How About a Little Vin Chaud for the Cold Nights Ahead?

There's nothing like a warm drink on a cold, cold night and those nights will be soon upon us. If it has some alcohol in it - even better!  The English have Mulled Wine and the Germans have a recipe as well - but since I have such a love affair with all things French - here's a recipe for Vin Chaud.

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Recipes for the delightful winter beverage abound, so you can feel free to peruse the web and then change some of the ingredients.  Here's a great recipe to start with...

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes


Ingredients:


• 1 bottle red wine


• 4 cinnamon sticks


• 1 5-inch by ½-inch piece of orange zest (white pith removed)


• 4 tablespoons granulated sugar


• 2 cardamon pods


• 5 whole cloves


• 1/3 cup Cognac


Preparation:


Cook’s note:For the best flavor, use a slightly fruity red wine.


How to make vin chaud:


Mix all the ingredients together in a large saucepan. Bring the mixture to just under a simmer over the lowest heat setting on the stovetop. Do not allow the wine to boil. The mulled wine is hot enough when the sugar has dissolved and pulling and lifting a spoon from the wine brings up steam. If desired, strain the spices from the wine by pouring it through a fine-mesh sieve or a cheesecloth-lined collander. Add 1-2 teaspoons of Cognac to a mug and ladle the mulled wine over it.        Recipe Source

Some people add honey or brown sugar instead of the sugar...and some use Cassis instead of Cognac (or - no extra liquor at all).  Let me know what you think of this!  I love it - and I'll be whipping some up on the first really cold night that we have!

My Top Artistic Cookies: For Gift Giving and Eating

Now that we are in December, my mind turns to buying unique Christmas gifts and, of course, to COOKIES.  Well, any kind of sweet is on my mind all the time but Christmas is a time for making cookies and also - giving cookies as gifts.

Cookie Boy Cookies:  If you have never seen Cookie Boy's work, you've been missing out.  He can make anything into a cookie.  The problem is - he's in Japan.  Here's a Christmas wreath celebrating the giraffe (but I am guessing it's the Toy R Us logo) that he made.  Take a look at his site - it's in Japanese but it's worthwhile looking at his incredible collections.

Cookie Boy

The Mona Lisa Cookie: I've been to the Louve to see the Mona Lisa.  I only wish that I was 7 feet tall, so that I could have had a better glimpse of her.  So much security and a glass partition - that prevents you from getting close...plua so many people in front of me that it was hard to see her.  This not exactly Mona - but you know who's the subject of the cookie - plus if you go to the site - there's a recipe on how to make it!!

The Decorated Cookie Blog

Anyone for Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night cookies (my favorite). Who doesn't love Van Gogh?  I was so happy to hear that perhaps he didn't off himself, but rather he was killed by a teenager. 

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The Camera Cookie Cutter.  For all budding and pro photographers on your list, this would be a great gift.  Make the cookies too and give them the cookie cutter along with them.

Where to Buy & Source

The Rubiks Cube and Jacks Cookies:  From Cooks Central, these would be great gifts for your 50s baby boomers for the Jacks and their children...for the Rubiks Cube.

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I love these Victorian teapots with the Jane Austen cameo for all your tea loving - book loving fans on your gift list

Mischief Mari Cookies

She is a very inventive cookie designer - here's her "Year of the Rabbit" cookie

And here's another one of her designs...I could think of a few people to give this one to! What about you? 

And then there's the fabulous Amber Spiegel in the Hudson Valley upstate NY in her Etsy Shop, SweetAmbs.  She makes too many fabulous cookies - here are two of my favorites...

How beautiful is this "embroidered" cookie!  Sweet Ambs Etsy Shop

Eiffel Tower Cookies: This company, Ali's Sweet Treats, makes many kinds of custom cookies but the Francofile in me just had to add this one to the list!

Ali's Sweet Treats

And finally, just a little humorous tidbit of a video featuring How to Make Cookies - in Photoshop!  Share this post with your cookie and Photoshop-loving frineds and family.  It's so clever...and so funny.  The stop motion is great.  Click on the link below.

Baking Cookies - in Photoshop

Enjoy this little list - let me know if you have some others to share!!!

Mood Boards and How They Help You Learn Your Style and Your Loves in Life

This is a mood board that I made to help me figure out some of my passions in life...

& some topics that I'd like to cover on this blog. 

I made a list of my top 10 passions...

1) Love is number one - hence the heart and the word "love" on the small tin cover that I've had for many years that my husband gave me.

2) I love beautiful and colorful fabrics, trims, tassels - so they would naturally play a role in this mood board.

3) Nature is a big part of my life, so I included the seed packet, sand dollar, coral fan (you can see a little bit of it in the right side of the board), the dried lavender and hydrangea.

4) I adore Paris - and just about anything French.

5) I love a little "bling" in my life - hence the glitter on the heart and the Fleur de Lis.  Oh...that's bling and French!

6) I made those little ornaments - so my love of craft is represented also.

7) Texture plays a big role in my life - the backdrop of the right side of the board is a multi-layered texture that I created with a metallic plaster.

8) I love to paint and antique furniture, so images of these needed to be here. You can also see my love of texture in the antiqued furniture on the right side - plus the antiqued blue cabinet face has great texture and color to it.

9) The colored pencils are there to remind me to sketch more often because it relaxes me and it helps me to be more creative. They also represent my love of color.

10) Finally, the paint swatches are two of my favorite colors - green and blue.

I know that I could have kept (and soon will be!) adding to this...but keeping it simple helps me to zero in on the things that are most important to me that I want to cover in this blog.

Use Mood Boards to Help Your Put a Room Together. Creating a mood board is a great exercise to do also when you are creating a design plan for a room.  On a board (or in this case - on a file folder) you can  gather your fabrics, wall and trim color, carpet swatch, wood swatch - plus furniture and accessories that you would like to have in the room.  When placed in close proximity - you can tell right away if your colors blend and you can gain a better sense of what the "feel" of your room will be.

Try this at home. I think you'll have a lot of fun and I know you will learn something about yourself also.  You may just come up with something wonderful that will evolve into a room design that will be more "you."  Feel free to email me some of your mood boards - would love to see them!

I did my mood board by hand (as I suggest you do), but you can also try an online mood board by visiting Olioboard and also Pinterest - which are online collections of mood boards and images that members collect and share.

On a slightly different note, there's also a great site called Wishpot that's a great tool that will help you organize items that you'd like to buy online.  So, if you're re-doing a room you can collect items from all over the web and keep them in this repository for future use.  It's also a great tool to use if you're doing your Christmas shopping or anytime you're shopping for gifts.  It will keep you organized (as in you'll be able to find the links to items you've saved) & inspired.

I am thinking of making Mood Boards a regular feature of this blog.  What do you think?