Dans la Rue

My parents came to visit just after new years, and we spent a day wandering around the town of Honfleur. The town boasts of one of the last true milliners in France (or so he claims). The hats here were gorgeous, and I totally fell in love with a green cloche hat - so continues the Dowton Abby obsession. Luckily, my birthday is coming up...

I'm wearing a coat from a Aigle that I bought nearly 4 years ago, one of the best coat purchases I've made. It's waterproof, windproof, and has a choice between a hood and a faux fur collar that I'm wearing here. Warm, functional and stylish. It's a win-win-win.

Neon Color Blocking

Neon is one of those things, like leopard print and glitter, that can either look classy or trashy, and the line of distinction is often quite hard to define. When I found this dress at J. Crew the last time I was in the states, I found it struck the perfect balance.

On a side note, the art on the wall behind me is an old calendar that I cut up and framed. Don't throw away last years calendars just yet!

Recycle!

Glass jars have made a comeback in the past few years with the new information we have on plastics, and I couldn't be happier. Something about a glass jar makes things seem so clean and organized to me. I am forever saving my empty jars - for my wedding, I saved glass yogurt containers for months to use as bud vases and votive holders (I reused the idea just this week with the "2013" votives I made for new years)

Photo credit: Jere Visalli

Photo credit: Philippe Beuf

I also use glass jars to organize my kitchen. One of the easiest and effective projects I've done is to pain the lids with chalkboard paint, so they can be labelled and reused easily!

Glitter Farm

I've said it before: I love glitter! Maybe it's the five year old in me, but especially here in rainy Normandy, it makes the gloomy days a bit brighter.

Today, I paired one of my comfiest flannel checkered shirts with my new glitter loafers. Farm wear feminized instantly!

Let's pretend that I cuff my pants in the name of style, rather than shortness and laziness...

Shoes: London Rebel via ASOS; Jeans: 7 for All Mankind; Shirt: Forever 21

Color Coded

I am hopeless with keys. I lose them, I lock my self out of apartments & houses, I once even locked my keys in my car with the car still running! Like I said, hopeless.

Our apartment is old, and we have a set of 3 keys needed to access our apartment. To make matters worse, they all looked the same! I was thus forever using the wrong one and swearing at the doors.

Then, I had a fabulous idea to end all of my troubles.

I simply painted the tops of each key with a different color nail polish. One of my keys did already have a color key on it, but I painted it gold anyway so it wouldn't be left out...

I can't tell you how much difference tiny change has made my life!

Bonne Année 2013!

Happy new year 2013! 

In France, the new years tradition is based around, you guessed it, food!
Many restaurants are open and have extensive seven course meals.
However, 4 + hours of eating and drinking comes at a certain (read: hefty!) price and the menus are not very vegetarian friendly.
Now, granted, I'm a really bad vegetarian (I eat fish on occasion, one of my new years resolutions is to eat vegan 2 times a week though! Baby steps...) but foie gras, deer and sweetbreads are not my cup of tea.

So, we decided to forgo the restaurant route and had our own new years party at home.
I came across ellinee.com, a great site that has all kinds of free printables for occasions like new years, birthdays, valentine's day, you name it. All the new years paper decorations in this post are from their blog site.

Strange fact about the small town we live in: there is a take out sushi that is actually quite good! So, we ordered way too much sushi and had a feast!

At midnight we cracked a bottle of champagne and put our wedding flutes to good use.

Grigris looking dashing in his new years hat

Midnight kiss!

Dress: H&M

Joyeuses Fêtes!

Happy holidays! A few of my holiday musts:

Simple makeup with a red lip...

Fresh oysters...

Homemade Christmas yule log cake (bûche de Noel, my first!)...

See you all in 2013!