Category: My Interests

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Italy Trip: Day 1 – Rome

Buongiorno! We arrived in Roma at 8:30 AM local time. My full amount of sleep on the plane was approximately 1 hour – ha!

The drive from the airport to our hotel was in Josh’s words “probably the scariest ride of my life.” I definitely expected crazy driving so I mostly laughed about it. Until we slammed on the brakes to keep from hitting pedestrians.

As our rooms were not ready at check in we left our bags with concierge and set out to find a bar for espresso and pastries. (Many thanks to Riccardo for his patience with us at check in and for knowing how to spell our last name!!! Yay! We are in Italia! I don’t have to spell out our name. That lasted all of 5 minutes when we got to concierge where the guy tried to put an “a” where the “o” should be ?)

On our walk to find food we happened upon a church at the Quattro Fontane (4 fountains – one on each corner of the small intersection) We stepped inside the small church and enjoyed the beauty of our first Roman sight. I picked up a few small cards as free souvenirs – pretty little artistic things – and the search for espresso and pastries continued.

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Sweet Shoppe 1st Birthday

We are entering the season of dinners and parties and dinner parties 🙂 and I can’t help but get excited. I want to plan all sorts of special evenings and yet it is the hardest time of the year to do so with all the commitments everyone has, not to mention it’s wedding season in Florida so my work schedule picks up as well. I’m a planner at heart, and I love events. I love the planning, the decorating, the cooking and baking. It’s a serious passion. I’m already thinking ahead to my kids birthdays and trying to rein myself in at the same time.

For G’s 1st birthday we did a “Sweet Shoppe” theme, and I thought I’d share the details here.

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How to Keep your Freshly Painted Nails Lookin’ Pretty

Why have I never thought of this before? I am always messing up my nails after I paint them. Never again though! I’ve discovered a brilliant solution… without trying to. Effortless brilliance – has a nice ring to it, does it not?

Here is my effortlessly brilliant solution: PAINT ONE HAND AT A TIME. Yep that’s it. Paint one hand. Let it dry. Paint second hand. Let it dry. While one hand dries, just use the other.


I think this idea deserves two thumbs up – but only one at a time 😉

Seriously… I feel like it’s so simple surely someone else must have already though of it. Have you? Is that how you keep your manicure lookin good? Or is there some other trick I don’t know about?

lovelisa

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Unexpected Spring Blossoms

My tulips are blooming!

Josh bought me the tulip bulbs a week or 2 ago and we’ve been watching them grow, patiently waiting for flowers to appear. We were so busy all weekend, I didn’t pay them much attention. Yesterday afternoon I was pleasantly surprised to see them blooming!

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DIY Bridal Shower

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My sister’s bridal shower was last weekend. It was a perfect channel for my need to create. If you don’t know it already, I should tell you now that I am super frugal. Why spend $10 when I can spend $1 and make something myself! It’s cheaper and so much MORE fun! So this is officially Lisa’s version of a frugal, DIY wedding shower.
The frames are 4×6 wood frames that came 2 in a package at the dollar store. I painted them with a dry brush using white acrylic paint to give it the imperfect finish (perfect with the beach scene photos).

The flowers are from Sam’s Club. I bought them about 3 days early so they were in full bloom for the shower. And the glass containers are a jelly jar and olive oil bottle I cleaned out when we used up the contents. Now that’s recycling! And cheap!

This picture has another 8×10 frame (dollar store & paint) and I glued on an “H” that I bought from a craft store. The little white vase below was $.99 at goodwill. So cute!

For more variety I painted a few soup cans with white acrylic paint and used those as vases too. I chose different sized cans to pair together. They probably aren’t something you’ll want to save and reuse. They did start to rust on the inside.

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Chocolate covered pretzels are a great favor. I’ve used them for more than one party. They’re really easy to make. They just take a little time depending on the number of people and how many you plan to give per person.

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What’s your favorite favor to give or receive?
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Goodwill Shopping Trip

Check out my goodwill find! It’s a beautiful old chair in my favorite color. And here’s the best part: it cost $14. That’s correct – fourteen dollars!

Since I’m living in a furnished apartment I don’t have to be in a hurry to find furniture, which means I can take my time and find awesome pieces like this one. If you don’t normally shop at goodwill you should totally try it sometime!

lovelisa

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An Early Fall Morning

It was so beautiful when I looked out my window this morning that I quickly dressed, grabbed my camera and headed outside. I just had to capture some of those beautiful scenes before the sun could get too high.


lovelisa