To start your weekend

Here is a little artistic inspiration to help you start off your weekend. One of my favorite artists is Raoul Dufy, a french painter from the the late 1800s and early 1900s. I love his use of color and the different scenes he depicts. A couple of years ago I had a calendar with some of his pieces and when the year ended, I tore the pictures out and now have some of them framed around my house and in my office at work. Here are a few of my favorites.

Inspirational House

A recent issue of Country Living featured the house of shop owner Jutta Verde Rosa. I fell in love with use of color and wanted to show you some pictures of her house. Her shop is called La Dolce Vita and is located in East Hampton, NY. I hope you enjoy her home as much as I did!

I love the bright colors of her kitchen.


Her bedroom makes me want to go and sew up a storm of pillows for my bed.


Who knew that this bright pink rug would look so good in a living room.



La Dolce Vita


All pictures from the Country Living website.

I've been featured on The Kitchn

Yesterday I submitted my 10 Things I Love from my kitchen to The Kitchn and Surprise - I've been featured! Here are some of my pictures and you can see the rest at The Kitchn.

Curtains

I have been in my apartment for almost a year now and am still working on decorating it. Lately I've been focused on my office/craft nook and have been keeping my eyes open for a fabric or curtain for this room. A couple of weeks ago my mom and I were in a local fabric store, The Smocking Bird and I spotted the perfect fabric.

I love how the dark coral, brown, light blue and pale yellow combine in the funky floral pattern. They are the perfect combination for my craft room and they had a coordinating stripe to match as the accent on the bottom. Here is a close up of the curtains and one of both of my windows. Thank you to my mom for whipping them up on her President's Day off!

All in the Family

This weekend I stayed with my parents because my mother and I were doing some wedding planning for my cousin. While I was up early on Saturday sitting in the kitchen and nursing a cup of coffee, I realized that my love of all things vintage comes from my mom. As you can see from the pictures I snapped while I was there, we are a lot alike!



This is my parents' adorable Scottie, Tobey!

so sad...

Another magazine has been effected by the economy. My absolutely favorite magazine Country Home is ceasing publication. I received my final issue over the weekend...

Here is a link to their press release.

Some good reads

I love looking through books and finding things to give me inspiration in either decorating my apartment, cooking good recipes or hosting parties for friends. Here are some of my favorites on my bookshelf at home.

Amy Butler's Midwest Modern has great photographs taken by Amy's husband David of their home in Ohio along with other inspirational ideas.


Cath Kidston's In Print is another great inspiration and idea book using Cath's great range of fabrics. I love all of the color she uses.


Nigella Lawson's Nigella Express is my newest recipe book that I received as a gift from my mom at Christmas. I recently made the Mustard Pork Chops with gnocchi. It is a great hearty winter meal.


I love purchasing books about manners and etiquette. I recently found Kate Spade's Manners book at my favorite florist/designer in Birmingham, HotHouse Design Studio. It was on sale and I had to have it.


I also like Town & Country's Handbook for Hosts. It too has some great ideas for entertaining, how to deal with different guests when entertaining and when to send thank yous, etc.


The next book on my wish list is Amy Sedaris' I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence.

A little bit of Inspiration

This is a little something I put together after the holidays were over and I had taken all of my decorations down but needed something fun on my table.

Valentine's recap

Since I didn't post much about Valentine's Day last week, I thought I would catch up with this post. I didn't do too much this year but I did put together a fun gift for my mom and catch a classic movie in a classic movie theatre!


My mom and I are a lot alike in that we LOVE tea. So this year I put together a grouping of Valentine's related tea items. The Edge-of-the-Cup cookie cutters are from Williams-Sonoma, the Get Heart tea is from a new Republic of Tea line that I purchased at Whole Foods, the heart shaped tea diffuser is from World Market and the red heart cup is from Starbucks. (I got my dad the David Cook CD; nothing too fancy there.)


I spent Valentine's Day evening with a couple of friends and saw Casablanca at the historic Alabama Theatre. I do have to be honest though and say that I had never seen Casablanca until Saturday night and it was one of the best romantic movies ever! Definitely one that I have to purchase on DVD.

Birthday Wishes

This past weekend we celebrated my brother's and mom's birthdays. I offered to have their birthday lunch on Sunday and made one of our favorite Ina Garten dishes along with a new cake recipe that I have been wanting to try.

I made the Parmesan chicken recipe from Ina's Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook. Ina suggests that you add mixed greens on top with a Lemon Vinaigrette dressing. I love this recipe because it's so simple yet filling.

For dessert, my mom and brother requested a chocolate cake and I had been dying to try a new recipe saw in the Feb. issue of Country Living. I tried the Deep Dark Chocolate Cake and it was amazing! It's your typical chocolate cake, very dense and moist and the surprise is a layer of raspberry buttercream between the layers. The outer chocolate buttercream has 2 cups of marshmallow cream and makes it very rich and fluffy.


The cake was a hit and I finally got to use my new cake stand that I recently purchased on sale from Williams-Sonoma.

The History of Valentine's Day

While looking into the history of Valentine's Day today and found some interesting videos over on the History Channel's website. They have videos on the history of the Valentine's Day card, Cupid, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and how our favorite treat is made, CHOCOLATE! Take a look and I hope you have a day full of love tomorrow!

O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry:

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it ware ten thousand mile.

-Robert Burns

Keep Calm and Carry On

I joined the Keep Calm and Carry On bandwagon at some point last year. Maybe it was because I needed a little calm in my life and a new slogan to remind me, or maybe it was because I love all things British. But whatever it was, I purchased a Keep Calm and Carry On poster on etsy and now proudly display it over my desk at home.


I know that there are many Keep Calm and Carry On items available for sale, such as the original poster, mugs, rugs, necklace charms and even a onesie for your little one. But I have found the best take-off on the original poster. I was looking on Type Tees one day and found the Now Panic and Freak Out t-shirt. Threadless also has a poster with the design on it that I am going to purchase and hang with my Keep Calm poster. Kudos to Olly Moss for coming up with this design.I am proudly wearing my t-shirt today!

Vintage Hankies

I am helping my cousin with her wedding coming up in May in Indiana. My mom and I are in charge of the flower arrangements for the reception and some of the flowers for the ceremony. With this in mind, I have been browsing wedding websites and blogs to get ideas for arrangements. Lately a common item that I have found used in weddings are vintage hankies.

I found these via Oh So Beautiful Paper from Lucky Luxe. What a great idea to use as Save the Date Cards. You could also use this idea to make gifts to give to your guests with your name and date of the wedding on it. They are photographed by Alisha Clark.



I also saw these today on Once Wed. You can get the full directions here.

The Start of Something Great

So I have decided to start a blog. I have been contemplating the idea for a while now. As I peruse other blogs, I become more and more excited about sharing my ideas, projects and things that catch my eye. I've been sharing some of them on facebook, but that just isn't the outlet I need. I hope that you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy putting my ideas out here. So, on to my first post...