'Tis the Season

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Happy Friday and Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah, too--we celebrate both at our house.
I hope you are doing something fun and seasonal. This weekend I'll be strolling through Georgetown to get a few small presents, going out with friends for a double birthday party, and staying at the Ritz downtown for a night. Definitely not the norm for a weekend, but I'll take it. I hope to have some really good hot chocolate and see the national Christmas tree while we're out and about.

Here are a few nice things:

I'll be making one of these to hang up this weekend.
I've been waiting for a reason to buy one of these boxes.
Inexpensive holiday decor.
Stressed at work? Perfect sign for above your desk.
Sweet minimalist jewelry: here, here, and here.

Halter Dress Apron

A great pattern caught my eye at Goodwill the other day, and it turned out to be a nice little halter dress from H&M. I originally wanted to cut up the fabric for another project, but the dress fit, so I wore it out a few times. After having those strings on the halter dig into my neck one too many times, I said, oh well, and decided to chop it up after all.

Then I thought I could use the back of the dress for fabric, and keep the front of the dress to wear as an apron. 

This is the dress before I did anything. Its a nice graphic print with a halter and ties that go around the back.

This is after I cut out the back of the dress along the seams. I kept the black liner since the fabric is pretty thin. The only tricky part was getting the zipper out with my seam ripper. I cut off the ties that go around the back at this point, so I could move them down about 4 inches lower. This made it more comfortable and wrapped nicely around my waist.

I folded over the edges I had just cut, placed my apron strings where I wanted them, and stitched all the way down both edges. Easy!

Getting Engaged

In Boston over the weekend! I was so surprised and happy. Tyler was so relieved and happy.

Entering to Win a Trip to Paris!

One of my favorite blogs is Oh Happy Day! written by Jordan Ferney. She lives her life, that's all I can say. And, she's giving away a trip to Paris!!

Visit Oh Happy Day ! to enter to win

Making over a Dresser

I made over my childhood dresser because it needed a little TLC.
I guess I forgot to take a before picture, but just use your imagination.

First I sanded away the stain on the wood. This step took the longest and I went through a lot of sandpaper.

Then I primed the wood

Then I did 2 coats of white semi-gloss and added pulls from World Market

Nice!

Farinata Recipe

Farinata

Last night I made a delicious farinata for dinner. The name literally means "floured" and is a popular street food in the Liguria region of Italy. I first tasted it when I studied abroad in 2007 and finally got around to making one. It's a dense pancake-like dish made from chickpea flour, and made a simple, delicious dinner when paired with some steamed veggies.

I think simple is my new thing. 

I loosely following this recipe from the Minimalist

Basic Farinata: (serves 4ish generously)

4 cups warm water

3 cups chickpea flour (Bob's Red Mill)

2 tsp. salt, plus more to taste

2 tsp black pepper, plus more to taste

5 Tbsp olive oil

• Preheat the oven to 475*
• Fill a large bowl with the water and slowly whisk in the flour to prevent lumps
• Let sit at room temperature for at least 1 hr, but as long 12 hrs
• Skim any foam that has formed on the top and add the oil, salt & pepper. You can add any other herbs or sauteed veggies at this stage if you want to get creative.
• Pour the mixture into a very well greased baking pan (mine was 9 x 13 and worked perfectly)
• Bake for 25 minutes, or until crispy golden brown and cooked throughout.

 Farinata

This was amazing and next time I am going to experiment with some more flavors and a little less oil next time. Although, I might just keep it simple.

DIY Gold Sequins T-shirt

I was over at Say Yes! to Hoboken and saw a project I had to try myself. Liz took a regular pocket t-shirt and used gold elastic trim from the fabric store to jazz up the mini pocket. I just happened to buy a bunch of white pocket t-shirts from Target the other day, so it was fate.

I always find a new project to try whenever I stop by Say Yes! to Hoboken out so check it out if you please. The full step-by-step instructions for the pocket embellishment-ing is here.

Read on for my version...

So I headed to G Street fabrics, but they didn't have elastic sequins strips, only non-stretchy trim. The main difference is that mine has border of thread around the edges, but I wasn't happy with how mine looked after I pinned it down. I felt like you could see the edges too much. Blast, this always happens when I try to copy someone else.

Well, as you can see from this picture, I was already toying with the idea of gold trim around the neckline, so I decided to go with that look and save the cute pocket project for another time.

I sewed down both side of the strip with my trusty Brother, careful not to puncture the sequins (there were a few casualties). A few sequins fell off along the way, but I just saved those to hand sew into the point in the front to neaten things up. At this point, I was still debating the pocket, but decided it might be too much gold. But if I were to do it again, I might just go for it.

Finished project: 

 

I love how the gold adds such a little pop. Oh, hey there, I'm just some gold sequins peaking out on a Tuesday, no big deal.


These little bird scissors are the best for making little cuts. I got them at Sally Beauty Supply and I use them for everything.

Now I just need to find more things that need gold sequins...shouldn't be hard!