Yummy Tomato Hack

You know the veggie trays that you buy ion the grocery store? Well our family buys one for every holiday or event. We eat them up! Everything except for the cherry tomatoes. To be totally honest I am not even sure why we don't eat them. My husband and I love tomatoes but there they sat until they go bad. It is such a waste to toss them. Not only is it bad for the environment but it is also bad for the wallet. So I figured out what to do with those bad boys. Roast them!

Cut them in half, drizzle them with olive oil and toss with salt and pepper. Then roast in an oven at 400 degrees for 20 or so minutes. Make sure you watch them closely. Tomatoes have a lot of sugar in them so they burn rather easily. 

And wah-lah! Oven roasted tomatoes. They are delicious tossed with pasta and a bit of parmesan. Or sprinkled over some cottage cheese. Or scrambled up with some eggs. Yum! This tip may have been obvious to most people but I am thrilled that it finally occurred to me what to do with them. Do you have any tips to save food? I need all the help I can get. 

Third Baby

I was worried about having a third baby. Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled we were pregnant. We had tried for over a year before I got pregnant so we were definitely happy about it. The thing I was worried about was my heart making room for this new little person. It shouldn't have been a worry considering that I had already experienced the heart expanding joy of a second baby. Still it was a nagging worry in the back of my mind. I had already made room for two babes. Surely I am all loved out. Then Rose was born. You know how people say that their heart doubled when they met their new little one? When Nicco was born my heart doubled. With the birth of Lola it tripled. With Rose's first cry it quadrupled. My heart and I can now love the whole world! At times it feels as though it will burst right out of my chest. My ribs are a poor cage for all this love.

With each child that was given to me I had a change of perspective along with all that heart expanding. With Nicco my life changed from a purely temporal idea to an eternal one. With Lola I began working on being a strong female example. Having Rose in my life has changed my perspective yet again. I am now seeing that this life is a sweet gift. People always say that life is too short to be someone that you aren't. I feel that the opposite is true. Life is too long to not be the person that you truly want to be. The goal should be to live a life full of living. Redundant but true. The day to day can drag on if you are not being true to what you want. Then before we know it the years have flown by. It is a vicious trick of time. Now all I need to figure out is who I want to be. What do I want to be? What do I want to spend my life doing? Who knows. Maybe it is better to focus on what I want to spend my time doing right now as opposed to worrying about my whole life.

I do know that I want to spend as much time as possible with my family and friends creating sweet memories. That is my motivation for working this blog. Making crafts, having parties, sharing meals and creating memories. It should be fun! Life should be fun. Lets share a life full of living.

Merry Christmas Ramona Avenue Readers!

Hello dear friends! We want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We are spending quality time with our family and friends and enjoying them, and we hope you are doing the same with your loved ones! 

We will be back on Jan 5. 

See you then!

Ribbon Chain Garland

This post is a little late for fall and Thanksgiving but you know how it is! Time flies when you are having fun! I have a ton of decor for Halloween and almost as much for Christmas. It seems like the month between Halloween and the Christmas season just seems to speed by for me. So Thanksgiving seems to get the shaft a little bit in my home. Leftover pumpkins and handprint turkeys are the extent of the decorations around here. I decided to remedy that and add a couple of garlands this year. I made a pom pom garland. Which was crazy easy so I won't even go into details about it. The one I am most excited about is a ribbon chain garland! 

Did you make paper chains as a kid? I loved making them. I would make them and then take them apart and trash them and start over. This ribbon chain garland will last for years hopefully!

Supplies:

craft glue

coordinating ribbon

I used 3 spools of 1 and 1/2" ribbon. The glue I used was Elmers Craft Bond glue. I actually wouldn't recommend this glue. It says quick dry but it definitely wasn't. When I make another for Christmas I will probably use fabric-tac or a good old glue gun. 

The strips of ribbon are cut to about 7 inches long. After all the cutting was said and done I ended up with 15 strips of each color.  

After that I put a thick line of Craft Bond and made the first loop. You want to make sure that you use enough glue. The brown grosgrain ribbon seemed to just soak up the glue so it needed a much healthier line of glue. The seam is just overlapped. I didn't do any fancy overlapping to try and hide it. The ribbon loops can be turned once it is hung so the seam is in the back, am I right?

Yay three loops! Now all you have to do is loop them through each other and wah-lah!

This is what I mean about the seam. I just cut glue and stuck. Easy Peasy. After you have looped all your ribbon together, let it dry overnight. Just to make sure it is 100% dry.

Oh I love how it turned out. I am thinking of making another with thin ribbon to layer with this one and of course there are Christmas ones coming. It went together fast and it was a total bargain. The cost with the glue was less than 10 dollars. That's my kind of craft! 

Do you like to make your holiday decor? We'd love to see any posts or instagram pics of your DIY holiday decor! Tag us @ramonaavenue! Or leave a link to your post in the comments.

Peace out! -AnneMarie 

Halloween Nails! Throwback Thursday!

Anne Marie did a great job with her nail tutorial! Come and see!! 

I am coming at you today with a cute and wicked easy Halloween nail tutorial. This is a little momentous for me. I have never had a steady enough hand or the patience to do a lot of cute nail art. Dripping blood? It isn't precision or neat. Just my style!

The tools:

red nail polish

toothpicks

Q-tips

nail polish remover

To start you dip a toothpick in the red nail polish and drip drops on your nails. Then take the toothpick and drag it through the dots towards the tip of your nail. Those are the streaks of blood.

Immediately after you finish your streaks of blood you need to swipe some red across the top of your fingernail. The blood needs to be dripping from somewhere! After they were all done with the first coat I swiped another coat across the top just for good measure. Then if you are like me you take your  Q-tips soaked in nail polish remover and you get the red nail polish off your fingers.

Oh so scary!

All of my nails in a row. Taking pictures of your nails or hands is awkward. I love them! Plus of they aren't perfect no one is the wiser. It is dripping blood for heavens sake!

Peace out!- AnneMarie