Don’t Decorate that Tree until You’ve read French Country Cottage Christmas

You may think that you’ve got a some good ideas and track record on decorating your Christmas tree, but you might want to wait until you take a look at the new book called French Country Cottage Christmas: Inspiration for a Beautiful and Festive Holiday. This coffee table book is full of beautiful photographs that will inspire you in ways that you’ve never never considered, as well as provides tips and techniques on how to make it all happen.

Written by stylist, photographer, and French Country Cottage blogger, Courtney Allison, this tastemaker has brought French country style to the United States in other publications, but this is the first one that is specifically for the Christmas holidays. Even more specifically, it is the first one that is over 80% just about decorating your tree (the other 20% is about entertaining, recipes, and setting your table for those holiday dinners).

Considering the amount of people that she thanks in the credits, it is clear that Courtney put her heart and soul into this tome. Not only does she decorate many of the pictured trees, or maybe even all, she also had a good number of them shipped to Paris from the United States for placement in that true French setting. That’s reflected in both authenticity and accuracy when it comes to her French styled trees.

We’re also impressed that the book is a hardcover, which means it’s durable, and it doesn’t have a paper jacket, which means you can handle it a lot without tearing any important pages. Because you’re going to want to keep flipping through this photo book for decorating inspiration before, during, and after the holidays.

Published by Gibbs Smith, find it on Amazon here:

French Country Cottage Christmas

Tonino Lamborghini Debuts 3 New Watches in its Luxury Product Lineup

The Tonino Lamborghini company is celebrating their 40th anniversary. The company is known for a wide range of luxury products created with a beautiful Italian flare. Founded in 1981, Tonino Lamborghini has evolved into a luxurious lifestyle company that distributes their products around the world. They are known for their accessories such as sunglasses, smartphones, and of course, luxury watches. They also have restaurants, hotels, furniture, hospitality projects, and branded beverages that are distributed in 40 different countries.

Founder Tonino Lamborghini debuts a new line of watches during the Couture Show located at the Wynn in Vegas, and the new line is sure to dazzle the audience.

Says Tonino, “In 1981, I started up my new Tonino Lamborghini Style and Accessories company. At the time, I assisted my father in the family group, but I felt the need to do something exclusively of my own, different from the world of engines. I have always been interested in design and accessories, and I took inspiration from my engineering background.”

The three types of watches that are premiering are the Spyderleggero Chrono Automatic, the Spyder Chrono Watch, and the Cuscinetto Automatic. Each design has a striking and sleek look; perfect for a person who loves style and luxury. The watches certainly make a statement and are made to be extremely high quality.

 

Spyderleggero Chrono automatic

Like the Spyderleggero Skeleton, this watch incarnates the ambitious, determined, competing, and combative personality of the Italian Tonino Lamborghini bull brand. The Chrono version with day and date complications is the Tonino Lamborghini Swiss Watches 2019/2020 line model. It summarizes all the special features of the new branded timepieces: stylistic sophistication, bold design, manufacturing research, light materials, ergonomics, and performance. The minutes and hours dials recall the image of a sandglass, epitomizing the passage of time because – as Latins used to say – “Tempus fugit” (time flies).

 

Spyder Chrono Watch

The Spyder watch, developed in 2007 by the Centro Stile Tonino Lamborghini, was created as a homage to the shield that encloses the famous “Miura raging bull” in the brand’s logo. The latest version for the new collection features a dial with a double pattern: carbon fiber in the upper half and côte de Genève in the lower one. The deployant buckle is also personalized with the Tonino Lamborghini writing and a 3D version of the Bull, present in all the sports models. 

Cuscinetto automatic

Cuscinetto dates back to 1983 when Tonino Lamborghini created one of his first watch models taking inspiration from a mechanical element, the ball bearing (in Italian, cuscinetto). He created this model using a special bidirectional rotating bezel with a design recalling the machine element that constrains relative movement to the desired motion and reduces friction between moving parts. 38 years later it has been redesigned with the case in titanium with Torx® screws and four different colour variations, mounted a new movement, and inserted a branded deployant buckle.

Find out more at https://www.lamborghini.it/

Review by Kylee Shafer

20 Fashion Designers are here in the Sustainable Designer Runway Show: Digital Cruise

Wear the Future recently produced their first Digital Cruise virtual fashion event in Los Angeles. The SS/2021 season’s runway show was dedicated to sustainable designers, and was broadcast directly on Instagram.

The Digital Cruise show solely focused on eco-friendly, sustainable and conscious designers from all around the world. The collection was made up of an outstanding selection of 20 under-the-radar fashion couture designers, with a diversity of perspectives, origins and styles.

It was also formatted as a “See Now – Buy Now” and live conscious fashion show, where viewers could purchase their favorite pieces immediately from the Cruise.

Samples from the Digital Cruise

www.matthiascarette.com

www.matthiascarette.com

www.matthiascarette.com

 

See more
https://www.instagram.com/wear_thefuture/

 

RECIPE: Pumpkin Spice Cookies with a Creamy Brown Butter Icing

Everyone has proclaimed their love for pumpkin spice, so much so that some companies have extended Pumpkin Spice season from “just the Holiday Season” all the way into “also part of the summer. We’re assuming they’re already planning for year-round pumpkin spice, but you won’t find us complaining. It is a unique combination of tasty ingredients that you have to work hard to mess up.

Fortunately we have a great American recipe for pumpkin spick cookies from food blogger Laurel Evans, as featured by Fine Dining Lovers.

Pumpkin Spice Cookies with a Creamy Brown Butter Icing

Dietary: Vegetarian
Serves: 4
Time Taken: 1 hour

Ingredients

For the Pumpkin Spice Cookies
320 g all-purpose flour
4g baking powder
4.5g baking soda
5g cinnamon
1g ground nutmeg
1g ground cloves
2.5g ground salt
110g softened butter
300 g sugar
350g pumpkin puree
1 egg

For the Brown Butter icing
115g unsalted butter
240g sifted icing sugar
Vanilla extract
10ml pure vanilla extract
30 to 60 ml of milk

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 175°C.
2. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and salt; set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
4. Add pumpkin, egg, and vanilla, and beat until creamy.
5. Mix in dry ingredients.
6. Drop on cookie sheet and flatten slightly.
7. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven.
8. Cool cookies, then frost.
9. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat until golden brown in color, about 10 minutes.
10. Pour butter into a bowl, and add sugar, vanilla, and 15 ml milk; stir until smooth.
Tip: If the icing is too thick, add another tablespoon milk, a little at a time, until consistency is spreadable.

Let cool for 5 minutes and use immediately.

Apple releases the greatly anticipated new iPhone SE

After years of rampant rumors and pleas from fans, Apple finally releases the greatly anticipated second generation of the iPhone SE, with a starting price of $399.

In addition to a lower, more affordable price range, the main reason that the original iPhone SE was so popular was that it allowed users to hold and use it in one hand, as well as place it comfortably in a front pants pocket. It also retained the front Home button that many found useful, versus the swipe that many of Apple’s later iPhones require.

After Apple began to empty it’s inventory of the original iPhone SE with sales and sold out promotions, there was general hope that this product would launch in April 2019, then Fall of 2019. This did not happen, and many holders of the original refused to upgrade to the larger, more expensive iPhones in Apples lineup.

There were long-running rumors that the new iPhone SE would sport the name, iPhone 9, or Iphone SE 2, but in the end, Apple stuck with the brand name of this unique mobile.

The iPhone SE now uses the of the general body shape of the iPhone 8, along with a 4.7 inch display. It also has an Apple A13 Bionic chip, similar to the iPhone 11 and Iphone 11 Pro. The camera has also been upgraded to a 12MP sensor with 4K video capability. PLUS, you can finally use an SE for Portrait Mode.

According to Apple, “The first iPhone SE was a hit with many customers who loved its unique combination of small size, high-end performance and affordable price; the new second-generation iPhone SE builds on that great idea and improves on it in every way — including our best-ever single-camera system for great photos and videos — while still being very affordable,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “iPhone SE features the industry-leading performance of A13 Bionic that enables great battery life, takes stunning Portrait mode and Smart HDR photos, shoots amazing videos with stereo audio, is great for games and super fast web surfing, and is built with the same industry-leading security features our customers expect. We can’t wait to get iPhone SE into customers’ hands.”

Other new features:

Augmented reality

Run the latest AR apps that let you measure real‑world objects, map constellations over the stars, and more.

Faster Wi‑Fi and cellular data

Wi‑Fi 6 and Gigabit‑class LTE can deliver much faster download speeds, whether you’re on Wi‑Fi or cellular networks.

Dual SIM, dual numbers

Dual SIM with eSIM lets you have both a business number and a personal number on the same iPhone.7

Water Resistance

iPhone SE is water resistant to 1 meter for 30 minutes.2 It’s not afraid of a little coffee, tea, or soda either.

See more about the iPhone SE 2020 HERE.

Phone SE is available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB models in black, white and red starting at $399 (US). Customers can also get iPhone SE for $9.54 a month or $229 with trade-in from apple.com, in the Apple Store app and Apple Stores.  iPhone SE is available through Apple Authorized Resellers and select carriers (prices may vary).

Two Bored Artists Create a Mini Art Museum for Their Gerbils

From the gerbil art museum, courtesy of Filippo Lorenzin

If we all could make such productive and creative use of our available time as London-based museum curator Filippo Lorenzin and artist Marianna Benetti.

After over two weeks of being at home and isolated, they decided to recreate famous artworks in miniature as a tiny gerbil art museum, in gerbil themes and gerbil-safe materials (mostly cardboard). The recreations included Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss, Edvard Munch’s The Scream,  Johannes Vermeer’s The Girl With the Pearl Earring, and Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

The gerbils, named Pandoro and Tiramisu (apparently their foodies), have taken to their new space.

We’re guessing it will last for about 2 weeks before they chew their way through it. Ah, art is so ephemeral!

As promised, this is the full video of our gerbils visiting the museum. No gerbils or gallery assistants were harmed in the making of this. from r/aww