Sometime over the long, long, LONG winter I’m not quite done with, I became obsessed with bread pudding. I don’t know how or when it happened, but it did and there’s no help for it. So instead of getting up to run on the treadmill at each hotel I stayed at over the course of the last 5 months, I ordered bread pudding from room service everywhere I went. Makes sense, right? A girl’s gotta preserve her food stores to…
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I’m not even a little ashamed to admit I go to my favorite local Mexican food restaurant {Cafe Rio} just for the tortillas. They’re insane. But at a dollar a pop on top of an entree, my Mexican food expeditions are getting a little pricey. So I decided to make my own homemade flour tortillas. Holy cow you guys, I can’t even begin to explain the yum. Totally different taste than store bought tortillas, like you’re not even eating the…
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Being married to a European can be trying at times, and lovely at others. I’m assuming it’s like that in any marriage, no matter where your spouse comes from. Mine is a very European Euro man who’s obsessed with his tea. Tea drinkers unite! Up to this point in my life {and our very tea-filled marriage} I’ve loathed tea. Hated it. Despised the very smell of it. Until I met this beauty. Have you ever tried Harney & Sons tea? …
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In January I spoke at a design conference called Altitude Design Summit in Salt Lake City. I was one of the teachers of a design camp class about making your own design boards. I’ve been making inspiration boards for a while now and find them to be really useful in helping the creative process no matter what I’m doing. A ton of you have asked me to guide you to a resource for creating your own design boards, and since I couldn’t find a great one, I’ve created a how to post just for you.
Here’s How To Make Your Own Inspiration Board. By the way, this post is long. If you’re not interested, come back tomorrow or go check out my nit-picky opinions on the Best and Worst Dressed Oscars from Sunday night.
Hello there! I'm Allison Czarnecki, founder + editor of Petit Elefant, a blog all about style on a budget for every part of your life: style / home / travel / family. I do a lot of how-to beauty + style tutorials, travel posts, easy recipes, home remodel projects, and cool DIY crafts you totally want to try. I'm super happily married (to a hot Polish immigrant) and am the mother of two kids, a daughter and son, all of whom are featured here on the regular. We live in the country but we're a little bit rock + roll. Welcome!
A couple months ago I realized I really need an office of my own. I’ve been working in an office/study/playroom in the front room of our house and it’s been driving me slowly crazy. I really needed a space of my own, someplace to go to close the door and make conference calls. Someplace besides my closet, where I was working/hiding from the kids while making cross country business calls and silently slamming my bum against the locked door to…
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For my 5th birthday, two weeks into Kindergarten, my best friend Douggie gave me what was to become my most treasured book ever: The Flying Hockey Stick. The illustrations are marvelous, of course, but it’s the cheeky humor that got me. Jolly Roger Bradfield, the author, really had a way with words. I’d always assumed he was British, mainly because Douggie’s mom was British and I figured I was special enough that she brought it back for my birthday from…
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All I wanted for Christmas was an e-reader. That’s it. I didn’t care for any candy, chocolate, new socks, electric blanket, or new pillows. All I wanted was a portable, traveling, e-reading book device of some sort. Viktor came through for me big time. See, I don’t think an e-reader will ever replace my actual hard bound books, but I do need something a little more portable, what with all the traveling I do. My biggest concern when I travel…
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I made this centerpiece for a Christmas party I hosted in December and my friend Marie said to me “You have to blog about this!”, to which I replied lamely, “Really? But it was so easy.” And I missed the entire point, because hello, I’m all about the easy livin’. Materials needed to make Easy Flower Centerpieces: multiple short vases {I used short drinking glasses from my other lover IKEA} a bouquet of cheap flowers such as Carnations {I used…
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I found this thrifted cake stand when I was out and about looking for Christmas presents last month at my favorite thrift store. It was only $15! This cake stand is an oldie but a goody and I wrapped it in about 10 layers of newspaper to bring it home, threatening my children with instant death if they even looked upon it. I’ve been searching for one of these for a long, long time. Not so much because I have…
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