Monthly Archives: December 2010

The Bedding Blog

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Posted by on in Christmas, shopping
I’ve found it, I’ve really found it, the best bedding ever!  The choir of angels are singing because the impossible has been achieved.  As we all know, winter is the time to indulge in shopping, eating, baking, and somewhere in there we should all indulge in a little “me time.”  As an unmarried woman in her twenties with no children I should probably have a more exciting way to spend me time but really what I love more than anything is to lie in awesomely soft bedding, read a book and eat a sugar cookie.  Seriously, nothing else is better.  To top it all off, my karma has aligned because on the same day that I have found the best bedding ever the first snow has fallen in DC!  It’s as if it were all meant to be. : )
Here’s how you too can achieve such a state of bliss as I’ve described above.  The bedding recipe:
1 part Target Home Flannel Sheets (so comfy and affordable)
1 part Lands End 5 oz. no iron Flannel Comforter Cover in Chili Pepper Plaid (seriously, this is awesome)
1 part Down Feather Mattress Pad (in the words of Rachel Zoe “I die”)

Throw your favorite fleece blanket on top, turn up the heat, eat a guilt-free sugar cookie and you my friend have found inner peace.  I don’t yet have a down feather mattress pad so the dream bedding experience can be had without it.  When James and I were back in Iowa for Thanksgiving my mom had thrown one of the down feather mattress pads on our bed and ever since returning to my plain old bedding I’ve had a down-feather-shaped-hole-in-my-heart.  So I shall have to remedy that soon! So on this first snowfall night I shall scurry home, grab a sugar cookie from the freezer, change into flannel pjs, and hop in bed to indulge in some quality me time.  Let’s just hope that James’ game of Call of Duty: Black Ops can be indefinitely muted in my new state of inner peace…

Christmas Cocktails

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Posted by on in Christmas, Kitchen

I’ve noticed a bunch of blogs and magazines printing their favorite seasonal cocktails recently.  I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t usually drink cocktails but some of these sound so yummy I might not be able to resist any longer.  Here are some of the seasonal cocktails I’m contemplating consuming:

Candy Cane Martini 

1 1/2 ounces vanilla vodka (We suggest Grey Goose Vanilla Vodka)

1/2 ounce peppermint schnapps
1 ounce club soda
crushed candy canes for garnish

Rim a martini glass with crushed candy canes. Mix vodka, schnapps, and club soda with ice in a cocktail shaker; strain into prepared glass. You could also also hang a candy cane outside of the martini glass, as shown in the picture.

Classic Christmas Eggnog

1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1 egg
1 1/2 Tbs granulated sugar (can be adjusted according to taste)
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
a pinch or so of freshly grated nutmeg
1/3 cup milk (I used 2 percent)
1 1/2 ounces of quality dark rum (bourbon would work well too)
Recipe and Directions: the kitchn

Grown-Up Grape Soda

1 1/2 oz. Belvedere
1 oz. lemon juice
1 oz. simple syrup
3 oz. white cranberry juice
6 oz. Veuve Clicquot
20 red and white grapes, frozen
Add frozen grapes to the pitcher. Combine vodka, lemon juice, simple syrup, and white cranberry juice in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake vigorously and pour into pitcher. Top with Veuve Clicquot and stir. Serve the pitcher with a fun stirrer and glasses garnished with 3-4 grapes
Courtesy of W Scottsdale Mixologist.

 

Apple-Ginger Sparklers

1/4 cup Ginger Syrup
4 1/2 cups sparkling apple cider
6 cinnamon sticks
6 pieces crystallized ginger

Recipe and directions: Martha Stewart

Baileys Cherry Cafe

2 oz. Baileys with a Hint of Coffee
1/2 oz. Captain Morgan Rum
1 dash maraschino cherry juice

Rim a martini glass with cinnamon and sugar. Then drizzle cherry juice in the glass to layer. Shake Baileys and Captain Morgan with ice, strain, and enjoy.
Recipe: Marie Claire
 
 
What drinks do you enjoy around the holidays?

Projects

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Posted by on in Projects

This weekend was our last “free weekend” until after the holidays, so we took the opportunity to do projects around the house once again.  Have you ever seen the show Disaster DIY on HGTV?  I’m obsessed with it–love everything about it.  Now, it doesn’t directly apply to our weekend projects, other than our last one I attempted this weekend was basically a contained disaster.  That means, I know what I did wrong and I will fix it eventually, but nonetheless it was executed poorly and I’m a bit embarrassed by it.  So of course I have to document it on the blog!  It’d be better for my ego though if I shared the first two projects that I actually did well. 

Our first step was to buy more window insulator again and seal the window in our bedroom.  To be honest, any household task that involves a hair dryer…I’m in.  After about 20 minutes of fighting with double-sided tape and clingy plastic wrap I escaped and began my next project.

Last week I did a little painting project to add more holiday cheer to our apartment.  The local art store was having a big sale so I decided to make the most of it and buy supplies for a few more paintings.  This time I bought 9 x 12 canvasses and did an owl, tree, and moose once again.  The process is really easy to do.  I looked for images online, enlarged them, then printed them.  I took my handy dandy scissors and cut out the shape to use as a template.  Then I channeled Bob Ross and painted a happy little tree!  I’m not a particularly talented painter but it’s a hobby I turn to whenever I’m stressed out and need a break from reality.

Our third and final project is still a work in progress. I’ve mentioned before that I have too many clothes and not enough storage.  Well, the last time we visited James’ parents they informed us that they had a spare trunk in their attic that they no longer used and offered it to us if we wanted it….YES!  So we took it home and noticed that it needed a little work.  The wood around the hinges was splintering, a number of nail holes weren’t patched, and the hinge attempting to hold up the lid was not working.  We visited our local hardware store and got the proper equipment to make the necessary repairs…well almost.  We bought new hinges but didn’t install the one on the lid correctly so now the it won’t open as far as we need it to.  Honestly, who can eyeball a 65 degree angle for installation?  Probably most people but I’m mathematically challenged at all things in life.  So that is a to be continued task. 

Another error of mine occurred when I bought wood putty to fill in the nail holes, but I 1) got the wrong wood color and 2) bought the kind that doesn’t work if you want to sand and/or paint over it…and we want to do both.  Ugh, so failure number two.  I should have just returned it but I’m stubborn enough to believe that I can sand and paint over it and it’s still going to work–even when it clearly says it won’t on the product label.  As far as sanding goes, I only invested about 10 minutes to it before I got sick of it and watched an episode of 30 Rock. 

So what if I didn’t really make any progress on repairing the trunk?  I’m still including it on my list of projects that I worked on.  Maybe if I put off little things like this long enough I could get Brian Baeumler from Disaster DIY to come spend a weekend with me and fix things around my house.  Now that’s something to contemplate…

Christmas Time is Here

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Posted by on in Christmas

Maybe it’s because I’m completely lacking motivation to do something creative or maybe it’s just because it’s Wednesday, either way I thought I’d show a few pics of what our apartment looks like now that I’ve put up all our decor.  Let’s take the tour, shall we?

This is James and me standing in front of our beautiful real tree that we decorated.  Though it won’t win any awards from Martha Stewart for it’s non-existent theme, we think it’s pretty and like to look at it. :)

This is a better shot of it with the lights on.  I should explain that those aren’t blue lights, rather they are “white” LED lights.  Interesting turn of events that I didn’t predict when we bought them…

Here’s our newly-decorated mantle.  You can see all the fun stuff I brought back from Iowa. Much more rustic-looking than the original mantle I decorated.

Oh adorable Target foil snowflakes hanging in our bedroom, how I love thee.  I think of them as the adult version of a crib mobile.   

Here’s a look at our kitchen.  Again we have the lovely foil snowflakes from Target, as well as our red snowflake table runner and plaid cloth napkins. 

Here’s a close up of the table.  We wanted to jazz up our glass table so we put some shiny red garland underneath it to add more flair to our lives. Oh and the out of place green place mat is there so Pinky the cat can look out the window and not sit on my table runner.

I think this was a white elephant gift James got last year.  Really I only put this in the photo pool because I always talk about wine. :)

And lastly here’s our front door! We bought the wreath at Home Depot and the doormat at Target. 

So there you have it, that’s what our apartment looks like when we’ve decked the halls.  Not bad for a girl starting out with zero decorations!  We also bought a few accessories to add a bit more cheer here and there, including Target’s Method Hand Soap (Peppermint Vanilla), Hershey’s Candy Cane Hugs, Christmas Kleenex, and last but certainly not least….Coffee-mate’s Eggnog Creamer!  I’ll admit it’s not my favorite flavored creamer but it’s not awful.  I might have to try the gingerbread latte flavor next though… Holiday weight gain here I come!

Have you finished decorating for the holidays?  
 

Roundup of 2010 Picks

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Posted by on in Christmas, Design

Every year there are so many cute new Christmas things and I always try to justify a need for buying them.   James usually has to awaken me from my trance so that I put a limit on new purchases…which I don’t like but need to do.  Here are my favorite 20 favorite Christmas decorations from 2010, yeah that’s right I have 20.

ORNAMENTS

REINDEER

POTTERY BARN

MISC.

That’s it for this year!  Now it’s time to bide my time until December 26th when everything goes on uber-sale and I’ll wrestle with my shopping conscience then. :)