Merry Christmas

From my home to yours I wish you and family a Merry Christmas. Let us not forget but remember why we celebrate Christmas, the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Happy Birthday Jesus! 

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Christmas Tree 2011

Hello all. I was debating on posting a picture of my Christmas tree simply because its not as "jazzy" as many that I have seen in blogosphere. But in the end I said
 "What the heck".  With that said I give you ...

My 2011 Christmas Tree

{Not quite done wrapping gifts--its so labor intensive.}

Until the next post,

Christmas Wreath

Hello everyone. Pardon my lack of appearance on my blog there has been quite a bit going on. Nonetheless I managed to squeeze in sometime to make my very first Christmas wreath.

This is what you will need:

1 sheet of felt in red and white (craft store for .29 each)

1 plain wreath (dollar store find)

1 rope of garland (dollar store find)

1 pack of bunched decoration (dollar store find 2/pack)

Glue sticks & hot glue gun (on hand)

Scissors (on hand)

I made some white and red felt flowers. Here are the white flowers...

I wrapped the garland around the plain wreath making sure none of it was exposed. Before I glued anything onto the garland I placed the flowers and decorations in various angles to make sure I'd like the arrangment.  

 This is what I came up with...

   

 

Until the next post,

It is nice and simple. By no means the fanciest of wreaths but it did the trick.

 

Thanks for your comments!

Hello everyone! Hope your preparation for the Holiday season is done and ready to roll. I, for one, am not done. Truth be told I only have four gifts and need several more. Yikes!

At any rate I want to thank those that have taken the time to check out my post and actually post a comment! You really make my day. I'd love to reply to your comments but for the life of me I can't figure out how. This is total madness I tell you -MADNESS! hahaha 

Can anyone enlighten me, PLEASE? 

TrueBlood Inspired Panels

Am I the only one who is hooked on TrueBlood? I can't wait for the next season to start! For those of you who have watched TrueBlood are you loving Bill's newly decorated home? I sure wouldn't mind living in that house... with him! hahaha

This is Bill's formal room.

This is his office.

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This is my kind of formal room and office. Its neutral, sophisticated and plain ol' crisp in my opinion. Add the right color accents and this place would be even more amazing.

As I was watching season 3 of TrueBlood I spotted the panels in both the formal room, as pictured, and in Bill's office. Then I looked at the plain panels I had up and thought "Oh yeah this is definitely going to happen." I had the intension of adding the strips but had no idea where exactly to place them or how.

Fast forward to a day of shopping and going in the ribbon aisle. It was then that a big lightbulb turned on and like a vision I saw black ribbon. Perfect! Ribbon is exactly what I'd sew onto my panels to create my TrueBlood inspired panels.

Here are my TrueBlood inspired panels in my living room.

(This project was completed before painting my living room. The horror of that blue! It still haunts me.)

Until the next post,

Statesville Chair Makeover

Oh sweet Statesville Chairs how I love thee!  I got a pair of these beauties from my bosses best friend, Evelyn, who was downsizing on many furniture pieces. Major score. I must admit that my visit was only intended for a kitchen table and chairs but I ended up walking out with much more. I got two chairs or "butacas" as she referred to them, place mats, wine glasses, small glass plates, coffee cups, breakable deco, and cute art pieces.

{Before you continue know this is the longest blog in blogosphere.}

Here are the before pictures. The chairs were actually quite beautiful as they are pictured. But they didn't mesh well with my stuff. And so the makeover, transformation, refurbish whatever you wanna' call it begins.

Before:

 

{sorry about the crappy poor quality pictures these were taken with my crapberry blackberry.}

During:

Let me summarize what has been done:

- Removed upholstery and piping (?) and used as template for new look

- Sanded chair

- Spray painted chair

- Cut templates for new upholstery using none other than a shower curtain!
{Oh yes I did! }

Sounds easy right? Well honey it was labor intensive and time consuming. Did I mention this was my first reupholstering attempt? Because it was ...

Onto the upholstery part this took me a while because I kept putting it off.

"Oh the hard work this entailed."

This is the shower curtain I found. It is the perfect shade of blue and just enough texture to make me happy.

Since the curtain has stitching I had to ensure the back and front pieces were centered.

Can you see the "X"?

Once that part was perfectly stapled I added a piece of cardboard to make the back a little sturdy. {Be careful how you hold your stapler. I wasn't and the staples pierced the back and consequently made little holes that were {still are} visible. aarrrggg! I had to remove the entire thing and start over. I was beyond livid at myself so I decided to take a break! BIG time. And that's exactly what I did -- chilled for a while.}

I must add that my darling Oso was with me all day long what a trooper! How can I not love this little guy?! It is simple not possible.

I didn't want him napping on the ground so I took my new panel and let him sleep on it. I can always wash it again. Then I left to sit in the front porch and look who tagged along...

"Oso, didn't I just leave you sleeping in the yard?"

Mr. Oso didn't want to lose sight of me. What a cutie!

Alright onto the project before this post gets longer than it already is...

I started the 're-stapling' process again with caution this time.

This is how the backrest looks. {Darn I cut off the top of the chair.}

Next I hot glued the piping which finalized this part of the chair transformation.

{As you can see I had already started working on the seat.}

And the after -- by far my favorite part of this project!    

Did you see the pillow case? I made it from a window panel. I'm still not done with it though I am going to add rosettes. And did you notice I finally painted my living room walls from blue to this awesome light color?!  No more sky blue living room any more! I still don't know why in God's green earth my landlord painted it that color. I tell you what when I told him to check out my re-done living room he flipped out! He loved it.

Now I have to convince him to do something about that floor. Its horrible and I hate it.
Moving right along...

I think the piping could have been a little better. However, considering this was my first attempt I think I did pretty good.  Now I just have to complete the second chair. {sigh}

{This post is dedicated to Evelyn who was called home. I will be taking good care of your butacas.}

Until the next post,

Cheddar Cheese Penne

I cooked again! Boy oh boy what is really going on!?  I saw another post by Kate from The Small Things Blog where she made homemade Mac 'n Cheese. And well that just looked too yummy to not try making. Its really easy how on earth can I kill it, right? 

{you should check out her page its pretty awesome! She has hair tutorials, cooking tutorial, DIYs and she has an ETSY Shop-tell her I mentioned her page!} 

Well here I was at home thinking of what to whip up for dinner when I remember Kate's receipe! Brilliant! But not so much because I didn't have elbow noodles, darn. But I did have penne, yay!

Here's what I used:

{Friends, the piece of counter you see is my working space! Yeah, pretty sad. So, please don't complain about the massive space you have and say its not enough.}

Moving right along...

Half box of Barilla penne pasta

salt

pepper

2 cups of mild cheddar cheese

I can't believe its not butter

1 cup milk (not pictured)

{Oven: 375 degrees}

Confession time: I don't cook! Well at least not often since its only me I find cooking for one is rather boring, eh! So I don't have many cooking pots, pans or bakeware only the basics.

Ok, moving along... again LOL

I cooked the penne al dente and now I'll be adding a layer into my caldera (oven safe pot) just enough to cover the bottom. Now sprinkle a little salt and pepper {do so after each layer of penne}

And now add as much cheddar cheese as you like. I only made two layers so the next layer looked the same.

Now add the butter and milk then placed in oven for about 40 minutes. Leave longer if you want the top to be extra crispy.  {Seems like huge pieces of butter but it really wasn't -I don't like butter too much, ek.)}

This is how it looked straight outta' the oven.

And this is how it looked on my plate! Yum. Not bad for my first attempt.

Until the next post,

Homemade Pizza Dough

Hi ya'll! {I just love saying "ya'll"} This is my second and hopefully final attempt at creating this post about my homemade pizza dough. My first try took forever to complete only for my netbook to freeze and of course the post didn't save. Sad day my friends -sad day.

Let's get started with the ingredients:

3/4 C warm water

1 pkg Rapid Rise Yeast

1 tsp sugar

2 1/4 C flour

1 tsp salt

3 tbps EVOO

{Oven: 400 degrees; Cook time: 20-30 depending on how crispy you want your pizza}

1.) Add rapid rise yeast and sugar into the warm water. Stir very well ensuring the yeast is completely diluted. Let sit for about 5 minutes. After 5 minutes it'll have a thick top layer this means its ready for use. {Stir it just before you add into flour.}

2.) Mix salt, yeast mixture and EVOO into flour. You are now working on making your dough. Keep mixing it until you get a non-flaky dough or if you have a fancy mixing gadget now is the time to use it. I don't have one so I'm going old school mixing with my hand.

3.) Once the dough is ready let it sit for about an hour. I'm covering my dough with a kitchen towel because that's what my mom does =) {a few minutes before the hour preheat the oven.}

4.) Since I'll be making two small pizzas I'm cutting the dough into two pieces then I'll be rolling them out.

5.) Drizzle a little EVOO over your pizza sheet before placing the rolled pizza dough. I don't have one so I'm using the broiler tray.

6.) For a crispy crust bake the dough for about 10 minutes before adding toppings. Then, take it out, add pizza sauce, cheese, and all other toppings. Place back into oven and bake for 10-15 minutes or until cheese is as golden brown, yum.

And there you go my very first homemade pizza dough and pepperoni pizza! It was so delish! Hope you try this out because it is so worth it.

{Thanks to Kate from www.thesmallthingsblog.com for sharing this receipe.}

Until the next post,

New Blog

Surprise its me! I haven't posted anything in so long its pretty sad. I do have projects to post but haven't dedicated the time required to complete the task. That and I'm starting up a new blog! Yep, turns out although I love my blog name I don't think it works well with the things I'm posting. Having said that I will try my best to work on the new blog {transfer info, add new post etc.,) and come back and share the new blog information here.


Until then I hope to not lose the two readers I may have. LOL seriously -- thanks to those who take the time to check out this humble beginners blog.


Until the next post
Lucy

What's With The Blog Name?

This my friends is the question of the day.  "Wanna hear it? Well here it go" -- my name is Luz Elena yeah a simple name that tends to get massacred.  So, I keep it simple by using Luz and even still that isn't good enough.

"How do you pronounce that?" you ask yourself -- well its quite simple actually -- let's say the word "Lucy" out loud. Now let's say "Lucy" without the "e" sound.  And there you go that is the way you sound out my three letter first name Luz.

Now pronounce Elena which sounds like this "eh-leh-nah-That's pretty simple right? Yep, that's my whole name Luz Elena. Although in the American culture Elena is considered my middle name in the Mexican culture Luz Elena is my name period! No middle name just plain old fashion Luz Elena. And yes, I'm Mexican-American born and raised in the windy city.

Any way I figured I'd use my initials LEA in the blog title. Now, in spanish "luz" means "light" and if you translate "light" in French it is "Lumieré". 

And so the title for this humble blog was created "LEA Lumieré". I'm still trying to figure out what I want to add as an underline sentence to break down what my blog is about. I have no clue as of now. I'd like it to be catchy but not corny. And eventually have a super cute blog like the ones many popular bloggers have-- that's my goal.

And here is a picture of me Luz Elena aka Lucy -- I don't always look like this (hahaha) its a head shot I took with my pooh-pee quality cell phone camera in which my makeup and hair are done and it is the perfect camera angle hahaha.  I normally have my thick, frizzy, curly, wavy, kinky hair down and a bit of makeup to help contour my round face.

Until the next post

Vintage Foot Rest To Cute And Chic

Hello everyone! Hope you are doing great. As for myself I've been super! So much that I have been M.I.A. for a really long time {or so it seems}. At any rate I really need to keep this blog business current and post DIY projects and maybe some picture makeup tutorials.

But enough of that lets get crackin' on the good stuff. I came across this little guy some time ago and I'm not going to lie it was in the trunk of my car for about a month! Yeah I know a month who does that? Oh yeah I do. When I finally decided to give this little guy some love I had the urge to get it done 'pronto' and put it to good use.

Here he is in all his old vintage glory

(Sorry for the poor picture quality these were taken from my bootleg cell phone.)

I removed the lovely box that was covered with that fabulous pineapple fabric and reupholstered it with a beautiful $4 a yard fabric I got at Hancock Fabrics.

Then I grabbed my ever so loved spray paint in a glossy black and went to town.



(Can you tell I got spray paint happy and sprayed a little too much?! whoops)

And here he is all cute and done up

(That's just a little left over fabric I tossed in there.)

And there you go --that's the tale of an old vintage foot rest that became a cute - chic foot rest.  By the way without even planning it out this little guy matches perfectly with my living room curtains. I'll be posting that project tomorrow. Unless I get anxious and decide to post it later today, we'll see.

Until the next post