Epic Burger, The YOB

When a hankering for my all-time favorite burger hit, Mr. B. came through with a suprisingly authentic version of the YOB Burger from Kuma's Corner in Chicago.

The ingredients and price, from Kuma's menu are:
Smoked Gouda, Bacon, Roasted Red Peppers, Roasted Garlic Mayo - $12


But the secret my friends, is the pretzel bun.....YUM!

Mail!

Came home to a special package today!

Here's a hint:

The Chamelon Girls are amazing!

The reveal is coming soon!

Birdcage

Found a cute wire birdcage at Ross:

Again, Restoration Hardware's Vintage Birdcage Chandelier for a mere $2,795.00 is calling my name and wondering how I can do this with it:

Which may be a little too involved, so maybe I'll just do something cute and fun. I saw this cute yellow birdcage on the @csiproject Outdoor Spaces Challenge, like this:

Jen at Tatertots and Jello has a great eye for design and I just love looking at her blog for inspiration! Check her out!


I'll let you know what I decide and show you the results soon!

Restoration Hardware

Saw this amazing two page ad in the L.A. Times on Sunday about Restoration Hardware's "The Gallery Beverly Blvd" and now have been trying not to obsessively look at their website before I see the store in person.

Did you see this ad? Are you going soon? If so, see you there!

Thrift store dress

The thrift stores in LA are not like the eh-what-the-heck-I'll-buy-it-and-give-it-a-shot-because-it-only-costs-2-bucks-anyway thrift stores of the midwest, oh not even close. This dress was a BARGAIN at $8. I'm getting worn out by the prices around these parts, especially since Target clearance is the same price (without the headache of alterations)! Maybe I should make a trip back and load up on thrift store stuff!


Found this dress at a thrift store near my house and thought it had much potential, but now I'm starting to reconsider.

Sorry, couldn't get the picture to rotate!

I thought I could take the long sleeves and transform them into a cute short ruffled sleeve, but after looking into it, it seems like it might be a bit past my sewing-expertise level. I have a friend who is a whiz at sewing out here, maybe I'll see what she thinks....to be continued.

Wine Corks

Mr. B has been collecting wine corks waiting to stumble upon a reason that will justify this collection. Here is a tiny sample of what he's got so far:

There are lots of interesting ideas out there (please help me cite these artists/crafters):




Cork Necklace



Cork Trivet

The Cork, Corkboard.





Cork Wall



But, Mr. B and I saw a really interesting "painting" when we were in Cambria, CA on our Memorial Day convertible road trip, but neither of us can remember the details (maybe too much wine?).





It was NOT as extravagant as this:



Whoa.

Anyone have any "painting" ideas that are more reasonable? Or anyone who lives in and/or visited Cambria, CA and went antiquing recently?

New patio find!

Found a great bucket with a stand at Ross a few weekends back. It had a few dings and dents, but Mr. B and I were sick of having our other drink holder sit on the ground:



And the price reduction reflected the wear-and-tear:

Pretty easy to put together, too!

Ta-da! A fun, new "vintage-y" addition to our patio!

Window treatments, improving!

When we moved into the apartment all the amazing, beautiful floor-to-ceiling windows were tarnished by their ugly coverings. The window coverings are the "sliding blinds" ala college apartments and the landlord refused to take them down. Hmm. Mr. B. and I decided that even if we took them down, where would we put them? Its not like there's a lot of storage in this apartment, especially for giant 6 foot bars and 10 foot blinds. Ugh.

After hours of staring at them, I decided that we could just put curtains in front of the sliders and "pretend" that we couldn't see the blinds. Somehow, Mr. B agreed!

Off to Ikea we went and bought some inexpensive curtain rods and curtains to try out this little experiment.



IRJA curtain rod set $1.99



Bomull pair of curtains $19.99





We ended up zip-tieing the blinds back and were mildly happy. Well at least happier than we were feeling circa 1999 with red plastic cups.



Mildly happy about the dining room



Mildly happy with the living room



THEN!



About 10 months later, Mr. B was examining the slider bars/rails (a better window treatment vocabulary would clearly be beneficial here!) and realized that they snapped out. Genius!

So, we unscrewed all the curtain rods and unsnapped all the slider bars/rails and then screwed the curtain rods into the walls UNDERNEATH the slider bars/rails! The look (to our eyes) is so much cleaner and a little less "noticeable."

You can really see how far out in front the curtain was before!

Not to be outdone by Mr. B's astounding discovery, I decided to use the hemming tape that had come with the curtains (10 months ago, sheesh) and hem the curtains to fit.

Curtains dragging on the floor



Then to put it over the top, I sewed the top loops in half so the blinds show even less!



Obviously not the greatest window treatment of all time, but my fellow apartment dwellers will appreciate the little ways to look more homeowner-ish. I hope?



Thanks for reading!



TOMS-Back In Stock

Wow, talk about putting it out in the universe!

Look at this email I got:



This is only half of the picture, weird!



I ordered them and patiently await their arrival! Yay for TOMS timely notifications!

TOMS Wedges-Sold Out!?

Love my red TOMS. Wear them with everything.

I decided that instead of buying (yet another) pair of Payless shoes that are cute but not comfortable, I would shell out the $70 for a pair of TOMS wedges. A big, big, BIG change of lifestyle for me. Gasp! I'm growing up!

Except....the ones I want are SOLD OUT. Everywhere. Even on Ebay, which for me is the ultimate go to for stuff that's sold out. Not this time.

I got on TOMS email list so they will notify me when they're back in stock, but in the meantime, I'm considering getting another color, but I heart these:

Sorry the pictures are so small! Go to the website to see the full size, trust me, you'll fall in love but don't forget that your heart will get broken!

When (and if) they are in stock and I get them, I'll post a photo of me in them! Fingers crossed!

End of the Season Sale at J.Crew

J.Crew is having a big sale, like BIG! I was at my favorite J.Crew this weekend, but they were all sold out of my size of all the cutest sale stuff. Internet shopping saves the day! 

The sale is 30% off the already reduced prices, which for a "thrifty" person like me, makes these adorable clothes much for affordable and actually in a price range I would consider.





Just wait until I buy my stuff before you order! :) Any other great end of the season sales out there that I haven't stumbled upon yet?

Bethenny's New Book

Just got my copy of Bethenny Frankel's new book, A Place of Yes.

I've only read a few chapters, but am already inspired to get up and go! It is wonderful to read a book (or watch a movie, tv, read a newspaper, blog or whatever) and feel more energized and positive about my life. Although I have many wonderful things happening and that have happened in my life, I am striving to be more happy, present, and alive!

My brother in law, J, has also started reading the book (we shared a copy all week) and is also practicing coming from A Place of Yes. Thanks for the camaraderie, J!

I will let you know my final review soon!

A new (to me) food!

Mr. B and I were at Surfa's a few weekends ago looking around at kitchen gadgets and swanky food when we stumbled upon the nice woman at the cheese counter.

We requested fresh mozzarella, but she urged us to try Burrata.  "Burrata?" we inquired. She explained that burrata is like mozzarella, but better. The outside of the ball is mozzarella, while the center is mozzarella mixed with cream. The texture was so creamy, which made us wonder what burrata meant in Italia, uh, it means buttered, perfect translation!

She again suggested a great compliment to the burrata, Fleur de Sel, a flaky salt from France. So fancy! We thought, "Ah, let's go all out and buy the $10 salt."

We were not disappointed!

Thank you to the woman at the cheese counter, wish I would have gotten her name!

If you try it, let me know what you think!

New Grill for Mr. B

Ok, it isn't that new anymore, but it was a few months ago, and I'm just now getting around to mentioning it!

I got it for him as a surprise, as in....surprise, I want hamburgers, here's a grill! :)

But, it didn't take him long to put it together and we've had literally months of amazing food on it! And, best part, I got it from Walmart. It was under $125 and we've saved 10 times that by eating at home. If you're interested its a Uniflame 40,000 BTU 2-Burner Gas Grill with side burner and is rated 4.5 stars with 99 reviews. Ah-mazing!

So.much.better.than.a.charcoal.grill. I know this is a bit of a hot issue, but seriously, we've had both and the hassle of the charcoal, the chimney, the uncontrollable heat/flame and the stink on one's clothes just does not justify the moderate increase in taste. We sold our charcoal grill on craigslist for $20, suckers.

Sorry, but its a passionate issue and we all are on a side.
Gas Grillers Unite! 

So happy together!

Dresser into 'Entertainment Center'

Rebecca from Painting the Roses White is the inspiration for this next project. Before I really understood what a blog was I would google everything. When I googled 'hollywood regency' for the first time to start getting inspiration for our new apartment (before we'd even moved in!) I came across this great blog post.

Here is her original dresser:

Rebecca's Dresser

And here's the one I bought off craigslist for $40 (thanks Mr. B for driving all the way to Hermosa Beach with me, then carrying it down 2 flights of stairs, tying it down in the car, unpacking it from the car, bringing it into our old apartment, then putting it in the moving truck, carrying it BACK up 2 flights of stairs to our new apartment etc, etc, etc):

Our craigslist find, so heavy!

Here is her paint job:

A creamy white paint

My drawers on the balcony ready for paint:

A lot of drawers to paint for a first timer

Her finished product:

Mine:

(Almost) Finished project!

One last thing: new knobs! I changed out the originals for these, but am still not happy!

Here are Rebecca's:

Rebecca's knob

But, I think I want some handles/knobs more like this from Holly at Life in the Fun Lane:

This was a fun project that really got me into making things my own!


Unfortunately for me (and you!) Rebecca hasn't posted in a long time and I miss her clever ideas and funny stories dearly! Come back soon Rebecca!