and the winner of the Stella & Dot Giveaway is...

Ashley Elaine!! Congratulations! We are so jealous that you won these FABULOUS earrings! Ashley Elaine said:

All of the S+S readers are wondering Ashley, are you going to share your gorgeous winnings with us? :) Thank you to all of you that entered. Have a fabulous evening!

monday musings: fantastic front doors

Welcome to Monday Musings, S+S readers! Since the weather has been changing for the better, we have been thinking more and more about the outside of the house. Can we say front doors? A front door is the first and last impression your home will make. You homeowners are lucky people...you have the ability to jazz your door up with fabulous colors and major hardware.

I mean who doesn't just leave their door open during the day? They must not have central air. We love the black and classic look. This foyer is so eye catching. I cannot resist coral. Let's be honest.

{house beautiful}

Ummm, glossy black door? Absolutely.

The hardware on this door is to die for. Couple that with some enormous house numbers, we are in love. The accessories transformed this possibly dull door to divine.

{decor pad}



Dear door handle, You are my obsession.

 {elle decor}

This door handle has done it again! This color just screams S+S.

{one kings lane}

Later today, the announcement of the winner for the Stella and Dot Giveaway. Get ready for it. 

S+S chow: chicken pot pie with puff pastry crust

It's been a week. Actually, it's been a month and we are only half way through! So many ups and downs have been happening lately that I am in dire need of some good 'ol comfort food. I have been craving chicken pot pie for a while now and in my search for the best recipe I stumbled upon this beauty...

yum. I think this is just what I am looking for. thank you, Eat, Live, Run.

Ingredients

3 medium sized carrots, chopped 2 large stalks celery, chopped 4 small red potatoes, peeled and chopped 1 quart chicken stock 6 T butter 1 yellow onion, diced 6 T flour 1 1/2 lbs chicken breasts 1/4 cup cream 1 tsp salt 1/2 tsp pepper 2 sheets frozen puff pastry Directions Preheat your oven to 425 degrees and take puff pastry sheets out of the freezer to defrost. In a large pot, bring the stock to a boil and add the carrots, celery and potatoes. Simmer for about 15 minutes, or until veggies are tender. Remove veggies with a slotted spoon and pour stock in a large measuring cup or bowl to save for later. Fill the pot up with fresh waster and bring to a boil. Add chicken breasts and let simmer for about 20 minutes, or until cooked through. Drain and let chicken cool before cutting into cubes. Set aside. Melt butter in a dutch oven. Add onion and cook for 6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add flour and stir constantly to make a roux. Cook for another five minutes, or until the roux begins to smell toasty and darken a little bit in color. Slowly stream in reserved stock while stirring to make the sauce (it will get thick!). Cook and stir for another three minutes then turn off heat and slowly stream in the cream. Add cooked veggies and chicken back to the sauce as well as the salt and pepper. Pour pot pie filling in a large casserole dish that holds at least two quarts. Unfold defrosted puff pastry sheets and gently lay over the top. Cut small slices in the pie to let steam escape and then bake for 10 minutes. Cover with aluminum foil and bake 25 more.

Reminder to enter the Stella and Dot Giveaway!

You made it, Happy Friday! Don't miss out on your chance to win these gorgeous earrings from Stella and Dot!

Lovely, aren't they? We both want a pair! In case it slipped your mind, here are the deets...

TO ENTER:

1. Become a follower of S+S {if you already are, fab!}, please comment and let us know that you would like to enter in the giveaway!

2. For an additional entry, like Sadie + Stella on Facebook,  and Sadie + Stella on Twitter, come back and comment here letting us know.

3. For another entry, like our newest sponsor Jen Cavorsi from Stella and Dot on Facebook.

This giveaway ends Monday, April 18th.

We will announce the winner on Monday. Whatcha waiting for? Hurry and enter in! Good luck lovelies!!

S+S DIY: Embroidery Hoop Bulletin Board

So this past Christmas, my little sister expressed to me that she really wanted to make her own bulletin board. But she did not want just any ordinary square bulletin board, she wanted something that stood out and was completely unique. We scoured the internet to find the best and brightest of do it yourself bulletin boards, and we came across the idea of using embroidery hoops and fabric to create a funky bulletin board. We were sold. 

Stella's finished product.

Materials:

 What you need:

A package of corkboard

Embroidery Hoops, varying sizes

Fabric. Do not be afraid to mix and match. We wanted to make it ultra funky. 

Exacto Knife

Glue Gun

Cardboard, just from an old box

Step 1:

 I have the cutest assistant in the world. She loves pink. Can you tell?

Cut the corkboard with an exacto knife to the size of the interior hoop in the embroidery hoop. We learned after the first hoop we did, to cut on the smaller side. Not by a significant amount, but a bit.

Step 2:

 Next. Take your fabric and cut around the hoop. It does not need to be exact or uniform. 

Step 3:

 Now. You will take the cork board cut out and place it in the interior of the embroidery hoop. Place the fabric on the front side of the hoop. After that, you will place the exterior hoop around the interior, and screw the top into place making the fabric taut. 

Step 4:

 You will cut the excess trim off after Step 3. To make our hoops more secure, we added a cardboard backing to the corkboard. It just gives it support when you place pins in the cork. Secure this with hot glue. Then, start gluing the excess fabric to the back of the cardboard.

My darling sister and assistant's finished product:

She is the talk of the town. All of her friends loved her unique bulletin board. Cannot be bought in stores, folks.

And the finished product in my humble abode...

I hope this was a helpful tutorial. It is a fun way to display notes, important papers etc. I am in the process of making large fabric, design inspiration boards. I am thinking: nail heads. Bold fabric. More to come on this.

Favorite Room Feature: Hyphen Interiors

I was so excited when Lindsay and Lindsay asked Hyphen Interiors to participate in their "Favorite Room Feature” series.  Of course, like most people, I chose my most recent room to be completed – my master bedroom.  A fair warning: there is a lot of rule breaking in this room.  And, this is a long post.

I know that doesn’t look THAT different at first glance, but trust me, it is… You’ll be able to see more in photos below.  But, first, I want to talk you through the thought process, and design process.

We had neglected our master for a year after moving into our new home.  We knew we wanted to be able to watch TV from the bed (when we are sick) or from a sofa (when we are quietly chilling upstairs and overnight guests are downstairs).  But, we couldn’t get our mind around how to arrange the room in order to make that possible.  So rather than solving the dilemma, we just did other rooms first.  Finally, it was time to tackle the master bedroom.

The room is 13.5 x 19 ft.  The way the hall is, it makes you enter almost at an angle.



I know that traditional design rules would say to put the bed on the opposite wall from the door.  While I think rules are there for a reason, I only consider them to be guidance and to help you know when it’s appropriate to break them.  In this case, there were a few reasons why I didn’t put the bed on the opposite wall. 

- You technically enter at an angle making two walls appropriate.
- The shorter wall had reading lights (can lights) for over the bed.

But, the main reason for not placing the bed on the opposite wall as the door was the use of the room.  The way a client (or yourself) uses a room is of the utmost importance when designing a space.

We wanted to use this room not only for sleeping, but also for a retreat.  

So, we planned to break our former rule of no TV in a bedroom and put one in, while also making it visible from the bed and sofa.  One thing that was for sure was that the TV needed to go on the wall with the door so it was not a focal point.

Having the bed on that opposite wall would essentially break the room in half (see below), and would not allow for the room to serve the purpose I just described.

 

After considering our needs, the room measurements, our furniture, and so on, we tried a number of options, which I will not bore you with.  We decided on this floor plan, which happens to be the way the builder designed it.  The TV would sit on the chest of drawers on the right wall, and would swivel.

 

So, now, we were over the floor plan hurdle and were on to the design.  I went straight to story board making.  We wanted to create an artistic, yet cozy and luxurious feel.

The original owners had the room like this when we viewed the house.  Very uneventful.

Upon moving in, we immediately painted the walls a taupe color - Wild Hawk by Valspar.  Then, we threw our stuff in and it looked like this.  Not too great. 

We decided to keep the furniture and blackout curtains.  The curtains were new, soft, luxurious and neutral.  The furniture was neutral and up to date. They gave a great backdrop for some drama and color.

We came up with two schemes on story boards at first.  Blue and yellow or blue and purple.  Here are the original story boards, before changes were made.

 

In the end, we went against popular opinion and went with purple because it felt richer and more luxurious to us.  Yellow felt more sunny – we decided to incorporate yellow into other rooms, but not the master.

One change that was made was in the lighting – we went from the striped purple barrel shade that you saw in the story board to the silver chandeliers below.  Another change was in pillows.  The final story board looked like this.  It served as a visual guide.

The sofa and mirror were items in the room.  The chair, art, and solid pillows were inspirational and just a general idea of what we wanted in those regards.

The color scheme is navy, sage blue, purple, gray, black and white with a pop of teal.  We added the navy to help anchor the space.

Let’s talk about some of the items on the story board.

For night stand lighting, we didn’t do traditional lamps.  We chose to free up the nightstand space and put hanging chandeliers over them instead of the traditional lamps.

I love this choice as it adds a bit of bling to that side of the room, and certainly adds drama.  They are beautiful fixtures from Overstock.

The art  ended up more contemporary than the inspiration art on the story board, but was still blue and off-white.  Just much more graphic.  I painted table tops from Pei Wei for the art.

I decided to hang a series of three over the bed in order to break up a large blank wall and add color and weight to that side of the room.

All of the pillows on the bed were hand made by an etsy shop owner. 

We ordered a faux cow skin rug from Overstock to anchor the sofa and chair.  We chose the cow skin not only due to the colors (dark brown and white) but also due to the organic shape.  We didn’t want to square off that area. 

We chose a bench for an ottoman so that it was more narrow, was cushioned and could be used elsewhere for additional seating if ever needed.

The big exciting thing on my blog has been the process of finding an old wing back chair on Craigslist and painting it!  Yes, painting it, not re-upholstering it.  This helped to keep costs down. 

We used this chair as a pop of color and somewhat of a focal point in the room.

The pillow on it is a trellis look alike pillow found at Target for $12.  It’s navy and white, like the art and chevron pillows. 

The purple was used sparingly on a pillow on the sofa, one pillow on the bed and a throw on the bed.

I chose the bedding because I wanted a less fluffy style of bedding; a quilt style.  I also wanted a subtle color that didn’t draw a lot of attention.  I chose a Thomas O’Brien gray quilt style bedspread from Target.  Then, I accented it with pillows from etsy.

I put fresh roses on the night stand for some romance.  They are in a blue glass vase to bring in some sage/ teal color.  I mimicked that on the other nightstand with printable art in that color.

The sofa is from Craigslist for $75 and so is the table.  We painted the round table glossy white.  It was once black.

The end product is below.  I do apologize for the color being off in the photos and for the icky carpet.  We do plan on replacing it, so I didn’t want to design around it.

I hope you enjoyed exploring my thought process with the room design.  Right now, this is my favorite room.

S+S shop: Tuesday Morning finds

Happy Tuesday lovelies! We wanted to share some fab finds from one of our routine shopping trips this past weekend. As I am sure you've noticed we LOVE to shop and even more than shopping we LOVE finding great deals! I will tell you this, Tuesday Morning did not disappoint this weekend! Here are a few of our finds...
Hello gorgeous green garden stool.

What fun goblets! They are plastic- perfect for summertime soirees! 

 Holy statement. This ice bucket is fab. I. need. it.

Digging the pattern and the navy. We think it would make a perfect kitchen or door mat.

This rug is huge, and lovely and only $299. If only I had the perfect place for it. I want it to come live in my house. The colors are to die. 

Adore this mirrored lamp. It makes far more of a statement in person. I think it might be just what I am looking to add to my dining room buffet!

 We spied this online awhile back and were thrilled to see it in person! Beautiful.

Doesn't the picture of this throw just make you want to curl up with a book and something good to drink? It is probably the softest thing I've ever felt. It comes in many colors; this grey-ish purple, ivory and that light blue you see hiding in the background. I think I am in love.

Just so ya know: Tuesday Morning did not compensate us in any way for this post, we just thought our findings were too marvelous not to share. Do you ever shop at good ol' TM? If not, you should try it, we think you'd like it!