Happy Monday! For our third and final gift guide of the season, we're going BIG. Here are a handful of our favorite gifts all under $100 that are special enough for the ones at the very top of your gift list...or as a splurge for you and all your hard work this year!
Happy Friday! We love holiday decor that is festive but not super traditional (and not just the usual red and green combo!). So today, we're showing you how to make a pretty and modern snowflake garland that makes a fun weekend project!
Now that it's December, I'm in full-on holiday mode! I love this time of year and gathering with friends and family, especially centered around delicious food. Sharing a meal with the people I love is truly one of my favorite things. So today, I've partnered with Corelle to show you easy ways to host a dinner party at your home! Hosting can be overwhelming if you let it. So here are a few of my tricks for keeping it (and you) cool, collected, and stress-free...
1. Have fun mix-and-match dishes available. Whenever setting a table, I always make sure to incorporate fun colors on the table, from the food I prepare to the plates I use. I love mixing and matching dinnerware because it makes it less fussy and creates a personalized look for the occasion. These stylish, playful patterned plates and bowls by Corelle are just perfect (we used the Terrazzo Rosa Collection and pieces from their Vivid Splash Collection!) because they are light yet so durable.
2. Use plates and bowls to make serveware! Not everyone has a full set of serveware at home (I don't!). So when hosting larger dinner parties, I love to get creative with pairings! You can recreate a cake stand using two bowls or bowls stacked on a plate (see pictured above!). Instead of using a large serving dish, I might stack a smaller plate on top of a larger plate. This makes it feel a little more special and fun. Corelle's new collections offer lots of different shapes, sizes, and bold designs making it really easy to mix and match to your heart's content!
3. Semi-homemade foods! Don't feel the pressure to cook everything from scratch. The easiest, stress-free dinner party is when you can pick up a bunch of sides, salads, and delicious pre-made foods from the grocery store. You can feel free to make a couple of things from scratch (only if you want to!). Then plate them and have them all out and ready for guests to help themselves!
It's also always helpful when your dinnerware is durable so you don't have to worry about chips and cracks! These dishes are lightweight and durable...the best of both worlds! Shop the new collection here (or on Amazon!) and get ready to host all season long. By giving yourself easy ways to make a dinner party low maintenance and stress-free, you're more likely to have them and actually enjoy yourself in the process!
*This post is sponsored by Corelle.
Sources shown: Target Pirouette paint (past season), Target mirror, Ikea green cabinet, vintage striped glass & pitcher set, W&P pineapple shaker, Anthropologie bird glasses (past season), vintage rug, Society 6 pool print by Helo Birdie*, Society 6 color block print by Colour Poems*, Ban.do x Chasing Paper professional print*, Ikea gold floating shelves, West Elm shelves, Anthropologie glass knot, Anthropologie gold jack, Jonathan Adler dice, West Elm gold sculpture, Target gold bursts (past season), Ikea chairs, Ikea table (painted), vintage parfait glasses, Block Shop napkins, Oyoy pink pitcher, Oyoy pepper shaker, Oyoy pink planter.
{Photos by Lily Glass, Concept/Production/Styling by Julia Wester, Production Assistance by Jess Hong. Written by Joy Cho and Traci Michael.}
For our second gift guide, we're bringing you gifts under $50! I love these items because they're thoughtful, fun, and make a special gift for a close friend or relative!
I have never had to think about cabinets in my entire life in the same way that I have had to think about them over the past year. Building a house from scratch meant thinking about a ton of different types of cabinets (bathrooms, kitchen, bookshelves, closets) all at once. It some ways, it was completely overwhelming. And in other ways—with the help of Project M+—I was able to look at all the rooms of our house like a family...each member of the family could be different but were also united in some way.
When we first looked at all of the options we had for cabinets, I went for two opposite ends of the spectrum. We got bids for building everything custom to the exact size for each space. And, we looked at what was already pre-made and could be plopped right in. I thought maybe I could swap out hardware of existing pieces and save a lot that way! But it turns out that the completely pre-made options were really hard to make fit in this blank new space. Pieces were just a tad too small or too big. On the flip side, doing everything custom was completely out of budget. So we ended up doing a mix of a few different things...
We decided to go semi-custom for a bunch of areas using Reform cabinets. Reform offers modern options for cabinet fronts that get installed onto Ikea bases. So you have the convenience and great pricing of working with all the sizing options that Ikea offers. But you have more options for panels and fronts. We used them here to do a custom color in the laundry room shown above...
...and used Reform Degree here in a bright white in our kitchen! As well as the Chelsea in another (yet to be revealed) area in the very first photo.
For the major closets in the house (master, kids' rooms, and entryway closet), storage was essential to make the most of each space as possible. For these major areas, we worked with California Closets to design and maximize the use of each of these spaces.
Finally, for a handful of areas where a semi-custom option would not fit or would not offer the exact type of storage needed, we did have some custom pieces built. We saved the custom pieces mostly for bathroom vanities and this built-in storage/desk area in our living room. Custom pieces made sense for areas with a unique size and in rooms that will be used very often whereas semi-custom solutions worked really well mostly everywhere else!
What have you worked with in the past? Pre-made, semi-custom, totally custom? Tell me yours pro's and con's! Or, any questions you have!
{Photos by Lily Glass. Construction by Boswell Construction, Architecture by Project M+, Interiors in collaboration with Project M+. All cabinets linked above. Written by Joy Cho.}
Happy December and Happy CYBER MONDAY! As a small business, it's hard to have a lot of sales during the year, but we love doing them whenever we can to say thank you for your support. So today, we're thrilled to tell you that THE ENTIRE OH JOY SHOP! IS 20% OFF!
That's right. EVERYTHING! From home decor to toys to holiday decor...even our sale section! Just use the code CYBER20 at checkout now until this evening at 11:59PM PST. Here are a few of my favorites...