A Tabletop, A Recipe and a Tease

Well I'm just about over my pity party. If you missed it, don't worry, I'll be having a "Feeling Sorry For Myself Giveaway" shortly. It will consist of everything you need to comfort and pamper yourself when you are feeling down, blue, sad, depressed, pathetic, you get the picture. So think chocolate, bubble bath, a small violin, etc. More on that later.

Right now, I'm joining in the fun at Tabletop Tuesday, regularly hosted each week by Barb at Grits and Glamour, but graciously being hosted this week by KD at Southern Whimsy (one of my all-time favorite decorators in Blogland). So thanks KD for filling in. Today I'm showing off my new used/cheap end table, purchased at a consignment store for a whopping $20!!! Yippee! And not to be left out, all of the items on this table were cheap scores as well, except for my lamp.

Here is a picture of just the table.

It's a little different and eccentric, I know, BUT this is my Living Room, and it is filled with alot of dark wood pieces, so I thought it would be nice to lighten the space up and what better way to do that than with a glass-top table. The base is solid antiqued brass and it is VERY heavy!

Here is my splurge lamp. I got it at Home Goods and I LOVE it!!!!


The tabletop consists of some really bold colors that I thought would pop against all of the brown in the room.


The mercury glass bowl I got on clearance from Target the day after Christmas.

The pears added some much-needed color.

I added the vase with the flowers to give some height to the vignette and also add more color. That was a yardsale find. You can't really tell in the picture, but I placed the vase on some old books to make it even higher. The frame I placed on an antique easel I found at the Goodwill last week. I like the difference in height in all of the items.

Is it just me or does the glass on that frame look dirty in the picture? I swear it's not!

This is the sofa in the room and like I said, there is alot of brown. Even the leather on the sofa is brown. If you remember, I scored this sofa from CL about a month ago for $125. You can read about that here. The pillows I got mostly on clearance from Marshall's and Ross.


This next tabletop vignette is from the coffee table in front of that sofa.

That floral arrangement consists of stems from about 10 different floral arrangements! I just kept adding more and more. Then it needed color so I added that red one, but it looks lonely, so I'll have to add more red.

I got this pretty finial from that consignment store I mentioned in my post about going all the way into PA for a CL chair! It was on the way home, so I had to stop! I think it looks good in this vignette.



I got this sweet thing at a flea market for a buck and added some potpourri for more color.


So that's it for my tabletopping. Don't forget to check out Southern Whimsy for more beautiful tabletops.

Last night I made something for dinner that I haven't made in quite a while and my family just gobbled it up! It was super easy so I thought I'd share it with you.
It's called Pizza Mexicali and the recipe used to be on the back of a special Ragu sauce that they don't make anymore, but I contacted them and they gave me an alternate recipe using another one of their sauces.

I bought some fresh dough and used it to make the crust.
Just rolled it out on a pan and baked at $350 for about 10 minutes or so, then let it cool down quite a bit before adding the other ingredients. But you can use a ready-made crust and it will taste just as good.

The sauce consists of equal parts Salsa and Ragu Cheese Sauce.


When done, just pour on top of the cooled crust as your base.

Next, cook up some chicken breast and cut it up into pieces.



Throw on some cheese. And when you think you're done, throw on some more for good measure ;)



Bake at 425 for about 8-10 minutes and let cool. Then enjoy!!!



Now onto my tease. Do you remember my post about Candy? She was my 40th Birthday present. Go here to read about that! Well, this past Sunday, while driving/snowmobiling home from Church, we passed this on the side of the road!

Can you believe it? It's Candy's little sister!!! The perfect miniature version. I couldn't believe it. Neither could hubby, who said "NO WAY" when I asked him to pull over onto an iceberg, so I could jump out and grab her. I sort of understood, as the homeowner was still putting out her trash. So, I did the sensible thing and drove/snowmobiled my family home and went back for her. You can't tell from the pictures because I removed them to clean them, but there were some crystals left dangling on her at the curb. I even went back later, hoping to find a bag with more crystals somewhere (yeah right Kim!). Then I remembered that I had scored some crystals at a yardsale last summer and saved them, hoping I would need them one day.
Let's get a closer look at her in all of her dirtiness.

I spent a couple hours last night cleaning her off and polishing her. And it's gonna take a few more hours to finish. But when she's done, she will hang proudly from my stairwell, not far from her big sister.

Btw, in case you were wondering why I'm feeling sorry for myself, it's because I just found out about BlissDom. I had no idea. I'm still beside myself............