Chinese New Year 2012

(Instagram photo )

Today marks the start of the Chinese New Year, the year of the dragon  If you are wanting to celebrate here are some ideas to decorate your home for the festivities ::

• Decorate your home in red, the Chinese color for good luck.
• Peonies symbolize love, affection and beauty and are know in China as "flowers of riches and honor."  Float the peonies in shallow bowls down your table to create and easy centerpiece.
• String a flower garland to ornament your mantels or doorways.
• Line your walkway with traditional Chinese lanterns to draw light and luck, along with your friends and family, straight into your home.
• Foods like whole fish, noodles and mandarin oranges are considered lucky foods, so eat or gift these foods as much as you can on the New Year.  

Wishing you a year of great happiness and prosperity!

Alt Design Summit

Today I am leaving my desk and heading to Salt Lake City to attend Alt, an amazing lifestyle and design blogging conference that I am very excited to attend.  I'll be driving from Sacramento to Salt Lake City, wish me luck.  I hope to be blogging from Salt Lake but if I don't, I'll see you back here next week!

Kid Friendly Entertaining

Last year I was given to opportunity to contribute to a local moms magazine, Kidaround.  In the latest issue, I provided five tips on how to entertaining at home with your kids, instead of going out or shipping the kids off for the evening.   You can go here, to read the digital copy of the article and the rest of the publication.

Cauliflower Soup

In the cold months of January and February, I turn to this soup.  It's warm, comforting and satisfying.  And as an added bonus it's topped with warm, buttery, crunchy home made croutons. 

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a shallow pan, add 2 diced celery ribs and 2 coarsely chopped cloves of garlic. 

 Sauté for a few minutes until celery is soft and shallot is translucent.  Add kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.

Add 4 cups chicken stock to celery and shallots.  Add cut up cauliflower and add a few springs of thyme to pan and simmer for 25-30 minutes.

Remove soup from heat and cool for a few minutes.  Spoon mixture into blender and blend in batches (remove the top of blender while blending to allow steam to escape).  From there pour soup either back into pan or pour into serving bowls.  Serve with homemade croutons.

Baby Shower

Last weekend I co-hosted a baby shower with Manpreet from pulp papery for our good friend, Anne.  Anne is from St. Louis and is going to have a shower there hosted by her family but we wanted to throw her shower here with a few of her California friends.  So Manpreet and I set out to create an intimate shower with classic French details, lots of fresh flowers and really delicious food. Check out the details ::

New Books

A couple of weeks ago, I lived dangerously and ordered everything in my Amazon cart. These are some of the books that I ordered. It's been fun to read through these new resources and gain fresh inspiration for the upcoming new year.  

Pantone Colors

Like most designers, I have thing for Pantone color chips.  I think it's the clean and simple layout of how the color and name are displayed on the color chips.  Every year Pantone announces a color of the year in their yearly color forecasting.  It was recently announced that the color for 2012 will be Tangerine Tango.  This bright orange will make it's way into home decor, fashion, graphic design, weddings and parties.

Sample of Tangerine Tango 

This custom painted wall inspired by Pantone color chips in Mindy Weiss' studio is genius :: 

These mugs would be a great way to get inspired first thing in the morning ::