Couch + Football = Crazy Delicious!

This weekend was THE weekend of couch + food.

Once the power came back on, we did a lot of eating, a lot of football watching, and a whole lot of sitting on our pretty couch.

Here's a picture diary:


On Saturday we had an awesome football party for the Oregon State versus Arizona game [Nebraska was on in the background...such a stressful game.]

Made a terrific tailgating sandwich. Recipe was from Portland Palate cookbook.

 

Amazing sweet potato tortilla chips from Trader Joe's. Delicious.

Spinach salad with red onion, dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds,
blue cheese and champagne vinaigrette.

 Then today [Sunday] we had another mini football party with my parents. 

Guacamole for a quick treat before the main event.

Awesome Smoked Salmon Chowder. Got the recipe right here.

Overall, we ended this weekend with full bellies, happy hearts, and SUPER EXCITED FOR TONIGHT'S PREMIERE OF DEXTER!!!!

Hope you had a great weekend!

Boy, oh boy.

OK--I was all excited about posting this, then last night our power went out at about 4 and didn't come on until well into the night. We had HUGE plans for the couch last night. We were going to plop down on this beautiful couch and watch The Avengers. Then, someone wrapped their car around a power pole [thankfully no one was hurt...but their pride] and our plans thwarted. But here's what I wanted to say:

Guess what showed up on my porch today? And by porch I mean giant truck with two furniture movers. [Man, they work fast.]

OHH IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL.

Somehow, this was more exciting than moving into our house. Maybe because it's done, perfect and brand new--the house was a definite work-in-progress. But this couch is done. It's new. And it's done.

Here's a couple close ups:

A nice close-up of the fabric. I LOVE IT!

What is Ben most excited about?
Ben is most excited about how it looks like with our remote.
...and no one is surprised...

And here's what it will look like once the new floors go in.

AHHHH!!! So freaking excited!

But here's the problem:

ew.

Obviously the scale of the light is all wrong--we're going to need a bigger boat. I'm thinking of the large hanging variety. Maybe this one...

The bar isn't really...working...here. But it might work if I accessorize it a bit. Going to try a couple things...stay tuned...

I came to the realization that I really need to paint that fireplace gold. So I'm going to. [tomorrow?...]

And the back of the bookshelves need something. I'm hoping it becomes obvious once I paint the fireplace.

But for today, I'm going to sit and watch football and totally soak all this new-ness in.

If you're looking for a new custom piece of furniture, I highly recommend going to Thomasville. They have a really wide range of styles and fabrics. The salespeople were also really good at gauging how much 'help' we needed or didn't need. We bought the Mercer Sectional which has about 12 different pieces you can mix and match to make the perfect piece for your space. [They didn't pay me to say this, wish they did, we just had a great experience.]

Trend alert: Gingham Style

Alright, here we go:

Just kidding. But that was fun, yes? I've been noticing a big of a crazy trend lately: gingham is so hot right now. Today, Joss and Main had a whole sale devoted to it. It was pretty awesome. [BTW: Have you ever checked out Joss & Main? It's a flash sale sight with home decor-only. It also has awesome curator sales that are great for inspiration. Click here to check it out. They didn't pay me to say this, I just really like them.]

Plaid can be many things. It can be catholic school uniform, a Portlandian's kilt, or a lumberjack's shirt. It can be your Clan's Tartan (Scottish family's individual plaid pattern), your grandfather's favorite chair, or that favorite wool blanket. Plaid can be many things. But trendy? Eh...

Now, I'll admit. It's hard to do plaid right. Really hard. Especially gingham plaid. But take a big ol look at this:

What? Yellow gingham painted floor? Beautiful. here

And just because we're not quite done being obsessed with that floor:

WHAT? It's so...non-lumberjacky. here

OK, let's bring our eyes up a little bit and look at this:

Yeah! OK! here

OK, and I'll leave you with my favorite take on the plaid trend:

Ah! Just stop it! And, guess what? This house is in Portland.
Get ready for some major stalk-age. Don't worry, we'll be best friends...forever...
here

So what do you think? Is it possible to go plaid without going too plaid?

Or is living in Portland starting to wear thin on me...

[Side note: WHAT AN AMAZING FOOTBALL GAME TONIGHT! Go dawgs! Ben and I may have started a drinking game...whenever ESPN talked about the Seahawks/Packers game, we had to drink. So..any typos in this post are all at the fault of ESPN. You can write them a letter.]

A sick day...ugh.

Earlier this week I had the feeling that I was fighting off something, today I succumbed to the beast.

I have a full-on sinus infection. Ick. Apparently I have the perfect sinus anatomy to be susceptible to such infections? Lucky me.

So, today I take a sick day. An icky sick day. I think I've slept a full 20 hours since last night.

My remedy for a fall cold?

Soup. Awesome easy recipe here

A soft blanket. Here.

And my favorite tea pot, a wedding gift from my friend Emilie.
 Today it was full of peppermint tea.
Buy it here.

What's your cure?

Announcing: Twelve Weeks of Homemade Gifts

OK--I'll start this off by saying I'm the number one advocate of the "Christmas doesn't start until after Thanksgiving" camp. Especially because I share a house with the president of the "Christmas starts after Labor Day" camp.

But--and we all know this is true--every year you say, "This year I'm going to hand make gifts for everyone. It's going to be a super-fun-crafty-free-for-all-fun-fest. I can't wait"

Then, Thanksgiving comes. Then there's the holiday parties. Then the family parties. Then the trips to the Ballet. Then the fun. Then it's a week before Christmas and all you have is a bag full of craft supplies you bought on Black Friday and no gifts.

Then, there's the stress.

Next week marks the official, Twelve Weeks before Christmas, mark.

OK--maybe this is a bit over-planned, but I'm trying to save you the Homemade Christmas stress.

Every Tuesday until Christmas, we'll make one gift. A grand total of 12 gifts by Christmas.

Then, at the end of this all, I'm going to give you all the gifts I made. Seriously.

December 1 - 12, I'll be holding a giveaway every day to thank you for reading, and hopefully help you out with your Christmas Gifts.

This is going to be awesome.

Flippin' Cards

Hey, all!

Sorry about the unscheduled break this weekend--it was definitely needed. I did a whole lot of planning for hey, pretty and I can't wait to share some of the details with you later this week.

Tonight, I had a grand ol' time designing some amazing business cards. But, I don't want to spoil the fun.

Instead, I'll treat you to my favorite business cards designs of the week. Many of these are from Alt Design Summit last year--bloggers are really proving to be the cream of the crop when it comes to trending designs and awesome color schemes.

Enjoy!

Michelle Edgemont, you are my hero.
here.

OK...cutest thing in the world. The string? Dawww...
here.

OK, this is perfect for someone that designs invitations. Seriously. 
 here.
 

Painted edges are so hot right now. 
 here.

 

Lifelong dream? Own an embossing press stamp thing.
 here.

Or...maybe I can buy a GIANT embossing stamp thing...gahh!
here.

Not really a fan of photos on a business card, but if you're going to do it--do it with a puppy.
 here.

Painted gold foil edges...oooooo...
 here.

A little hint? My cards definitely involve a bit of gold foil. Yeah, buddy.

And the winner for best use of leftover is...

It's been a while since I did a cooking challenge, and I'm super excited to show you tonight's.

Ben made me a wonderful steak dinner earlier this week complete with roasted corn on the cob and an amazing bottle of red wine [he's taken!] Ben is an awesome cook, but most of the time he cooks for an army.

Naturally we had a little bit of left overs--most notably mash taters and awesome honey oat bread. That's right, two side dishes.  The holy grail of unwanted leftovers.

I was determined to not serve these up again in their original form, so tonight we tried breakfast with a twist.

Here we go!

I fired up the griddle and got to work on some potato pancakes (just scooped up the taters and made them flat like a pancake.)

Then, I cut the remaining bread and made a pumpkin pie french toast with them (dipped the bread in an egg+milk+1tsp pumpkin pie spice mixture.)




Then, because I'm fancy, I sautéed up an apple with a little agave nectar (you can use sugar) and cinnamon to top off the french toast. Delicious.



Then, because I'm super fancy, I cut an apple in rings and warmed it up on the griddle with a little cinnamon to top off the potato pancakes:

And then I felt awesome about what I did. And we ate. And it was...well...awesome. 

I think I'm going to start dreaming up a new New Years Resolution--never eat leftovers in the same form they were the night before...

What's your most creative leftover creation? What do you do with Thanksgiving leftovers?

Growing Panes

You know those things?

Those things that are super annoying, no one else really sees them, they bother you constantly, and are usually really expensive to fix?

Yeah. We had one of those problems:

This, is our bedroom window. Closed.

You see, we have this window. The pane was separated from the frame. The frame was separated from the track. All of which was separated from the moulding. 

Seriously, right?

blurry, but you get the picture. (top of the window)

That little thing has to be the most annoying 1/2" of open space in the entire universe. 

I eventually hit my breaking point when I thought about all the money I'll be wasting this winter on heating the bedroom because of that little piece of negative space. 

So today, we had our window replaced:

boy, is she beautiful. 

Still have a couple steps to go on this thing before it's picture perfect [sealing the sides, painting the trim, opening and closing it a million times...] but we're thrilled. Eventually we're going to replace all our windows, but the others are still in good enough shape to last one winter. 

All and all, this 'little' crack is probably going to set us back a pretty penny, but you can't put a price tag on my sanity, seriously.

Is there something that has annoyed you to the point of insanity? One of those things that seems silly, is so small, but super expensive to fix? Ugh, totes the worst.

Tutorial Tuesday: Dino Butts

This little tutorial may be the best $3 I've ever spent in my life.

Friends: get ready for an over-abudance of cuteawesome.

I have for you: Dino Magnets

[Step One:] Go to the dollar store. Pick up a bag of those dumb animal/dinos/bug toys. Just make sure they're thick enough for a magnet.

I really wish they had animal figurines, too.
Little bear butts would be way too cayute.

[Step Two:] Go to the Hardware Store. Buy a thing of bulk magnets or a strip of magnet [preferably pretty strong ones.] Then, go to the spray paint isle. Grab some spray paint in your fav. color [I'm really trying to get my spray-paint habit spent before it starts raining and I can't do this outside anymore.]

[Step Three:] Go home. Get excited.

[Step Four:] Grab a pair of sharp scissors, sharp knive, or guillitine. Cut your creatures in half. [I said, 'sorry,' while I was doing it. Yes, it made me feel better.]

[Step Five:] SPRAY THEM! Do one side, wait a half hour and flip over. I did two good coats.

I also did this in the dark of night.
Now that the days are shorter, my creating-hours will be a bit more obvious...

[Step Six:] Fire up that hot glue gun and glue the magnet to the flat side of your creatures head or butt [I didn't have to do this because my magnets had a strong adhesive back, score!]

[Step Seven:] Feverishly ask your husband to color you a picture for the fridge.

Isn't that the cutest?
It's our house, in the sunshine. He made our door yellow, I'll take it as an OK to paint the door yellow.

Isn't that awesome? I've seen these things at places like Fuego or Urban Outfitters, and last week I saw a picture on Pinterest that convinced me it was time to do it on my own.

Total active 'creation' time for this little ditty was about 9 minutes. Seriously. So, get to it!

Fall Preview

Happy Monday, all!

Took a brief brain-blog-break this weekend--I really needed it after last week.

Lots of creative muscle was flexed this weekend, but lots of secret muscle flexing. Can't wait to show you what I'm working on.

Portland hasn't quite figured it out that Fall is right around the corner--today we enjoyed 90 degrees [awesome!] but I'm starting to prep for rain, cold, and more rain.

Lots of plans in motion for Fall this year...here's what's inspiring me:

[color] Supah-Dupah-Green

I am totally digging on supah-emerald-green.
Oh, and what's up Gold Ceiling? [Insert Black Keys intro here...]
Here.

And here we are a little more subdued...little lamby in corner.
here.

Oh boy. Hey, pretty little chair stools....
here

[people] All my little pregnant friends

I swear, everyone and their mom is due September 15 - September 25. I feel like I'm on perma-baby watch. There's also a lot of new preggers out there. I feel like I have a lot of nursery designing coming out on the horizon...[yay!] So I've started my inspiration file. Here's a couple highlights:

Bling and blam. 
by Amy Lambert Lee

I love those animals.

by Nelson Wilson Interiors

And now one for the bright and cheery.

Atlanta Kids And Nursery Carousel Designs

I love the color, I love how it's awesome.

by Cristi Holcombe

Too much cute, right?

[Oktoberfest] OK, Reese Oktoberfest-extravaganza planning is in full swing. We have tons of awesome surprises planned. We've narrowed down a couple charities we're looking to support with the party, and started to get the house/garage ready for the swarm. Details to come...

Now, THAT, is a stein.
here

Have I mentioned it yet? I love Fall. I just love it.