Lina's Coco Couture

Want to know what's in this pretty pink box?

It's this incredible life size stiletto made of imported Belgium chocolate and filled with the most delicious gourmet chocolates handcrafted by Lina of Lina's Coco Couture.

Lina is a registered architect in the state of Texas and a partner in the firm Studio H+L. She started her business as a chocolatier after studying at the French Pastry School in Chicago in 2005. Her architectural design skills have easily transfered to creating her contemporary chocolates which are filled with a variety of interesting ingredients from spicy mango with basil to a blend of blue cheese and dark chocolate. Lina recently sampled her chocolate confections at Gallery Shoal Creek.

Here is Lina with one of her custom chocolate necklaces.

Lina has a line of custom creations from shoes to necklaces, to boxes. Each edible and filled with her individual bonbons.

This is one of her small stilettos which is solid chocolate.

In addition to the custom pieces, Lina's Coco Couture offers individual 2 piece to 12 piece boxes filled with your choice of bonbons.

If you click on the above photo it will enlarge so you can read what varieties are in this box of 12.

Look at this! Lucky me found one of Lina's Coco Couture's pink boxes sitting in my desk chair on Christmas morning. That Santa Claus is a special guy!

Want to see what came in my pink box?

It was a beautiful chocolate box with this snowflake medallion and . . .

filled with four special bonbons inside. The blue is coffee amertto, the red is raspberry framboise, the leaf is candied orange and almond grand marnier, and the yellow is spicy mango with basil.

Lina's Coco Couture is a unique spot for fine chocolates. Be sure to visit her site here. You just might find the perfect gift for your Valentine!

Thanks for joining me today for Pink Saturday hosted by our ever faithful Beverly @ How Sweet the Sound where you will find a list of others participating in today's Pink Saturday. One such site will be Mary @ Across the Pond. Click here to see her post from last week spotlighting delightful pinks found in NYC. You won't be disappointed. But before you head off, I'd be ever so grateful if you left me a comment today.

Sharing One More Holiday Party

Nicol Sayer Sugar Plum Snowman

I know we are into the New Year 

and Christmas 2009 is behind us, 

but I've one more holiday party to share with you. 

What with all the holiday rush, 

I didn't have time to post this earlier. 

I hope you don't mind. 

Baked Brie with Marinated Fruit

My husband had been longing to have prime rib for months, 

and with the house all decorated for the holidays, 

what better excuse to have a few friends over for dinner. 

 One of our guests brought a delicious appetizer. . . baked brie 

with marinated fruit served on a beautiful and unusual glass dish.

Neighborhood children stopped by 

to sing some Christmas carols. 

 How fortunate was that! 

 It gave the evening 

an extra special festive touch.

The tree in our dining room, 

topped with Courtly Check ribbon and 

decorated in part with MacKenzie-Childs ornaments, 

set the theme for the evening.

Dinner was served buffet style. 

 Snow people and candle glow 

filled the dining room windows.

The buffet continued the black and white theme 

with Nancy Thomas's New York Santa from her 1995 collection.

 We happened to be visiting Williamsburg 

during the holidays that year, and I 

instantly feel in love with Santa dressed in a tuxedo. 

 Nancy Thomas had designed these Santa figures 

to decorate the windows in one of the large 

New York department stores that Christmas. 

 The print is mounted on wood and framed in metal. 

 The Santa figure is carved from wood. 

 Click here to see more of Nancy Thomas's work.

The snow people are by Nicol Sayre, 

and the little silver tree is called a bullion tree. 

 It is made of coiled metal and just gets better with age. 

 The Snow Queen Angel cloche is also by Nicol Sayre. 

You can read a post about this little cloche here.

The Sugar Plum snowman is a 2005 design by Nicol Sayre, 

and his little friend is by Dee Faust designs for Bethany Lowe. 

 The Let it Snow figure is a 2007 design by Nicol Sayre.

This little bell ringer in his green 

snow suit is by Debbee Thibault, 2005.

Christmas red napkins tied with 

courtly check ribbon held the flatware.

The lime green of the lemon cyprus topiary 

with hot pink cyclamen added just the perfect 

punch of color to the black and white theme.

Prime rib roast 

was the main dish.

Served with au jus 

and horseradish sauce.

Roasted baby carrots, haricots verts 

with roasted baby tomatoes, wild rice salad 

with dried sour cherries, and fresh bread 

were both beautiful and delicious.

Dessert was Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake 

with fudge icing, whipped cream, and raspberries.

The dessert service is St. Nick transfer ware in red by Spode. It was made exclusively for Williams-Sonoma. These plates were from 2004. This series is now retired.

The mugs are also the 2004 edition of

 St. Nick Christmas series by Spode for Williams-Sonoma.

Each guest left with a party favor, 

a petite box of chocolate truffles.

Recipe for the Texas Sheet Cake:

Sift together: 2 cups flour and 2 cups of sugar

Put in a pan: 1 stick of butter, 1/2 cup of Crisco, 4 T. cocoa, and 1 cup of water.

Bring this to a boil and pour over the flour and sugar. Add 1/2 cup buttermilk, 2 eggs slightly beaten, 1 tsp. soda, and 1 tsp. vanilla. Mix and pour in a greased 11" x 16" jellyroll pan. Bake 20-25 minutes at 400 degrees.

While the cake is baking melt and bring to a boil: 1 stick of butter, 4 T cocoa, and 6 T sweet milk. Then add 1 box powdered sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, and 1 cup pecans. Spread the icing on the cake while the cake is still hot.

Furry Backyard Visitor

It's a sunny cold day here, and it appears that this backyard visitor has found a nice spot in which to relax for a bit . . . a playscape in a neighbor's backyard.

This is a gray fox, a small mammal considered to be in the wild dog family. Both coyotes and foxes are very common in Texas, and it's not uncommon to see these creatures in urban areas near greenbelts. One can assume from the coloring why this is called a gray fox. Their coats are mostly gray with a little cinnamon colored fur along the sides, neck, and legs. Their belly's are white.

According to Wikipedia, canidae is the family of wolves, foxes, jackals, coyotes, and dogs. These mammals eat both small animals and fruits and berries. This gray fox may be napping here, but these agile creatures are known to be good climbers and can climb up and down trees. The gray fox is the only one in the canidae family with the ability to climb trees.

A young fox is called a cub, kit, or pup. The female is called a vixen and the male a reynard, todd, or dog. I've no idea if this is a vixen or a reynard, but I do think this critter has sensed being watched. So let's leave it alone and go on over to Susan's @ A Southern Daydreamer to see what others are sharing today for Outdoor Wednesday.

Hope you'll take time to leave me a comment below. It will make my day!

The photos were taken by a neighbor in his yard. Thank you, Michael, for allowing me to share these amazing photos.

I found the facts on the gray fox on The Web Site of Everything.com. Click here if you want to read more about the gray fox.

Tea Towel Treasures

It seems amazing that we are already into 2010. Feels like only yesterday that we were celebrating the new millennium in 2000. I'm happy you joined me today. I'm linking this post to Blue Monday hosted by Smiling Sally, Mosaic Monday hosted by Little Red House, and Three or More Tuesday hosted by The Gypsy's Corner. Thank you to each of these ladies for hosting these fun events each week.

The week between Christmas and New Year's Day, I received a package from a dear friend who lives in France.

The little package on the left saying "Merry Christmas" contained this fabulous red and white tea towel. It's made of the finest linen. Feels so elegant to the touch! And it is woven with bands of red along the edges. So French!

This mosaic shows you the details of this beauty which features the Arc de Triomphe, L' Opera, and Tour d Eiffel. Judy knows The City of Light is my all time favorite city. I have a thing about the Eiffel Tower. She also knows that I adore tea towels as much as I adore pottery. Both are works of art as far as I'm concerned.

The other package on the right and saying " . . . and a Happy New Year" appropriately held this 2010 calendar tea towel. Judy lives in Brittany and is a friend I met through the Quimper Club. This blue tea towel features my favorite motifs found on Quimper pottery. Click on the photo to enlarge and you can see the details of the Breton people and the French coqs.

Here is the month for January, my favorite. It's my birth month!

I have some other tea towels from Brittany. Want to see them?

This is one that features the work of Quimper artist François Le Villec.

This Corentine de Quimper towel features the pieces of a faience tea service. Doesn't it make you want to heat up the water and enjoy a cup of tea? These French tea towels are larger and make great little accent cloths on a small table. A table set for tea perhaps?

Take a look at this lovely pair! The towels are made from natural linen and chain stitched to portray a Breton couple, he on one and she on the other. The embroidery is done in a cherry red, not the pinkish color that shows in the photo. These were an unexpected, but most appreciated gift from Fran, another Quimper friend. Thank you, dear Fran! I absolutely LOVE these!

And look how well they go with the linen Christmas towel Judy sent to me last Christmas. I might add that these towels are large. They measure a generous 20"x 30". Definitely NO dirty hands are going to be allowed to touch these beauties. Rather I'm going to come up with a safe creative use for this pair.

The darling towels above were Christmas gifts. I have a neighbor who shares my affinity for MacKenzie-Childs Courtly Check. She gave me the towel on the left with the topiary poinsettia in the CC inspired cache pot. Pretty cute! Thanks, Shannon!

This beautifully wrapped gift arrived this fall. It was a thank you from Laurie @ Bargain Hunting and Chatting with Laurie. You see I'm one of the lucky ones who got to "chat live" with Laurie. You can read about our visit here. Laurie, Thank You Again for these thoughtful gifts. It was such a treat to meet you!

The pink polka dot package contained a sweet personal note from Laurie, a little French dish with an A no less, and a darling tea towel. Wow! I guess Laurie knows a little bit about me. The little dish sits on my desk beside my computer and holds clips, and pens, and stuff.

The tea towel gets to hang about, but I don't let anyone actually use it. LOL It is too wonderful! The detailed work on this is amazing. The teapot is pieced as if it were from a quilt square, is embellished with beautiful embroidery, and appliqued to white cotton. It was made by Cupcakes and Cartwheels. The name is as cute as the towel itself.

This little waffle tea towel was a gift from my sister. She spent 6 weeks in Provence last January to be present for the birth of her grandson. It's special to me because it reminds me of what a special time my sister had while there and how excited our family was to welcome Beau Hubbard into our family.

I've lots more delightful little tea towel art to share, but I'll save it for a future post. I know you want to get back to visiting more posts for Mosaic Monday, Blue Monday, and Three or More Tuesday. Thanks for stopping by. Please leave me a comment. It will make my day!