Posted: May 16th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: fashion | Tags: fashion, fast fashion, holidays, spring 2012, trends
Just in time for graduation, the ASOS Salon collection of dresses has arrived, and they are truly exquisite. Most dresses are around $200, so they’re not your usual fast fashion bargain, but are not outrageous for the quality of workmanship and detail. ASOS also has going for it the fact that it is not yet a big U.S. presence, so chances are if you buy one of these dresses for yourself or your daughter for graduation, you’re not likely to run into anyone else wearing the same dress. And yes, although it is a small collection, it includes a variety of dresses some suitable for a teenage girl, others quite appropriate for her mother. They are so precious that I truly don’t know how to begin to choose.
Three Dresses For The Graduating Teen
1. ASOS SALON Pretty Dress in Floral Appliqué $208.74
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Posted: January 14th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: other stuff | Tags: design, holidays, home
I can’t believe I’m the mom yelling, “Don’t touch the snow globe! No you cannot turn it over and make the snow fall.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: December 19th, 2011 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: food | Tags: cooking, decorating, holidays
Here’s hoping the fozzy bear cake redeems me after the Transformers cupcake fiasco. ;-)
Posted: December 16th, 2011 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: food | Tags: cooking, decorating, holidays, recipes
To some extent, reality TV has pulled the curtain aside and revealed that everyone has a bad day sometimes. Every designer makes a bad dress. Every chef cooks a bad meal. Shit happens. Still, it cracks me up every time I fall flat on my face. Yesterday we had my youngest son’s 5th birthday party, and did I ever fall down on the job. It was one of those everything that can go wrong will go wrong kind of days, or at least that kind of party. Poor kid. It builds character, right? The most embarrassing part of the whole event — the icing on the cake, if you will (and a complete artistic failure on my part) — was the cupcakes.
When my oldest son had his third birthday party, we ordered the cake from the same bakery everyone else uses (at least everyone else in our neighborhood), Party Favors. If you don’t know Party Favors, it is a phenomenal party supply store/party bakery in Brookline, Massachusetts. If you live anywhere near Brookline and don’t know Party Favors, you should. They make the world’s best cupcakes, hands down. And their birthday cakes are fantastic. But the cake for Theo’s party, and this was some years ago, cost us nearly $100. We asked for a cake with cows on it. We got the whole farm.
The Cake That Started It All
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Posted: December 8th, 2011 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: stuff to buy | Tags: holidays, shopping
Out of ideas for fun little holiday gifts? Shop our gift shop, A Well Designed Life
Posted: December 1st, 2011 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: stuff to buy | Tags: decorating, holidays, home, shopping
As a child, I wanted nothing more than to have a Christmas Tree. That just seemed to me like the absolute coolest thing. We were Jewish, did not celebrate Christmas, and except for one peculiar winter when I was about 7 months old, never had a Christmas Tree. So there was a lot of pent up anticipation for me around the idea of Christmas. What is so appealing is not anything really about the holiday itself, but all of the fabulous paraphernalia and rituals that come with it. It is interesting to me — although I suppose it really makes sense — that Christmas has been turned into the most fabulous of all holidays. Christmas carols. Houses covered with lights. Christmas trees with their ornaments and piled with presents underneath. Sending and receiving Christmas cards from everyone you know. Christmas dinner with roast beef and yorkshire pudding. Stockings full of stocking stuffers. Wreaths on doors (okay, really I see no appeal to wreaths whatsoever, but I respect the fact that they are part of the whole geshtaldt). Colored lights on the trees in the center of town or running down Main Street. Santa Claus. Candy canes. My god, it just doesn’t get any better than that. Christmas is not one of the hallmark holidays (like Valentine’s Day, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, etc.) that my father viewed with such disdain when we were children, purely a product of the greeting card industry. But most of the really good stuff is kind of the result of the “hallmark holiday effect”. Reality is, I just love that crap — all of it. As a compulsive shopper, a lover of all things kitsch, and yet someone who generally in daily life restricts herself to that which is “tasteful”, holidays are a dream come true and the more hallmark the better. Boxes of chocolates, loads of gaudy decorations, elaborate meals and way too many desserts, cards and gifts and all kinds of cheap little tchotchkes that no one could ever possibly need – I live for this stuff (just don’t ask me to get dressed in a costume or attend a school play).
My husband grew up celebrating Christmas. I finally had my excuse to have a Christmas tree. That first year, in good Martha Stewart fashion, I had the color scheme of the tree all planned out and every beautiful little ornament was picked out so that the tree was the picture of carefully coordinated perfectionism. But I have three kids, and since the holiday is really for them after all, over the years have had to slowly relinquish my control over the decoration of our tree and have learned to love the overwhelming chaotic disorganized beauty that makes Christmas so fabulous. The fun is in letting style and order and control go for a small window of time, and letting everything be fun and over the top and fabulous. My absolute favorite part is still the Christmas tree, or more specifically, the ornaments. So I have gathered here some of the most beautiful ornaments I could find on the internet this year. (Okay, I’m still a little anal about the ornaments — they don’t have to coordinate, but there is such a ridiculous abundance of exquisite ones out there that there really is no excuse for ugly ones.)
Ornaments from Nordstrom
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Posted: November 24th, 2011 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: food | Tags: cooking, decorating, holidays, home, tableware
HAPPY TURKEY DAY!
I hope everyone had a great holiday! We went overboard Wednesday night, so I could barely face food today, but Thanksgiving dinner was lovely. I made pumpkin/bourbon/pecan/sourcream cheesecake on Wednesday, so by today no one really needed any more dessert.
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Posted: November 23rd, 2011 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: food | Tags: cooking, dinner, holidays, recipes
I love to entertain. I don’t do it often. The anticipation stresses me out. But once I actually get down to it, I find there’s nothing more gratifying than cooking fabulous food, pullin I have always been dying to host thanksgiving dinner. So when we redid our kitchen last summer (and most significantly, installed a second oven) the thing I was looking forward to, above all, was laying claim to our family’s thanksgiving. g out the table linens, platters and special plates, and arranging the table just so, and enjoying it all with a good drink and good friends. The huge turkey occupying the better part of my refrigerator right now, has me beyond excited. I can’t wait to spend the day basting it constantly so that it comes out absolutely perfectly. I know, I’m weird. But it’s going to be one hell of a meal.
Here’s what I have planned:
1. THE TURKEY
This year I’m going to try a new preparation for the turkey: Tom Collichio’s Herb-Butter Turkey (published in Bon Appetit Nov. 2005, now available on epicurious.com. This turkey is made with two sticks of butter! It just doesn’t get any better than that, no?
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Posted: November 18th, 2011 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: food | Tags: cooking, decorating, dessert, holidays, recipes
People have different ways of dealing with the holidays and the greying weather. Personally, I bake. One of my favorite things to bake, especially for parties, is sugar cookies. Most of the fun is in the decoration, but people seem to love to eat them too. When it comes to baking, I think you can’t go wrong with Martha Steward. Martha Stewart’s Cookies is kind of my bible. I know, Martha’s name instills terror in the average person, evoking images of anal perfection and intricate steps too numerous to mention. It is tempting to take shortcuts. All I can say is, when it comes to baking, I have found that it is absolutely worth following all of Martha’s steps. It’s not actually that much more work, and the results are absolutely worth it.
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Posted: November 18th, 2011 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: stuff to buy | Tags: amazon, holidays, innovative design, music, shopping
If you haven’t discovered it yet, fab.com is a terrific site. They find really fun, quirky products. I am now obsessed with today’s find – Native Union. Native Union makes retro phone hand sets for smartphones. When I showed this to my husband he looked at me really funny – so I’d think carefully about whom you give this too. But, for the right person, I think this could be the holiday go-to gift.
Who is the right person?
1. Anyone who is frustrated by the fact that when talking on a cell phone it is hard to multi-task because you cannot perch the phone between your ear and shoulder the way you could a good old handset.
2. Anyone paranoid about the potential brain cancer (or just “brain change”) effects of talking frequently with a cell phone next to one’s head.
3. Anyone who likes things just because they look cool and pretty.
4. I was pretty sure I had another idea about who needed this headset and suddenly can’t remember what it was — clearly the result of spending too much time with a cell phone pressed against my ear and burning brain cells.
The handset retails for $29.99. Native Union also offers a version with a weighted base for $49.99. The handset is available on fab.com, but is selling out fast. However, Native Union sells both versions on its site and Amazon carries them as well.
