Old Gold Victorian Frames and {yes thrifted !}

One of design element I noticed from pinning so many interior pin boards is that the old gold Victorian frames really makes a stunning statements when you know how to display it. When we first moved into our Florida condo, the first thing I looked was picture frames in Goodwill or other thrift stores. I have been painting so I want all rooms decorated with my art. To have it done in a professional picture frame store would  cost me a lot so I scour thrift stores in our area just to collect picture frames. During those times I stumbled upon old Victorian  picture frames. I was drawn to it because the gold is not as bright as the new one and I like things that are a little worn down eaten by time. So this kind of picture frame always in the look out when I go to thrift stores. I have not found a big size one yet but I found a few of the smaller ones. I tent to accumulate things a lot but they will come in handy when you about to decor a room.

I always love gold elements in an interior but must be displayed sparingly and just enough as an accent. Otherwise the room will look like Mary Antoinette bedroom. And I love mixing things like old and new, traditional and non traditional.

As an artist it is important for my art to be framed  by the right picture frame. A group or a single art in a room can lift up the whole ambiance of  room itself. For me, this is the most exciting design project when  decorate a living room, bedroom or bathroom.

This picture frame on the left found at Goodwill. There were 2 of them and now I am sorry that I only bought one. It is waiting for the right picture art and the right place. 

You probably have seen our Florida living room gallery wall in the past. Those two on the left bought at Salvation Army.

A few  examples of what I really like in order to create  drama in a room by displaying  Victorian golden frame picture (s).

Please cherish your grandma Victorian picture frames. It is not only a family heirloom but one could also create a beauty & elegance from the past into the now. 

Thank you for reading !

2 Nights of Fun in Miami, Florida

After been staying in Delray Florida for little over a month {since Hurricane Sandy} I must admit that I miss home in New York.

But I must admit that I really had a wonderful time doing, cooking, taking pictures, blogging, furniture makeover, small shopping for crafts that I made while here, picking up treasures a long the way at thrift stores. My husband 'Steven' went back to New York  for about 10 days so it was a little strange in this house by myself. The reason was that I am suppose to do a furniture makeover, thinking that he is not going to be around and free from going out with friends here and there. And yes, I did the two end table make over. Oh, I am so happy about it since it turned out to be pretty ! This is my first furniture makeover and I was not so sure about it before. But now I want to stay longer to do more furniture makeover, but in a few days will be going back to New York. I guess this will be pending and will continue styling, taking pictures when we come back here in Florida again sometime early January 2013. I am so excited about this project.

Few days a go we took a break from everything and went to Miami {is only about 50 minutes by car from here} I love Miami. I love the diversity of people, the art deco architecture, the food, the city of Miami by the water as we were driving around is just spectacular and so beautiful. 

The highlight as usual was South Beach, Espanola Way, Collins Avenue and our favorite Cuban restaurant at Calle Ocho "Versailles." I love my meal; Ropa Vieja with sweet fried banana and ate lots of ceviche. 

So I can not describe more other than I am going to post lots of pictures, of course ! You can see it for yourself. And if you plan a holiday, you might want to put 'Miami' as one of your holiday destination. You will not be disappointed. 

Have you ever seen a drink like that ? That is one serious drink. I wonder who could possibly drink that ! Obviously that Guy is having way too much fun with that drink. @South Beach

@South Beach - Miami

I spotted Chicken Empanadas on the street and can't help myself to indulge one.

The historic landmark of Miami; The Art Deco District @ South Beach

Steven and I was debating as the tour guide of the boat ride we took mentioned so  many number of celebrities living on this small islands at Biscayne Bay Miami. He thinks the tour guide made it up so to make it more interesting for tourist to go touring on the boat ride. But isn't that's the reason why they called it "Star Island?"

The wind was blowing so hard on this trip especially if you were close to the water and I happened to have this scarf so in the end it came very handy. 

I found this is a fun thing to do while sitting on the esplanade of Collins Avenue at Starbucks cafe watching people passing by and snapped their pictures. This place has to be the place where stylish people go for dining at the restaurants and shopping. These beautiful people were gorgeous and so well put together. I can't help taking a snapshots ! Steven warned me again and again that I must stop doing what I am doing but  deep inside I know they love that I took their pictures. I would not mind if I look that good, wouldn't you say ?

Then late afternoon we drove back home to Delray but oh, I had forgotten my hat left in the hotel room. Steven said it was too far away to go back to claim it. So I called the hotel, they said they never found it that I must call sometime later. I called again that night, still there is not hat. 2 days later I called again still no hat. I know it is only 'a hat'. But when you love it so much and it was a perfect one it's hard to let it go. Oh well, things happened even when you might not like it. Only lesson can be learned.

All and all, it was a lovely 2 nights trip in Miami.

Thank you for reading !

Enrolling E-course Blog {Design} Love - RedVelvet Shop

Hello,

I am in the middle of designing a new look of my blog;  'CuriositaEllya' right now. It has been little over a year since I have been blogging and if I remember correctly from reading a book about blogging; it says you need to change the outlook of your blog once in a while. So that readers will not get bored to see the same style again and again. 

Since my blog does not have a fancy button, navigation bar and basically followed template provided by Blogger; it's about time for me to take this blog to another level. And now that I am more serious about blogging, I think it makes a lot of sense to re-design the blog entirely. Initially I was going to hire a website designer but I stumbled upon Blog (Design) Love e-course from Red Velvet Shop  and after reading their brief description about the course I jumped right in. For only USD 34.00 that covers 20 sessions I think it's a bargain ! 

Currently I am at session 5 so I can not really say much about it. But from further reading I am excited to learn on how to make and create my own design buttons, navigation bar and other functions using html codes. I have been using Photoshop for many years so as you can see below it's a lot of fun for me to design header from picking colors, fonts, etc. This time I want the header to have images of my creations so I took a few pictures from blog postings in the past. I also want to embellish the image with words that suit my personality and my blog so I chose words; LIVE - LAUGH - LOVE - CURIOSITY - CREATE !

Here I was trying to see which color combo I like most. Finally I am settled with color combo no. 5 as you can see on the above header blog.

Well, so far that's about it ! Next I am going to create navigation bar and again I am  excited to choose the design, font, colors, etc. 

Thank you so much for reading !

A Sweet Short Post From Overseas {Australia}

My long time friend 'Ine' lives in 3 continents; Asia, Australia and Europe. At the moment she is in Perth, Australia. I envy her life moving and living in each continent every couple of months or so. We communicate through Facebook and few days a go she posted these pictures {the one with  Lemon Tart and a cup of tea}. Ine is one of my blog followers. When saw these pictures in Facebook, I asked her if she would not mind for me to post these pictures in my blog. And I asked her if she could provide me with her lemon tree pictures that grows in her home garden in Perth, Australia. She agreed and later I received this lemon picture.

Like myself, Ine is a vintage china lover. The last time I saw Ine she came to New York accompanied her husband travelling  for business. She took the opportunity to visit me {here}. 

I can not help myself but to share some of Ine's vintage china collection and how it seems that she enjoyed the Lazy Ellya's Lemon Tart that she got the recipe from my blog {here}. She said she was trying to take the tart out of the store bought tin pie but it broke. I would not know the difference anyway ! Good job Ine !

Here are those pictures ! These pictures were taken by Ine. I then processed them in Photoshop to create a collage as seen here.

I do hope you enjoy this short post !

Thank you Ine, once more time, your vintage cups are beautiful !

Thank you for reading and have a lovely week-end !

Rustic Apple Tart {Revised}

The reason I am doing this post is because when I made the Rustic Apple Tart {here} yesterday I made way too much apple mix. And it is enough to make another tart. Since I ate half of the first apple tart; last night I tempted to make another one. But this time I did not put 'egg yolk'. I did not know why; just my gut instinct because I made pie crust before and I did not use egg yolk and was successful. I also put nutmeg powder in the apple mix. Oh boy, it tastes better. And the pie crust is flaky, soft and so yummy. I guess the egg yolk bind the dough tightly that makes it a little hard in texture. 

And of course I could not resist on taking pictures.

This time I cut the side of each apple pieces to fit the rectangular pan forming 2 rows side by side. It is prettier this way. You see, practice makes perfect !

The original recipe said by putting egg yolk makes the dough handle easily but this time without egg yolk still handle quite easily and slide right off of the pan easy as well.

::Recipe::

Rustic Apple Tart

{here}

but without 'egg yolk" for the dough

add 1 tsp of nutmeg powder in the apple mix

~~~~

By far this is the tastier Apple Tart than the first one I made. Tonight my parents in-law are taking me for dinner. I think I would love them to come to my house for them to taste my Rustic Apple Tart after dinner and I better go out and get vanilla ice cream. I know my father in-law loves ice cream.

Thank you for reading !

Rustic Apple Tart

I fell in love with this baking pan first saw it in the store. I like the rectangular shape of it and I think is quite unusual and elegant to serve apple pie in a rectangular shape rather than the usual pie round shape.

So here is my first attempt in baking the Rustic Apple Tart.

Where is vanilla ice cream when I need it ??

The tart slide right off the pan when it was cool down. I think it is pretty looking apple tart !

::Recipe::

Rustic Apple Tart

For Dough

~ 2-1/2 cups flour, plus more for rolling the dought

~ 1 tsp salt

~ 3 tsp sugar

~ 14 Tsp unsalted butter cut into 1/2 inch slices

~ 1 egg yolk

~ 4 Tbsp ice water

For apple filling

~ Golden Delicious Apples

~ 2/3 cup sugar

~ 3 Tsp fresh lemon juice

~ 1 tsp ground cinnamon

~ 3 Tbsp unsalted butter cut into 1/2 inch cubes

For Glaze,

4 Tbsp apricot preserves

1 Tbsp calvados

Optional ; Clotted cream or vanilla ice cream

Place 2-1/2 cups flour in bowl of food processor. Add 1 tsp salt and 3 tbsp sugar. Purse to mix. Add butter and vegetable shortening. Purse just enough to form a mixture that contains pea sized pieces of butter. Add one egg yolk and pulse again just for two seconds. I have discovered that the addition of the egg yolk makes the dough easier to handle. Slowly pour 4 Tbsp ice water around mixture and pulse briefly. Continue to check consistency of dough, adding more water as necessary just until dough holds together when pressed between thumb and finger. it should not look dry nor should it form a ball. Getting it just right may take a little practice but this is the all important step.

Empty bowl onto a lightly floured marble slap or a double wide sheet of plastic wrap and pat ball of dough together. With the heel of your hand press dough outward starting at front end and continuing backwards, thereby further incorporating the fat and the flour. Pat the dough together again, wrap and refrigerate for at least a half hour.

Roll out on lightly floured surface into a 13 x 20 inch rectangle. You will need a rolling pin longer than 12 inch for this. Trim edges with a pizza cutter. Roll dough up over pin to the extent you can pick it up and drape onto 12 x 13 in. baking sheet. Fold edge of dough over onto itself a half inch to form a rim. Prick with the tines of a for. Bake in a 375 deg. oven about 8 minutes or until dry but without color. Set aside.

Peel and core Gold Delicious apples. use  a round corer to get uniform slices, cut apples in half vertically and  then slice each half into 1/8 slice. Either fan out each set of slices, arrange on dough and sprinkle with sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon and butter bits or mix slices in a bowl with sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon and butter bits and arrange on dough in overlapping rows. Bake in 375 deg. oven about 30 minutes or until apples have crisps lightly browned edges and are soft.

Heat 4 oz. apricot preserves in a small pan until melted. Add 1 tbsp Calvados or enought to make a syrupy glaze. Strain and brush on tart. Serve with clotted cream or vanilla ice cream.

Good luck and thank you for reading !

My Black Friday Vintage Finds + Downton Boca Raton, Florida

My step mother 'Angela' and I had a lovely time together shopping for vintage finds one afternoon on the day of Black Friday sale.

First we had Quiche and Salad lunch then we went over to a few consignment stores; Restore Habitat Humanity and Goodwill. These stores offered 50% off of tag price that day. Which literally made all the visit worth while.

I found those two boxes at Goodwill. I really like them ! The one on the right is wooden and can be opened with mirror on one side. The other one is a tin box with Oreo cookies advertisement illustration on it.

Look at the intricate detail on the wooden box, I love it ! The box was so dusty and when got home I cleaned it and it  even looks prettier. I thought I could change the picture but upon examining the inside it needs lots of work and tools so I leave it as it is right now.

I also bought that pair of earrings and I embarrass to tell you how much I paid for it after a 50% discount. Can you guess ? And it has a signature but I could not read it because it is very small I need a magnifying glass to be able to read it.

Those gilded rim glasses were about 30 pieces on the rack. When we saw it Angela and I agreed that we can split them between the two of us. We thought we'd be crazy not to take those beautiful glasses home with us and after 50% discount we could not be much happier. 

Do you see those vintage china ? They were also 50% off discount and I could not be happier to take them home with me. 

I love the embroidery on the pillow cases. I am sure they are used but they really look clean and it was in a plastic packaging. I could not believe when saw the price USD 2.00 so after discount I paid only USD 1.00. And I do not know what is the other one for but thought it's pretty and I paid USD 2.00 after discount.

This pretty area is Royal Palm Place in Boca Raton Florida. There are many restaurants, cafe, boutiques, spa, art galleries, vintage consignment boutiques and jewelry stores in this shopping complex. We, Steven and I love going to this place to have late breakfast or lunch. 

Thank you for reading !