Merry, merry

December calls for thoughtful days. It's so easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle. We are about to celebrate Christmas. We have parties to go to, with office mates and family and friends. Another year is about to come to a close.

Last year I spent most of this season in the hospital, with Dave. We cooked an entire Thanksgiving meal and carefully packed it into containers and lugged it to his hospital room (along with the family china, of course). It was not exactly hot, but it was delicious.

We bought a wreath for Christmas so the room smelled like pine and we brought stacks and stacks of cookies, coffee and food for the staff, and savory bread pudding for ourselves. We got permission to bring our feisty little terrier in for the day, so that Dave could see her for the first time in months. There were very few gifts, just a couple little things, a book here or there. There was no sea of wrapping paper, no endless rounds of opening and thanking. Just lots of food and coffee with real cream and our favorite Christmas music. Lots of teasing and laughing. We were so very grateful, awed by the amazing gift we had been given, that Dave was still with us, that we were all here together. There was no room for anything else.

This year we strive to bring that same joy and simplicity to the day. I will wake early, drink spiced tea, cook breakfast, open simple gifts and remember that we are all so very lucky in so many ways.

To those of you who are celebrating, Merry Christmas! We're heading down to be with our families. I haven't decided if posting will be regular or sporadic next week. We'll just have to wait and see.

Peace + Joy

Wishing you all Happy Holidays! I want to thank you dear readers for your kind support of this blog, it has been much more delightful because of you. Thank you so very much! You readers and sponsors really are the best. I can't wait to start 2010 -- I love new beginnings and it is going to be fabulous year with great things in store. I am going to take a little break, but will be back to posting in January. I may be doing a little tweeting , so if you want -- you can follow me here. May your season be full of infinite peace and joy.

Warmly,
Rachel


A few other links:
My holiday wish list over at Pretty Mommy
My Winter Style Inspiration under $95 over at Cafe Mom
An interview over at Style for Style

(*above is a little peek of our holiday card we sent out)

Beautiful wreaths

I had high hopes to make a pretty wreath this year, I even bought the yarn supplies and a pom pom maker inspired by this post and photo below from last year. Unfortunately, I encountered some hiccups along the way (who knew making large yarn balls was so tricky and time consuming) and it did not turn out. Maybe I didn't have the right pom-pom maker. Good intentions still somewhat count, right?

Today, after seeing the above photo of the wreath created by Pickles over at Seesaw, I realized that aborting my pom pom idea was a-okay because I love the felted ball wreath even more. Here is to high hopes for next year, or don't you think that felted wreath would look cool all year long?

Have you had any holiday crafting disasters? Do share. Also on my list was to attempt to make pajamas, and stockings -- next year I going to have to start in October.



(image 1 from Pickles, image 2 from this post clipped from Marie Claire Idees)

Typographic Christmas Decor

I love this simple but standout idea of using words for decoration. The top photo is from from the amazing Kate Did and the bottom photo is an Anthropologie display (Rockefeller Center) photographed by Heartfish.

happy holidays!

Happy Holidays Bloomies! 2009 has been a wonderful year for inBloom Event Design and we are looking forward to an even busier and better 2010! Thanks so much for all of your support and for taking the time to read our blog and follow our events and adventures. We are signing off for the holidays for a bit of a break and will be back on Monday January 4th...Happy {belated} Chanukah, Merry Christmas, and have a wonderful New Year! See you again very soon...

The Bloomers

p.s. The image above is from the fabulously talented Bakerella...visit her blog for instructions on how to make these awesome Candy Cane Christmas Tree cuppies!

adventures of miss cuppie: the cupcake shoppe

After a brief hiatus, Miss Cuppie is back! Doing some Christmas shopping in the Yonge and Eglinton area yesterday, I decided to try out a cuppie at The Cupcake Shoppe, a cute little cupcakery with tons of deliciously decorated treats. Now I should let you know - yesterday was a sunny but frigid day in Toronto and in the morning I think the temps were around -20 degrees Celsius with the windchill. So with fingers too frozen to snap a pic of the storefront, I instead included a cute illustration from The Cupcake Shoppe's sweet website. I also nabbed a photo of their cuppies from their website too...it is just so much better than a photo I could take with my point-and-shoot!

I ended up buying two Christmassy, candy cane-topped cuppies for my hubby P. and I which we scarfed down after dinner last night. And the verdict? The icing was so-so {kind of bland} but the cake part moist and delish! I also decided that Miss Cuppie is much more fun when #1, it's a touch warmer outside, and #2 you are taste testing with a buddy. Anyone want to join me next time around?

See Miss Cuppie's other adventures here and here!

Pretty much perfect

I spent most of yesterday re-listening to old episodes of This American Life*, drinking Christmas tea (with a touch of real cream!) and embossing manila tags. After all, it isn't Christmas if you don't hear The Santaland Diaries episode at least once.

{christmas tags}

The Christmas cactus stamp is from here and it's currently my favorite thing in the world. Right after eggnog.

*I actually got to be in the live audience way back when Ira Glass and David Sedaris did this show together in LA. Seeing them interact was one of the highlights of my life.

Hermes Winter Campaign

Loving this Hermes Winter Ad Campaign, especially the reindeer. They do such a great job.

(via Busy Being Fabulous)

dexter holiday gift ideas

I know its a bit late for holiday shopping but for any Dexter fans out there {the best kind of scary there is!!} the Showtime Store is selling a whole bunch of weird Dexter stuff. Seriously, its really weird!

I do however love these Dexter blood splatter coasters. They are like giant blood slides! I would totally get these for myself for a Halloween party. But it would be better if they didn't have the word Dexter written across it. Kind of ruins the coolness.


And these funny Dexter cast Bobbleheads are pretty hilarious. I've never been one to collect a Bobblehead but I'm a bit intrigued!This 7" Dexter Action Figure is awesome! And it comes with its very own blood slide too.



These disturb me...I'm not sure its the kind of thing I'd want to be dressing my baby in. I think these should be discontinued. The Cereal Spiller is at least a clever play on words but seriously...My Dad Can Hack Anything?! That isn't even clever!

A little less paper...

Don't get me wrong - I love paper with an undying passion. But I'm trying to use it in smaller doses, particularly when it comes to wrapping gifts. There's something about a big pile of crumpled wrapping paper that makes me feel sad.

This year almost everything is wrapped in felt. Mostly because it's the easiest fabric to work with - easy to cut, no need to hem all the edges, and very sturdy.

{felt gift wrap}

Making the pouches is easy. You basically just act like you're going to wrap the item, but you use cloth instead of paper and you run little seams down the edges. Make sure to leave a flap open so you can slip the item in and out. You could design these lots of different ways, depending on your sewing skills. I used some of the fancy stitches on my sewing machine, but you can also handstitch with some thick embroidery thread and it will look just fine.

Some of mine close with a ribbon. I just cut a slit in the folded over flap and then sewed a ribbon to the front of the package. To close, you just pull both sides of the ribbon through the slit and then tie a bow.

{open}


{closed}

Others close with a button. Again, you cut a slit in the folded over flap and then you just sew a button to the bottom half of the package.

{buttoned}

The goal is to have them in a variety of sizes and use them every year. They actually take up a lot less space than a jumble of wrapping paper rolls. They work best for grown up gifts like books, CDs, DVDs and jewelry, which happen to be the kinds of gifts I give most often.

Words Create Worlds

Stunning and very cool ad campaign for the Prague bookstore, Anagram produced by Kaspan advertising agency.


(spotted & images from Fubiz)

Sketchy Santas

A friend shared with me this website called, Sketchy Santas and I can't stop snickering. Especially when my daughter briefly overlooked me while laughing and said, "those are horrible Santas I really don't like them." Every year my parents had me and my brothers and sister get photos with Santa, and I don't think we ever came across Santas that were this disturbing and freaky, but one year I remember we avoided a Santa for some reason. It is fun site to check out for some great laughs. Would you ever place your kids on some of these Santa's laps?



(images from Sketchy Santa)

man caves!

We Bloomies mustn't forget the mans in our lives, so this post is dedicated to some pretty cool man cave designs out there! You guys deserve a little space of your own that has no flowers, no matching linens or throw pillows and certainly no doilies. I can't wait until we can afford a house one day so we can have a man cave, a lady cave and a whole neutral zone for all to enjoy. For now, I think we did a pretty good job making our condo gender neutral {with the exception of my office where I may have put one or two flower paintings on the wall...oops!}

So this first photo is pretty spectacular! I think I would be a tad envious and would build a "hers" version that was an aerial silks studio. Can you imagine?!


Also not too shabby, they made use of the garage nicely - equal parts shop/bar/lounge! Only problem would be I don't think I could give up a garage because that would mean the car would be sitting outside collecting snow and that isn't cool. But if we lived in a warm climate I'd be willing to give up the garage space. Or if we had a 2 door garage I would spare half! This man cave can be found on this site.


These next two are nice man caves for the more artsy man. The ones who like design and decor but not so much flowers and doilies. I could love either of them myself! The top one was found on Apartment Therapy blog. And the orange retro one was found on The Selvedge Yard blog.


This one is truly a man CAVE!! Check it out...that is some kind of crazy!

Just so we are clear...this is a TERRIBLE Man Cave and it should never have happened! Oh my word!!

Does anyone have any Man Cave pictures they'd like to share?

The weekend, briefly

My sister and I spent an entire day in our mom's kitchen, baking and making candy.

{toffee}


{orangettes}


{sugar cookies}


{marshmallows}

It's the nicest way to get ready for Christmas, I think.

*Toffee, orangettes and marshmallow recipes are all from Smitten Kitchen, naturally. The sugar cookie dough recipe is from Blueprint.

Pretty Packaging

This holiday food packaging from an old issue of Living Etc. a few years back styled by Donna Hay and photographed by William Meppem is simple + beautiful. The below photo is paper stitched together around the bottom of a card. Clever.

YouTube drawings

Swiss artist duo Comenius Roethlisberger and Ado Jahic produced this awesome collection of archived YouTube video drawings. Quite the intriguing concept that speaks of our current cultural phenomenon, don't you think? The collection recently showcased at Colette in Paris, and it would be brilliant to see all these drawings together in one place.

shelf decor

I am fascinated by different peoples' shelves and how they decorate them. Shelves are a very funny thing to me. I feel that the objects have to be placed perfectly, with precision, in order to make it work; and yet, sometimes the weirdest combinations look really cool! Joelle Bloomer has quite a lot of nicely decorated shelves in her home - perhaps she'll treat you to a peak or two soon! But all in all, in my journeys, I do find that sometimes less is more when it comes to decorating shelves. Here are some shelves that I have collected along the way! What do you think? Send us pics of your shelves if you can!

{Pic 1 and 4... I think from either Domino, Country Living, or Martha!; Pic 2 & 5 from Poetichome.com; Pic 3 from Marley and Lockyer; Pic 6 from Country Living Mag (I think!)}