New chairs, please!

My chairs are so beat up from food spills, cat scratches, art projects remains, that I wanted to replace them.
But "wanting" something does not mean you really "need" them. So just because I don't have a couple of hundred dollars to spare, I left those seats get uglier, year by year.

Until my good friend Kyoko- san gave me a lot of pieces of fabric, and the colors were perfect in my red dining/living room.
So with the help of my never out of energy mother-in-law dona Marlene, we unscrewed the seats, pulled out the old fabric, and stapled the new fabric.

It was a 4 hour job for 2 people, including my trip to Lowes to get more staplers.
Now they look good and new again.

All the chairs don't match because the fabric was not enough. But for someone who wears unmatched socks, different chairs won't bother.

I love them! Arigato Kyoko-san, obrigada dona Marlene.

Feliz Aniversário Camila!

Hoje é aniversário da minha querida cunhada Camila,e mesmo estando muito longe, eu fiz o bolo que ela gosta.
Como aqui nao tem Bolo Prestígio, tive que fazer umas pesquisas para achar os ingredientes.
Achei a receita da melhor doceira que eu conheço, e o link do Bolo de Cocolati esta aqui no blog Chocolatria.
A decoração foi inspirada na cachorrinha que ela tem, que se chama Sky.

Depois resolvi fazer a minha cachorrinha Lelé.
E por fim eu fiz outro amiguinho.

A gente vai cantar parabéns via Skype, e ela vai comer o bolo prestígio que ela ganhou lá no Brasil. Parabéns Camila, mulher corajosa, batalhadora, mãezone de uma menina linda, e cada ano mais bonita.

Take a bite of this cup.

I always wanted to make these cute edible teacups. It was the ideal treat to serve my sister, visiting me from out of state.
And I finally found it on Sheknows.com.
If you go on the link, there is a video that shows how to make. But what was great about it, is that she solved my problem about cutting the sugar cones, without breaking in pieces. Her solution was soaking the cones in water for about 20 seconds.

Then cutting about 2 inches with a serrated knife.

It was soft enough that I could cut the rough edges with scissors.

The base was made from one half of sandwich cookies (without the cream), and half of Reeses Peanut butter cups. They were "glued" together with melted chocolate.

Then the cup was attached to the base with more melted chocolate...

...that was also used to decorate the top of the cone.

Then I cut the handles using mini pretzels, attaching with the melted chocolate.

Right before serving, I placed a dollop of Passion Fruit Mousse (click on the name to go to the recipe).

I thought it was adorable.
And my sister and me had a great time playing tea time.

Little Kitties Cake.

This week we celebrated my little big sister's birthday! We were so happy she traveled to see us, I wanted to make a cake for her.
Looking for inspiration, Huffpost Taste posted this picture of a cake with cats on top, and I loved this idea so much that I rushed to make these kitties.

The original lady made the cats from mochi. But for me I had easier access to marzipan, and I assumed the results would be similar.
Then I colored using food coloring pens, and other details with food coloring in paint brush.
She is actually more of a dog lover. But I just couldn't help it, and made a bunch of kitties.
But she loved it, anyway.

A Visita da Vovó.

Meus filhos estavam super ansiosos para receber a vovó aqui em casa, e levá-la aos nossos lugares preferidos.
Esse fim de semana ela visitou um campo de abóboras, numa fazenda aqui perto, e adorou.

Geralmente as pessoas usam essas abóboras de enfeite na casa.

Mas claro, chegando em casa, dona Marlene nao teve sossego e foi até a cozinha.
Usou uma faquinha, e descascou a abóbora inteira (tanto a casca como o fruto sao muito duros e difíceis de descascar).

Quando eu já havia desistido de ajudar, ela cortou tudo em gominhos.
Depois cada pedaço ela cortou em fatias fininhas.
Colocou tudo na panela, com meia xícara de agua, e umas 3(acho) xícaras de açúcar (ela faz tudo a olho e jogou o tanto que achou necessário).

Pois por uma meia hora, cozinhou em fogo brando, mexeu, picou mais...

...até ficar bem cozido.

E depois de esfriar, eu coloquei num vidrinho pra deixar mais bonitinho.

Mas o mais importante foi saber que, ela teve todo esse trabalho, mais pra fazer um agrado pros netos... pro filho...e pra nora, claro.
Cozinhar é um ato de carinho, mas ter tanto trabalho pra fazer deve ser um ato de amor... e amor é o que ela mais tem no coraçao.
Obrigado Vovó Marlene.

Pumpkin: from the farm to the jar.

Even with all the things I like to make myself, I still like to take the shortcuts, and have the convenience of buying food from the can.
But this weekend my mother-in-law, visiting from Brazil, starting to cook the way she usually does. And I was surprised to see how much easier it is for us, who choose to drive to the store.
So I think she deserves to have all her work presented to everyone.
In the morning we went to Schmitts Farm and she picked a pumpkin (which I thought it would be a decoration).

After lunch she was bored, so she decided to peel the pumpkin. Granted, the skin is so hard I gave up helping.

When I walked away, she cut the whole thing in strips.
Then I came back, and we took turns slicing in my Mandolin slicer.
I was relieved to see we were able to finishing slicing. So she could start cooking, adding about 3 cups of sugar, and about 1/2 cup of water.

And cooking, stirring, and breaking in pieces constantly for about 1/2 hour.

Until it was finally ready.

It tastes so good, that I had to put it in a little jar, and make it more official.
It reads:" Grandma's Big Dessert"(or something close to that).
But the point is, it is a nice thing to see Grandma going to all this process, to see your kids happy.
Thank you Vovo.

My Neighbor Totoro.

Once the forecast predicted a rainy holiday, we decided to watch our favorite movie at the moment, My Neighbor Totoro.
Since I was due for a post on my blog, I decided to make some last minute decorations for our snack table.
Early in the morning I went to the store, and saw this spaguetti squash, and it seemed to me it would be the perfect shape for my purpose.

Good thing I had my Wilton Food Color Spray in a silver color.

Since I was in a hurry, I had to use a hair drier before I glued his belly, mouth and eyes cut out from a piece of white felt. For the nose and whiskers I used black puffy paint.
The leaf on his head is made of a piper cleaner.

Totoro's bunny-like friend is made out of a hard boiled egg and paper ears.
In the movie these creatures collect acorns, and I saw the cutest acorn cookies made from Evermine Blog. Her recipe calls for Hersheys Kisses, Peanut Butter Chips, Peanut butter to "glue" them together, and Mini Nilla Waffers.
But I could not find the Mini Nilla Wafers, so I had to make tiny sugar cookies instead.

Some of my sugar cookies came out too big to be on top of the kisses. So I drew some characters in food coloring pen on the extra cookies, and placed them on top of some muffins.

My cabinet had a pack of brown bags, that I could fill with popcorn and Doritos.

And I used my Sharpies to illustrate the bags.


We are all have Totoro fever in this house, and the movie was really inspiring to me, starting with this party.