Marvel at the marvellous things!

The Marvel Room is back!

Every Christmas, The Marvel Room is opened in Brown Thomas.   The nicest gifts are chosen and put in to The Marvel Room.  It is such a nice experience to take a wander through the store and marvel at the marvels!

                               Marvels for him!                             Marvels for her!

Non-compliant puppy

Every year I photograph Bones for our Christmas card.  Over the years he has posed in various Christmas accessories.  This year, however, is different.  He has not been compliant at all!

First off I tried him with two little antlers.  No good, he shook his head until they flew off.

Then I bought a little mini clip on santa hat.  This had pretty much the same result as the antlers. 

Next up was a little Christmas jacket.  He just sulked in this one.

I had to enlist Ciaran to bribe Bones with some ham for the final outfit and we managed to get one usable picture.  I won't show the picture so that you can get a nice surprise if you receive a card in the post from me!!!

Here he is ignoring me and refusing to sit up! 

Pre-dinner canapes

Here's a few pics of some nibblies I prepared for my guests the other night.  They were so tasty!

I served a selection of cheese on my Grey Goose platter.  A blue, a creamy Lancashire along with some brie. I also got to use my star fish encrusted cheese spreader that I picked up in Key West (in the now gone Fast Buck Freddies) on my last visit.  

Even though I had already organised dessert, Ciaran  stopped off in The Butler's Pantry in Rathgar for an apple tart.  It's his favourite and it went down really well with all the guys! ;-)

Christmas Films

I know I blogged about watching "The Holiday" a few weeks ago but I thought I would let you know of another favourite Christmas film of mine.  It's "The Family Stone" starring Clare Danes, Luke Wilson & Sarah Jessica Parker.

It's such a lovely film (and also a tear jerker - be warned!).  I find Sarah Jessica Parker's character Meredith to be highly annoying but I overlook this because the movie is so good.  

Have you seen this film?  What did you think of it?

Planning my menu

We have a group of friends coming over on Saturday night and  I am currently planning what food to serve.  

I am going to have canapes and cocktails for our guests on arrival.  I will serve my usual taste explosions of blini's with smoked salmon, red peppar hummus in pastry tarts with sun dried tomatoes along with bruschetta and a selection of cheeses.

Then for the main meal I am going to heat things up with a mild fish curry and a pot of both korma and tikka masala served with rice.  I decided on the above to keep things casual and informal.  

I am going to offer two desserts one hot and one cold.  The cold dessert will be a deep dark chocolate mousse served with a shot of milk (!) and the warm dessert will be an apple strudel.

I will probably make a jug of cosmopolitan and make caipiroska's to order along with a beer selection and wine.

Luckily I am off work tomorrow so I can go to the shops to gather everything I will need.  

Pictures of the completed food to follow shortly!

Photo Shoot No. 2

Today we had another photo shoot.  Freelance photographer Sasfi Hope-Ross came with Declan from ODKM to do another shoot.   

It will be interesting to see if these photos make any Irish magazines and if they do I will be looking forward to seeing how different or similar the photos look in comparison to the ones taken yesterday!

Declan changed up the scenes when instructed by the photographer.  The Calligaris chairs were taken out of the shot but the amazing Jan Kath Rug was left in.  

At this point the photographer moved upstairs but I was unable to stick around to see her work as I had to go to work - which was a real pity as I found it terribly interesting to see how it was all done!  

Photo Shoot

Today we had a photo shoot in our house for a UK Interiors Magazine.  It started this morning at about 10am when the photographer, Barbara Egan, and stylist, Penny Crawford-Collins, arrived.  The stylist was very happy with the house and said she would need to add very few props as we had a very "strong look".  The shoot only took about 5 hours - again the stylist said this was very speedy as normally most houses need serious decluttering but ours thankfully didn't. 

Here's a few photos from the shoot.

A little rearrangement of a shelf by Penny the Stylist

Lamp being set up in the hallway (our habitat rug was removed from the hall as the stylist felt it didn't match the fabulous rugs that were loaned by RugArt

The stylist added accents of orange to the kitchen.  Oranges were arranged on a platter and my orange Le Creuset pot was set up on the induction hob.

Here's Barbara the photographer taking a picture of the conversation pit

Not a whole lot was changed in the master bedroom.  The stylist added these cushions and brought a few items from the guest room in to this bedroom

Here is the back of the house being photographed.  Isn't the Calligaris chair amazing?!!

Here is my own attempt at staging!!  I set up this little tray of cocktails (Cosmo's) and nibblies - it was used in the picture of the hot tub.

Look to the left of the picture - it's my cocktail tray!
The stylist added the lovely bright cushions which make you nearly forget that it is November and that there was frost this morning!  Shadowlight gave us the lamp to the right of the picture for the shoot.

Ciaran and I were photographed along with the dog once the house was all done. Due to the fact that it will be possibly Summer before the photos are featured in the magazine I was advised that I should not wear winter clothes i.e no woolly jumpers or boots.  I was told to wear pale colours - no black, navy or brown.  I wore a cream floaty blouse with tan trousers and a pair of ballet pumps while Ciaran wore a pink shirt with dark chinos.  We were photographed in various poses such as relaxing watching TV, chatting on the couch and then Ciaran coming in the door with the dog and me greeting them from the couch.    

We enjoyed the whole experience and are looking forward to seeing the photos in the magazine! 

As far as we know the photos won't be published until the middle of 2013 but I will keep you updated!!

Here's a few more pictures to give you a taste of the day.  Enjoy!

You can checkout more pictures here!