sign off and a peanut brittle recipe

well, i’m signing off until christmas eve when i come back to announce the winner of the giveaway (make sure you enter to win if you haven’t already).  billy and i will be heading up to the smoky mountains in the morning to visit my dad and grandmother.  we’ll be coming back early next week.  then my mom and brother come into town. 

i can’t believe that christmas is 7 days away!  it feels like it was just here yesterday.  this year has been a wonderful whirlwind of a year and has flown by faster than ever.  i hope that your holidays are off to a merry start and i hope they are filled with lots of love.  if you’ll be traveling this upcoming week i wish you and your families safe travels.

i’ll leave you with some beautiful christmas images and my peanut brittle recipe my mom’s peanut brittle recipe.

image – apartment #34

image – cottage living

image – elements of style

image – my home ideas

yummy microwave peanut brittle

ingredients:

1 c - light karo syrup

1 c - peanuts – dry roasted and salted

1 tsp -  vanilla extract

1 tsp -  butter

1 tsp - baking soda

directions:

grease a baking sheet with pam and set aside.

mix together karo syrup and sugar in a large microwavable glass bowl.  heat in microwave for 4 and a half minutes. 

remove from microwave and mix in peanuts.  heat in microwave for 3 and a half minutes.

mixture will be very hot.  remove from microwave and mix in butter and vanilla.  heat in microwave for 3 more minutes.  the mixture should have turned a golden color.  once the 3 minutes is up if the mixture is still a little light put it back in the microwave in 30 second increments until it turns a golden color.

remove from microwave and mix in baking soda.  when you start to mix in the baking soda the mixture will foam up.  once mixture has foamed immediately pour onto baking sheet.  the mixture will spread out on its own. 

place mixture and baking sheet in the fridge to cool for about 5 – 10 minutes.

remove from fridge and break apart.  place in a tupperware container to keep it fresh.

*****the mixture gets really hot so make sure to use a potholder to remove from the microwave.  the mixture will also stick to your spoons and pots.  the best way to clean them is to run them under hot, hot water and let the hardened syrup melt away.

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see you all back here late next week. 

have a wonderful weekend!

LiveJournal Tags: christmas,giveaway,peanut brittle recipe

 

csn stores and a jill rosenwald rug giveaway!

many of you may be familiar with the boston based company csn, but in case you aren’t let me tell you about them.  csn stores is an online company composed of more than 200 different online stores and shopping sites which all operate under the csn umbrella.  most of their stores offer products for the home at very comparable prices.  Some of their online stores sell products like living room furniture, sofas, and fireplaces.  i also know from personal experience that csn’s customer services is great.  i’ve used their rug store many times in the past and have never been disappointed in their service or the quality of their rugs.

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now for the GIVEAWAY!!!!

the great people over at csn contacted me earlier this week and asked me to select an item to giveaway to one of my readers.  i was so excited and immediately thought about the jill rosenwald rug that looks so much like the discontinued west elm rug that we all loved so much. (you can read erin’s post from elements of style on this very topic here, and i featured this rug on my “loving…” post here.)  i asked if they would be ok with giving away the jill rosenwald rug to one of you, and they were thrilled with the idea. 

so, the giveaway will be a 2x3 jill rosenwald fallon rug in your choice of color.  here are the color selections offered by csn rugs.

                                                         

{this giveaway is now closed}

now for the rules of the giveaway…..

to enter leave a comment on this post telling me what color you would select if you were to win and also let me know where you would put it.  the giveaway will run from today, december 17th, through midnight on wednesday, december 23rd.  then i’ll announce the randomly selected winner on christmas eve.

good luck to all of you!

***PS ~ if you are having trouble entering a comment (i’ve gotten a few notices that people are having trouble) please send me an email (charmhomedesign@gmail.com) with your comment and i’ll manually post the comment for you.  in the subject of the email please write “rug giveaway comment” so that i’ll know to post it.  sorry for the inconvenience.  not sure why that’s happening to some of you.

LiveJournal Tags: csn stores,giveaway,boston,living rooms direct,csn sofas,csn fireplaces,allmodern.com,rugs,jill rosenwald rug,elements of style blog,loving...

Wreaths To Love

The entry above is perfection to me. A moss Christmas wreath?!! All that white!!!The urns!! Ok & the lantern & the garland. I just love it all. (Martha) If I had this type of house I would SO go there!! This year, I've been pretty slack wreath-wise (our entry, below)... There's a plain Home Depot wreath on our front door and at one point I had intentions of doing something special to it... and not that I've ever really not been slack actually... because the most I've ever done is added a ribbon to a wreath, but I always have better intentions for my wreaths.


It's not happening this year, but maybe for NEXT year! I was just browsing around online & looking at wreaths and found so many pretty ones & wanted to share. They all seem rather doable if you actually set aside the time to make them & one day when there are less renovation projects, I will. This perfectly simple & natural wreath featured in Country Living is by Minna Mercke Schmidt who has a BEAUTIFUL blog here. (She got everythign for the wreath from her own yard... ok honestly, I MIGHT add some things to my wreath now... this is just too pretty.)


And now here are a bunch of wreaths from Martha Stewart. Below is a perfectly traditional silver fir and holly wreath with a big red bow. It's just so classic & I could see it with white or burlap too.

Below, using 3 wreaths on a ribbon makes such a statement! So easy to do and it really is a show-stopper! (All I'd need to add is more ribbon & pick up 2 more HD wreaths!! EXCEPT I don't have the extra wide ribbon or the wreaths at home... which means it's probably not happening this year... )

Ok and I love this sweet gum one below. (I didn't know that's what the "prickly things" were called until today.) They're everywhere & I'd even love it unpainted. But you could spray them any color & this would be awesome... It would be fun to collect the prickly things with the kids too.

And below is a simple & ruggedly elegant pinecone wreath. The snow sprinkled on it is so pretty too. This would be easy to make, again if you only set aside the time to do it. (I think we will have to start Christmas prep in the summer next year??!!)

Oh and I just LOVE this mistletoe wreath below!! It's misshapen & looks so homey to me...

This is a beauty with golden cedar laced in the center... Again it would be really easy to grab a cheapie wreath from a place like Home Depot & embellish it with things from your own yard...

Below is a gorgeous eucalyptus & fir wreath. (Imagine the smell!! :) It looks like it might be over my head but who knows? It really is just stunning.

I could SO handle this one below. The cranberry string would be so easy to wrap around a standard wreath... THIS i can do.

Ok, and this wreath chandy below is just amazing. I love it over the drink station. This would be AWESOME for a party.

This one seems pretty out of my league too but just had to show it. A carnation wreath! And picture a poinsettia one! Definitely for an occasion & you'd have to be okay with them not lasting long... (I don't know if it would be worth it to me.)

And finally the wreath that launched a thousand blog posts! Eddie Ross's vintage Christmas Ball wreath!!Did you see his ornament wreath challenge? So beautiful & so much fun & MAYBE next year will be my year...

...At this point, if NEXT year really is "the year" I will be swimming in wreaths!! haha But aim high, and even if I only do one that would be an improvement on this year, right??

Merry Christmas!!!

xoxo,

lauren