:

Amigurumi is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals and anthropomorphic creatures. The word is derived from a combination of the Japanese words ami, meaning crocheted or knitted, andnuigurumi, meaning stuffed doll. Amigurumi are typically animals, but can include artistic renderings or inanimate objects endowed with anthropomorphic features,as is typical in Japanese culture.

Now it makes sense!! :) 

I recently bought a pattern on Etsy. The owner and designer happens to be Italian! Her name is Ilaria, she's incredibly good! Her SHOP is beautiful! I also explored her BLOG.. she has some free patterns (I just started to create a little Matryoska doll.. too cute!) and she shows many of her creations. Everything is so adorable that makes me want to crochet all day! and it's exactly what I did today, forgetting a little bit about my messy house...

The pattern I bought from her was very well explained, step by step, with a lot of pictures. I have to confess that the initial request to look for Amigurumi patterns came from my husband {I taught him how to crochet one day, when he was really bored.. and now he became better than me!!}.. he's the one who made Ilaria's Teddy Bear, I just gave it the final touch. 

And these are a few of Ilaria's works of art!!

kokeshi

yummi donuts

cute lemur

It's all for now....until next time!!

xoxo,

Little Letters ♥ linkup

Hello everyone!! Today I’m going to link my post to a fun game from Emily’s post from her blog Life etc.. I read her blog everyday. You can read her instructions here. It’s basically about writing “Little Letters” to anything or anybody in your life.. you can be funny, sarcastic, serious… whatever you want! I love reading hers.. she has a lot of imagination.

I decided to try.. and these are mine:

Dear nose, I wish you weren’t like a dripping faucet right now.
Dear Coffee, I love your smell and the way you wake me up every morning.
Dear birds, thank you for testing all the tomatoes in my garden to check if they are sweet enough to be picked. Naughty birds! >:|
Dear toys, I wish I had Mary Poppins’ powers and just sing to you to put you back  in order.
Dear God, thank you for giving me the sweetest husband and kids to share my life with. There’s nothing better I could wish for.
Love, Luisa.

September 11

images via google

There's no extra words to add. 

I don't know if any of you watched Tom Hank's movie Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, about 9/11. I recently watched it and it was really moving... sad sad sad... especially because you know it really happened. If you are in the mood of watching a touching, incredibly heart-breaking movie, it is the movie for you!

In God We Trust.

xoxo,