Love how the pink tape dresses up this inspiration wall.  What a lovely place to work!

Via Mimi + Meg

Not to toot my own horn here but red glasses = fun loving. The proof is in this Samantha Hahn painting. Check out the rest of her art, which is equally fabulous.

Via Oh Joy

I like to try out recipes before I serve them to company, especially people for whom I’ve never cooked before. Next weekend the Boo and I have invited his group of friends over for a Christmas dinner and I’m excited to make the perfect meal. Thus this weekend my parents served as guinea pigs for the recipes. The kitchen at our country home is the perfect laboratory: it’s got a huge working space PLUS there are two ovens! I made a roast chicken with five spice sauce: ingredients included fennel, star anise, cinnamon, apricots, red wine and tons of fresh thyme. It was tasty! To accompany the chicken I made roasted winter vegetables (turnip, beets, carrots, onions & fennel topped with fresh thyme) and a delish quinoa dish with dried cherries and pistachios.  To finish it off, I made a rustic apple tart. The apples were overcooked so it wasn’t the prettiest version but it still tasted great!

Are you doing any holiday entertaining this year? What are your favourite recipes?

Lately I have been having so much fun with different colours of nail varnish so I thought I’d share some quick pics. Please excuse the quality: these were taken with either my iPhone or my computer cam.

This first one is called Glitzerland by OPI. It’s a bronzy gold colour. It’s actually pretty tame considering it’s gold and sparkly, but I like it!

This is Essie’s Sew Psyched, it’s a sage-coloured green:

And this one is Essie’s Forever Young… I took this picture with the Hipstatmatic iPhone app. You can’t see the colour much but trust me, it’s a most perfect shade of red.