Christmas inspiration from Lucketts

I just finished putting away all the Halloween decor, and already I am thinking of decorating for Christmas, which does not take place until after Thanksgiving. And it seems like I am already behind.... In Blogland it has been going on for quite so time already, the stores are also all decked out.
Luckily I was able to visit Lucketts this week end for their Christmas Open House and try to catch some momentum on my planning, just as I did last year.
No surprises, it was beautifully decorated and over the top in a few cases! It was also super crowded, we had to wait in line for 30 minutes to enter the house, totally worth it, but pictures were hard to take! Onto the tour:

This was my favorite room in the house,

I guess I am leaning more towards natural looking trees, glistening but not overloaded!
On the other side were all the red trees, which usually are my favorites.

 Beautiful red plaids were everywhere.

Doesn't that chair look comfy with the dogs pillow?

There were also trees with silly creatures (deer and mice)

and more traditional gold and silver trees.

No Christmas house would be complete without deer:

deer in frame and deer with hand knitted scarf.

Here is the collage of my inspiration from Lucketts:

lighter colors, natural elements.

Well all of that Christmas planning is good, but now I need to rake some leaves because really, it is fall here!

Baking corner {One Room Challenge} week five

This is week 5 of the One Room Challenge! I am working on transforming a corner of my kitchen in a baking corner. Well this weekend was good fun with dressing up and partying for Halloween. I was a steampunk Cinderella and we hosted a fun party with yummy food. But as far as the challenge goes, it was a bust!

Pretty much the only thing I have to show is the accessories I purchased to decorate the new and improve baking corner! The pie sign is from World Market and the 2 sizes glass containers are from IKEA. I added a label from chalkboard contact paper (from Amazon, I think). While I do not have much to show, I did start working on the floating shelves for my new containers.

It is a very slow process as I am making it up as I go along.... Right, probably not the best way, but it is a small corner with very few studs! Overall I am inspired by this tutorial from Shanty 2 Chic. I am using 1x2 (and 2x2) for the base, the facing will be 1x3. The top will be a L shape cut piece of MDF. Since it is so small (20x18, and 6 inches deep) I thought a thinner shelf would be better. I have pulled on the wood, it is holding on tight! It should not take this long ...unfortunately my work area is in the basement, so there are a lot of up and down the stairs for this project,  it can also be considered a work out! There are quite a few things for me to finish this week/week end: -finish the first shelf -make another shelf above the first one, may be less wide -install some countertop -make everything pretty...
But I believe it will happen, after all this kitchen has already came up from a long way:

and with the marble backsplash:



PS: Another challenge for this weekend: Lucketts has its Holiday open house (I went last year, and it was awesome!) and Chartreuse is also open,  so it is a twofer, Saturday will be super busy!

a fun Halloween party

With my steampunk Cinderella outfit on, I was ready for a party with a few friends, nothing too fancy: snacks and drinks. Of course, Halloween requires some decoration, nothing scary here, just fun and silly, black, orange and crow!

I was so busy getting everything ready, I forgot to write something on my chalkboard easel... Decor is good but food is more important!

I made gougeres (delicious cheese balls), warmed up some mini quiches,  set a cheese tray (no pic of that one), and Mon Cheri set up a meat tray  (no pic either, it was a busy night!) For desserts, I made some mini apple pies (using the same recipe than my original pie), purchased some Florentines and meringues from my favorite French patisserie. And Miss C. made some beautiful cupcakes that her friends devoured.

(set on top of my ORC drink stand, totally work for cupcakes too!) Now for the drink side of the party: more orange, black and crows of course!

We served many kinds of beer (elegantly display in the beer carrier I made last year) and some cider sangria (that did not turn out, I would not recommend it!). For the kids, there were a lot of drinks stored in crates just below. It was the perfect little gathering with friends.

Happy Halloween

a much cooler Cinderella

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, it is all about eating sweet, dressing silly and hanging out with friends. Over the 20 years I have been here, I have always celebrated at least once, every year (up to 4 times in graduate school!). I have quite a few costume that I made over the years, I reused and repurposed most of them.

This year, I am revisiting my Cinderella costume. I sewed it about 7 years ago when Miss C. was still in preschool, and was dressing up as a princess most days. It was a very traditional Cinderella dress, all blue.

I wore it with a big petticoat (actually the one from my wedding!), gold shoes, white gloves and a blue headband.
(wasn't she the cutest?!) Well this year, I am going with a steampunk version! I find steampunk so interesting and fun, it can be quite dark, but I like my Halloween campy and not scary!

So I literally pulled up my skirt and petticoat (thanks to some useful sewing clamps), put on some boots and heavy socks with a little lace details, and that took care of the bottom half of the dress.

Then I added big black belts, one at the waist, the other across my upper body. I attached a few accessories to these belts: my grandpa's pocket watch, an ostrich feather purse and a fan.

(if you have read "Waistcoats and weaponry " by Gail Carriger,  you know a fan is a weapon! Miss C. is reading the series and truly enjoys it) No steampunk is complete without gloves, so I put on my Vivienne Westwood leather gloves,  there is even a cute embroidery on them  (I purchased them about 25 years ago)

I added my original black neck ribbon and glitzy earrings.

All dressed up and nowhere to go? So I hosted the party..... Come back tomorrow to check it out! "update: it is here"
Happy Halloween

Baking corner {One Room Challenge} week four

Time is flying by, it is already week 4 of the One Room Challenge! I am making over a corner of my kitchen to transform it into a baking corner, you can read more about it in week one.

Last week I left you with my "station wagon" cabinet. Well I caulked, primed and painted the cabinet, and it looks like it belongs in the kitchen, I used the same paint color that I used to paint all the other cabinets a few years ago, so there is definitively a continuity between the cabinets even  if the door/drawer style is slightly different. I also installed the same hardware on the drawer as the rest of the kitchen.

Then I started working on my pull out trash system for the bottom of the cabinet. As a reader pointed out last week, there are many systems for sale, but after reading many reviews, it seems really expensive for sometimes a poor outcome. So I went with the home version, and  I followed this tutorial from Cristina of "Remodelando la casa". She was the one who inspired me in my kitchen upgrading, so I knew I could trust her work. And it totally worked, I have a nice drawer, the trash can fits in, it slides in and out, perfect!

(the trash bag box fits perfectly on the half shelf in the back,  that means more space under the sink!)
The little difficulty that I am now encountering is attaching the drawer to the door, but I am sure I will find a way. I still need to find a top for the cabinet, I am using a large cutting board right now, but it is only temporary. I also need to work on the shelves above, as seen on my inspiration board:
from ORC week two.
It is going to be a very busy week end!