Tote Made With Upholstery Scraps

Photos by spbm

Another tote bag I made yesterday, it is made with scraps of upholstery. I've always cut labels from old clothing and saved them, love them, so used an old American Eagle tag and a stamp patch I purchased in Italy years ago, and I added a couple of pieces of vintage lace I purchased while living in Germany.These make wonderful book bags, I use them as a purse and, when I have only a few items from the store, this bag works perfect. I will probably be listing this in my shop. I am going to try and add a Paypal button to my blog so when someone wants, they can purchase directly from my blog.

I sold the tote above. But if anyone is interested, I can make another, it will not have the same fabrics, but will look similar. Send me a message if you are interested in one.

This is one of our favorite dishes right now, made it three times in the past couple weeks. They are just so easy and so delicious. They would be great made with a little Italian sausage, but I'm trying to skip meat, at least the majority of time.

Recipe here.

The only thing I changed at all was I added fennel seed, adds so much flavor, if you like fennel.

Delicious Spinach and Artichoke Stuffed Shells

I found this Spinach and Artichoke Stuffed Shells on Pink Basil Blog.  I can hardly wait to make this again, we LOVED it. I made my own marinara sauce. It almost seemed sinful that this was so easy and so delicious. I'm weaning myself off meat. Even though I do not eat much meat, only two - three times a week, but the more research I do on my disease, the more convinced I am that I do not need or want to eat meat any longer. I will continue to eat fish every now and then. And if I have company I will cook meat, but for myself on a day to day basis I'm giving it up.

My marinara sauce is so simple, saute some chopped onion in olive oil, add 2 -3 garlic cloves, minced, a couple cans tomatoes, Italian seasoning, dried basil, couple bay leaves, fennel seed. cook it down to the consistency you like. I then use my hand blender to puree it. You can used crushed tomatoes, doesn't really matter.

I followed the recipe exactly, except added more fennel seed to the filling, we like fennel.

So easy! So Delicious!

Recipe here.