Another way to show your style...Christmas cards!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas (and feel like it too...brrr!). The hustle and bustle has started, the decorations are going up and the mall is a zoo. While we are getting close to having all of our shopping done, what we haven't done yet is mail out our Christmas cards. I love Christmas cards and believe they are definitely a reflection of your personal style. They can be traditional or chic and modern and with so many choices, you're bound to find one that fits you and your family. I've always loved photo cards and used to get so excited as a child when one would come. My family never did them, so they always seemed exotic to me. As soon as my husband and I had been dating for a while, we began doing photo Christmas cards and haven't stopped. They are a great way for our distant relatives who rarely see us to follow us as we change through the years. This year I think Shutterfly has some of the best cards I've seen. I've used Shutterfly for prints and online photo storage and sharing but I've never ordered cards from them. However, with the great service I've received in the past and with all the lovely designs they have to offer, I'm excited to see how they turn out this year. Here are a few of the great Christmas cards they have to offer. I love so many of them I haven't been able to narrow it down yet. I really like the "Elegant Modern Collage" and the "Family Wall" in both red and noir. If you are more into Holiday cards versus Christmas specific cards, you're bound to find one you love here. Did you know that Shutterfly also does great baby shower invitations and even photo canvases? Those baby shower invitations are so gorgeous and I'll definitely be checking them out the next time I need to host a baby shower. The photo canvases would make a great gift and are such a chic way to share your favorite photo in your home. I'm so excited to put together our cards this week and get them in the mail. Have you mailed your cards yet? What kind of cards will you do this year?

I wish all of my readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Need some Christmas cards of your own? Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly, follow the arrow -->http://bit.ly/sfly2010.

Update: I received my cards VERY promptly and I LOVE them! They really turned out great and I was impressed with the quality of the cardstock, how nicely they were printed and how quickly they arrived. I would definitely use them again. I received 50 of my cards for free for completing this blog post as part of Shutterfly's blogger promotion but also spent my own money to order additional cards.

Birthday Cakes

This year I've made a fair amount of birthday cakes and am proud to say that I made all of them from scratch, down to the decorating icing. No cake mixes in this house! First I made one of my bosses a cake in March (yellow cake, chocolate frosting), then I made my husband's cookies and cream cake in June (chocolate cake with cookies and cream frosting), then my mother-in-law's in September (yellow cake, chocolate frosting) and finally my mother's last weekend (chocolate cake, chocolate frosting). For all of these cakes, I used recipes from the awesome food blog Annie's Eats. The chocolate cake, chocolate frosting and cookies and cream frosting (doubled) came from this post. The yellow cake came from this post. For the colored decorating icing, I generally just make a small batch of a basic buttercream and tint it with the wonderful Wilton gel colors. For my mom's cake, where I decorated in lighter chocolote frosting, I just added more confectioner's sugar to the chocolate frosting until I was happy with the coloring. Here are a few pictures.

David's

Mom's

Mother-in-law's

Definitely give these recipes a shot if you're looking to do a cake from scratch. We thought they all turned out great!

DIY Decor

As this blog's name implies, it is for both style and food. I don't think the style has to be limited to fashion and can eclipse home decor and other parts of your life that you'd want to be stylish in. I love to decorate our home for the holidays and the seasons and prefer there always be a stylish arrangement on my dining room table (I'm southern...a formal dining room is a must!). This fall I saw a great DIY idea on a few blogs and decided to recreate it myself. I've always admired the lovely hurricane vases in the Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma home catalogs but did not admire their high price tags. The lovely Hayden hurricanes from Williams Sonoma, which most closely resemble my finished product, were upwards of $70 for a large hurricane! Mine cost me approximately $2 each!

Head to your local Dollar Tree and pick up a fluted top hurricane vase and a crystal candle stick. Then run to your local Michael's, AC Moore, or Target and pick up some clear Gorilla glue. Clean the bottom of your vase well and then wet it (per Gorilla glue instructions). Quickly apply a VERY thin layer of glue where you plan to attach your candlestick and attach (alternately, you can apply the glue to the rim of the candlestick). Make sure it appears level and place something on top to weight it down (I used stone coasters but a book would work).

Let dry at least 30 minutes and voila...your own hurricane vase. Gorilla glue expands quite a bit so you may need an exacto knife to trim any excess glue that squeezed out of the sides. Then fill with your favorite vase filler! For fall I went with leaves and candles and look forward to using ornaments or something along those lines for Christmas.

Have you done any great DIY projects lately? How do you decorate for the various seasons and holidays?

So yeah...about that picture I promised you...

...6 months ago (hides face in shame). I really do have it. I promise. Here is it...me meeting the gorgeous and super friendly Giada (who was wearing some wicked shoes by the way).

Really sorry it took me so long to get it up here. Right about the time I posted that we started the run of summer and it has barely stopped since. We went a good 2 months where we had something EVERY weekend. Yikes! I'm enjoying these slightly less packed weekends of fall, though the next few weekends will be a bit busy. I also hope that being less busy will give me a chance to catch up here. I also want to expand a little into stylish things other than just clothes, shoes and bags. First up, I want to show you my fall decor and the awesome DIY project I did that I just love. So stay tuned for a more detailed post on that in the coming days.

Happy Fall Y'all!

I met Giada! Squeeee!

I met Giada De Laurentiis today! She came to our local Barnes & Noble for a book signing and it was really awesome to get to meet her. She is just as bubbly and nice in real life as she is on her Food Network shows and was really friendly, chatting with me as she was signing my books. We talked about my fave recipe of hers, Cheesy Baked Tortellini, which I've suddenly realized I've never blogged. I've got that on my to-do list, as it is a delish recipe you should really make. I've got pictures but as it is just after midnight, you'll have to wait for those in another post. Don't worry, I've got those other recipes I promised you on my to-do list too. I know I'm a bad blogger. My apologies. I've slapped my own hand if it makes you feel any better.

Tap, tap, tap...is this thing on??

Wow...I've been a really slack blogger. I'll admit it. Since my last post, we've enjoyed an entire season of Project Runway (though Carol Hannah clearly should have won...but I won't get on that soapbox) and have even started another season (my God...please vote Ping off...she sent a girl down the runway with her ass hanging out for God's sake). So, welcome back (again) Heidi, Nina and Michael.

We've had Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I've gotten another year older (boo...) and got some great new cookware for Christmas. I've been cooking, though the number of new recipes being tried around here was pretty slim in the past few months. I'm not really sure why...just a cooking rut I guess, combined with the insanity of the holidays. I did little baking this year, only what I had to, since we are trying to eat healthier and lose weight. So it has just been all around boring here for the past few months.

However, with the new year has come new recipes. I've got some great ones lined up to share with you. I just have to get my act together and get my pictures downloaded and then there will be new culinary adventures to share with you. So stay tuned!

Welcome back Heidi, Tim, Michael and Nina!

Yay! Project Runway started back tonight. I'm SO excited to finally get to watch it. For the first 5 seasons it was on Bravo...which Time Warner Cable didn't carry! So we finally got Bravo earlier this year, and now Project Runway is on Lifetime. Go figure! It was a great episode and some of the dresses were awesome (and some a total wreck). I loved the winning dress. So far I'm rooting for Carol Hannah Whitfield...she's from Charleston, SC, where my hubby and I got engaged and spent our first wedding anniversary. Gotta support the South!

Makes me even more excited for my upcoming trip to NYC (shopping heaven!) and for fall fashion. I've been checking out the fall issues of my fashion mags and deciding on my must haves. Can't wait to go shopping!

On the food side of things, I hope to have some new recipes for you soon. We've been cooking less since it has been so hot and just been doing a lot of tried and true favorites. I hope to get back into the kitchen and try out some new recipes soon!