What's In A Name ?

I've always loved my name because it's so unique, and it fits me to a 'T'. Derived from the original French 'Desiree', which means 'the one longed for', I've taken to putting it a naughtier way as I've gotten older by saying my name means 'the object of desire'. (Look at the picture below. Do I or don't I look like a Dezzi Rae/Desiree ?)

My parents liked the name 'Desiree', which they picked up when they saw the Marlon Brando movie 'Napoleon and Desiree' but knew very few Filipinos would be able to pronounce it correctly so they decided to alter it a wee bit. 'Dezzi' was because I was born in December, and 'Rae' was in honor of my dad, Ray, on whose 27th birthday I chose to make my grand entrance into the world (talk about being a scene stealer!).

Just this week, I stumbled on a story online about a high school basketball star named Dezzirae Cafferata. I forwarded the story to my parents. My dad thought it was quite a coincidence, but pointed out that mine is spelled out as two words - 'Dezzi' and 'Rae'. My mom said, "Aw, c'mon! Maybe they saw your name in the papers when you first came to the States as a Soroptomist International Youth Forum representative'.

I finally decided to google 'Dezzirae' and 'Dezzi Rae' and wouldn't you know it, there were a few other Dezzirae's out there.

I did a little bit more research and found out that 'Dezzirae' is in fact an old English name that means 'dawn' or 'sunrise'. From 'object of desire' to 'sunrise'. Who would've thought?

If you're looking for cool baby names (like 'Dezzi Rae'- Ha!), one book that we bought a year ago and still enjoy going through and making notes on which names we'd like for our wee ones when the time comes is Cool Names For Babies. Taking inspiration from the book, we decided on Katana Lily if we have a girl, Mace Atreides (yes, as in The House of Atreides from the sci-fi novel 'Dune'), if we have a boy.

So, I may not be the only one in the world who spells her name as 'd-e-z-z-i-r-a-e' but hey, at least I'm the only one who spells it as 'd-e-z-z-i' and separate word 'r-a-e'. Or at least that's what I believe until another Dezzi Rae emails me and refutes my statement!

Salt Dough Sculptures

I've been making fun things out of salt dough since I was a kid. It's one of the least expensive hobbies around, what you make is entirely up to you, and I love how it absolutely puts me in my "Zen Zone".

The photo above shows some of my latest pieces: a cute little ladybug, a leaf (both of which I'm going to hot-glue onto magnets so I can use them to hold notes up on our fridge), seals for our wedding invitations, and a gold-tipped rosebud (I have no idea how I'm going to use the rosebud, but I ended up with it while watching an episode of 'Ace Of Cakes' where they were sculpting flowers out of fondant - artistic osmosis via cable TV!).

The most basic recipe for salt dough is 1 cup of fine salt, 1 cup of flour, 1/2 cup water. You mix it all together in a bowl until it forms a ball, and you knead it on a well-floured board or flat surface until it's smooth and elastic. Your salt dough is now ready to use!

Whatever you can't use up, simply put plastic wrap around it and store in a cool place and it'll keep for at least a week or so.

I've found that air-drying my sculptures for a few days before I paint and varnish them is best, but since Corey got a dehydrator from his sister a couple Christmases back, I've been using it to speed up the process. I've also tried brushing them with egg wash and drying them in the oven for a golden brown effect.

Over the years, I've played with variations to the basic salt dough recipe (more salt makes for a grainier texture, more flour makes it softer, adding coloring and interesting stuff like coffee powder or glitter to the dough, etc.) so feel free to experiment. It's part of the fun!

-Dezzi Rae

Wedding Seals Made of Salt Dough

We like the idea of having a seal on the wedding invites but rather than buy the wax seals, I decided to experiment with salt dough instead, which is an extremely inexpensive alternative, given that it’s basically just salt, flour and water.

I simply took a stamp (we found one a couple years ago with our initials - ‘A’ for ‘Ascalon’ and ‘M’ for ‘Marshall’-when we were down at the Hollywood Toy and Costume Store and had to buy it), pressed it into a piece of salt dough that I had rolled out into a thin sheet, let it air-dry, and painted it with black and metallic gold acrylic. I waited for it to dry before painting on a layer of varnish.

For the salt dough recipe and more cheap chic tips, go to http://www.thecheapchiccouple.com/

L.A. Fashion District: A Treasure Trove for the Bride On A Budget

If you're a bride living in Los Angeles, you simply must go down to the Los Angeles Fashion District and check out the huge selection of wedding items down there.

I feel like a kid in a candy store everytime I go down there. Of course, there's horrendous, low quality, tacky stuff everywhere (but there's horrendous, tacky stuff at the higher-end retail stores as well) but when you find a good deal, it's enough to make you feel like you just found hidden treasure.

Parking can be as high as $8-15 for all day parking but I found a parking lot on 8th Street, near the bead stores and Michael Levine's, that has $3 all day parking. Be sure to read the signs before you park though. Some of them have the big ol' $3 sign on them but in tiny letters underneath, it says 'per hour'. Sneaky!

A Must-Read: The Millionaire Next Door

As a mortgage consultant, there are several books that I give my clients as gifts when they close their transactions with me. 'The Millionaire Next Door' is is one of them.

Growing up, my family instilled the value of frugality in me. My mother taught me to never buy clothing simply because it had a shi-shi-foo-foo designer label on it, and which items to stock up on when they went on sale. My grandmother had a bowl in the wash basin to catch the soapy water, and she'd make us pour it into a pail nearby. When the pail was full, she'd use it for flushing the toilet. My grandfather dug composting holes in the garden so we could fertilize the garden with what we normally threw out.

As an adult, frugality is tantamount to financial savvy in my book. Being frugal means being debt-free. Being debt-free means being able to work to live, instead of having to live to work. It also means being able to retire early because you don't spend most of your life paying off debt when you could be enjoying early retirement- which should be everybody's goal in life.

'The Millionaire Next Door' shows how we can all join the ranks of America's wealthy (defined as people whose net worth is over one million dollars) by following seven simple rules. The first rule is, always live well below your means. The authors mercilessly show how wealth takes sacrifice, discipline, and hard work, qualities that are positively discouraged by our high-consumption society. "You aren't what you drive," admonish the authors.

Definitely a must-read for everyone who intends to pursue the Cheap Chic lifestyle!

-Dezzi Rae

Make Your Own Yogurt

We'd always known that you could make your own endless supply of yogurt and that all you needed was a small container of yogurt to provide the active cultures. We'd been planning to try it out for several months but we kept putting it off because, well, the idea of making our own yogurt was intimidating. Somehow, to us, it ranked up there with making your own wine or cheese.

Well, last night, we finally tried making our own yogurt- and boy, we wish we'd done it sooner. There was absolutely nothing to it. It was really easy!

• We took 4 cups of milk and heated it to boiling until it was 180-185 degrees F (use a candy thermometer to monitor the temperature).


• We then cooled it to 105 degrees F, and mixed in 2 tablespoons of plain yogurt from a container that we had bought at the store (make sure that it says 'contains active cultures' on the label). It's a good idea to leave the 2 tablespoons of yogurt out on the counter so that it's not too cold when you add it into the milk.


• After pouring the yogurt mixture into clean containers and covering tightly with a lid, we slid them into the oven, which we had on 'warm' (between 105 to 122 degrees F) to encourage the incubation process.


• This morning when we got up, we checked on the mixture, which had been incubating for at least 8 hours, and found, to our delight, that we had made our very first batch of yogurt, complete with the whey (the thin, yellow liquid that forms on the surface) and slightly tangy yogurt scent.


• We then placed the yogurt in the fridge and left it there until it's ready to be used. As for flavorings, we're going to experiment wtih vanilla bean, blueberry and strawberry for starters and see which ones we like the best.

A few notes:

• Apparently, this batch will keep for 1-2 weeks.


• If we want thicker yogurt, we could add 1/4 to 1/2 cup nonfat dry milk. It also increases the nutritional content! (Given that we typically don't keep any powdered milk in the house, we didn't put any last night when we made it.)


• If we wanted to use some of it as starter, we'd need to use it within 5-7 days so that the bacteria can still grow.

(By the way, I scrounged through the kitchen and made myself a fruit-and-yogurt parfait for lunch today and it was dee-lish! I took the photo at the top of this blog so you could see! -Dez)

A Cheap Chic New Year's Eve

The Cheap Chic Couple says, "Who needs the expense attached to a wild, crazy New Year's Eve in Vegas when you can have a New Year's Eve Karaoke Marathon with family and friends?"

It's become a tradition in my (Dezzi Rae's) family to go to my Aunt Lydia's for hors d' oeuvres, drinks a-plenty and potluck, and to pull out the karaoke machine and sing, dance and belly-laugh the rest of the year away.

We just had to share this video montage we put together of this year's New Year's Eve party because we doubt anyone can top this family when it comes to being karaoke-crazy around the holidays.