Monday 28 December 2015

DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

The 90s may have been the worst decade for fashion. Much of it I hope never comes back around. However when re-watching Full House on Netflix in preparation for Fuller House in February (all eight seasons are available on Canadian Netflix) I realized some things are timeless: good style and John Stamos.

I called this post "Diamond in the Rough" to reference both the outfits in Full House that would still be wearable today and to reference Aladdin (you likely know 'Steve' was the voice of Disney's Aladdin). Little double entendre for you.

Aunt Becky was definitely the style winner of the series (although she had some real doozies too). DJ is runner up and she would have impressed me more if she didn't wear those hideous white shoes in the last seasons.

Let's begin, shall we?

Outfit #1: Season 4 Episode 1
Aunt Becky's silk slip dress. Bravo, Full House team. I personally think this is a beautiful dress and it looks pretty fab on Rebecca. It is my series favourite.


Outfit #2: Season 6 Episode23
Aunt Becky's first Disney World outfit. Special shout out to the shoes - they are just plain great. The cut of the shorts and a plain long sleeved tee? Also timeless. Well done. Joey's outfit? Not so much.


Outfit #3: Season 8 Episode 24
DJ's prom dress. This dress deserves some extra credit because DJ's junior prom dress was not a classic. This is similar in colour and fabric to outfit number one, but a completely different cut. Maybe I'm just really into metallics right now. Regardless, this kind of dress is what Spanx were made for, ladies. Embrace the Spanx. Stephanie's outfit would be ok but what is with these terrible shoes?!


If you haven't watched Full House since you were ten years old I highly recommend it. I was not disappointed. Now I'm really looking forward to Fuller House! I'm curious if you agree with me that these outfits aren't hideously ugly by today's standards. Twenty years from now we'll be looking back at Fuller House style. :)

Monday 14 December 2015

CHRISTMAS SUGAR COOKIES

After I discovered Teeny Tiny Bakery on instagram I became a little obsessed with the idea of using royal icing. It's something that seems really difficult to try and I've always been intimidated by it. After watching a bunch of her instagram videos I decided I can do it. I really can. Mind over matter.

Hubby ventured out on a Saturday in December (yikes) to find meringue powder and finally found it at the Bulk Barn (they also have almond flour if you want to bake macarons someday). So I followed this recipe to the letter and was surprised there is no butter in royal icing! If you're not a big baker and aren't familiar with it, royal icing is a special icing that hardens on the cookie so you can stack cookies on top of each other. It requires either egg whites or meringue powder (much easier), water, and icing sugar. It has to be the correct consistency to spread on your cookie without being a gigantic mess. I found the proportions in this recipe were just right.

My mom has a shortbread cookie recipe I always use and I wanted to try something different so I made these sugar cookies. They required a whopping load of butter. I tried not to think about it. And as expected they were really delicious. Way more delicious than shortbread cookies. Although for this purpose I didn't like that they puffed up in the oven and lost a little bit of their shape.





A friend and I spent the afternoon decorating! These were my best ones and they turned out much better than I expected! It was both more and less difficult than I pictured. Straight lines were more difficult than I thought but getting the right consistency was easier than expected. I'm excited to try these again someday soon (Valentine's Day anyone?) with hopefully even better results. And if you like baking (or even art!) check out Teeny Tiny Bakery on instagram. It is literally amazing. But have hope you can do it too!! I mean, have realistic expectations...(ha!)...but you might be better than you think!

Friday 11 December 2015

FOR HIM: POST TWO

Christmas presents for him


For the guys in your life who like to travel. Some of these items are easy to select as gifts. For instance, an e-reader, shave kit, high quality noise canceling headphones, or passport wallet are pretty universal. A travel backpack is a little more difficult to choose for someone else unless you really know exactly what they're looking for. We love to travel with backpacks because they're easy to carry and not awkward if you have a bit of a walk between the train station and your hotel. We took a quick trip to Toronto a couple of weeks ago and only took a bookbag each (I didn't even take a purse) and it was the smartest thing because we were spending the day around town before arriving at our accommodations. The globe in the top right corner is from Things Engraved of all places and we gave this to hubby's brother last year for Christmas. It is solar powered and the globe within the sphere spins. He loved it and we were pretty excited about it because we really love looking at the world map.

Speaking of our love of maps... On a trip to Boston a couple of years ago we went to the Mary Baker Eddy Museum of Christian Science because we heard there is a world map exhibit. It was really neat and very worth the trip if you're ever in Boston! It was less than $10 each and consists of a 15-20 minute presentation. You stand on a walkway in the center of a sphere shaped room. It's like you're standing in the middle of a big, stained glass globe. The acoustics inside the globe room were insane!! If you stand at one side of the walkway and whisper...a person at the other end hears you like you're talking into their ear. It was really, truly amazing.

That was a bit of a detour (no pun intended in a travel post) - hehe. Hopefully you're almost done Christmas shopping and this might help you finish up.

Tuesday 8 December 2015

FOR HIM: POST ONE



Christmas presents for him

The way I see it the year is divided in two: the 6 months we're moving away from Christmas and the 6 months we're moving toward Christmas!! Guess which I prefer. ;)

Last year I posted my favourite children's books for gift inspiration - posts here and here and here. I thought I'd focus on gifts for "him" this year since I've had lots of practice buying gifts for boys. (I have a brother and two brothers in law.)

First off - here are some gifts for guys who like the outdoors! In our house "nice" underwear is a hit - I usually buy Lululemon but I've heard great things about the Saxx brand. Hubby keeps talking about this Yeti brand fancy beer coozie and Oakley ski goggles. A Bose mini soundlink? Pure gold. And all camping related - pots and pans, sporks, and The US Army Survival Guide (a fun book for outdoorsy guys to browse even if they're not readers).

Trust me, people. You can't go wrong with any of this stuff (and they're all in different price ranges)! If you're trying to think of last minute gifts for hard to shop for guys I hope this helps!

Wednesday 2 December 2015

OATMEAL SOUFFLE

I was visiting my friend F two years ago and her mom made us a very fancy breakfast of oatmeal souffles. It felt so sophisticated and civilized (and was so nice of her)! This weekend I was feeling a little ambitious and thought I would try to make it myself.

I've always heard souffles are fairly difficult so I was pretty excited it was easier than I thought. Of course the thing is... they "fall" once they start to cool. When they first come out of the oven they're a beautiful towering creation and a few minutes later they start to sink. But boy are they cute before they fall! So I think if you were serving them at a dinner party (or in this case a brunch) the key would be to have everyone seated and ready to admire their souffle immediately out of the oven.

When the timer dinged I warned hubby we had to rush to get photos before the souffles fell. We were a well oiled machine. I grabbed them from the oven, put them on the plates he was holding, ran them to our butcherblock, and had the camera ready to go with the lens cap already off.


I used this recipe (how many times can I say pinterest has literally never failed me,) and I quartered it to make two servings. This involved a fair amount of math (as hubby said, "There's some pretty serious fractions going on over here,") but it turned out just fine. My ramekins are really like a two person serving so I made one gigantic portion for the two of us to share. The only alteration I made to the recipe was I used only milk since I didn't have any cream on hand (and I feel terribly guilty consuming cream). I did use a dash of rum and liked the flavour but it would be equally good without it. Warning: measure out the ingredients and have them organized and ready to go because you have to work quite fast. My stand up mixer is such a superstar and really helps at times like this.

This would be perfect for Christmas morning breakfast if you're feeling up for a little challenge! Hope you like it!