Shopping Archives - Page 11 of 33

Things I Am Loving – Stripey Kenwood Stand Mixers

October 19, 2011 By Paola 5 Comments

After the the Husband, the Minx and the wedding album, I do believe my Kitchen Aid stand mixer would be the next thing I’d rescue in a fire.

However, that’s not to say that I can’t still admire these Kenwood Stand Mixers from afar and be grateful that someone is having a little fun with kitchen design.

Would you have one in your kitchen? Or am I just succumbing to my inner five year old again?

The Firecracker colourway is also available from John Lewis. Unfortunately I don’t think Kenwood has arrived in the US.

Orla Kiely for Babies

October 6, 2011 By Paola 6 Comments

I’m wondering if the Minx would still have such appallingly bad taste if I’d started her off on these?

These great new baby gifts are available here. I WISH Orla Kiely would open a US online store.

Neon Bright Satchels

October 5, 2011 By Paola 8 Comments

These satchels, yes or no? And if yes, what colour?

I’m old enough to have had one of these in chestnut to take to school when I was very tiny. Why on earth didn’t I keep it? It was deeply and BEAUTIFULLY distressed too.

Corners of our House – Missoni Cube

October 1, 2011 By Paola 6 Comments

I thought you might like to see how nice the Missoni for Target cube looks in situ.

I am so pleased with it. It’s sturdily built and covered in printed cotton canvas with a cool contrast piping detail and provided a useful extra bit of seating at a recent dinner party. If Target manages to get more in stock it seems well worth the money. In fact I’d go as far as to say that it might even be worth braving eBay to get hold of one (or one of the other fabulous designs). Apartment Therapy agrees with me.

Unfortunately there’s nothing like putting taking photos of a corner of the house to highlight stuff that still needs to be done. Highest priority currently is replacing the ugly-ass front door and I still need to do something about the jellyfish light fixtures and find a striking bit of artwork for above the sofa. I’ve also been looking for a throw to cover up the huge telly (given that our basement with TV room remodel is not looking like it will be done any time soon). This could be the perfect opportunity to actually start crocheting the Babette blanket, instead of just hoarding yarn for it.

Still, it’s looking a heckuva lot better than it used to.

Missoni for Target

September 23, 2011 By Paola 2 Comments

So have you got over the much-hyped, much anticipated ~~PR-disaster~~, retail extravaganza which was Missoni for Target? If you ended up disappointed you may want to stop reading this post now.

Given the exuberant pattern, colours and Italianness of the Missoni aesthetic, you would be right in thinking that the collection was right up my alley, and I made a resolution to get up early on the 13th and get in line. I even went through the lookbook carefully to plan my shop, with the fabulous espresso cups at the top of my list.

Of course I forgot all about it (I’d be such a crap fashionista) and only remembered when I got on Twitter at 8.30 am. I decided to make an unprecedented effort, MISSED BREAKFAST, and chased up the freeway to my nearest Target. When I arrived at 8.45 am the whole place was picked clean. No womenswear, no homewares, no menswear, no. espresso. cups. Just long lines at checkout of women with their carts piled high with thousands of dollars of Missoni stuff. I picked up a couple of skirts and sweaters for the Minx, two pairs of socks for me, nearly had a fight with the woman in the check out line who tried to pinch my meagre pickings and returned home feeling that being a shopaholic really is much too much like hard work.

I halfheartedly opened the website and was of course greeted by the irritatingly cute dog. So I thought no more about it and got on with grumbling about Target on Facebook and Twitter. And then my habit of not closing a browser window paid off, when the Target website flickered tantalisingly to life around 11 am. And there was still lots of stuff left because no one else could access it either. Not much womenswear, not much dinnerware, no. espresso. cups, but bedding and towels, and kidwear and poufs.

So I may have got a little carried away.

It’s all surprisingly well made and extremely good value for money. I hope Target can find a way to restock in a month or so, as there are still a few bits and bobs I wanted (women’s ballet flats, tumblers and loopy pillow). Harriet likes it too.

Did you wait in line that morning? Did you get what you wanted? Do you think this has been bad PR for Target? I have to confess to doing what I never do, and resorting to Ebay for the espresso cups which are apparently on their way.

Yellow Goes Surprisingly Well With Everything

September 21, 2011 By Paola 5 Comments

In her eyewateringly hilarious neo-feminist diatribe How To Be A Woman, UK journalist Caitlin Moran mentions in passing that ‘yellow shoes go surprisingly well with everything’. And, though I’ve never owned a pair of yellow shoes in my life, I can see that this may very well be the case.

I’m also wondering if that is also case for interiors, but I suspect that is mostly so I can have an excuse to buy this – the IKEA Trollsta sideboard (which is apparently now only available in black instead of yellow, seriously guys, the yellowness was by far the best thing about it).

{From Planet Fur via Designer Junk Finder}

Perhaps fortunately for the people who have to live with me, we have absolutely no space for this – otherwise I’d be sorely tempted to drag home the black version and a pot of yellow paint.

So is it true? Does yellow go with everything? Should I buy yellow shoes? Do you want to sell me your yellow sideboard? Got any other examples of fabulous yellow accent pieces?

Van Halen Socks

September 20, 2011 By Paola 3 Comments

I daresay I’m too old for them, but I really need to knit these socks as a matter of urgency.

Why am I still only thirty in my head? I think I’m starting to veer into mutton dressed as lamb territory.

Julep Maven

September 17, 2011 By Paola 6 Comments

There’s quite a lot of self-reinvention going on around here. I’ve lost 26lbs and counting since June 1st on the deadly but effective Dukan diet and am the thinnest I’ve been for about eight years (and yes, I will blog about it early next week).

This time I’m determined to see this thing through to the end, and as a result am holding off on buying too many new clothes as I’d still like to lose another 16-20 lbs. Instead I had to find another way to up the glamour factor round these parts – I’m feeling better about myself than I have in a LOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG time – and give myself a bit of a reward. And this treat fits whatever size you are.

I’ve been a fan of Julep ever since entrepreneur Jane Park opened her first salon about ten minutes from my house. They now have a presence throughout Greater Seattle and have launched their line of nail polishes online throughout the US. These are beautiful polishes in glorious colours with lots of seasonal changes, all named after Hollywood stars. I’m shallow enough that I find this occasionally problematic – I don’t care what colour it is, I am not wearing ‘Keira’ or ‘Gwyneth’.

They’ve also launched a monthly subscription service called Julep Maven. You do a fun quiz to find out your style and they email you every month with personalised colour selections. You can choose whether to take the colours, request another ‘shelf pull’, have the box sent to a friend as a present or just skip the box altogether. And for around $20 a month, they guarantee at least $40 of product, including two nail polishes in either new seasonal colours or cult favourites, together with other hand care products. Shipping is free and you also get 20% of other products on the website.

The quiz decided that I was an ‘American Beauty’, somewhat amusing as I’m neither leggy, nor blonde, nor even American, and the website said they’d be sending me ‘Alfre’ – a cool dusty lilac and ‘Carrie’, a useful innocuous pink. Since I have no idea who ‘Alfre’ is, and since I still have some residual affection for ‘Carrie’, despite SATC2, I thought these sounded good.

Everything arrived beautifully packaged, with a letter from the owner. As well as the two polishes, I received a bottle of Nail Therapy nail strengthener (which has been GREAT for my brittle nails), a full size 3 oz glycolic hand scrub and a couple of little samples.

The only problem was that they weren’t the right two polishes. I’d been sent ‘Zoe’, a gorgeous autumnal copper and ‘Molly’ a true red, which isn’t really me.

I emailed instantly to inquire after the whereabouts of cool and beautiful Alfre, to be told that I’d signed up just as the monthly colours were changing. However they did offer to send Alfre to me free of charge, which was rather nice of them. So here are my three ladies (plus nail protector) in all their glory.

Here I am modelling Zoe and wishing that I wasn’t such a f*cking amateur when it comes to giving myself a manicure. I love her as she is glamorous, yet neutral and seasonal, and not a colour that I would necessarily have picked out for myself, which is sort of the point of doing this sort of thing.

I find myself strangely excited to see what colours are in my next box (I’m such a sucker for good marketing). If you live in the US and want to give yourselves a little monthly treat then here’s where you can sign up.

(FULL DISCLOSURE: I get $15 in store credit if you sign up through the link above. However, as usual I haven’t been paid for this review, nor have I been sent free stuff, it’s something I decided to do for me).

Beautiful British Food

August 17, 2011 By Paola 8 Comments

Funnily enough, given that I was brought up by, and learned to cook from, an Italian woman and cook in a very Italian way myself, I have found myself being a bit of an unofficial ambassador for British food here in Seattle, where it’s as much maligned as it is everywhere else on the planet.

I tend to make classic British dishes for potlucks and gatherings (people are so surprised that British food can actually taste good) and really want the Minx to grow up understanding her culinary heritage in the land of mac ‘n’ cheese and pumpkin pie.

New Zealander Joel Penkman moved to the UK and started painting beautifully detailed portraits of classic British foodstuffs which make me want to weep with nostalgia.

Every British kid grew up on these biscuits.

No trip to the seaside was complete without a stick of rock to take home.

My favourite ice lolly. At least until they invented Magnums.

No kid’s birthday party was complete without Fondant Fancies, though my mum had enough of a fear of food colouring that we never had them at home.

Custard tarts. Always hated those.

And pork pie. One of the top five things I miss most about the UK here in Seattle. I think I would cry if I had this picture on my kitchen wall.

Joel’s website is here. Buy her prints here.

The Story of the Cake – Part II

August 16, 2011 By Paola 3 Comments

The day before the party the Husband and I set to work assembling all the various cakes I’d been making and freezing over the previous week.

The top tier was a classic Victoria sponge filled with chocolate buttercream. The rainbow cake filled with vanilla buttercream formed the middle tier and the bottom tier was yet another Macrina Bakery ‘Mom’s Chocolate Cake’, which I’ve been using for birthday cakes ever since the Minx was two, as it is very moist and forgiving, and much beloved by the grown up kids in attendance.

Stupidly I’d made my cakes in 9”, 8” and 7” sizes which didn’t really make for enough of a tiered effect and also left nowhere for my fairy cake toppers to sit. Fortunately I’d made a big batch of cupcakes ready for a cupcake decorating activity at the party so we used a few to create plinths for the fairies to sit on.

Here is the whole edifice covered in its crumb coat. (Please ignore hideous green kitchen countertops).

And here is the finished article, covered with easy moulded flowers and chocolate bunnies, made using candy melts; vines and leaves iced on in green buttercream and a set of five Disney Fairy cake toppers. The Husband has asked me to point out that he is the person who actually wields the icing bag (under my direction) and he certainly did a fabulous job.

I was however nervous for the final piece de resistance. Would the central rainbow cake be sufficiently lurid and rainbow-like?

It seems I needn’t have worried.

And the kids ADORED it.

I am indebted to my father-in-law for the last two photos. Note the careful styling in this bottom pic, it took me ages to get the mustard bottle just so.

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{From Planet Fur via Designer Junk Finder}

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