antique shopping: my favourite kind of shopping.

a few weeks back, plans were made with two special friends nataschia & selena, to spend this past wednesday thrifting and antique shopping to our little hearts content. selena was a peach and scoped out two stops in cambridge, where we met up for a day of pure beauty for my eyes to feast on. the first location, green spot antiques which i prefer to call 'g spot antiques' as i pretty well orgasmed the second i stepped foot into the store, was the perfect place to begin our day. selena had booked a private appointment with the owner, an incredibly interesting fellow named vince, to have the whole place to ourselves -- this alone could have done it for me. i pretty well dropped my purse, and began to scour the joint like a swarm of flies on fresh shit, i had my hot little hands on all of vince's precious cargo -- for the amount of crap packed to the tits in that place, this man knew every single item in it, and where it belonged, which i loved.

i managed to accumulate a pile of items that had to come home with me, including some lovely pieces of blue hobnail glassware, a couple of rusty old skeleton keys, a beautiful wooden letterpress tray to use as a shelf to store my chachka shit, and my favourite find, a big, fat, white letter 'c' from an old sign or marquis. i can't even begin to explain the joy it brings to my life, and india is really loving it too.

once we were happy with our 'g spot' time, we grabbed some drinks & lunch and then made our way to our second stop, southworks antiques. southworks, originally a foundry over 160 years old, is a 30,000 sqft antique mall, housing over 100 vendors, selling everything from jewelry to china, quirky one-off items and anything & everything else in between. it was perfectly organized and laid out, which made it easy to move from one booth to the next, efficiently allowing you to get lost in all the goodness. i managed to snag a few records and a train themed vintage 'avon' beer stein for paulie (cause he's a nerd like that). by the end of the day, i felt like i had been in a time machine, and i made my way home with a few more pieces to surround myself with, new-to-me items that bring a little more character and history to our home, and a new found love and appreciation for the 'g spot'.

valentine's day house tour.

since the very first step i took into a perfectly collected home on a holiday house tour a few christmases ago, i have dreamed of creating a home worthy of being part of such a flattering honour. i remember walking from room to room, admiring every last detail -- from the artwork chosen to the way it was curated, the window treatment and floor covering choices, to the way almost each room had a perfect poesy of flowers or a fresh potted plant displayed, it took everything in me to keep the green monster of envy from projectile vomiting straight out of my mouth and all over everything. like a hangover on new years day, i made my way home foggy headed, slightly embarrassed of myself, yet totally inspired.

with a better (but not perfect) handle on how i want our home to look and feel, i have come to realize that getting it to that point, requires more work than anticipated. because i'm not part of a house tour, no one is showing up to our little diamond in the rough, to design florals to place perfectly in every little nook and fuckin' cranny, and i don't have a cleaning service, or catering company showing up anytime soon either, so i guess that shit's on me too. making this a space that feels more and more like home every time i walk through the door, is important for me and my little family, so i am giving it all i've got, and i'm going balls deep in this bitch. wow, that was rude.

since the day christmas came down, valentine's day has been up, so i have had a good few weeks to collect, make, and find homes for the shit i have hoarded. with a few more details in mind, i will have this place perfectly cheesier than a chapel in vegas. for now, i think a wee holiday like valentine's day feels like the perfect little segue for me to share bits & bobs of our home in what i'm calling my own little 
house tour: "the welland edition". yikes.

a dining room centrepiece complete with red, pink & white gumballs.

some glittery initialed love.

our fireplace mantle all decked out.

my too-pretty-to-toss garland going strong with the addition of festive hearts : handmade doily wreath.

handmade burlap bunting & felt heart banner.

yarn & felt wreath re-loved from last year : windy's festive scene.

valentine's day cookies: heart marbling bidness.

it's always been a tradition among a few of my friends to bake and decorate cookies for each holiday, and because we've pumped out sugary pink and red love almost every valentine's day for the last 5 years, we had no choice but to keep the tradition alive. this weekend i invited them over for a cookie making & decorating slumber party, and the results were my favourite to date.

how we do: 'heart marbled' valentine's day cookies

using this recipe for royal icing, and a top secret family recipe for sugar cookies (this recipe is pretty damn close), we made enough icing and dough to yield approximately 6 dozen cookies. we chose to stick with classic hearts, and went with three different sizes. once you get through the less fun part (making the dough, rolling, cutting and the baking), you can sit down to do the more fun part -- the decorating.

again to keep things clean and simple, we made just three colours of icing; a dark red, a bubble gum pink, and a pastel baby pink. i prefer to use gel food colouring when dying icing (as opposed to the wee liquid bottles), as it's much more potent, so not only do you need less of it to achieve your desired  colour, but it ends up more true to the colour you are going after. this tutorial will explain how we outlined, filled & added a heart marbled detail to some of our cookies.

 using a #2 piping tip, start by outlining the cookies with your icing colour of choice. allow that to sit and harden up while you outline any other cookies you may use this design for. letting the outline harden creates a border for your icing to stay confined in, which looks tidier, and is easier to work with. when the outline has hardened, go back and fill or "flood" the centre of your heart with the same icing. note: some tutorials will advise that using a thicker consistency icing for outlining, and thinner consistency icing for flooding is the best way to go, however we were too fucking lazy to do this, so we did it our way. feel free to be a hero.

while your icing is still fresh and wet, you can add your design. using the same size tip, pipe a line of dots along the outside edge on one half of your cookie. using a toothpick, pull through all the dots until you reach the end, and repeat on the other side, wiping the toothpick clean before you go. working on one half at a time ensures your dots are as wet as they can be, which makes them melt into the bottom layer of icing more easily, and create an even design. allow it to harden, and you're golden.

this little detail looks just as sweet on one half of a smaller cookie, as it does all the way around for larger cookies. it's an easy way to dress up your valentine's day baking, and looks professional  enough that your friends just might think you paid someone to make them, when you really spent 4 hours on a snowy saturday getting it just right. and if you want to stick to tried & tested classic conversation hearts, well those are always fun too. my valentine is one lucky bastard.

january loved.

a new favourite thing: the french press.

i'm sure a lot of people reading use or have used this method of coffee making for a long time, and for that, i am jealous that 
someone let you in on the secret before i was. for those of you who are still in the dark: keep reading, and you're welcome.

up until a few months ago, i had never experienced the luxury that is french pressed coffee, in fact, i didn't even know what the hell it was. and then one morning after a night out and a sleepover with friends, i woke up to a beautiful breakfast and a cup of coffee unlike i had ever tasted, shit was so good. i stored the idea away in my back pocket as a christmas gift for paulie, and went for it when i found the nicest press and the perfect little grinder at home outfitters a few weeks later. that kid loves his kitchen gadgets and accessories so much so, i'm pretty sure he thinks he's chef pasquale (you will know who this is if you have a nonno who while growing up, watched cooking shows all morning and wrestling all afternoon like mine did). turns out, i raved on about how good the coffee was enough that he went out and bought me the exact same gift. they say when you're with someone for long enough, you start thinking and doing the same things.

this worries me.

we use it every weekend (as much as the thought of having enough energy to boil water, grind beans and brew coffee before work during the week sounds amazing, it would never fucking happen) and it gets a lot of love let me tell you. there is a definite technique and finesse to the french press process, and once we learned what kind of beans we like (standing in front of 40 varieties of coffee beans at 'starbucks' is less daunting than ordering a coffee there, so that's always nice) the perfect temperature and timing, we have taken our love for coffee-all-morning to a whole other level. if you have loved coffee since the first time your nonna made you drink it with breakfast when you were 3, or have always drooled while the coffee is being made in the 'dexter' opening theme, you will love the french press. life is too short to not drink really good coffee, and definitely too short to not drink good wine.