A Venetian Event

I have three beautiful nieces and as each one graduates from high school, I am recruited to help design and create the theme for their proms.  When Candice graduated the theme was an evening in Paris – the Eiffel tower welcomed the students and canvas sketches of Parisian themes done in blue and red decorated the room.

Four years later Samantha is graduating and the theme is a Venetian Masquerade. Together with the help of the prom committee, we spent several weekends working on the display and the masks.

Here are some of the masks we created and the work in progress.  I’ll post the finished work on Friday – the day of the prom.  One more prom to help with in three years when Ciera graduates.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Everyone deserves a “wee bit o’Irish luck” at this time of year. You don’t have to be Irish to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day – if you like to wear green and you enjoy a pint now and then, that’s all the reason you need.

Leprechauns are the mischievous cousins to Santa’s Elves. If you’re lucky enough to catch one you will be rewarded with prosperity, health and endless happiness. I’ve got a dozen of these little guys sitting around looking for a home. If you are interested in one, just drop me an email with your mailing address and I’ll invoice you through PayPal. They’re $20. each, shipping is included. I’ll be shipping by Priority Post on Tuesday morning (February 28th), so let me know.

elves@saracino.ca

If you’re interested in a little Leprechaun history, check out this video  - http://www.history.com/videos/leprechauns#leprechauns

Want to make something delicious to treat your family and friends . . . here’s an easy cake pop recipe . . . York Peppermint Pattie Cake Pops !

Bake a package white cake and set aside to cool. In the meantime pulse 24 snack size York Peppermint Patties in your food processor and place in a bowl.  When your white cake is almost cool,

crumble it or pulse it in your food processor and add it to the peppermint patties.  Mix well and form into two-bite size balls. Place on a cookie sheet and freeze for 20-30 minutes.

Just before you take them out of the freezer, melt some green candy coating in your microwave. Drop a few balls at a time into the candy coating and roll around. Gently lift them out and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Because the balls are cold the coating will set right away. You can go back and add some flourish with swirls and criss-cross patterns.  Enjoy!

Check out one of my earlier posts for another delicious St. Paddy’s day recipe.

La Befana

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Even though it’s over, the twelve days of Christmas continue, leading up to the Epiphany and the arrival of La Befana. According to Italian tradition you should not take down your tree until January 6th. That’s the day the three Kings visited Baby Jesus and the day La Befana visits all the children. La Befana is the Italian gift giver, but she is also known as Babushka in Russia. There are several different versions of the story, but this is my favourite.

La Befana was one of the inn keepers who turned Mary and Joseph away on their way to Bethlehem. According to the legend, the night before the Wise Men arrived at the manger they stopped at the inn of La Befana to ask directions. They invited her to come along but she replied that she was too busy. Then a shepherd asked her to join him but again she refused. Later that night, she saw a great light in the sky and decided to join the Wise Men and the shepherd bearing gifts that had belonged to her child who had died. She got lost and never found the manger.

To this day La Befana flies around on her broomstick each year on the 11th night, bringing gifts to children in hopes that she might find the Baby Jesus. Children hang their stockings on the evening of January 5 awaiting the visit of La Befana.

Depending on what region of Italy you are from her appearance ranges from a benevolent old woman to a witch like hag. She always carries a broom and food treats.

The Befana you see here was part of a two year exhibit at the Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec.

On the left is a close-up of the hand detail on this original one-of-a-kind sculpture. This version of La Befana is my interpretation of a more benevolent northern Italian Befana.

An excellent children’s book is “The Legend of Old Befana” by Tomie dePaola.  The traditional Italian poem that children sing as well as a more indepth history of La Befana and a few different versions of the story can be check out the following website . . .

http://www.historyandwomen.com/2009/12/legend-of-la-befana.html

http://saracino.ca/storeBefana.html

Naked Elf Transformations

This evening I attended the annual Christmas Party for the Ottawa Doll and Collector Guild in my hometown. At our November meeting I handed out naked elves to dress and bring back to the December Christmas party. I was excited to see what the members would come up with and I wasn’t disappointed. The first one to catch my eye was this little green velvet elf. His jacket and hat are trimmed in a brocade ribbon. A lot of thought went into his little accessories and his story. He’s sitting in Santa’s chair which Santa watches from behind.

These next two elves use very interesting techniques. The purple and green elf on the left was dressed with sticky-back felt sheets from the craft store.  No sewing was involved what-so-ever. The felt has a peel-back paper and sticks to itself.  The embellishments are glued on to finish the jester elf.  The little elf on the right is also a no-sew elf.  His costume was painted onto his body. Ribbon defines his waist and little bells accent his collar and sleeves. These delightful elves were a huge hit.

Below on the left is “Elv’is”. He comes with a gilded instrument, sheet music and an attitude. Next up is the snowflake elf on the right. He’s wearing a red felt tunic with snowflake cutouts.

But . . . I think the one that boggled my mind was this next piece . . . the lady who put this together collects everything “COKE”.  The boy elf’s hat is a bottle cap. Check out the elf sandals.  The Coke refrigerator holds Coke and snowballs. An amazing vignette.

Here are just a few more creations to check out.  Don’t forget if you are interested in a naked elf just send me an email and I’ll ship you a naked elf.  They’re only $10 and include the patterns. You can email me at elves@saracino.ca

Decorating for Christmas

Collector, Giulia, put the elves to work in her new home. Here’s how she displayed them in her front entrance on a shelving unit.  Check out the before and after shots. A nice way to welcome guests when they arrive.  Thanks for sharing Giulia!

Back to Work

Our trip has come to an end. We celebrated American Thanksgiving in Bristol, Tennessee and my granddaughter’s second birthday in Sterling, Virginia. We’re back in Canada now and I’m back to work finishing more elves and packaging and shipping another batch of orders. Just a reminder that the last mailing date for guaranteed delivery before Christmas is December 12th.

I have some bad news – we’ve sold out of the new 2011 Elves. However I still have some Elves from last year’s collection available – Albert, Jacob, Rowen and Oliver, but I only have few “Gwendolyns” left.

Naked Elves are still available as well.

Stay tuned, some pictures of creatively dressed elves are on their way in the next couple of days.

Here’s a photograph of my granddaughter Cameron – I’m reading her the story of the Elves and as you can see a group of them are eavesdropping.

Below is a platter of sweets I made for her 2nd birthday party.  You’ll recognize the mice from a previous post. If you liked those, you’re going to love the peanut butter pretzel cookies in the middle of the platter. They are sooooo easy to make and both adults and kids loved them.

1 cup of peanut butter

1 cup of brown sugar

1/2 cup of icing sugar

2 tablespoons of softened butter

mix together and place a dollop between two pretzels.  Refrigerate or better yet, freeze for 15 minutes. Melt some semi-sweet chocolate chips and dip half the cookie in the chocolate and place on parchment lined cookie sheet to harden.  Refrigerate. Warning – you may have to make a double batch.

Road Trip

We left for Virginia at 7:00 am – a great day for travelling.
I prepared a little bag of supplies and a naked elf who was ready for his transformation.
The first thing I did was loosen some stitches on the sweater ornament around the neck, slipped it over his head and arms and stitched it back up again.  If you read the previous post, the sweater is an ornament that I found that looked like it would fit an elf . . . it does . . . a perfect fit!

I sewed on some buttons and slipped on his knickers.

Then I removed his feet.  The reason I did this is because I found some great skates that were hollow inside. So the challenge was to create an extension to his leg that would fit into the skate. I tied a 3 inch dowel to each leg and then taped it in place with athletic tape. I taped it all the way down the dowel so that the glue would have something to stick to. I filled the cavity of the skate with glue and inserted the wooden legs into the skate and let it dry for a couple of hours.

After the legs dried.  I gathered the bottom of the knickers and sewed on a little white fur around where the knickers meet the top of the skates.

Here he is all finished on the dash board.

As a matter of fact, I think that will be his name . . .  ”DASH”.