eclectic design inspiration

Monday, December 26, 2011

A Christmas Sweater + Ray Bans

The holidays have created a lot of family time lately, and out of this came a little inspiration for a home decor color theme. I fell in love with my cousin's look today: her tortoise shell Ray Bans paired with her new (Christmas gift from Maw Maw) gold & red striped sweater. She better check her suitcase carefully before we all head home from the farm tomorrow. 





I find this color/pattern combo to be very warm, very classy, and very "smart," as Maw Maw likes to say.



After a little searching I was able to find some items that would help recreate this look at home:

















































The gold pedestal table and red photo frame belong to Jonathan Adler.
The gold lamp with lotus flower is by Arteriors.
The sunburst mirror is by Biggs Powell and the red table is by Serena and Lily.
The tortoise shell mirror, dome floor lamp, sofa and nesting tables come from 1st Dibs.
The candleholders and pillow come from Nate Berkus for HSN.
The red cabinet comes from CB2.
The highball glasses were found on Pinterest, I wasn't able to find a source. Too bad bc it might have been the one thing I could afford!

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas!

I'm at my dad's house about to chow down on the second Christmas feast of the day, admittedly being the anti-social one by squeezing in a little bit of internet time before it's back to my mom's farmhouse where no such things exist.

So before I'm dragged away..... Merry Christmas!

And, one of my all-time favorite gifts of the day: Blogger Grace Bonney's gorgeous book, Design Sponge at Home. SO HAPPY. Another reason I've been a little bit in my own world today. ;)

I hope everyone has had a wonderful, warm holiday with family and friends. 'Tis the season to be merry!

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Hipster Holidays



Today my friend Hannah and I checked out the The Portland Bazaar holiday artisan fair, put on by a few wonderful people of Design Sponge, Antler & Co., and Wood and Faulk. It turned out to be the hipster holiday shopping event of 2011, in a really great way. While I'm too all over the place style-wise to be a hipster (I like sparkles and french manicures way too much.), I am inspired by the look most of the time. Especially when it comes to home decor and little handmade goods.

I attempted to capture the event on my iphone (and, so as always, sorry for the crappy photo quality):






I got a delicious Matcha Latte from Sip.











                                                                                                                                           
                                     






                




And some of my favorite companies/goods up close:


from Grove




from Haunt




from Heartwood




from Summerland




from Sketchbook 



from SSOS



from Shwood




from Between Wind + Water

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Recipe: Veggie Broth

Are you sick of playing around on Pinterest and want to actually be productive? Are you feeling really ambitious and in the mood to use a recipe to create an ingredient for another recipe?? Do you want to twirl around the kitchen and pretend you are Julia Child???? Do you want to make your whole home smell like Thanksgiving???!!! Yeah I knew that one would work. It's been what, three weeks?

Let's make some homemade veggie broth. :)



Add 1 tbsp oil to pot, set on medium heat

Chop and add one at a time: 2 whole onions, 5 stalks of celery, and 4 carrots*

Add 1 bay leaf, 10 peppercorns, and 3 cloves of garlic


Add any other veggies in your fridge that you wanna get rid of

Stir and let cook for a few minutes on medium heat, then add 1 gallon of water


Turn up the heat and wait for it to start boiling

Turn down the heat a little bit and let it do it's thing for an hour

Add 2 tsp salt and 1/4 cup of Tamari; let simmer another 20 mins


Strain through a strainer into a pitcher

Now, you are done!

It will last a week in the fridge. Freeze into ice cubes for later use.


*mirepoix (pronounced "meer-pwah")- the combination of three aromatics: celery, carrots and onion, often used in French cuisine

(Don't you feel so cultured now? "Meer-pwah.")