New Items In The Shabbyfufu Website Shop

I hope that you had a wonderful 4th Of July Weekend lovely friends. Mr. Murphy says hello and he wants you to know that he had a great time at the parade in his patriotic attire! It has been an insane few days in the Fufu household with lots of comings and goings, dinners out, barbeque feasts, pooltime and parties galore. I think that I need at least a day to catch up and rest now!

Some new items have been added to the Shop at Shabbyfufu....and more will be coming.

Gorgeous lighting from our incredible artist Kristen. She does such fabulous work and has been a member of the Shabbyfufu family of artisans for several years now.

A new Romantic Vintage Millinery Dressform that I had been working on. I didn't even have a chance to get to posting it in the blog and it's been SOLD....I am always so grateful for the wonderful Shabbyfufu customers that we have. You ladies are truly the BEST:-)

A GORGEOUS Mosaic Birdbath by Suze. Her work has been very popular on Shabbyfufu...with good reason!

And more will be posted this week, vintage treasures to come and some of the Antique Silk Ribbon that I have been Hand Dying. These are not ribbons that you might find elsewhere....I actually brought these back from Paris myself, circa turn of the century unused factory stock that looked like this:

And now look like this (yum!):

Have a great week and will talk soon~

xoxo,

Janet

Beach Cottage Chics Making Waves

Dear friends........I know that you are out there visiting, and I do sincerely hope that you take some inspiration from my musings and my photos.

That being said, my blogging may be a bit on the slacker side over the summer months, so please do excuse. I hope to be up at our beach place as much as possible~especially on weekends when family and friends can join in.
Here are some photos for you that I took today, mostly textures, colors and vignettes of our beach cottage decor. I hope that you enjoy them and that you are perhaps able to take some laid back time to relax over the summer months ahead. (P.S.....I WILL post when I have new website items that I think you want to know about, as I WILL be working in my studio when I am home.)




























For a bit more BEACH inspiration.....one of the most knowledgeable ladies about beach decorating in a casual cottage style that I know is Barbara Jacksier. She has penned her first book that is sure to be a fabulous addition to your collection and is about to be on the shelves any day now! The book is photographed by the very talented Dan Mayers (who photographed my home for Romantic Country Magazine:-) and you can order your autographed copy of Waterside Cottages HERE:

Photo by Dan Mayers

My sweet friend Fifi who I had the pleasure of spending some time with when she was at my home for the aforementioned Romantic Country Magazine Photo Shoot makes these gorgeous tin hearts in many styles. This heart would be perfect for a beach house, or just to have the feel of one.....

Photo by Fifi O'Neill

You may just want to order one (or two:-) for yourself. Pop on over to visit her inspiring blog at Chez Fifi if you haven't been lately, and be sure to tell her that I sent you by.

That's it for tonight, have an inspiring week ahead!

~xoxo~
Janet

Lord Bless My On Line Friends

Hi my on line friends! This was sent to me today by my sweet Mom, who is in her eighties and loves her computer and how it connects her to the world. Feel free to pass this along to all of your on line friends! ~ xoxo~ Janet

Every single evening
As I'm lying here in bed,
This tiny little Prayer
Keeps running through my head:

God bless all my family
Wherever they may be,
Keep them warm
And safe from harm
For they're so close to me.

And God, there is one more thing
I wish that you could do;
Hope you don't mind me asking,
Please bless my computer too.

Now I know that it's unusual
To Bless a motherboard,
But listen just a second
While I explain it to you, Lord.

You see, that little metal box
Holds more than odds and ends;
Inside those small compartments
Rest so many of my friends.

I know so much about them
By the kindness that they give,
And this little scrap of metal
Takes me in to where they live.

By faith is how I know them
Much the same as you.
We share in what life brings us
And from that our friendships grew.

Please take an extra minute
From your duties up above,
To bless those in my address book
That's filled with so much love.

Wherever else this prayer may reach
To each and every friend,
Bless each e-mail inbox
And each person who hits 'send'.

When you update your Heavenly list
On your own Great CD-ROM,
Bless everyone who says this prayer~
Amen

Too Hot To Handle

Hello friends...I hope that you had a relaxing weekend and that all of the fathers out there enjoyed some time to enjoy their special day!

Miami really has been too hot to handle lately. I swear I don't remember any June that has been this HOT, this MUGGY, has had this much RAIN and these many MOSQUITOES! Today with the "heat index" it was supposedly feeling to be 110 degrees.....are you believing that!!! So.....we spent some time at home enjoying the day out here:

In here:

Over here:
If it's hot where you live, HERE is a recipe for what you see in my lovely new recycled glass pitcher from Target...sure to cool you off on any hot day:

My Favorite Infused Water:

A pitcher full of water, I prefer glass to plastic and filtered to tap water.
Add the following:
Wash and slice thinly....One orange (Florida of course!), one lime, a quarter of a cucumber. A few pieces of fresh spearmint squeezed between your fingers for a moment to release the oils, but do not cut up.
Ice

Very refreshing!

I have been doing a little bit of work in my Studio at Shabbyfufu, mostly with lighting. I just finished this piece today, it's actually a light! As you may know if you follow along I love to work with old doll parts and created this piece completely by hand. It's now posted on the website and is available for sale....you can see it by clicking here :


Have a great week and will talk soon~
xoxo,
Janet

Happy Weekend & Shabbyfufu Studio

Happy Friday and Weekend sweet blog reading friends:-). Wishing all of the husbands and fathers a wonderful and relaxing day on Sunday, Father's Day!

Just a quick post this morning, as I am heading out to breakfast with the little birdy who returned to the nest for a bit ~ our darling girl who I blogged about before as the recent jobless college grad. I have put her to work at Shabbyfufu, at least for the time being...and we are working together on an exciting secret project. She is wonderfully talented and a pleasure to work with....more about that later on. Coming to the website at SHABBYFUFU most likely over the weekend: You can click on any photo to go the website, or on the link to my shop on the sidebar:

Flower Children that I have been working on:

Two new Romantic Dressforms. As you may know if you have followed along with our website over the last 10+ years....these Romantic Millinery Dressforms are an Original creation (as well as our hanging Dress Forms).

Speaking of Vintage Millinery....we will be restocking the website with some GORG millinery flowers that are not the run of the mill store bought~made by a fabulous 100 yr old millinery supply house.

Beautiful vintage ribbon from France that we purchased at one of the Paris Flea Markets for you, and some more bits.


Exquisite custom lighting from our website lighting artist extraordinaire Kristen, who does the most stunning Cherub Lighting. Her pieces are like no other that you have seen, and all put together by hand from loads of vintage parts in her studio.


Enjoy your weekend~
~xoxo~
Janet

Outrageous Mango Bread Recipe

What do you do if you live in the beautiful tropics of Miami, it's the month of June and you have more mangos than you know what to do with? Mango salsa goes a long way and we use it on everything from scrambled eggs to fish fillets...but here is an alternative use for a sink fulla mangos. Now I am not into SCREAMIN~ but I'm just sayin..........this is the BEST, most YUMMY, OUTRAGEOUSLY great mango bread recipe that I have ever tried!

3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 1/2 cups mangos, peeled and chopped
1 tsp lemon juice
1/4 cup golden raisins
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups white sugar
2 eggs

Directions:

1. Combine all of the dry ingredients. Beat eggs with oil and add flour to mixture. Add mangos, lemon and raisins.
2. Pour into 2 greased (Pam spray) 8 x 4 loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hr or until toothpick comes out clean.

I hope that you get to make this.....let me know!
Enjoy your weekend, we are off to the beach house (and bringing our mango bread!)

~xoxo~
Janet

Paris Eats, Laduree & Molecular Gastronomy

Good morning, are you ready for some Paris food? This post will mostly be pictures, as my website duties call with some custom orders to fill and get out and finishing up on packing and shipping with my new employee (22 yr old daughter, desperately seeking job!).

First order is to announce a winner in the drawing for the framed art canvas print. I used Random.org and copied and pasted the results below, thank you to those who entered and congrats to Sandra for winning! I have your email and your mailing addy, so this will go out at the end of the week.

True Random Number Generator Min:1 Max:20 Result: 19 Powered by RANDOM.ORG

Now....calling all foodies!

Desserts in Paris are truly worth getting fat for, and these meringues are fat in themselves. No fat in these treats, but they certainly are loaded up with sugar and about the size of a fist!! Of course if you have ever been to France you know that French women are skinny, so maybe eating these is the trick~lol!

Macarons are not the same as the coconut infused macaroons that are sold in the U.S. These are a light yet sugary sinful dessert that was a favorite of Marie Antoinette.

Let them eat cake!

Fromagerie shops are everywhere and the cheeses are divine and freshly made.

Don't even get me started on the gorgeous produce markets! You can get just about anything in terms of fresh produce on a daily basis, which is how the French do their marketing. There are very few supermarkets in Paris.


The famous pastry shop Laduree. This one is on the Champs Elysee, right by our hotel....so it was somewhat of a daily ritual for us to pop over for some macarons and tea. I did bring back some of their boutique items for the Paris Flea Market shop at Shabbyfufu and there are still a few gorgeous Laduree Shopping Bags left.



At any time there are throngs of shoppers in line. Bored much!

When I first emailed my cousin Philippe to let him know that we were coming over for a visit, he asked me if we would like to go out for some molecular gastronomy. I think that as usual he may have been trying to push my buttons, but I happen to love the show on Bravo ~ Top Chef, so he could not pull the wool over his baby cousin's eyes this time!!

Some strangly concocted cocktail which I can't recall the name or why it fits in with molecular gastronomy......but it was seriously good.

Gastronomist at work creating this excellent restaurant's version of ice cream. Looked like a witch's brew demonstration if you ask me, but again....quite delicious fare.


You know what these are~ non?

Lovely!
My cousin, me and Mr. Fufu....fully stuffed and ready to explore more of Paris at night.

That's it for today sweet friends, and probably it for Paris postings on the blog. Have a wonderful day, and I hope that you enjoyed this series on Paris~

~xoxo~
Janet