So many sources.

There are SO many sources out there for home decorating inspiration (at times it’s rather overwhelming, I’d say!). But why not add another? I’m sure you all know about Pinterest and Design Sponge and all the amazing home decorating blogs out there, but did you know about the online magazines available?

My favorite: Janell from Isabella and Max Rooms started an online mag last year called House Of Fifty.  She is such a strong voice in the home blogging community and obviously knows how to curate (and create) a collection of awesome home inspiration. House of Fifty is a beautiful collaboration from some seriously talented designers. And they just launched a House Of Fifty App so you can read on your ipad!  Take the time to click the mag and read through it- you won’t be disappointed.

Now if I could just find a way to make more money, work less in the office, and flip houses in all my spare time with all my spare money:)

Poulet.

I am very fortunate that my husband cooks, and cooks well. Back in my “bachelorette” days I would often eat a hodge podge of store bought food for dinner: a little hummus with carrots, salad with pre-packaged rotisserie chicken, and a handful of cereal. . .followed by a few spoonfuls of straight-out-of-the-carton ice cream.

Once Bry and I moved in together, that changed (well, not the ice cream part). We eat full-fledged dinner, and we eat it nearly every night. Meat, potatoes, and veggies galore.

On a recent Saturday we were feeling a bit nast-o from a trip to Buffalo Wild Wings the day before (courtesy of Santa, via the christmas stocking!), so we wanted something clean and yummy.

Below, Bry and our B-dubs fare (we had 12 wings, a buger, a salad and 2 beers, and left the restaurant feeling I-L-L):

So, enter the Poulet cookbook. It was time to make chicken OUR way: Oven-Fried Chicken with roasted yams and radish-mint salad. Super yum. 

We used some beautiful watermelon radish (seriously- look at that color, so awesome), and I diced the yams and sticked the radish, rather than dicing the radish and sticking the yams. All about mixing things up.

Radish with feta, red onion, and a simple lemon juice/white vinegar/olive oil dressing:

Chicken and yams, just out of oven:

The chicken was amazing- it had some cayenne in it, so just a little kick, and the skin was perfectly crispy and ahhh-mazing.

Final plate (complete with some giant CSA carrots):

Now that’s a dinner.

Metallic Burlap Large H Bag

Ohf.

One of the gals from our agency partners at work has this bag, and I just love it. I finally asked her where it came from, and the answer is Brooklyn Industries out of Brooklyn (duh). It’s SO cute, and relatively affordable! I want, I want (and technically, my pledge was to buy no clothes or shoes in January or February, so this is allowed, right?)!

It’s a brushed and a bit shiny canvas, and the below (blurry) pics don’t do it justice. So you’ll just have to trust me on this one.

Metallic Burlap Large H Bag, come to me.

 

Dream it.

I told Bry that this is what I wanted for my big birthday in May.

To wake up, get breakfast in bed and some kisses from him and Tilly, and then put on a blindfold and be guided up the creaky stairs to our attic. Where there was once (and currently is) piles of boxes and old furniture, would instead be THIS:

How beautiful is that? I was drawn to it because it is the same size and shape as our currently unfinished attic.

In my dreams:)

Be your best, yo.

I made this for my new desk at work. It’s a reminder to stay true to yourself, but also to be your very best. Seems simple enough, right? Be you, but be the BEST YOU. Don’t compare yourself to others, don’t wish you were someone else. Be comfortable in your skin, but don’t settle with yourself. ROCK yourself!

I also decided that one of the most notable differences between an artist and a weekend crafter is the use of mod podge. Artists likely don’t depend on mod podge, whereas weekend crafters live for it.

 

I like to think of it as a very respectable medium, and therefore I am definitely not an artist.  But I am the very best version of a weekend crafter that I can be!

Headboarded.

I thought I would take some time to document my adventures in upholstered headboarding. I’m not going to walk you through all the details since there are oodles of tutorials online already, but some photos and stories of my steps should be good and fine.

As you may remember, we have some funny little windows above our bed that go out to the sunroom. I’ve heard that they were initially put there to help with airflow in the early days- our house was built in the 1920s and obviously there wasn’t AC back then (I wouldn’t last- even in MN!). Alas, the windows are a cute little feature and I will admit that when it is open-window season, they do help with airflow in the room.

However, having these windows as a focal point on the wall always kind of stumped me with the question of whether or not we needed a headboard. Would it be too much?

We proceeded just fine without one, but then one day I decided that an upholstered headboard would be just right- it could add some softness to the wall and some “coziness” to our bed. And with freshly painted bedside tables, I thought a simple headboard would only add to the bedroom progression!

First, the color scheme. Check this out:

The headboard would be made of the patterned henna-ish fabric above, which is actually a clearance curtain panel from trusty Target. I paid $14 for it, and as you can see below, it was the 84 inch length. Not bad, not bad.

I also picked up a twin size mattress pad and some quilt batting (I think that’s what it is called) from Joanne Fabric, and super-fabulous husband Bry helped me get the right size and weight of wood at Home Depot. With my staple gun and some spray adhesive, I knew it was time to get started. 

Please take note of Tilly- she is seriously ALWAYS by my side when I am doing random projects. Love that dog so much.

I cut the mattress pad down so it fit perfectly over the wood, but left some edge with the batting so I could wrap it around the wood and keep the edges soft. I did my best to center the pattern, and just wrapped and pulled and stapled until the fabric was good and secure and centered. I was going to try to add some tufts or nailheads, but realized with such a busy pattern, it would be better to keep things simple. So I used some scrap wood to build a bit of a frame, which I also covered in the same fabric. You can see that detail here:

We decided to adhere it to the wall since we don’t have a rug in our room right now and the bed is pretty easy to move around. So we used a simple hinged system from the hardware store- it is made for things like this and what I liked best is that the headboard will lay flat against the wall.

And then, EEEEEEK! The fun part- seeing it on the wall with the bed. I was a little worried I wouldn’t like it, but I did, I did. Now if I could only remember to take off those cheap little roller blinds.

And now came the fun part- styling it. I still haven’t come up with my favorite combo, and truthfully, most days it’s a pile of mismatched pillowcases on our normal pillows, and all the cute throw pillows are on the floor. But sometimes, every once in awhile, I make it up nice and it definitely makes me smile.

Which combo below do you like best?

Sick of seeing all the different options yet? Me too.

Finally, let’s hope that I can someday make a decision about lamps. I would love a simple wall sconce (with a bending arm?) on each side. But that requires some electrical work. Would it be worth it? I’m hesitant, only because I think at some point we might have to do this with the wall and then the sconces would have to go. We’ll see. And perhaps some art of each side as well? We also really need a rug, especially as the weather finally gets colder. Oh, and a new light fixture! But we are making progress, slowly but surely. That’s the beauty of owning a house- there really is no rush and you can continually tweak and change things as you wish. Such fun.

Is this a joke?

I know I’m supposed to be eating healthy and such, but I saw this on Pinterest and thought, “I must make that/eat it NOW!”

This weekend I thought it’d be fun to try to make 3 different things from Pinterest (what better way to spend a cold, quiet January weekend), and this might have to be one of them.

Recipe: Reese’s Peanut Butter Banana Bread

Ingredients

• 3 very ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 8 oz bag of Reese’s Mini cups

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Grease your loaf pan (I used an 8 x 4 pan) with butter or shortening.
3. In a medium bowl whisk together your flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt, set aside.
4. In a large bowl stir together your bananas, peanut butter, oil, egg and sugars.
5. Pour your dry ingredients into your wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Batter will be lumpy.
6. Fold in your Reese’s Mini cups and spread batter into prepared pan.
7. Bake for approx 1 hour or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
8. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then loosen the edges of the pan with a knife and remove from loaf pan, transferring bread to a cooling rack.

*I bake my breads in a stone loaf pan, but certainly you don’t have to. BUT if you notice the bread browning too fast, lower the temperature down to 325°.

Update! I made this tonight (just happened to have all the ingredients- Reese’s leftover from our homemad pb ice cream), and I am seriously afraid to cut into it, in fear of consuming too much of it right before bed. Perhaps I should wait until morning and then bring it to work to share…. Then again, I should probably test it before sharing with others. Decisions!

Garment of the day.

Do you ever find yourself walking through the office or your neighborhood and commenting (internally or out loud) about an outfit or piece of clothing that you like on someone else? I do it all the time. Sometimes I am ballsy enough to ask said person where they found said piece of clothing, but often I just try to capture a mental image and then go about my merry way. Most of the time I forget about it, but sometimes I use the ensembles of others to influence my daily wears- it’s often all I need to remind myself that I do have a good supply of clothing and accessories to look fun and feel good every day- all I need is a little remixing and reminders!

And that’s exactly why I love fashion “look book” bloggers, or so I like to call them. The bloggers that do their best to post daily outfits, talk about why they chose that look, and best of all, where it came fun. What better way to find wardrobe inspiration.

So while there are a ton of them out there, I thought it would be fun to highlight a few of my all-time favorites. So, in no particular order, let me introduce you to a few fab ladies who rock their wardrobes like no other. Funky inspiration overload, in my opinion.

Style and Pepper: she kind of reminds me of Sarah Jessica Parker.

She also has the greatest hair,

and does a ton of fun fashion-related DIY projects and videos. Including these fun friendship bracelets (so hawt right now), this neon painted fair-isle sweater, etc. She’s so fashion forward  and funkadelic and fantastic.

Oh Kendi of Kendi Everyday. Could I love you any more? You’re snarky and snazzy and funny and obviously, full of fashion. This is a must-follow blog. No questions asked. She keeps things succinct and witty. What more could you want?

Jen of JenLovesKev. I’ve mentioned her before and I’ll mention her again, because she is definitely one of my all-time faves. She’s honest and real, an awesome mother with great taste, her husband (Kev,duh) is adorable, and she’s super crafty and artsy and creative. Just check out their christmas cards or this teepee she made for her adorable daughter, Rowan. Is it strange that I talk about these people like I know them? I don’t, but I feel like I do, and I wish I did! I also love that she splashes in posts about real-life: her opinion of blogging, exercise, relationships, easy and healthy recipes, etc. An all-around awesome hermana.

Sal at Already Pretty: She’s more about cultivating her own style than following any treads, and about empowering women to feel good about who they are and rockin’ their body no matter the shape or size. And she has a major obsession with fabulously architected foreign shoes.

And last but not least, Jessica of What I Wore. She has a book, for crying out loud. And she sews her own pants. Unreal. So talented. So beautiful. So fantastic. And how lucky of us to be welcomed into her world of fashion.

99 things to do.

Oh you guys, there is so much I want to share here. To name a few, I need to do a post on the Maui portion of our honeymoon, some wedding crafts, the process and outcome of painting our bedside tables and my upholstered headboard, all the homemade ice cream we have been making, a check-in on my thirty before thirty list, our christmas at home and new years in Colorado, and more! Where does one start? I know, I know- this is not my job but I just love sharing and documenting what we have been up to, personally and creatively. I’ll get there, but no promises on when.

For now, a few random fillers.

I LOVE this wall color. What would you call it? A muddy gray? If we ever get around to painting our guest room/office/future nursery, I would love this. And that red/orange sofa is pretty rad for contrast.

Here are a couple lighter versions,

and my ideal version would have more furniture/texture/colors like this:

But I’m not all about the dark everywhere, as I saw this room on Emily Clark’s blog and immediately loved it. And THEN I saw the K + B pillow. Meant to be. Ha.  

What is it about inspirational phrases? They are all over Pinterest, and I can’t help but save/repin a few.

and finally, I have committed to not buying any clothes or shoes or accessories or any other type of wearable item in January or February. December was an expensive month for us, and those of you who know me, know I have zero need for another scarf, wedge or cardigan.

If I were to buy anything, however, it would be something like:

these,

and this,

and this antler ring too!

2011 Highlights

Polaroid frames from IrockSoWhat (check her out).

Before you jump into resolutions for 2012,

I challenge you to stop and think about what really satisfied you in 2011.

I think that in today’s world, we all struggle to simply “be still”. Our minds and hands are always active – always looking ahead to the “next” thing. I know that I have to force myself to live in the present, and find quiet reflection really difficult.

And yet, in a world where things are moving so fast, I realize that sometimes in life, you have to stop before you can truly begin, and that pressing pause to be still and reflect is often the best way to start. Of course, you don’t want to live life looking behind you, but taking time out to intentionally slow down and consider the year gone past can be an extremely beneficial, rewarding, and productive thing to do.

Trevor Hudson says,

“We don’t learn simply from experiences; we learn when we reflect on those experiences.”

So I don’t know about you, but I’m going to try to take time out to reflect. Because the key to healthy reflection is all about asking the right questions.

“Many of us look for answers, but few sit down and think about the right questions to ask. Questions have the uncanny knack to open up possibilities, to get us thinking out the box, and perhaps break down the limitations we put on ourselves.”

And so, before you start 2012, why not  STOP and ask the right questions? Questions like:

• What energized me most in 2011?
• Which relationships brought me the most joy? Why?
• Which relationships put me under the most pressure? Why?
• What were the “defining moments” of 2011?
• What strengths did I see in myself during 2011?
• Under which conditions did I see myself thrive?
• What did I avoid doing that I know I most needed to do?
• What books and mentors had the greatest impact on me? Why?
• Am I closer to my friends and family from my activities last year?

Answering these kind of questions allows you to accomplish two objectives. First, it forces you to focus on the important things in your life and not get lost in the trivial. Second, it provides an excellent platform to set goals for the new year.

Onward!