Spring Gems

Here are a few of my Spring Favorite items. The new Anthropologie BHLDN collection is stunning in person, the rose gold and lace is just lovely, so pretty and delicate you will have a hard decision deciding on which one to buy. And the poufs, there are on sale now, just saw them in the store for $99, so go get em. My visit to Tom's flagship store in Venice had me trying on half the sunglasses, the ones feature are brand new. So great for Spring and Summer. I promise I'll get on the Summer bandwagon in a minute. Or maybe by the end of the month.

Coffee Tasting #mylifesimplysweet

For our first Fall tasting event we decided we would do a coffee tasting. Stumptown Coffee Roasters gladly supplied a few of their amazing coffees for the tasting. If you haven't checked them out here in L.A. they just opened a store in Downtown, see my visit here. You'll love their coffee and the cool vibe of the place.

Mind you this was my first ever coffee tasting, which is surprising considering how much I love it. I asked around at local coffee roasters for the best way to go about this. Cupping is the method that most are doing, it's really for the experts. So I decided to use a French Press method. This way it's something that everyone can easily duplicate. I borrowed and bought a few French Presses for the occasion.

As I didn't want to make this too formal and stop the party flow, we discreetly mentioned to everyone that it was time do to the tasting if they were interested. We had an even mix of men and women who participated.  I supplied the coffee mugs from Anthropologie and typed up the instructions as follows: 

Tasting Instructions 

Step 1: Take a Cup and Piece of Paper

Step 2: Pour a little Coffee & Taste

Step 3: Write Down Notes Next to # 

Step 4: Pick Your Favorite

Step 5: Revelation of Brand (End of Night) 

Before the party I prepared the notes by staining this cute paper from Anna Rifle Paper Co. purchased from Anthropologie with a few coffee cup marks. Funny thing happened at the party a few of my friends sorted thru the papers to find a clean one, finally realizing that I purposely stained them. Oh I love you guys!

The other thing I did was make this a blind coffee tasting. I put #'s on all the French Presses and put the coffee in Paper Bags all numbered as well. This way if anyone moved a pot of coffee around we still knew which brand it was.  All together I had 7 coffee's to taste. In the future I think I'd pick 5 at the most. 

Here's the set-up: 

The last photo is the reveal. Gather everyone who tasted the coffee and made notes. One by one reveal what brand is in the bag. You can read a few coffee notes from the tasters and any notes you have from the brands yourself. It's up to you how formal you want this to be.

One of the great things during the tasting is it really stimulated conversation between everyone. It wasn't as easy as I thought to come up with descriptive words on what you were tasting. Maybe next time I'll put some adjectives or teaser words around to help that out. Maybe notes from the coffee roasters.

Another thing I learned, is you need something to cleanse your palate. Water maybe, well I had Acorn shaped sugar cookies to put out. Which warranted one comment on Coffee #6 "Good with Cookies."  Hmmm?

What brands of coffee did I use?  Los Angeles has quite a coffee scene these days with a few local coffee roasters and the newly opened Stumptown Coffee, based in Portland. My suggestion is use local coffee roasters and brands, make it easy for your guest to go out and buy their favorites.

So here's what we tasted and there was no clear winner. I expected that, it's like wine, it's what taste good to you.

#1 Handsome Coffee Roasters - Cristobal Fernandez

#2 Stumptown Coffee Roasters - Hair Bender

#3 Intelligentsia - Organic La Perla Oaxaca Mexico

#4 Handsome Coffee Roasters - Los Girasoles

#5 Groundwork - Black Gold

#6 Folgers (I had to throw in a basic less booszchee brand) 

#7 Stumptown Coffee Roasters - Holler Mountain

Throw in a basic coffee that you can get at your local grocery store. This makes for a fun evening and teasing. My fellow coffee snob and occasional blogger Roger happened to pick Folgers and well we can't stop teasing the poor man. Here's his notes:

We couldn't let people leave without trying Stumptown Coffee who was so kind as to supply us a few bags of coffee for the tasting. This meant we sent everyone home with a bag of beans. #mylifesimplysweet

Fall Gems

I had to post these beautiful vignettes I found at Anthropologie today. The color combinations are inspiring for just about anything. They just scream late fall, early winter.  I went in there for coffee mugs, which I did purchase, but I couldn't help musing about all these styled areas, which is part of what makes this store so appealing. Above is the amazing Coiled Geo Clutch. I just think we all need that clutch.

Candle is Capri Blue Etched Jar   which comes in Hibiscus teakwood (pictured above), aloha, volcano and aloha mercury. The fabulous Anon Beaded Clutch just calls my name and comes in plum and green.

When I saw this vignette I just thought about the Thin Man series with William Powell and Myrna Loy, and of course their dog Asta. They were always walking around with a cocktail in their hands. I so love these champagne, martini glasses. They are so new I didn't see them online yet.

I thought these fun little beauties were worthy of sharing today. Enjoy! 

Stalker Sweater

AltSummit had many challenges and rewards, but the biggest challenge for me was the wardrobe pressure.  As many of you can clearly see I am not a fashion blogger. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE fashion. I make sure and watch the Spring, Fall and Haute Couture fashion shows online via Elle. My favorites are Chanel and Marc Jacobs.

Weeks before leaving to Salt Lake City I was on the hunt for fashionable clothes at a budget that I could easily afford.  My go-to stores are Anthropologie and J.Crew. I hit the sales right after the Holidays. I'd had my eye on the boucle sweater above. I usually buy a new black sweater every year as it's an easy quick layer for the chilly LA winter mornings. It's a basic for my wardrobe. While I'll was in New Mexico I made a trip to the local Anthro store to find this sweater. It was too small, even at my goal weight I'd never fit in that size. So I waited till I returned home to LA.

Here's where the stalking starts. On my day off I go into the local Anthropologie store. I run right to the ten sale racks. I go to the black sweater section, look all over for this beauty and well, it's not to be found. I had told myself I probably wouldn't find it, and I was ok with that. I said to myself  "you'll find something else you like just as equally."

So I go to the rest of the sales racks and scour them for fashion idea's and great looks. On my way out, low and behold is a lady admiring herself in THE sweater, it's my size I can tell. What would you do now? Wait? Say something to her? Let it go? I decide to wait and wait and wait, then it turned into hovering. This woman could not MAKE up her MIND! She tried it on, asked her mum, (she was English) and her sister and the mirror. After waiting a few minutes I finally spoke up. No I did not say "if you decide not to buy that I'd love to have it," because you know the moment you say that, they think it's a really special sweater and buy it, even when they are indecisive about it.  So I just ask "where'd you find that sweater?" She proceeded to point me to the rack, which I knew didn't have my sweater. SHE DID. So I continued to hover. Then in her indecisive mind she hands the sweater to her mum and says she'll be back, needs to visit the Loo (British remember).

Let me tell you she took a really long time. I looked at the entire top floor of Anthropologie, ridiculous, but I REALLY wanted this sweater. So I finally decide to sit down on a couch and Instagram away while I keep an eye on her, her mum and her sis.  Yes STALKING now. Finally, she returns, puts the sweater back on and off and on and decides to buy it. She gives me one glance as she walks away. She KNEW I wanted that sweater. Do I let it go. I tried, really, really, I did. No I didn't chase her down, but I did ask the sales clerk about the sweater, I pulled up the image above on my iPhone and ask her if she has any in the back. She looks, and no they don't. I sheepishly try to tell her I saw one in the store and someone just left to buy it (MY SWEATER).

She wants to help me out so she pulls out her mobile device connected to the store to see if it's anywhere. Oh did I tell you it sold out online, so the store is my only hope. No such luck. Super nice sales clerks talks with me about what size I want and asks me to follow her downstairs to look on the computers. Here it goes, you ready, are you really ready...as I am walking down the stairs, right there, on the landing, hanging on a rack, is MY SWEATER in the MY size. Yes my stalking paid off and the indecisive lady left me a little gift on the stairwell. The sales clerk was dumbfounded and hugged me, she was so glad I found it.

I tell you I had a shopping rush and ran right down the stairs so fast I practically knocked people down, ran right to the line and danced all the way home with my beautiful boucle 40% of the sweater. Stalking does pay, though I don't recommend the humiliation in admitting I did this for a black sweater. Enjoy!