{and all the trimmings}

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! These gorgeous images come courtesy of the lovely Heather Bullard. Her site is full of amazing inspiration, from nesting, to gifting, crafting and more. This particular shoot focuses on vintage corsages, millinery, wallpaper and mercury glass, all perfect gifting elements for a Parisian holiday soiree.

At first, we were going to leave you with that lovely holiday eye candy, but we then became equally obsessed with the beautiful vintage inspired gift bags Heather created out of brushed satin swatches below...

We cannot wait to try this DIY with clients' welcome bags. How fabulously chic would this be with a classic monogram transfer? The possibilities are endless. {How-to here}.

Thank you Heather, for allowing us to showcase your beautiful {copyrighted} images. Happy Holidays!!

... Read more at http://www.mercinewyork.blogspot.com

Related Site

-Wedding Magnets

-Wedding Website

Related Videos :below I show related videos and not so related to this article.

Title: Christmas trimmings from Heston and Waitrose

The secret to perfect roast potatoes is sharp corners -- rounded potatoes will not get as crispy as those with right angles -- then pre-cooking the potatoes until they are almost falling apart. The generous amount of oil in the roasting pan will make for an extra-crispy crust.

The best way to eat sprouts is to treat them like cabbage by separating the leaves and cooking them in butter with smoked bacon, but don't overcook them.

Cooking carrots -- a good tip is to use a saucepan with a glass lid -- it's easier to keep an eye on whether the carrots are catching on the bottom of the pan without having to take the lid off every three minutes. Don't be tempted to add any water; using only butter will stop the flavour of the carrots leaching out.

Make vodka, orange and cranberry sauce a couple of days in advance and keep it in an airtight container in the fridge. The fruit sugar and vodka really bring out the fruitiness in the cranberries and give the sauce a kick.

You can buy all the ingredients, view more recipes and sign up to receive special offers at http://www.waitrose.com or visit our YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/waitrose for more great videos.

Title: Lunch Poems: Harryette Mullen

Harryette Mullen admits to being "licked all over by the English tongue." Her fifth poetry collection, Sleeping with the Dictionary, published by UC Press, was a finalist for the National Book Award and for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry for its "gleeful pursuit of the ludic pleasure of word games." Her work combines the experimentation of the French OULIPO group with an American funk and political awareness. Mullen is associate professor of English and African American Studies at UCLA. Her other books include Muse & Drudge and Trimmings. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [11/2004] [Humanities] [Show ID: 9094]