Chinoiserie Chic Christmas Gifts

I am excited to bring you more fabulous Etsy finds for the Chinoiserie lover. These would make perfect Christmas gifts. The Etsy shop Le Moineau offers socially conscious artisanal luxuries made by disadvantaged and/or disabled women in Vietnam. 10% of the proceeds of each sale go to East Meets West Foundation's "ADAPT" anti-sex trafficking project. This is a community based prevention program to combat sexual trafficking in Vietnamese children and young women by providing scholarships, vocational training, and job placement for high risk girls. The designs are created or selected by a New York City based designer who has worked in haute couture for Jean Paul Gaultier, Robert Cavalli, Fendi, and Narciso Rodriguez. They are then sewn in Vietnam. These hand embroidered items are beautiful-I especially love the silk pagoda pillowcase, the silk bird pillowcase, the silk and wood lantern, and the peacock card. Please check out this wonderful and worthwhile Etsy store. Your purchase will help keep alive these dying cultural arts and is a purchase you will be proud of both aesthetically and intellectually.

A Chiang Mai Dragon Christmas

Who wouldn't love a Christmas stocking made from Schumacher Chiang Mai Dragon and Kelly Wearstler Imperial Trellis? I first saw these designer stockings on the wonderful new blog Aesthetic Oiseau who also created my gorgeous new blog design. The Etsy shop Plum Cushion makes them and the price is great! I purchased the first two pictured and already received them and they are perfect. Have you ever seen Christmas stockings as chic as these? So simple and elegant, using the best and hottest fabrics, and letting the great fabric designs speak for themselves. Don't think stockings can only be used on fireplace mantles. I love them anywhere in the house at Christmas-on a chair, on a table, hung from a doorknob or kitchen cabinet-use your imagination!

Chinoiserie Chic Christmas

With the holidays quickly approaching, here we have been amassing dozens of wonderful ideas to have yourself a chic Chinoiserie Christmas. You will be seeing everything from Chinoiserie ornaments, home decorating ideas, hostess gifts, the best of Etsy, and gifts for the Chinoiserie lover in your life. We start today with Christmas cards. These are the cards I will be sending out. Replete with coral pink flamingos with gilt legs and scarves, to the palm trees with gold trunks and Chinese red, to the coral pink and gold Christmas tree and amaryllis, these Crane cards are perfect. My Christmas party invitations are these Kate Spade with the pink monkey and parasol. Wait until you see the gorgeous stamps I will be using!

Be forewarned that these fabulous Year of the Ox stamps are 42 cent stamps, so will require a 2 cent stamp. But they are too fabulous to pass up. This link page has a 2 cent stamp that will look great with it.

Friday Favorite: Mary Kate McDevitt

Its Friday, so lets remind ourselves to think positively. Personally, I am always working on that. As we all know, some days its a lot easier to get negative and gloomy. That's why I love Mary Kay McDevitt's uplifting illustrations. There great little reminders to keep your chin up:)

(Some of you may remember when I featured her former home here. Take a peek, its a fun place)

Hope all of you have a cheery weekend!

Happy, Happy Birthday!

(lamps via: Decor 8 and chandelier via 1st dibs)

To me!! Yay!
I am one of those obnoxious persons who likes to tell everyone about my birthday! You know I want to wear a big button on my shirt that talks about it, or a birthday tiara. When I was a kid I never understood why I didn't get an automatic day off from school on my special day!
So, I am going to tell all of you about it today. Ha, ha! I am turning the big 34! It freaks me out a bit, because I've always imagined the threshold for being a "mature adult" as turning 35. Now I only have one year to really get my act together. Aahhh, I don't know if I'm ready!
To celebrate, I put together a wish list of gifts, for myself. I thought some of you might enjoy it also:)

(Top left: Billy Reid Bottom left: Nivaldo de Lima Right:Shrimpton Couture )

Terry Graziano

I would take anything and everything from this shop. It was a struggle to keep it down to only three!
Funny enough, this month also marks the second anniversary of my blog. I am reminded how much I have loved getting to know so many wonderful people via this site. I appreciate all of you who stop in to check on me everyday:) I hope to keep writing this for a long time and I hope to get to know all of you more and more.
So thanks everyone!