Big Lebowski Themed Surprise 30th Birthday Party

Posted on November 11, 2012 by

The mister turned 30 this week and I really wanted to do something special for him, so we threw him a party the weekend before his birthday based on his favorite movie, The Big Lebowski!  I had way too much fun planning it.  Seriously, give me a good theme party to plan, and I am a happy camper.  My partner in crime Krysten helped me out immensely {as per usual} and I couldn’t have been more thrilled with how it turned out!

We had so much delicious food thanks to many generous friends offering to bring things to go along with the theme!  The Lebowski art on the wall was printed from the internet.  Links to most of them can be found on this Pinterest board.  My sister hung them all pretty!  The bowling pins I found at an antique show… 6 for $10!

For dinner, we had “Chinaman Chili” in the crock pots, both meat and vegetarian, homemade cornbread, and” Shomer Shabbos Slaw.”  Many thanks to Matt for the chili and cornbread!

We had “Green Toenail Pigs in a Blanket” thanks to Kysten… {The toenails are almond slivers dyed with green food coloring and the blood is red food coloring.}

“Pacifist Pita Chips” and hummus…

And of course, snacks were placed around the house in Folgers cans in memory of Donny.

For dessert, there were “White Russian Cupcakes” with coffee flavored frosting thanks to Krysten.  I made little cupcake pins to mimic the pin girl headdresses in the dream scene.  Also, some adorable bowling ball and pin lemon cookies thanks to Teresa!

The Stranger’s drink of choice, Sarsparilla {root beer}, was served in a bowling bag cooler.  Fixings were also available for The Dude’s favorite drink, the White Russian.


I found a great Big Lebowski Monopoly game board which I had printed at Costco and laminated for fun table decor.  Oriental rugs were also printed off and laminated for coasters around the house.

There was Wii bowling {with customized Mii’s of the Dude, Walter, Donny, and the Jesus}!  We did, in fact, Wii “roll on Shabbos.”

In true Lebowskifest style, I invited guests to dress up as characters from the movie.  Here are the Dudes… That rug really ties the room together.

The Strangers…

Walter Sobchak…

Maude Lebowski and a Pin Girl…

{For those wondering, my Maude Lebowski costume consisted of a gold dress from Asos and a viking helmet and coconut bra from Amazon.  I sprayed the bra gold, drew on bowling ball finger holes with a sharpie, and used fishing line to tie it on instead of twine.}

And all the costumed folks together!

Thanks to all of our friends who joined in the celebration!  I was blown away by the costume participation and everyone’s willingness to help with food and setup since it had to be kept a secret.  What a fun theme party!

If you throw your own Lebowski Party, I’d love to see!

Posted in Parties | 3 Comments

What I’m Reading

Posted on September 12, 2012 by

I’ve been on a major reading kick this summer.  There’s something awesome about sitting outside on the patio in the evenings devouring a good book!  Here are the books I’ve read thus far…

The Fountainhead is now one of my favorite books of all time. It was written long ago (1943) but is still so relevant in today’s society.  Each of the main characters is so well-developed, and it’s not hard to determine which people in your own life are, for instance, of the Keating or Roark variety.  It’s probably the longest book I’ve read (sad, I know), coming in at around 750 pages, but it was so worth it.  It’s inspiring without even trying to be. Read this book; you will not be sorry!

Straight Man is a funny tale about a college professor’s mid-life crisis. It touches on love, health, academia, and more and it had me laughing out loud in some parts. I’d like to read some of Russo’s other books; this one was good, but I didn’t necessarily feel a great connection to it. (Perhaps I couldn’t get into it because I had just finished The Fountainhead, which I loved so much.)

The Fault in Our Stars is about a couple of kids with cancer. I did not know this when I started reading it; the mister said he had heard it was good, so I decided to try it out. It was a very good story, but I do not do well with sad stories. I may or may not have been sobbing at certain points. Knowing what I do now, I still would have read it, but I would have timed it so that I wasn’t finishing it up on our camping trip!

Gone Girl is a thriller about a marriage gone terribly wrong.  It was captivating throughout and I couldn’t put it down.  I liked that it was very dark and had realistic suspense, and I didn’t have to suspend my disbelief to build a good story.  (I feel that many thrillers and mysteries throw a curve ball out of left field that no one could expect or believe to explain things, which is so obnoxious.)  Overall, I thought the ending could have been better. I felt like it was a letdown at the end of a really good story.

These last four books complete goal #32 on my list of reading 10 books.  (Not gonna lie, I did not think I’d finish that goal…)  I’m glad I’ve rediscovered the love of reading I had when I was young!

What have you been reading lately? I’m looking for some recommendations!

Posted in Books | Leave a comment

Life Lately

Posted on August 28, 2012 by

It has been a crazy month! Thought I’d give a quick update on the happenings…

We went to see Florence + the Machine at the Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit on July 31.  She’s been on my list of people to see live for years and she was AMAZING!

We went downtown to go to Eastern Market again with our friend Krysten; little did we know that it was closed on Sundays!  Instead, we wandered around the city and had lunch at Campus Martius.

My aunt texted me a photo of a girl she saw on TV at the Tiger’s game asking if it was me.  The resemblance is uncanny.  I think she may have found my Doppelganger!

My sister and I went out for a morning filled with sparkling ciders, sugar scrubs, and mani/pedi’s thanks to a Travelzoo local deal.  We weren’t super pleased with the place, and wouldn’t return, but it was nice for the half off price and we got some quality girl time!

I’ve been eating a vegetarian diet for about a month now.  So far, so good. {I did cheat once for sushi, though!}  I plan to stick with it for a while longer.  I can’t say that I’ll never eat meat again, but I at least want to try to minimize my meat consumption for the long term.  For example, who knew that Morningstar sausage patties are just as delicious as regular sausage?  And who knew that my favorite Thai food dish, red curry from Khom Fai, would taste just as good with tofu as with chicken.  Here was a delicious salad I threw together… chickpeas, cucumber, tomato, and feta!

I dropped in at IKEA to get a replacement frame for one that Eddie broke, and fell in love with these pillows.  The $10 covers are a heavy kilim-like weight and are removable for washing.  The $6 pillow inserts feel high quality like down feathers.  I’m loving them!

My cousin married his sweetheart this past weekend and we had a nice time celebrating with friends and family.

Hope you’ve been enjoying the end of summer as well!

Posted in Around Town, Life | 1 Comment

Updated Desk Nook

Posted on July 27, 2012 by

I finally got around to updating the awkward nook we have in the great room next to the stairs.  You may recall that it looked like this before:

I loved my campaign desk, but my kalah blue chair would not fit and it was visually heavy for the small nook.  I moved the desk to the guest room and the LOVE print back to the bedroom above my campaign chest.  Here’s what the space looks like today:

I used a white lacquer parson’s desk and the space feels much more open.  It’s the “Student Desk” from Overstock.com, which is almost identical to the West Elm Parson’s Desk {except it’s over $200 less!}  The coral pouf is from the Privet House line at Target.  They were originally $80, but they were on clearance in store for $12!  I couldn’t pass up that deal.  I actually bought a second to put next to the wingback chair in the great room.

My sister is a fantastic artist and has gifted me various pieces of art over the years.  I finally have a place to display them!  The frames are IKEA Ribba frames and the faux deer head is from Z Gallerie thanks to my fantastic brother-in-law!

Here is a closer view of the gallery wall and artwork.  The large drawing is obviously our baby and the smaller piece is of the Public Market Center in Seattle.

I absolutely love this nook now.  It’s a great place to work on my Etsy orders, blog, and even work from home occasionally.  Eddie loves that he can lay under this desk; he couldn’t with the last one!  Total cost was $13 for the frames, $12 for the pouf, and $130 for the desk {I used a 10% off coupon code}.  I already had the chair and the deer head was gifted.  Not too shabby!

Posted in Before and After, Decor, House Tour | Leave a comment

Creative Photo Book Uses {and Free Photo Book Deals!}

Posted on July 17, 2012 by

From time to time, free photo book deals pop up around the web and I like to take advantage of them as often as possible.  Today I’d like to share some creative photo book ideas beyond just documenting everyday life.  {Also, at the time of writing this post, there are two free Shutterfly photo book deals you can take advantage of! Read on to find out how.}

1.  Vacation Book

Narrow down those hundreds of vacation photos from your last trip to your favorites and create a book that will help those memories last forever.  Add descriptions of when and where you visited as well as any memories you want to capture.  This is actually what I plan to do with my two free books; I’ve just been waiting for a deal! 

{via}

2.  Cookbook

Take some photos when you make your favorite family recipes and add the ingredients list and instructions to the book with the text box features.  You’ll end up with your own personalized family recipe book {which is also great for gift giving!}

{via}

3.  Art Portfolio

If you have children, this would be a great way to hold on to some of their art for the future without worrying about them standing the test of time.  Simply scan the artwork onto a computer and add the images to a photo book.  Add the date to remember the age they created the masterpiece!

{via}

4.  Children’s Book

Another great idea for children is to create a personalized book for them to read at storytime.  Have them draw pictures to accompany their favorite bedtime story, and add your story captions to the pictures in the photo book.  {If they are old enough, they could write and illustrate their own story.}  Or, help them learn their ABC’s with a custom alphabet book.  Use family pictures to illustrate each letter, one per page; for example, D for the family dog or G for Grandma Sally.

{via}

5.  Guestbook

A photo book makes a more affordable and more personal guestbook for any occasion.  Center a favorite picture on each page, leaving a large white border around it for guests to sign.  This works great for weddings as well as other parties.  My friend Krysten utilized this idea for her grandpa’s baseball themed surprise 80th birthday party.

And now for the smokin’ hot deals! There are two offers for free 20 page 8×8 hardcover photobooks from Shutterfly. You will just need to pay shipping which is about $7-$8. The original value of the books are $29.99! I was able to add both codes to my account for a total of two free books!  Click on one or both of the following links and it will take you to the free book offers:

Offer 1: Baby Center

Offer 2: Anderson Cooper

I hope I’ve given you some inspiration to think outside of the box when it comes to these photo book deals.  Happy crafting!

Posted in Deals, Gifts | 2 Comments

Tourists in our Hometown

Posted on May 24, 2012 by

When you’ve lived in the same place all your life, it’s easy to get bored with the same old places and routines, especially when you’ve just experienced the fun and excitement of a new city on vacation.  These past few weeks since we’ve been home from New York, though, have been a great reminder to me that where you live really does have a lot do with what you make of it!

On Mother’s Day weekend, my sister and I headed to the outdoor antique show that comes to town three times per year.  We both love looking at all the vintage pieces and we may or may not have spent four hours there.  {Apparently, we inherited these tendencies from our dad.}  Eddie was getting very anxious to leave by the end; he was being petted WAY too much for one day! :-p  The item I regretted not buying? A vintage FOX typewriter.  I’m literally still kicking myself for not buying it. *sigh*

My friend Krysten received tickets for her birthday from her parents to see the Blue Man Group at the Fisher Theatre and was nice enough to invite me along!  We had a blast and I so love that we don’t have to go to Broadway to see some good shows.  {As you may recall, I also saw Wicked last year…}

As our birthday gift to her, I really wanted to take her out for a day of fun as a “tourist” in our hometown.  We’ve all lived in Metro Detroit for our whole lives, yet we had never been to Eastern Market, so I knew that would be perfect!  I planned out a little “Eastern Market Food Tour” based on reviews that I had read online.

Our first stop was the Rocky Peanut Co. which was an adorable little specialty grocery store.  They had many unique bulk items as well as packaged goods.  We could have spent a lot longer than we did wandering those aisles.

Our next stop was Supino Pizzeria.  This place was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, which also happens to be Krysten’s favorite show… score!

We all shared a “City Wing Thing,” which was the menu item featured on Triple D and had smoked turkey, smoked gouda, cherry peppers, mozzarella, and roasted garlic.  I loved it, but Krysten and the mister didn’t love the cherry peppers.  We all agreed we’d come back sometime and try some different toppings.

Then we shared some delicious pierogis at the People’s Pierogi Collective.  They were small enough that we each got to choose our own flavor.  I had the jalapeno popper and it was pretty good!

We stopped by the new food truck in town, Mac Shack, and gave their “Bacon Made Me Do It” dish.  It was unbelievably good and a plentiful amount to share.  I’d eat mac and cheese every day if it wasn’t so unhealthy!

Our last food stop was Bert’s.  They had tons of table set up outside along with live music, a full bar, and 50 feet worth of grills serving up some delicious choices.  We shared a half slab of ribs and my opinion is that the meat was awesome but I didn’t care too much for the barbecue sauce.  Next time, we’ll probably order it dry and find some Sweet Baby Ray’s from somewhere.

Not pictured is the mini triple berry pie we got from Mumby Pie Co to share later.  I’m not a huge pie person, but I still liked it, and the others loved it.  We had the most delicious freshly made strawberry lemonade on the way to our next destination.

We went on a walking tour of Detroit with D:hive.  We all really enjoyed it.  We went into a few of the famous buildings we had never been in and learned tons of history about the places and landmarks we walk and drive past all the time.  One of the highlights was the interior of the Guardian Building.  It was breathtaking, and a fun fact is that the detailed ceiling work is actually made of canvas for sound dampening qualities.  The building was built in about 9 months, which is mind-boggling to me for such a grand building to be built so fast in 1928-1929.

We also peeked inside the Compuware world headquarters and saw the humungous fountain in the lobby.  To be honest, I had no idea this building even existed in Detroit so it was fun to see the fountain.

Our tour guide also recommended a lot of cool restaurants to try out.  The one I really want to check out is the Grand Trunk Pub.  It used to be the ticketing station of the Grand Trunk Railroad and I cannot wait to stop in there before a Tiger’s game!

We saw quite a few more spots than this, and many of which were things we’ve all seen before but didn’t know much about.  I don’t want to ruin the fun facts in case you decide to take the tour which, by the way, we all would highly recommend.

All in all, these past few weekends have been so fun.  I’m excited for the next antique show to come this summer and I’m thrilled to have a few more fun food, shopping, and activity options in Eastern Market and Detroit.  There’s fun to be had in any city if you look for it.

Posted in Around Town | 5 Comments

New York, New York!

Posted on May 15, 2012 by

Surprise! We’ve been in New York for the past week!  We’ve never been there so we took the opportunity to get away and see what all the New York City hoopla is all about.

Our first food stop there was Capizzi Pizzeria in Hell’s Kitchen.  It was phenomenal!

We got ours with roasted garlic, peppers, and meatballs!

We were lucky enough to be in town to see our Detroit Tigers play at Yankee Stadium.

Unfortunately, they lost the game {and we got SO sunburned} but it was a blast.  The stadium was really nice, too!

The next three days, we had a New York Pass.  It granted us access to 70+ attractions in NYC.  Two of which were the Top of the Rock and Empire State Building views.

Central Park looks so unbelievably huge amongst the sea of buildings.

We took the Staten Island Ferry {free!} to get some good views of the Statue of Liberty and the NYC skyline.  A trip to Ellis Island was included with the New York Pass, but the line was way too long.  I’d recommend going when it first opens if you want to go.

Also included was entry to the Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I really enjoyed both!  My favorite part was how the history museum went through the entire timeline of life, from dinosaurs through humans, and showed all of the fossils progression.  It was really interesting!

The MET is a short stroll through Central Park away from the Museum of Natural History.  This is a cute little building I passed on the walk.

One of our favorite attractions on the New York Pass was the NBC Studio tour.  No, you will not see any famous people, but you will get a behind the scenes look at the sets of Dr. Oz, Football Night in America, and SNL.  I also got the privilege humiliating experience of being a weatherman for our entire tour group, standing in front of a green screen and reading a teleprompter.  It was a lot harder than it looks!  Needless to say, I did not buy the $30 souvenir DVD!

Our favorite restaurant was John’s Pizzeria in the West Village.  We actually went here twice it was so yummy!

Again, we opted for meatballs on our pizza.  It’s just not something you can get in Detroit!

Another cool attraction was Madame Tussaud’s wax museum.  Woody Allen was one of my favorites!

This is the mister’s favorite bookstore ever.  It’s next to John’s Pizzeria and had a well curated selection at really reasonable prices.  It inspired him to edit his book collection once he got home {which now means I can style the bookcases… bonus!}

We wandered into a little pub around the corner from our hotel, and it just so happened to be the pub that McLaren’s pub is based on in How I Met Your Mother!  Carter Bays actually started writing the show in this very pub! {Photo via}.

We were lucky enough to see TWO Broadway shows while we were in town.  The first was Philip Seymour Hoffman in Death of a Salesman.  It was absolutely incredible.  The mister chose it because he loves that book and movie, loves Hoffman, and doesn’t necessarily love musicals {this one was a play}.

We ended up getting box seats because they were the only ones left.  We tried to buy tickets for this a couple months in advance, but everything was sold out except for the prime orchestra seating which was really expensive.  People were reselling the cheap seats on stub hub for twice the face value.  We waited until we got to NYC and went to the box office directly.  We probably paid about the same as the overpriced tickets on stub hub, but we at least got better than nosebleed seats for it.

We loved it so much that we decided to see another show the following night!  We saw “Once” the musical.  It was awesome.  We both loved the movie when we had seen it years ago, plus we already knew all the songs because we loved the soundtrack, and even got to see Glen Hansard open for Eddie Vedder.  I snapped a shot of the “opening band” while people were being seated.  Little did we know, this was the entire cast of the show playing our entrance music for us.

I fell in love with all the beautiful architecture, but I sure would not want to have to parallel park all the time!

Our trip wasn’t complete without a trip to see the apartment building from Friends {one of our favorite shows}.  Too bad there isn’t really a Central Perk underneath!

We also went to Washington Square park to check out the arch and the people playing chess.

We hung out in Brooklyn for half a day and decided to walk the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan.  That was definitely a good choice!

I love this picture…

Some of the other attractions we took advantage of with our New York Pass was a bike rental to ride through Central Park and a Food on Foot tour.  We went to Madison Square Garden but couldn’t do the tour because it was under construction.  We also went to the WTC memorial, but didn’t want to go through the whole runaround they were setting us up for.  {It basically would have taken us all day to get to see it.}  I would have liked to have done a few more, but time got the best of us.  We more than got our money’s worth, though.  {We saved about $100 per person versus paying retail price.}

If you’re going to NYC, I’d highly recommend the Food on Foot tour!  The guide was awesome {it’s a one man show} and he took us to some really off the beaten path places.  Everything was delicious and I’m pretty sure we didn’t eat dinner that night because we were so stuffed.

That’s the quick recap of our trip to NYC!  We were surprised that we only saw one famous person out and about {Daniel Day Kim from Lost and Hawaii Five-O}.  We loved the food, the subway, Broadway shows, and all the different boroughs to explore.  It was definitely a great vacation!

Posted in Travel | 5 Comments