Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Neon

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a little timid when it comes to wearing bright colors. While there's a part of me that loves the current neon trend, the majority of me shies away from it (mostly because of my blonde hair...makes me feel borderline barbie). What better way to add some bright colors than through accessories? I was planning on giving away these old bangles to Goodwill until seeing this easy DIY on pinterest. It was cheap (I used embroidery thread I already had) and surprisingly easy. Few things give me as much satisfaction as making old things new.
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Monday, February 27, 2012

Dream Home

I was browsing through Lucky Magazine and was awe-struck by Lyndsay Caleo's home featured in this month's issue. Caleo is a jewelry designer in Brooklyn, and by the looks of her home she could also be an interior designer (assuming she didn't hire one). Enjoy.
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PS. Yes, I did take a couple pics with my phone-I just couldn't bare leaving anything out. Sorry for the poor picture quality!



Friday, February 24, 2012

Pin-Test

As promised, here is my first "healthy living" post! I found this recipe on pinterest, and admit to being very skeptical at first. I will say that I do not especially like fresh/uncooked cauliflower, but this stuff.........this can't be cauliflower. It's incredible, and even passed Red's taste test with flying colors (he will tell me if my healthy recipe's will taste good to other people). Believe it or not, they actually taste like fries! I'm so excited to have a healthy football food that isn't a veggie platter. That said, we will be enjoying this treat year round. Happy Friday!
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Images & Recipe found here
What you will need:
  • 2 heads of cauliflower
  • 1/4 cup of olive oil
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon of salt
  • 1 teaspoon of pepper

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
  2. Wash and clean the cauliflower. Cut off and discard the stem. Cut the cauliflower up into small pieces.
  3. In a large bowl, combine the olive oil, salt and pepper. Add the cauliflower pieces and thoroughly coat each piece.
  4. Place cauliflower pieces onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for one hour and turn 3 times during cooking until each piece has a nice brown coloring. The browner they are the better.
  5. Remove from oven and enjoy!
Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Layered Rugs, Yes or No?

My friend B and her husband are in the process of buying a house, and we have been talking about ideas for her new home. The subject of rugs and layering of rugs came up, and it got me thinking. What are your guys thoughts on this subject? My personal take is this: I don't mind layering rugs on wall-to-wall carpet as long as it's a very low pile carpet. I do, however, like the layered rug look- especially when the bottom rug is a jute rug. Here are pictures for you readers who are visual like myself. What do you guys think?
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1/2/3/4/5
Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Layer by Layer

Most of us are forced to decorate layer by layer due to the fact that we don't have unlimited funds. I was thinking today how glad I am for this. If I had been given unlimited funds when Red and I were first married I would have bought: all black furniture, matching lamps, matching chairs and then a year later I would have replaced all the black furniture with all reclaimed wood furniture. What's wrong with this? Nothing is wrong individually, but big picture there's no dimension to this room. Homes that most of us are drawn to do not look like the showrooms we see in furniture stores. The beautiful rooms on pinterest and in magazines have multiple layers that are all brought together to make a room interesting and cozy. Limited funds force us to think carefully about the next layer, or "investment piece".
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Take this (knock-off) Eames Rocker for example:
Our current home is old and the rooms are small. Our couch and loveseat would not fit comfortably in the same room, so we just have our couch in the living room. This means that when we entertain there's limited seating, so we were on the lookout for a small chair. This rocker fit the bill because we also knew we wanted to have kids and would want a rocker someday that didn't look too "baby". This was the perfect solution for us.....extra seating for now, a rocker for our baby on the way, and fulfilling my current Eames obsession = investment piece (investment piece is not necessarily expensive but something you will love/use years down the road). Having this rocker also helps me to evaluate, "Do I want Eames chairs for our dining room, or will this rocker fill that void ?".
Ps. I know knock-off Eames is a bit of a controversial issue, but when funds don't allow for the real deal, I have no problem with knock-offs.
Saturday, February 18, 2012

She's Back

Hey guys, I'm back! And where have I been? Basically, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with life and felt that I could either do a few things really well or nothing well at all. So, I took a much needed furlough from blogging. It gave me time to prioritize and decide where I want to take RestlessOasis. Here's the conclusion I came to- I still plan on blogging regularly but I'm NOT 1.Giving myself deadlines 2.Meeting a minimum quota of posts per week 3.Limiting myself to only design. I want RestlessOasis to be my creative fun place and not a part time job.
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That said, I have missed this place. One of the things I felt I had neglected because of blogging was photography. I love photography and I'm definitely in the beginner learning stages. Instead of choosing between the two, I hope to incorporate what I'm learning with RestlessOasis. In other news, I'm pregnant with a baby girl (!!!) and I was super sick for a while. That definitely sapped my creative juices. It's nice to feel like "me" again and Red & I couldn't be more excited about our new season of life. You might occasionally get posts related to baby things, but I PROMISE you this won't become a baby blog:). Lastly, I have tried to keep my personal training job separate from RestlessOasis, but I've decided every now and then you might get fitness tips/recipes because this is after all a big part of my life. Instead of having so many different pockets of my life, why not combine it some? That's my thinking at least. I hope this only serves to improve RestlessOasis as I'm being more "true to myself" for lack of better words.
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In one word, January was COLD. Not only did I experience negative temperatures for the first time, but experienced -24 degrees. Yes, cold.
Also, Geronimo discovered that he loved snow.