While I love wedding magazines and blogs, in my personal time, I find myself seeking inspiration for our client’s weddings from other sources.  Lately, since my Man Friend is about to buy new dining chairs and I’m desperately trying to convince him against going with dark leather upholstery on this set, I’ve been scouring design mags.  So, it was fun/ and striking when I saw a VERY familiar wedding face peeking up from my ipad this morning from a non-wedding site!

The fabulous Darcy Miller Nussbaum and her husband were profiled after finishing a massive renovation and re-design of their apartment. The result is amazing.  Since Darcy is the EYE of Martha Stewart Weddings, and her own wedding launched a million trends, it was super exciting to see what her home space was like.  It’s as perfect as you might imagine, and delightfully serene and neutral.  I can understand… after spending each day inundated with images and inspiration, it must be lovely to come home to such a fresh, sophisticated space.  Here are a few pics of my favorite parts, while Architectural Digest shows off the rest including the delightful play room! Get ready for some eye candy!

Years ago, I was a bridesmaid in a series of weddings all of which took place from late October through January.  I wore a red bridesmaid’s dress to all of them, and at least two out of the three had a “holiday theme”.  And I totally understand why that is. As a bride when you decide to have a winter wedding, it’s hard to come up with creative ways to embrace WINTER without just putting out white birch branches or embracing a red holiday-esque color scheme.  So, I thought I’d share some of favorite details to make your winter wedding feel COZY without adding in a cheesy factor.

TEXTURE AND COLOR! While everyone knows that the look of snow is obviously winter, texture in general can create a cozy atmosphere, especially if it involves knit details, lace details, woven fabrics or… for lack of a more technical term… things that look fluffy.  People tend to think white and blue for “snow” and reds and greens for “holiday”, but neutrals and metallics can often create a more warm atmosphere than any of the former.  Here are two tabletops: one by Nuage and the other by MDS Floral Design (via Grace Ormond).  I adore the use of texture on the Nuage table mixed with mettalic woven fabrics.  The MDS table is successfull in it’s use of white, greys, vintage lace, unprocessed cotton (fluff!) and soft toned colors to create an atmopshere that makes you want to take a cozy nap by a fire. 

Speaking of Neutrals… I just loved this bride’s choice to put her bridesmaids in this cool grey. There was something classic winter about it, without the girls looking like holiday candies. And it was topped off nicely with the faux fur stoles.

  I love using Jewel tones at Winter Weddings.  They don’t need to be heavy handed, but think purples, ruby reds, deep turquoise and metallic and you will have a festive atmosphere with minimal effort. Consider using Moroccan glasses for wine or even as votive holders… They add a bit of sparkle and flair to the tabletop in a subtle way.   Or even just work your tones into your stationery.  For our NYE wedding where we wanted to try and NOT go “holiday” we worked with a pewter, gold and plum palette.

Peaches and Pinks are ALSO awesome winter colors… Sometimes pale and warm tones are MORE effective at creating romance than bright, bold colors.  This season, I’ve been in love with Peaches and Pinks with metallic accents.  Below an amazing winter bouquet via Once Wed, a fabulous centerpiece in peach and mercury glass from Saipua and the floral arrangements I made for Mayra’s November engagement party (with wood and gold accents)….

In general, don’t be afraid to think outside of the box for winter inspiration. Think of what tones and textures make you feel cozy, warm and festive and it will definitely take you in the right direction!

My man friend is from a land far, far away and thus will be traveling over the Christmas holiday. So, we decided to look on the bright side of things and use this as an excuse to host an early Christmas dinner for some of our friends at my apartment in Fort Greene. Since my apartment is a small-ish one bedroom with no real dining table I’ve had a lot of cocktail parties at my apartment, but decided that this should be a sit down affair. I worked out that if we brought in a rental table and some chairs and re-arranged some furniture, we could comfortably seat 8 without anyone feeling cramped.. We re-purposed my work table as a bar and, not having any room for a tree in all of this, decided to just decorate the windows with some crazy wreaths Mayra, Rebecca and I found at a trip to Home Goods. The Wreaths (lime green feathers with hot pink balls in the center) inspired a kind of whimsical holiday candy idea for the table top (which ultimately dominated the room).

So we wouldn’t kill one another, I handled the menu and the decor and man friend handled the bar and a lot of the set up. To keep things as self service as possible, he served a signature drink for when guests arrived and then we had bottles of wine on the table for during dinner. After dinner he served a port, which was a nice ending… put everyone a little over the top on a drunk scale AND went nicely with my peppermint ice cream cake that we served for dessert.

Since we don’t get to do this kind of thing that often, I wanted to try and minimize the time I spent in my kitchen and maximize the time I spent at the table. So, I looked for a menu that could all be pretty easily prepped in advance (at least 4 or 5 hours in advance, if not a day).  I settled on an awesome Celery and Fennel salad (which Mayra’s fiance, who hates vegetables, told me was fantastic), my specialty… Eggplant parmesean (served individually in creme brulee dishes, which made it a lot prettier to present instead of a big casserole dish), and for the main course Braised shortribs over chic peas and raisins.  I’ve made short ribs SO many times, it’s one of my favorite things to serve, but I will tell you that this recipe by Tom Collichio was by far the best for three reasons:   It’s made in two parts, one of which can be done a day in advance. The meat is cooked in oven for the most part, vs. the stove top so it takes about 1/2 the time.  The chic pea portion alone is delicious and can be served as a hearty vegetarian option, which we did for one of our guests.  For dessert I made Anne Thornton’s show stopping peppermint ice cream cake… which is probably way more labor intensive a project than I should have taken on, but it’s sooo good!

I got all of my rentals from Classic Party Rentals… This helped because I didn’t actually own service for 8 of anything… and it made clean up a breeze. I used my favorite linen: the black ticking stripe and paired it with candy red ballroom chairs with hot pink cushions. In lieu of candles, I ran twinkle lights down the center of the table and covered them up with a garland of pine I got a the local farmer’s market.  I had planned on making flower arrangements, but while running errands at Target I found these awesome oversize Christmas ornaments and thought they were hilarious, so I used those instead.  I had picked up some bell ornaments at Home Goods and used them as homemade napkin rings/ place cards.  I assigned seats just to get people chatting a bit.  My man friend also had this great idea that instead of having people bring wine or desserts we would assign each guest a Secret Santa, which turned out to be my favorite part!  It was so much fun seeing what everyone bought everyone else and set the tone for the night.

Happy Entertaining this holiday season! Hoping a lot of fun parties are in store for you in the coming couple of weeks!

This weekend, while en route to Kleinfeld, I popped my head into the Lyons Wier Galleryin Chelsea. I was so blown away by the amazing artists that were being showcased, I had to share. They have two spaces and are currently showing 3 artists, each of whom works in the more rare medium of a needle and thread and canvas. Stitching their way to fabulousness intended for a wall and not a runway.

Stephanie Hirsch reimagines iconic album covers in beading and thread.

What is so striking about this? Partially it’s the amazement that it’s SO tactile. Partially it’s that it makes you feel it’s so much more precious… so much more detailed… than if it was simply drawn or computer generated or what ever it might be. Part of it is that it’s somehow… homey.. without looking home made.

What’s amazing about this is that this portrait is STITCHED!!! It’s done with threads. Amazing!

And so I thought to myself, wouldn’t stitching and embroidery be a great way to create those same responses from your guests through details at your wedding or celebration.

Laura Ortiz Vega's amazing embroidered grafffiti using Mexican embroidery methods

Leave it to Rifle Designs to have thought of that first though… Here is their take on an embroidered invitation. The design was done once and then scanned for reproduction (via a Cup o Jo):
If you are looking for some home spun charm for your tables, these adorable sewing circles would make awesome table numbers. (via Etsy)

But, as the artists above showed us, being hand sewn needn’t be sweet.  Here is an edgier take on His and Hers embroidered napkins, also via Etsy.  They will add your wedding date to them….

"day of the dead" inspired napkins!

You can take embroidered to your table tops with a runner or overlay.. I love these Otomi fabric overlays (via Coco + Kelley)

If you really want to take embroidery to the next level at your wedding, check out this rather fabulous wedding dress from Aida Coronado.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: Holiday Time!  I love this time of year because I frankly love to give presents.  I actually like giving presents more than I enjoy receiving presents… which is a weird issue that I’m working on in my private time and won’t get into here.  Anyway, in that spirit, I thought I’d post some of the awesome stuff that I’ve seen around town and online lately that I think would make for fabulous gifts.

When it comes to gifting, I find that there are two camps: those who enjoy giving the practical (sweaters, ties, gloves) and those that enjoy giving the whimsical, unnecessary luxury item.  I am DEFINITELY in camp #2… The truth is, I generally don’t always like the shirts and sweaters that people try and gift me, but I do love the ridiculous luxury item that I would feel silly buying for myself but totally enjoy having.  And these needn’t be BIG items, they can often just bring a smile to your face!

For the Pet Lover: Rebecca, who loves cats, sent me this amazing $40 gift that I think is an awesome present for an cat owning-music lover… it’s a Turntable “scratch” post!  HOW AWESOME! Your kitty can be on the ones and twos!  $40 at Fred Flare.

Mayra never ceases to make fun of me and my love of gifting perfumes and soaps to people.  BUT the truth is, I LOVE overpriced lotions and soaps and I simply feel silly buying them myself… so, assuming other people feel the same way, I enjoy gifting high end soaps and creams.  I personally am partial to C.O. Bigelow products, which at $24 for the Soap and Hand lotion is a FABULOUS hostess gift,  but I find that people go nuts over Jo Malone as well.

Speaking of people who sometimes stink (hahah, kidding) if you’re brother or sister is dating someone or you are trying to suck up to your sister-in-law or mother-in-law to be, this fabulous Tocca sampler of perfumes is a great way to give the gift of luxury in a pretty package without committing yourself to actually pretending to know all that much about what kind of perfume they like.  It says “I assume you like nice things, but I don’t want to pretend I know exactly what.” And it’s only $48! 
For your newlywed friends or relatives: Nothing says “Hey, I acknowledge your new life together AND I actually didn’t just buy this on my way to your house for dinner…. I put thought into it and ordered in advance” quite like something MONOGRAMMED!  I love these pillows and napkins from our friends at Newlywish. The pillows start at $75 and the napkins are $25 a piece… The only thing there is I think to give anything less than 4 napkins is a little weird. I mean, I guess they may have dinner for two from time to time……

On the weekends when we’re in Brooklyn my man-friend and I like to go over to the Brooklyn Flea and see what’s what.  My man-friend likes old things (but not in a hipster kind of way… in more of an “antiques road show” kind of way) and there is a cranky young guy who always has cool, random things like vintage paper weights and magnifying glasses that we like to haggle with.  When that fails to yield anything good, we typically look around the other booths and ID fleamarket trends for the week (vintage pin-ups and owls have been particularly hot lately).  We were particularly thrilled when we found these awesome old type-writer key cufflinks.  They are also available on Etsy.  Lots of keys are available, but we snagged these “Shift Freedom” keys for about $25.

   Speaking of shopping for guys, they are often the HARDEST people to shop for!  I often find that clever/ cool is appreciated as are gadgets.  If you are looking for a gadget that will blow them away and is a little bit o’ luxury, Dr. Dre’s Monster Tour Beats earphones with the tangle free chord are the way to go!  ($150)  They are the little brother of his signature, giant, studio earphones and are more of an ear-bud, but their patented flat cord prevents the wires from crossing AND the sound is absolutely amazing.

In the non-gadget realm, I just LOVE this Jack Spade bill holder that looks like a match book! It’s great for running around with some cash and a couple of cards and it is terribly, terribly clever!  It’s $140 worth of something a brother, boyfriend or man in your life would appreciate, but not necessarily buy for themselves. Which to me is the best kind of gift!

Happy Holidays and Happy, Happy Shopping! Remember, it really is the thought the counts, so don’t forget to actually think before you shop!