Valentine's Day 2013 (A week later)

Happy Sunday, darlings! So, I know Valentine's Day was a little over a week ago, but my husband and I were on a much needed vacation with some of our family and friends this past week and I'm just now getting back into the swing of things. So without further adieu, here is my Valentine's Day recap!

Holiday Style

My style has definitely changed (hopefully evolved) over the years and I find myself moving towards more subtle decor when it comes to "theme" decorating (holidays). This year, I opted for subtle, sophisticated touches of Valentine's around the house.  Below is an example. I dressed up this vase with ribbon in a hue of red with gold accents.

Valentine's Cookie Decorating

No holiday would be complete without some activity with my adorable nieces. My nieces Ava and Audrey came over a couple of weeks before Valentine's Day and made sugar cookies. (My youngest niece, Amelia, was too sick to partake in the festivities--next year!) My nieces made the cookies--from start to finish--all by themselves, and dressed the cookies up in Valentine's colors.

Audrey enjoying the sweets of her labor

The sweet, colorful, sparkly, end result. Did I say the cookies were sweet? VERY sweet! 

;-) 

And, as a special treat, I have a short video that my amazing husband made of "Cookie Day" with my nieces! Enjoy!

2013 Valentine's Cookie Day With My Nieces

First Married Valentine's Day

So, as I was trying to tie up work for the week, finish schoolwork and pack for Cancun, I had my first married Valentine's Day to prepare for as well. 

For our first married Valentine's Day, my husband and I decided to give eachother one of the most priceless and precious gifts of all in our busy lives--time. We decided for our first married Valentine's Day, we would stay in and cook a meal together. 

I started the day out with this little surprise for my husband. I leave for work much earlier in the day than he does, so when he awoke, he found this little surprise waiting for him.

Heart-shaped cheese danish!

Something cute and fun because I was inspired by the craft box nearby. :)

While I was prepping for Valentine's dinner, I took some time out to make some special little packages for my nieces--flowers and heart-shaped boxes full of chocolate!

All three nieces loved the gifts, but I think my youngest niece Amelia had the cutest reaction. When she finished smelling the flowers, she took a deep breath in, raised up on her toes, grabbed her belly and let out a dramatic "Ahh!" and smiled. She did this over and over again. 

After my nieces' Valentine's Day gifts were delivered, I returned home to finish prepping the table decor surprise for my husband.

The ombre trend has been "in" for quite some time (a fancy way to say "tie died" in my opinion), but in an effort to not get too themey, I went for an ombre-ish setting. The spectrum of colors for the tablescape ranged from cream to fuchsia and was present in the ribbons, roses, vases and the hand died table napkins.

I'm not super crafty, so I was proud of how well my cupid arrows turned out for our table markers! :)

Pinterest and Etsy have made the whole "cut your invitation out and place it in an ornament bulb" trend very popular. As a spinoff of this trend, I decided to make Valentine's bulbs to place on our New Year's tree. I found some beautiful, slightly transparent, pink-hued paper from the craft store to use for the paper that I'd place inside the bulbs. I typed up a list of reasons why I love my husband, printed them out and cut the sentences out into strips. I made a total of three bulbs, and filled them with the "I love you" strips of paper and rose petals and hung them with ribbon from the tree.

I kept the color of the rose petals and ribbon that the bulbs hung from in line with the ombre-ish theme and wrapped the trunk of the tree with pink ribbon. (See the light to dark ombre transition in the ribbon and bulbs?) I daresay even Lisa Vanderpump would be proud of this table spread! :) (That's a "Real Housewives" reference for all you RHBH fans!)

My husband absolutely loved the sentiment behind the bulbs

  I filled the table with roses ranging from cream to fuchsia.

 

 Candlelight was scattered about our table in various sizes and hues of vases

We sipped on a pink, French rosé (Delicious!)

My husband loved the tablescape, but more importantly--the effort put into it.

After I revealed the table surprise, we got down to cooking. On the menu: Parmesan-topped red snapper and orzo salad. It was SCRUMPTIOUS!!

Seasoning the snapper

Beautiful color in the orzo salad 

Getting ready to go into the oven

A beautiful black and white diamond bracelet that I received from my husband

My Valentine's Day was superb this year and I am so fortunate to have spent it with so many of my favorite people.

 Our table just before we sat down for our first married Valentine's Day dinner. 

I hope you all had a beautiful Valentine's Day. And remember, this day is not just for couples, but for all the people in your life that you love!

Cheers,
Samara

My Merry Little Maybook

I like pretty things. Pretty things that are unique and individualistic. Things that make you feel a little happy and special just by having them. Things that when you get going on a busy day, you have this distant feeling that something is really right about the day and you remember, "Oh yeah, I have that thing!"

I present to you..the latest thing. My Maybooks planner. 

A fun fact: I have fabric panels (yet to be completed) in gray and mustard yellow that I'm planning on putting up in my cubicle at work to bring a little color and style to my walls I have to look at 40 hours (more lately) a week. This was the reasoning for the color scheme of my 2013 Maybook. Plus, I find this color combo to be contemporary and sophisticated.

OK, back to the books. I first saw these gorgeous little things on one of my favorite blogger's blog. So, I ordered one of the planners for a friend of mine in her sorority colors and a baby bump diary for another friend. Even the package (blue and dark gray on the right) they came in was beautiful!

When I saw these little beauties in person, I had to buy one (*cough* a few) for myself--one to use as a planner, and two others for jotting down ideas for both of my blogs.

May Designs allows you to build your planner from the cover, to the monogram/name/wording on the front of the planner, and finally to what you want included on the inside of your planner. I adore these chic, artsy little planners and plan on adding some of their stationary to my repertoire next! 

I love the fun, little details they add to their packaging, too. These details are part of what makes the books so special. 

Some fun things I've seen people use these books for:

1. Bridal planning

2. Health and Fitness

3. Recipes

I hope you all have a gorgeous start to your week!

Cheers,

Samara

New Year's Resolution Tree

Hello, friends. This week has been a blur, but we made it to Friday again! Cheers! (And I don't even have to work this Saturday. I have a real weekend. Yeah!) I do hope you'll forgive me for the short break I took from blogging this week. I'm in my second semester of graduate school and this week held for me an especially ugly agenda with a group paper and presentation due. You'll be happy to know I made it through in one piece!

Going back to school and pursuing my master's degree was one of my New Year's resolutions for 2012. To really solidify my goals for last year, I made a New Year's resolution "tree". 

For the tree, I used faux tree branches, pine cones, and sprays of gold and silver to fill a clear vase. My husband and I used little cards strung with ribbon to write our resolutions on. Afterwards, we hung the resolutions from the tree.

Here's our tree on New Year's Eve, 2012. We had a sip of champagne to toast our tree before we headed out for the evening. 

Thomas wanted to take a picture of me all dazzled up by our tree. :) 

I posted this picture on Facebook and it was picked up by a local newspaper editor and friend at The New Citizens Press. 

Our new tradition was fun and really put action behind setting goals. 

When one of my resolutions was realized in August of last year, my wonderful and supportive husband had this surprise waiting for me at home when I returned from my first evening of class. The picture shows the inside of a gift bag with a card in it. My "go back to school" resolution card from our tree hung from the handle of the gift bag.  Of course, I got emotional. (What girl wouldn't?!?) 

Inside my gift bag was a sweet, beautiful card and this swag to display I was now a Central Michigan University graduate student.

Fast forwarding to New Year's 2013, I bought a new tree. I actually bought the new tree for our dining room table at  Christmas. Little red diamond-shaped ornaments hung from it. It was so beautiful and luxe and when New Year's came around, I just couldn't find it in me to take it down. So, I used it as our new resolution tree! 

Once again, I gathered our cards and strung them with ribbon. I was running low on ribbon, so I had to cut each piece of ribbon in half. As a result, the ribbon had a frayed look (we'll call it "distressed", darlings) that was rustic, beautiful and totally unintended.

Here's a little peek at one of my goals.  (Just started reading Bethenny Frankel's "A Place of Yes".)

 A fun aerial view of our tree.

 Rustic elegance is in the details.

  

And there she is in all her resolution glory--our tree!

What resolutions did you set? Are you meeting any of them? Revisit them often if you're motivated to reach them! 

Cheers,
Samara

Cheers to Friday

So darlings, we made it. It's FRIDAY. And that is a reason to celebrate!! 

A few years ago, a friend of mine bought this handmade wine glass for me from Lolita for my birthday.

I had been drooling over the wine glass line in the Hallmark store for some time, but had never picked one up. (One of those things we love, but never pick up for ourselves. Why?!?) 

The glasses come in these fun little tubes with previews of all the other glasses you can purchase:

If an occasion exists, Lolita has a hand painted glass to commemorate it! 

 

The top of the tube shows you what the glass inside looks like and gives you the name of the glass. (So you don't pick up the wrong occasion glass!)

Over the years, I started putting "Lolita wine glass-any!" on my birthday and Christmas lists. The glasses are just so special and fun. 

Every glass contains a cocktail recipe on the bottom:

I admit, until recently, I'd never made one of the recipes. This past weekend, I decided to make my first Lolita cocktail recipe--Shopaholic Too. 

Here are the ingredients (listed above, too): 

 

The only thing that I had to even remotely search for was the Chambord, which is a sweet, raspberry French liqueur. (A delicious sipping liqueur too, by the way. We tried it--yum!!) 

Here was the end result. Isn't she pretty? :) 

 

 

The amount of champagne you add can be as little or as much as you like, depending on your personal taste. I put enough champagne in it to fill it just past the halfway mark. 

 

The drink had a bubbly, Frenchy taste. (You're probably thinking, "Oh sure, I know just what that tastes like.")

 

The drink was so delicious, I made a couple more to share with others.

 

See the Lolita glass on the right in the picture above? My sweet grandma is behind the purchase of that glass. She was unaware that the phrase "Love my Wine" on the top of every Lolita wine glass tube was just a marketing phrase. She missed the "New Mommy" glass label. 

Appropriately (and hilariously) for new mothers, here is the recipe on that glass:
 

No fuss and muss for the new mothers, just happy to get straight to the wine!

 
My family and I laughed so hard (including my grandma) at the oversight of the wine glass label by my grandma because I have no children.

In her defense, she stated, "Well, it said, 'Where's my bottle!'"Yeah, they were making a joke about the baby bottle...wine bottle....yeah. :) 

 

I hope you got as good of a laugh out of that one as my entire family did. Raise your wine glass (or bottle, lol) and toast to making it to Friday!

Cheers,

Samara