Hair New Era

Folks. I AM BACK. :) I've missed you all! Fo reals. Did you all have nice Labor Day weekends? Ah, the last holiday weekend of the summer. When did it get to be September?? I feel like summer just started and now it will be over - officially - in 19 days! (Though Labor Day weekend really feels like the true end of summer.) Boo.

In the meantime, I'm grasping on to the last semblances of summer, which to me right now is feeling like a nautical tone - for the home, clothes and accoutrement. Here are some of the nautical items inspiring me right now:

Ohmygoodness, I can't believe I almost forgot - today is Cinco de Mayo! ¡Ay ay ay!

In honor of this holiday, here is some gorgeous fiesta eye candy from Design*Sponge:



Photos by Jesse Chamberlin of Our Labor of Love. Event design and styling by Ashley Meaders of The Flashdance.

Check out even more photos of this event over at Design*Sponge, and happy Cinco de Mayo! Drink a margarita and eat some chips and salsa for me! (I'll be doing the same...)

I featured a lovely round plant table here and a garden window (a greenhouse window/shelving set-up type thing) here. So - for posterity's sake, and perhaps for some inspiration if you're looking to bring the green in when you don't have your own garden (like us!) - here's another bringing-the-garden-in way to go:

This look is a bit more organic and unstructured than the plant table or garden window (see links above for photos), but I like the layered look it creates. It's much more wild garden and a little less English garden, but it's cool nonetheless. Would you do this in your home?

Photo of Nina Shen (of Dwell Studio)'s apartment, as spotted on Design*Sponge.

Image via Mary Ruffle

Gooood morning, moppets!

It's Wednesday! Normally I'd feel much more along the lines of "booo, it's Wednesday - blah" but since it's sunny, 66 degrees, and B has off on Friday (making today his Thursday), I'm definitely more in the "yay, it's Wednesday!" spirit today.

Most normal people would be excited to get outside and enjoy the sunshine, but for some reason all I want to do is bake today. Backwards, I know - welcome to my world. I probably won't actually do any baking - more like I'll just watch something on the Food Network to supplement my craving :) - but maybe I'll get ambitious and make something later this week. I figured I could at least share the in-the-meantime food inspiration with you all, and maybe one of you would actually do the baking in lieu of me. (And if anyone wants to share slash send me baked goods, feel free!) :)

Here are some of the recipes that have piqued my interest lately:

Tomato tart.

Photo from Herbavoracious

This one is actually seasonally appropriate (see? some things I do make sense...sometimes), as tomatoes are just starting to really pop up around here. I'm aiming to buy some amazing heirloom yellow and red tomatoes from Whole Foods (sadly, no farmers markets open here yet) instead of the mealy putrid pinkish ones my nearby Giant always has. It makes the tart just that much more pretty.

I found the recipe for this on the Martha Stewart website ages ago (here) and gave it to my mom to try for a pot-luck; she made it perfectly the first time and it was a huge hit at the party. My friend Sara made it shortly thereafter and hers was delicious too. Of course I then gave it a try and it was an utter disaster. Oy.

My mom has since gifted me with a proper tart pan (rather than an old, thick Pyrex dish), so hopefully it will be better on my second go-round. The tart (when made by anyone but me, evidently) is so, so good, and so, so easy. Mmm, I'm getting excited just thinking about it (too bad B doesn't actually like tomatoes - oops!).

Photo from Martha Stewart (the photo doesn't look so hot, but I assure you it is incredible)

Chocolate chip cookies.

Photo from Martha Stewart

I wouldn't usually think to make choc. chip cookies (maybe because if they're in my house, I will eat approximately 2,192 of them a day), but Jordan from Oh Happy Day posted about "The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie" recipe from America's Test Kitchen and my mouth started watering immediately. Yumm. (Again, too bad B doesn't share my love of choc. chip cookies - he's more of an oatmeal raisin cookie guy. Booo!) The ATK recipe looks really easy to follow (step-by-step pics and all), so maybe I'll give it a shot.

I''ll definitely continue to use my grandmother's secret of refrigerating the dough before baking it though - it works like a charm. (Choc. chip cookies are one recipe I can do.)

Chocolate croissants.

Photo from Paisley Petunia

Okay, so this one isn't actually baking because it comes frozen from Trader Joe's (huzzah!), but you do have to put it in your oven, so that kinda counts, right?

Photo from Justinsomnia

I read about these on Kate Flaim (Girl Reporter)'s awesome blog and went out and bought a box the next day. They couldn't have been easier. Here's what you do:

Place them on a baking sheet. They'll look like this to start:


Let them "proof" for 9 hours. This is what they'll turn into:

Cool, right?

Then bake for 25 minutes. Eh voila:

This photo (and previous two) from Justinsomnia

They were awesome. Just as good as ones from a bakery, and they made my whole house smell delicious (with such minimal effort).

And last:

Asparagus gruyere tart.

Photo from Cupcakes and Cashmere

Emily posted beautiful photos of the asparagus gruyere tart she made using Martha's recipe. It reminds me of the tomato tart above. Do I sense a theme here? Dough, cheese (gruyere), olive oil, veggies? Yum, it's basically just a really fancy take on pizza.

I love asparagus (and pizza!) so I'm excited to try this.


Have you baked anything lately? Do any of these recipes appeal to you? Or are you outside enjoying the sunshine? Let me know if you've tried the asparagus tart - or if you have any can't-miss recipes I should know about.

These prints from dear colleen on etsy are so cheery, I've been clicking back to them periodically all morning for some quick pick-me-ups. Not only are the colors great, the sayings funny and cute, and the designs adorable, but all of the prints shown above are only $19 (and with some others in the shop at only $9.90)! That's my kind of art: fun and cheap (my kind of date too...).

We're going to a housewarming in a few weeks and I think that "home is where the heart is" print might be perfect. I also love the idea of giving a friend the "when life hands you lemons make a gin and tonic" print, along with the makings for a G&T. I know I'd like that kind of gift. ;)

As found on Design*Sponge.

Are you sick of the house posts yet? If so, let me know and I'll try to lighten up on that topic.

In the meantime, I have stripes on the brain. I've been noticing a huge trend right now of stripes galore in home design. I like them best when they're close to tone-on-tone so that they're not too overwhelming, but the big graphic punch of a bold color with white is also pretty cool.

Here are some example of the stripiest rooms I've seen around the blogosphere lately:

Since you don't spend that much time in the entry, bold stripes aren't too much for merely breezing through. Michelle from Three Men and a Lady painted these stripes herself to add some visual interest to her home's oddly shaped front hall.


These tone-on-tone stripes are a bit more subtle, and pretty for a bathroom; they're from one of my favorite DIY home design blogs, Young House Love. (If you click on the link to the left, Sherry & John from YHL provide full instructions for how to paint stripes like these yourself.)


Roeshel not only painted the walls in stripes, she put them on the floor too. The pattern on the floor is hand painted. Wow. And in case you weren't already impressed with the striped walls, fresh shower curtain and hand painted (hand. painted. come on!) floor, here's the before:

Yikes. Seriously good work on that re-do (as seen on Young House Love).

Here's another entryway in stripes; I love the pop of red among the gray and white:

From Design*Sponge.


Somehow stripes seem serene to me in this bedroom. If you check out the original post on YHL (here), you can see the before picture and how much the stripes really add to an already-nice room.

And, just in case you're not feeling the chunky horizontal stripes, here's a vertical stripe option that may better fit your fancy:

Love love love (especially with all those frames breaking up the stripes. Yum!). From the deceased but amazing Domino mag (RIP).

So what do you think? Are stripes ripe with you or are they too busy for your taste? I personally love them, but would probably stick to a smaller room, like a powder room or entry, to get all stripey with it. Do tell how you feel though....

Old news: I'm obsessed with silhouettes (case A; case B). New news:

For 65 buckaroos, you can have your own mug on a mug. (Ha!)


Seriously though, BROOKLYNrehab and Miss Crowland create custom silhouettes and send you not only the lovely mugs, but also the digital file of your silhouettes so you can use them wherever you like in the future. So this couple becomes this:

And could be applied to mugs, stationery, invites, and so on. Wouldn't the mugs be an awesome wedding gift to give to a couple? Pets are also welcome - a child and a pup would be an adorable pair too.

Imagine the possibilities! (Don't even get me started, I could go on for days....)

Originally found on Design*Sponge.

In an effort to trick myself into thinking we're not still in the dead of winter (with likely at least another two months to go), I've been salivating over fresh fruit, light layers and delicious drinks.

Yesterday was another snow day here, so B and I made smoothies for brunch (from frozen fruit chunks, since you'd be hard-pressed to find fresh mango around here right now), but I'm drooling over this drink recipe posted on Design*Sponge last week:

Doesn't it look delicious? (If not totally out of season...)

Created by wardrobe stylist Talitha and shared with us by Tec and Chelsea Petaja (he, an amazing photographer; she, an artist and educator), "Magic Juice" looks light, refreshing and perfect for a summer day....or just for pretending it's summer.

Here's the run-down on how to make it:

Ingredients (makes two drinks):
6 hulled strawberries
1 peeled orange
5-7 mint leaves
1/4 peeled cucumber
4-6 oz gin, depending on taste
8 oz fresh lemonade

Methodology:
Dice, then muddle fruits and mint
Pour gin into fruit mixture and let sit for 10-15 minutes
Strain over lemonade and ice
Garnish with fruit slice or mint leaf

I might crank up the heat in our house, put on some shorts (and perhaps some self-tanner - don't want to blind myself with those pale, pale legs), kick back with one of these bevs, and pretend like there's not actually still 39" of snow on the ground.

The girls at Studio Choo do such beautiful work. Remember the gorgeous picnic bouquet they did this summer, shown here? Well, they're back on Design*Sponge with another perfect menagerie of arrangements, this time using more winter-y materials (well, winter-y by California standards at least).

Here are a few ways they used seasonal, locally grown flowers and produce:

I love how these pretty little kumquats (which are in season right now) are tucked into "nest" of rosemary - can you imagine how fragrant this must be? It would be lovely as a centerpiece for a dinner party, or even just in your kitchen to liven things up and bring in some amazing scents.


This arrangement, as well as the one pictured at the top, are my favorites. A combination of
ranunculus and rosemary, along with the fresh pop of orange from the kumquats, make this bud-vase bouquet colorful, fresh, beautiful and not too stuffy.

As soon as the Studio Choo shop opens in San Francisco, I'm sending my friend Lauren (who lives in SF) over there to investigate and take pictures so I can see it vicariously through her!

The beautiful and amazing Stephanie Sabbe of sabbespot (which is a totally new-to-me blog as of today, but now I'm super excited to read some of her archived posts) made this awesome chevron-striped wall herself using...drum roll, please!...contact paper. Annnnd, she said the whole thing only cost the price of the contact paper (which is el cheapo compared to paint and/or wallpaper!) and took only an hour to do.

One. Hour. That means in less than the time it takes me to get through my DVRed episodes of Ellen Masterpiece Theatre (what?) I could do this on my own wall. Which I am. B, brace yourself, it's happening. I'm so excited!

Cheap, easy, removable (perfect for us renting folks), and pretty subtle (gotta love Stephanie's tone-on-tone choice), yet makes a big impact, this seems like the absolute ideal project for a renter who's hankering for something striking on a wall. I'm in.

Project originally found on Design*Sponge, but a major thanks to Stephanie for sharing the details and step-by-step instructions for all of us!

I love the idea of using natural elements on a Christmas tree - from shells to fruit (real or fake) - I think they add a nice feel to the tree (real or fake). So when I saw these miniature (fake) terrarium ornaments, I was in love. Since they're DIY, you can add any natural element you want from a fake butterfly to a bug to a shell, pine cone, mushroom and so on. I think they'd be lovely on a tree, but they could also be placed together in a hurricane glass, or placed here and there on a mantel. How pretty would they be peppered throughout your holiday decor?

Design*Sponge has the full instructions here so that you can make these yourself. A great way to add some nature to your own tree, or a fabulous gift to give to others (no watering required!).

We diligently recycle, but it's not as often that we get to reuse. Here's an adorable idea for reusing those cardboard toilet paper rolls that you're endlessly going through.

Tali from Growing Up Creative came up with this simple but beautiful idea for turning TP rolls into wall art. Here they're mounted on the wall in a kids' playroom (sitting on nails in the wall, so that you get great shadows from off the rolls), but I'm thinking these could also be painted and used as holiday garlands, as table centerpieces or as gift garnishes. So what do you think? Literally trashy or upcycling cool?

Full step-by-step instructions can be found on Growing Up Creative or Design*Sponge.