It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

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Holidays

Things have been a bit bananas lately. Despite all of the craziness that comes with the holidays and the end of the year, we finally got around to decorating the tree and making our home cheery and bright.

Let’s start of this post by talking about my new inspiration for the color palate in this room – my new pillows from Crate and Barrel. I have literally spent hours trying to figure out what I wanted to do with this room. But I saw the pillows on sale a few weeks ago and I was hooked. It’s a nice combination of purple, green, gray, and orange. They make me quite happy.

Anywho…

And another new addition to the house is a little writing desk that I got last week. The local consignment store was closing and was offering 20% off. Score!

So this lovely desk was about $100 and it fits perfectly on the wall opposite the front door.

How cute?!?

I am absolutely loving how massive this tree is. It was a hoot to get it into my little Jetta to bring it home. And we went with a multi-colored scheme this year – blue, red, green, orange, and silver.

So that is what our living room is looking like for the Holiday. Everyone ready for Santa?

~C+F

Sweet and Tangy Mixed Green Salad

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Recipes

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving! Is everyone still finishing up delicious turkey leftovers? Recovered from copious amounts of shopping?

It was my job to bring the salad for my family’s Thanksgiving meal. I wanted something light and bright to go against the heavy turkey and gravy. So I threw some fun ingredients together and it came out quite delectable, if I do say so myself.

Sweet and Tangy Mixed Green Salad

4 oz of mixed greens

1/4 cup of candied walnuts

1/2 medium granny smith apple, chopped mixed with the juice from a half lemon

1/2 cup crumbled goat cheese

1/4 cup dried cranberries

A light vinaigrette

It looks like Edward Cullen snuck into my picture as well :)

I made the candied walnuts by using 1 part sugar and 2 parts walnuts, so in this case… I put 1 cup walnuts and 1/2 cup sugar (because everyone loves leftover candied nuts) on medium high heat in a non-stick pan. In 5-10 minutes the sugar will start to melt and brown. At this point, stir constantly until all of the sugar is melted. When done, pour onto foil to cool.

Mix everything else together in a bowl. Watch out because all of the goodies fall to the bottom. Dress with a light vinaigrette, such as a champagne vinaigrette. I used Maple Grove Farms. (Yes… I was too lazy to make my own).

Enjoy!

This was perfect with all of our turkey day goodness. The green of the apple and the red of the cranberries really makes it look festive for the upcoming Christmas holiday.

Eat up :)

~C+S

From Goodwill to Silver Leaf

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Cheap, Easy Updates, Living Room

Where have I been!? What have we been up to?! In short, not too much. Our house has kind of been in a messy standstill. Steve is just finishing up the ceiling repair for the new bathroom fans. I don’t want to start our next big project, re-tiling the foyer, until that project is completely done. I have been trying to find a color to paint the dining room, but the thought is pretty overwhelming and I’m not sure I can deal with that right now :)

So, I figured I would get back into the game with a nice small project – silver leafing the inlay of the foyer table. You might remember this little guy from my $teals and Deals post from July. That’s right… $12 at Goodwill. The inlay is stretched leather. Originally I was just going to paint it, but the wood really is quite pretty…. and I’m still not sure what color I’m ultimately going for in here… so I figured a nice decorative accent would be a good way to go.

Here he is…

That’s right… I was doing this while eating popcorn and watching The Men Who Built America. It was a good night.

The cast of characters….

I started off by taping off the sides with Frog Tape to protect the wood and applied my Metal Leaf Adhesive Size with a foam brush.

After about 20 minutes…. I very- very-very carefully placed the silver leaf onto the tacky adhesive and softly brushed it. It took a few times to get this process down and, more often than not, the leaf tore. Oh well… It’s no fun to have a bunch of silver squares on a table. Patchwork is much more fun :)

After all the leaf was on, I patched what I could and applied two coats of a water-based sealer for metal leaf. Don’t forget to seal it!!

I used my handy-dandy Liquid Gold to clean up the wood… and there we have it…

Woohoo! I absolutely love it.

The whole project ended up costing about $30. Totally worth it and very easy.

What kind of fun/easy projects are you guys up to?

~C+S

Curtains Up!

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Den, Guest Bedroom, Living Room

Window coverings are such a pain in the behind, don’t you think? They are expensive and it is hard to find a pattern that can bring the whole room together in one fell swoop.

My to-do list for Fall included new window coverings… so, alas, I took the leap during my last trip to Ikea.

In the den, we had some uber drab beige curtains that came from our apartment.

I replaced them with these Henny Rand curtains, white with brown and gray squiggles. They definitely brighten up the room, which is essential in a room with almost no natural light.

As you know, I have been trying to de-red our living room. Here is an old picture…

I snatched up these Ninni Rund curtains, which are super fancy-schmancy. I love the pattern, but I am still trying to decide if they are too shiny. The light beige definitely makes the room feel bigger. What do you think? The curtain rod will be getting a face-lift soon, as it is currently falling off the wall. Now the challenge is going to be picking a cool muted paint color that will work with these.

Finally, we come to the guest bedroom… where there were no curtains. Gasp!

I choose these fun Malin Trad curtains. Oh… and look at the cute new graphic shade on the lamp. He was a must have for $14.

From far away the curtains almost look neutral, but when you take a closer look they are actually pulling the color from the wall….

What a difference curtains can make. This room has really gone through a facelift in the past month or so. I am really liking it!

So, that’s all for now. Happy Friday and Happy November!

~C+S

More Frames in the Wall-O-Frames

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Projects, stair landing

Well, we survived the storm! Our house is intact and no harm done. My heart and prayers goes out to all of those whose houses were damaged or destroyed. Steve has been working his behind off the past few days to get the people of CT’s power restored. Make sure to thank the line crews and utility workers coming out to your area… they are working as fast as they can!

On another, more trivial, note… frames.

I started a little gallery going up our stairs in September. I was relatively happy with how it turned out and always intended to keep it growing.

So on my latest trip to the great Ikea last week, I picked up a few new frames…

Now THAT is more like it! I added 4 new frames… and it made all the difference in the world. Now my baby gallery is almost a full grown gallery.

An idea I have been toying with since the beginning of the project is painting the  frames a uniform color. I kept them all unique to begin with because I didn’t want to jump into it too quickly… but I think my mind is made up that it needs to be done.

Now the question is what color… white or dark brown? I absolutely love YHL’s wall of white frames against their light gray wall. Eventually I am planning to paint the hallway a shade of muddled light gray, so white frames would really pop. On the other hand, a lot of the frames/accents in our house are dark, but maybe it would blend better with dark brown? I am just afraid that a whole lot of dark frames would really make the wall… dark. What do you all think?

Happy November!

~C+S