Is Autumn here yet?

Some friends and I are planning a fall party to celebrate the upcoming season with all the best foods, like pumpkin (not my fav), apples, squash and all the other yummy goodness that autumn brings. I am excited for the cool weather and especially the beautiful color palettes! I created some mood boards to show my excitement...

Photos are from stock.xchng and Martha Stewart.

The tension is unbearably... chic!

I have been eyeing these tension rings on Etsy for awhile now. Recently, I have been doing a little gemstone searching to name a cat (that I never got... he was either going to be Onyx or Obsidian, Sid for short). I have always had mixed feelings about my April birthstone being a diamond; they're gorgeous, but expensive and there are other reasons to wear diamond rings...

In my research I found some other ways to cheat a different colored birthstone. For example, I was born in April and these could all be considered my birthstone:

Diamond: Modern, Traditional, Ancient Hindu, Polish & Ayurvedic Birthstone

Opal: Mystical Birthstone

Sapphire: Ancient Arabic, Hebrew, Italian, Roman, Russian, & Sun Sign (Taurus) Birthstone

Coral: Sun Sign (Taurus)

Turquoise: Sun Sign (Taurus)

Aventurine: Planetary Stone (Taurus)

Amber: Sun Sign (Taurus)

Emerald: Sun Sign & Planetary Stone (Taurus)

Garnet: Talismanic Stone (Taurus)

Now, I don't have to limit myself to just a diamond birthstone ring, I can have a choice!

The rings above are from Noform Design & Rob & Lean

Fun Sites

The annual Crafty Chicks show is coming up in 81 days! Crafty Chicks is an annual craft show that "celebrates the entrepreneurial spirit and creativity of all the participants."

The participant's list is continuing to grow, above is a picture of last year's participants. Included in the list of participant list is sodapop, check out the blog for more info and participants.

Here are some other fun websites that I came across today:

Blurb, where you can upload photos and text to create your own books (even hardcover) for a very reasonable cost. They advertise everything from wedding photo albums to portfolios to cookbooks!

Another sweet website is Sketch Swap, you can create your own drawing, submit it and then immediately you get a swapped sketch from someone else!

Weekend Projects

1. A co-worker recently recovered her chair at work with some green Amy Butler fabric and it inspired me to do the same at home. I have long-since wanted to recover my old desk chair at home, but didn't know how to go about it. I had some Amy Butler fabric laying around that I didn't know what to do with, so I decided this would be the perfect use. Using a rubber dishwashing scrapper I tucked the fabric into the rim of the chair top and bottom.

2. Printing, cutting, & embossing 250 wedding invitation for my friend, Stephanie. I'm really happy with the way they turned out. I still have some more cutting, folding, and printing to do, but I have the majority done.

3. I finally finished my letter wall art. I have been collecting and painting the letters for several months now and had them hanging on the wall in a different pattern before. I also salvaged this big corrugate pound-out from work and painted it the charcoal color, I was able to rearrange the letters and make them all fit on this piece.

4. More cupcakes! I picked up these nut cups and wanted to practice baking in them to see if it would work. I filled them 1/2 full, but next time I would make it a little more full so I can rim the frosting with decorative sugar properly.

The invitations were a big and long job, so I spread it over the entire weekend and rented Atonement and Charlie Wilson's War to help pass the time from my local Red Box. I am absolutely fascinated with the Red Box video rental system. What a great idea, a dvd vending machine and you can return the DVDs to any location! Now that I think about it, we really are getting to a less personal society starting with the invention of ATMs, to self check-out aisles, machine operated customer service systems, Red Box, etc. Also, now with e-mail, MySpace, Facebook, blogs, texting, and twitter we can keep up with our "friends" or acquaintances without ever having to talk to them, or if we do it's all digital messaging...

Kitsch Chic

I found this fun style quiz on the How About Orange blog. Just choose pictures you like in response to the questions. I did this about three times, changing up some of my answers and my style always turned out to be Kitsch Chic:
"You're always on the look-out for retro-style things that will add happiness and personality to your home. You love to mix old and new to create an interior design cocktail that's easy, fun and whimsical. Your outlook is shaped by a love of design from the recent past. All of these details are useful design references for furnishing your living room: this is a look that is fun and optimistic, but also streamlined and knowingly nostalgic.
You have a place for everything and everything has its place. The modernist adage that form should follow function is nowhere better demonstrated than in the home office: keep things simple and add your own sense of style by using a splash of colour or a single, well-chosen decorative piece. Your home reveals your fun-loving, whimsical side - the look is nostalgically modern and elegant with a cheeky twist."

I also chose images for what I thought my mom would be, her style was defined as Classic Chic:
"Your home is a serene and elegant haven displaying some beautiful pieces of furniture. You take great care in how a room is put together and you are justly proud of the refined, understated look you have created. What may look effortless, however, requires dedicated time and a discerning eye in order to achieve that welcoming feel of lived-in grandeur.
Your living room is a welcoming haven of grace and fine taste, it's a style that errs towards formality. Rustic accessories will give the room a surprising edge, but they need not be incongruous -- the humble milking stool, for example, has many classic attributes after all. Earthy colours work well in both rural and urban settings, while linen textiles and soft furnishings never go out of style. You combine period influences with clever solutions to the practicalities of day-to-day modern living."

Again, I chose images for Jon's style and he ended up being Gentlemen's Club/City Slicker Chic:
"Your home is quite a masculine environment, but it's nonetheless comfortable, with an air of well-worn maturity: you enjoy the good things in life, and that includes the furniture and furnishings around you. What could look quite conservative is, in fact, seriously self-indulgent - in the very best sense, of course, as every dream home should be.
You're a bonafide alpha-male entertainer. At home, cool, sleek, masculine lines and colours give your dining area that slick, 'stealth wealth' feel. You can avoid it all becoming too clinical through careful use of colour and texture."

Mom & Jon, you'll have to let me know if I got it right!

My First Time

Consumerism has long been one of my biggest pet peeves, especially now that “Going Green” seems to be so main stream and top-of-mind. Sunday I had my first real-life experience with Ikea. I had been lusting after many products online and in catalogs for a couple of years now, but never had the opportunity to visit a store in person. From what I’ve heard about Ikea, the experience was all that I expected and more!
I think Ikea is a great source for small items that change quickly with trends, but their products lack of timeless sophistication and quality you may desire for a larger purchase like furniture. I kea’s retail environment is a great hybrid of a true furniture store and a big-box department store. Too bad the quality and life of the products don’t embrace the same principles.
Ikea hosts cozy, trendy, and delightful vignettes of rooms and even showcases entire apartments, similar to what you would expect in traditional furniture stores. These rooms are cleverly arranged and decorated with much thought, from lighting to flooring, and even providing inside organizational inspiration. All items showcased within each vignette holds a tag with proper information on where to locate later in the store. Each area within the store has a great area to test the furniture and find the perfect fit, the “Goldilocks Strategy” if you will!
Instead of buying the products directly from the inspiration rooms, as you would in a furniture store, you continue on the route marked on the floor for you and you enter the big box retail environment. Using the paper guide provided, where you wrote down all the items you wanted you enter the merchandise rooms. Even more great deals are presented and it’s hard to resist the impulse purchases. Once you make it through this area (you’re likely to have a cartful) you enter the lumber-yard like aisles where the flat packed furniture is housed. The Ikea merchandising team has done a great job teaching consumers how to shop in their stores and how to apply that big-box approach. This whole system is such an efficient marketing strategy!
That being said….
Ikea boasts several “green” initiatives: reducing plastic bags and encouraging shoppers to purchase reusable bags, changing the lighting in the stores to a more environmentally friendly version and of course their signature flat-pack packaging to create efficient transportation and significant cost savings. I’m afraid no one is looking at the bigger picture. Ikea (and others) have created a throw-away, consumerist society.
What happened to using hand-me-downs in college and your early career years? I admit, I am caught in the same materialistic culture obsessed with image as everyone else. I guarantee if you go into any dorm room across the nation, you will find model-like dorm rooms at every turn, many with Ikea furniture. Hey, why not? It’s cheap and you only need it for a couple years right? What happens to the goods after it makes it through those 4 years (or more)? That’s saying it will even withstand the countless moves college students make.
Ikea provides a cost-effective, trendy solution for dorm rooms and “first-time” consumers, but is that really the way to go? According to Carrie McCarthy & Danielle LaPorte of Style Statement, “Cheap is expensive in the long run. Why buy twice when you can buy once? Commit to quality and it will commit to you.”
Also, I was so excited when I discovered the Bolingbrook Ikea and found out I wouldn’t have to make the additional 30 minute trip north to Schaumburg, IL to have my first Ikea experience. That led me to wonder, “can Chicago-land really support two Ikeas?”
After the visit it was clear to me, Ikea is doing fine and it’s not the big-box store we should worry about, but instead the small stores. I’m afraid there will no longer be any good old Mom & Pop stores left when my children are growing up.
All in all, I bought my share of stuff at Ikea on Sunday and really enjoyed the experience. It will be interesting in the years to come to see how the Ikea's of the world will effect ebay and Craigslist, or just the landfill. That’s my rant for today…

To Have and To Hold – Chicago Style

On Saturday we attended the wedding of Justin and Jessi Scurte in Joliet, IL. It was absolutely gorgeous. First, we were greeted by a yummy gift bag filled with the couple’s favorite treats at the hotel. The wedding ceremony was held in Bird Haven Park in Joliet, where there were many gardens and greenhouses to tour and enjoy and created a gorgeous backdrop for the ceremony. GOU-GAR! (I added that for Jon & Jessie)

Jessi’s colors were raspberry, chartreuse and chocolate brown. The bridesmaids wore strapless, tea-length raspberry dresses and carried white and green flowers with a chartreuse ribbon around them. Justin and the groomsmen wore chocolate brown tuxedo’s with chartreuse vests. When Jessi walked down the isle, she looked stunning. The dress she picked fit her style perfectly and she had a cute short veil, also a perfect match.
The reception was held at the Joliet Union Station, which was very impressive as well and decked out in white and pink calla lilies and chocolate brown paper & linen accents. At the reception we had a plethora of appetizers, a delicious meal, sweets table and endless dancing! I couldn’t be happier for the couple, congratulations Jessi & Justin!

Picture Above: GD07 (minus Jenna); Jessie, Jon, & me at the bar between events

A Piece of Cake!

Here’s my practice cake for my Grandmother’s birthday party in November. One of my good friends happened to be visiting KC and I used a belated birthday celebration as an excuse for a practice cake! I’m glad I did because I definitely learned what I need to do for next time. Listed below is my preparation timeline & learning:

• Making the fondant flowers: On Sunday, I made about 400 Fondant Blossom Flowers, which took about four hours to complete, from coloring the fondant, to rolling out, to cutting out the blossoms, and giving them dimension!
  
• Getting the right fondant color: I had a lot of trouble getting the right color, I was going for a fuchsia or raspberry color, so I mixed pink and red thinking that would give me a richer pink…no such luck. I kept adding other colors to try to correct, instead it turned out like baby vomit. I ended up having to start over with fresh white fondant. I would recommend to test the color in a small amount first, then move to the larger amount. I never could get the color I wanted and ended up with the bright bubble-gum pink shown, but I practiced the violet and it turned out perfect. I used about ¼ box of Wilton Rolled Fondant, which yielded twice as many flowers as I needed, I am freezing the rest to use later. My fear was I wouldn’t have enough and then colors wouldn’t match…
• Drying the fondant: I let the blossoms dry for about a day and a half, then placed them in an airtight container. While I was working with the blossoms, some were cracking, but nothing a zap in the microwave couldn’t fix. The blossoms set up better than my 4th of July stars, this time I rolled out the fondant on cornstarch (instead of confectioner’s sugar) and didn’t mix any additional flavoring to the fondant. The blossoms were also much smaller, therefore they took less time to dry.
• Baking the cake: On Wednesday I made the cake. I let it cool for about 15 minutes in the pan after baking and for about an hour outside the pan before I scoured the rounded tops, to make finished cake more level. I left the cake covered in the fridge until I was ready to frost it the following evening.
• Frosting and decorating the cake: Thursday afternoon I made the Rich Chocolate Frosting and frosted the cake. I used the same frosting for the filling between the cake layers and created a crumb coat of frosting on the cake, it was about the perfect amount of cake to frosting ratio. I may do a more formal finished frosting layer for my grandma. When I was satisfied with the look of the frosting, I placed the flowers, starting in the middle top, to make sure I wouldn’t run out of flowers and cascading down from there.
• Other: I made two 9” layers of the chocolate cake for this practice run, but it evident that I will need at least three, if not four layers for the real deal, to give the cake height and make the cascading flowers more dramatic.
  

Hey, Knit Happens

I thought this was super-cute and wanted to share, I was tagged at work recently with this cute orange and green phone “sweater.” And look, it matches my July wallpaper (from ImageHaus) perfectly! Thanks to the ladies of Knit Happens for thinking of me!