Little Women Movie Night

I'm so excited for tonight because wine club is having our second Christmas Movie Pajama Party, and the movie this year is the 1994 version of "Little Women." To say this movie was a huge impact on Little Me is a pretty big understatement; I still hate Kirsten Dunst to this day, purely for how spirited her portrayal of evil Amy was. 

If you've never seen it, invest the $5 Target will charge you, settle in and prepare yourself to fall in love with Christian Bale in a way you could never feel about Batman. You also might come away with a fierce desire to have four girls and make them call you "Marmy." Just sayin.

Baked Goods for Giving or Sharing

Now that I'm much closer to Christmas and starting to make the rounds to holiday get-togethers, I've been thinking about whipping together some baked goods for parties and to share. A couple years ago, I went CRAZY baking cookies for all my family members...unfortunately, they didn't stay super fresh quite long enough, but they were tasty. Here are some of my baking favorites, for your holiday get-togethers:

Chocolate Peppermint Cookies, from Martha Stewart

Nutella Cookie Sandwiches

Lemon Wreath Cookies

Saltine Toffee Chocolate cookies

Burnt Sugar Bundt Cake.

Brownie-covered Oreos

Seven Hours in Charlottesville

Picture from Thomas Jefferson Foundation.

This past weekend, my friend Andi and I ventured westward to Charlottesville, where we went on the Monticello holiday evening tour, a special chance to see the home at night and hear a little bit about the family's holiday customs. 

Truth is, early Americans didn't have too many customs resembling ours today; the Christmas tree wasn't common in the U.S. until the 1840s. But they did give gifts, like gloves for the ladies or books for Jefferson. The real draw for the tour, though, is the chance to visit the Dome Room, which is almost never open to guests. 

Bear with me...it was impossible to get good pictures with my point and shoot!

 Jefferson was very inspired by classical architecture in Europe, none more than the works of Andrea Palladio. He was so obsessed with the idea of having a dome in the colonies, he did whatever it took. This was the first domed room in Virginia.

But it was located on a barely used third floor, up the narrowest, steepest stairs you can imagine (seriously! it was scary!) and it's a drafty room. It amounts to a very fancy attic...but a pretty one!

Andi and I also took the time to visit one of the my favorite places ever — the Downtown Mall, home to three of my favorite stationary/home stores: the sprawling and beautiful Caspari flagship store, Rock Paper Scissors, and  O'Suzannah. If I ever opened a store, I would want it to be as fun and absorbing as those three.

We also had a fabulous dinner at Brookville Restaurant, a cozy restaurant tucked upstairs above Escafe, across from the Regal movie theater and neighboring ice rink. Brookville sources all its ingredients locally and has a menu that changes weekly.

I had apple soup (!!), which was like nothing I've ever had. It was tart and a little spicy...good, but very different.

 And a perfectly cooked bone-in chicken breast, with a salty crisp skin, on a bed of broccoli and polenta.

And to finish, the best part: bacon and chocolate chip cookies, with a glass of milk. Delicious!

P.S. Charlottesville is about two hours from Hampton Roads, and it was a very do-able day trip. We went up after noon and were back by midnight, so it's very possible to have a little day-long escape to the mountains.

Sunday Best v.82

That sound you just heard was a thousand women's baby clocks going off. Omigod, who knows where this child came from, but geeeeez. Found here.

How are the holidays treating you? I've been strangely on top of gift shopping and wrapping and all that this year, but I'm starting to get REALLY busy. Hoping to enjoy some time to drink cocoa and bake cookies soon.

• Gift-giving advice from someone who struggles with Asperger's.
• My friend Bret just introduced me to a Broadway-centered talk show that is HILARIOUS. Watch Daniel Radcliffe learn to clean. It's awesome.
• Awesome website of weird pictures, objects, etc. from the the past.
• I fell down the rabbit hole looking at pictures of former celebrity couples.
• Ever wonder why you wear different sizes at different stores? NPR explains.

Clever Gadgets

I love witty gadgets, and I've noticed a few floating around the blogosphere that I just had to highlight here. I'm loving (and coveting) the Aphrodite USB hub, $30 at Fred Flare.

And how fabulous is Jonathan Adler's smartphone docking station? $48 here.

This is the one I most fell in love with, and is of course, the most unavailable. I'm not even sure if it's available stateside, but it's like a Riiiiiicooooollllaaaa (that's Ricola, obviously) horn for your mp3 player. I love how sleek it is, and functional. Learn more about it here.

Christmas Wrapping 2011

Family, friends and longtime readers of the blog know that I have a sort of anal retentiveness when it comes to the holidays. It starts with a Google Doc where I store all my gift ideas year-round and trickles down to my obsessive insistence on picking a wrapping paper color scheme each year.

It sounds neurotic (it is), but I find joy in the creativity of it, so it's not as crazy as it sounds...at least I don't think it is.

The basic rules of my Christmas wrapping are these: no wrapping paper obviously made for Christmas (because that way, I can use it year-round) and I have to attempt different riffs on the theme as much as possible.

This year, I decided to challenge myself to use typical Christmas colors: silver and gold, but together. It's like a jewelry store under my tree! I got the awesome textured paper (seen above) at TJ Maxx and most of the other papers came from Target. The gold kraft paper is left over from last year, but I saw some rolls at Target this year, too.

Let's take a journey down memory lane:

Christmas 2006: Hot pink, black and white and silver. Still one of my all-time faves, but REALLY girly.

Christmas 2007: Gold, pink and kraft paper. This year was just okay.

Christmas 2008: Red, white and robin's egg blue...my future wedding colors! I loved this color scheme, and even used baker's twine and made my own tags. BUT I still have some of that paper left over.

 Christmas 2009: In an effort to get rid of some of the red, I reused it and paired it with purple. It was just OK.

Christmas 2010: Blue and gold. I loved this one. I think it was my chicest yet, including this year. 

Someday I might try to take on unconventional green and red, but I've also considered greens and silvers, or mint and gold. Any suggestions out there? Am I only in this neurotic exercise?

It's the Holiday Season

Well, the holiday season has launched in our household. I've assembled the perfect holiday mix on Spotify, I've got my sparkly tee from J.Crew (in gold), and I'm ready to go.

This weekend, Sean and I saw "The Muppets." (Hilarious, and I definitely cried during "Rainbow Connection," as per ush.) Then, we got gussied up and headed out to Sean's company Christmas party at the Mariner's Museum (where we got married). I'm wearing my new favorite red lipstick — Revlon Ravish Me Red.

We were able to tour the museum, which we didn't do during our wedding, and I made Sean pretend to sit alone in a Titanic lifeboat. Jerk!

After that, we finally decorated for Christmas. Last year, we decided not to get a full, real tree because we'd be traveling so much. We decided to do that again, and it works well. I also took down the gallery wall and put up the glitter stars from our wedding...I love the idea my future kids might grow up hanging these for the holidays and know they're from the day we got married!

I like to buy new, personal ornaments every year. This year, we bought an ornament from Biltmore...

and in honor of living in Hampton Roads, a mermaid, which is the symbol of Norfolk. I love her glitter!

And, as always, popped up my LED diamond lights from IKEA. I very much miss having a mantel to put them on, but they still have a place of honor!

Today, I'm also hoping to pick up stamps for Christmas cards...I don't know why I'm so with it this year, but I'm glad for it!

Sunday Best v.81

Picture found on Babble.

Have you started decorating yet? We put up our decorations last night, to the tunes of my holiday mix. For the past couple of years, we've used my small fake single-girl tree. It makes me kind of sad but it does make things easier. I like the idea of snagging an evergreen branch and sticking it in an elegant glass vase, too. Simple and chic.

This week's Sunday Best is extra long and full of great links because I forgot to post last week! Oops. Enjoy!

• A fascinating story about different approaches to sex ed in schools.
• A secret spot of fun in Grand Central Station.
• Use scotch tape to perfect your eyeliner.
• Cloth-like napkins that come on a roll!.
• Some of the prettiest wedding dresses I've seen.
• The Reading Rainbow theme, as sung by The Doors (as sung by Jimmy Fallon).
• How to take the perfect glowing pictures of your Chrismas tree.
• Hanson is going to sell MmmmHop beer.
• Traffic signs in haiku.

Let's Talk Make-up: New Loves and Swear-bys

Yesterday, I mentioned on Facebook that my coworkers and I have been having a love affair with red lipstick, but we all wear very different shades. That set off a discussion on make-up that I seem to keep having lately that I thought I'd bring to the blog.

I have a sort of insane make-up routine that's always being tweaked depending on my mood. I also have a mix of high-brow and low-brow make-up; I almost never drop serious money on eye shadow, but I almost exclusively wear expensive blushes and lip products. There's little rhyme or reason to it, but I will say that expensive makeup is worth it to get more saturated pigments. I wanted to share some of my current loves and old standbys:

Makeup Essentials by amberfiona on polyvore.com

My current loves include the Tarte Matte LipLuster in Lively, a hot pink, and Revlon's Ravish Me Red lipstick. The rest of the items in here are stand-bys that I really should call swear-bys.

They include NARS Orgasm lip gloss and blush, Bobbi Brown gel eyeliner and L'Oreal liquid liner, Revlon's Photo Ready foundation, Benefit's Moon Beam (seriously! swear by!), Rosebud's Strawberry lip balm (I call it my "Man-Gettin Gloss"), Maybelline's Sunlit Bronze eye shadow, Maybelline Great Lash mascara, Anastasia Brow Powder and Tarte's Flushed cheek stain. I forgot to put it in, but I use a rotation of primers...right now I'm using some Cle de Peau that my friend sent me.

My wish list includes Nars Heat Wave and Funny Face semi-matte lipsticks and I've ALWAYS wanted to try Yves St. Laurent's Touch Eclait concealer.

How about you guys? What do I need to try? What do you swear by?

Today I Like ... Coral & Tusk

With the proliferation of blogs and images floating around Pinterest, it's rare these days that I genuinely stumble upon something. But the other night, a series of clicks landed me on the website of Coral and Tusk and fell deep in love. 

Coral and Tusk is the work of designer Stephanie Housley, who is inspired by her travels. She makes beautiful embroidered designs for home, walls and babies. Here are some of my favorites:

Indian elephant cocktail napkins.

Owls and raccoons framed art.

Arrow pillow (so pretty!)

Baby booties with the coral and tusk.

Laser-cut stationary.

A feather mobile.

Isn't her stuff just lovely? Those cocktail napkins are on my wish list for sure.