mignonne

My super talented friend, Johnelle, is owner and designer of Mignonne Décor, a home decor boutique specializing in one-of-a-kind, custom designed furniture pieces and unique vintage goods. They also offer a variety of design services including furniture revamping, home restyling and even wedding and event planning services. Johnelle reworks most of the pieces herself – stripping, repainting and reupholstering entire pieces with bold patterns, colors and gorgeous fabrics. Much of her work can be seen on her blog, Je Suis Mignonne and I'm featuring one piece in particular that I just fell in love with.

This fantastic 60s armchair has been reupholstered and re-stuffed. Johnelle used a thick black and white wool fabric for the seat, back and exterior, and a rich teal linen for the arms and piping. It's the perfect union of vintage and modern.

Mignonne is located in Berkeley, California so if you're lucky enough to live nearby, I suggest you visit the shop. She's constantly getting new merchandise and her furniture pieces don't stick around for long. J'aime Mignonne!

egg press for target

I was thrilled to find out that Egg Press is launching a line of well designed and well priced organizational items for Target. I've long been a fan of Egg Press, with their quirky and beautiful letterpressed goodies, and of course I'm obsessed with Target and organization. It's a match made in heaven!

Photo from Egg Press

because it's so darn cute.

resolutions

Like many other people, my resolution for the new year is to eat better. More specifically, to eat cleaner. And to cook more home made dishes rather than pre-packaged and processed ones. So far so good. I've attempted at least one new recipe per week since the year has started, and yesterday I signed us up for Suzie's Farm CSA (community supported agriculture) program. This means that every other week I get to pick up a GIANT box of veggies and fruits. The challenge is that you never know what you're going to get and you need to figure out how to cook with it before it spoils. This week it's Gold, Chioggia or Detroit Dark Red Beets, Blue Scotch Kale, Red Russian Kale, Lettuce, Broccoli, Onion, Parsley, Turnips, Chard, Spinach, Red Frill, Pea Shoots, and Spicy Salad Mix (mizuna, tatsoi, red mustard). HOLY VEGGIES BATMAN! I'm really looking forward to their fruit harvest this summer.


And now for the delicious (and surprisingly simple) recipes I've tried. So far, the winner is this chicken adobo recipe I lifted from this month's issue of Real Simple. My husband and son both chowed down. Another good one was a baked salmon with rice and veggies. The salmon recipe I got here, and I just drizzled the veggies (zuccini and squash) with olive oil and added some garlic salt and fresh ground pepper, then threw them in the wok and cooked until tender. Lastly, another Real Simple hit, was this braised chicken and spring vegetables dish. Enjoy!

Photos (from top): (1) A sampling of our first box from Suzie's Farm (2) chicken adobo and (3) baked salmon.

daddy's birthday

Sweet Mason singing happy birthday to daddy.