Styled by Jess

Long Weekends

A long weekend is one that is made longer by adding additional days. By definition there is nothing to dislike about long weekends, am I right? I hope you got to enjoy yesterday’s holiday in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. I spent mine up north with family and thought I’d share a few highlights of the weekend if you don’t mind!

Long weekends call for fun suitcases (not pictured, my husband’s boring black suitcase!). Btw, there’s been mixed reviews but I personally LOVE the kate spade Saturday weekender, that zipper pouch at the bottom to hold shoes is my fave. Plus you can always score one on sale because $180 is a bit much for what it is in my opinion.

This girl in her ski outfit is just the cutest ever.

And she’s really loving the hitting the slopes! She just tee-hee’s the entire way down. We can’t wait to get her in a lesson so she can really learn.

My husband skied Saturday and I skied Sunday…and enjoyed some apres ski beverages both days because – long weekend!

I finally had time to start this book. Did you read it yet, was it good?

And this guy didn’t get to ski but he did wear his long underwear to stay warm. A baby in long underwear is so adorable.

Hope you had a great long weekend too! And there are only 4 days til next weekend, woohoo!

02/52

On her way to her friends birthday party – she was all dolled up and so excited!

Spoons. Are. Exciting!

Mindy Kaling Quote

I read this quote recently and couldn’t agree with Mindy more. I sometimes ban myself from the mall and can almost never browse through Whole Foods because I have no will power when it comes to clothes and food. A beautiful sweater on sale at J. Crew? Need it. A piping hot plate of yummy nachos? Give them to me. The best part of this quote is the irony – if you have too much food, you can’t fit into your clothes, ha! Anyways, thought I’d share this, what are your vices?

Homemade Granola Bars

Granola bars are a staple in our house – a good, nutritious (most of the time), and filling snack. It’s fairly simple to make your own granola bars so I thought I’d share my favorite recipe that we use when we make them. Plus, you can completely customize the dried fruits you use so it’s exactly the flavor you want – or even throw in some chocolate chips if that’s more your speed! I base my recipe on Ina Garten’s Homemade Granola Bar Recipe.

You need to use oats and wheat germ for granola bars but everything else you add is really up to your own taste. For this recipe I used coconut, dried cranberries, and apricots.

This recipe calls for 2/3C honey which feels like a lot but really helps bind everything together. Heating it with the butter and brown sugar makes it easy to mix up with your dry ingredients.

I used a 9 x 13 inch pan (Ina’s recipe calls for an 8 x 12 pan) because I like a thinner granola bar. These are super sticky so I just used the back of a spoon to spread the mixture evenly in the pan.

Wrap in parchment paper if you’re taking on to go. These are so good, enjoy!

Handmade Valentine’s Day Cards Class – Sign Up Now!

Just a friendly reminder that I am teaching a class Thursday, February 5th to make beautiful, handmade Valentine’s Day Cards. There are only 6 spots left in the class so SIGN UP NOW!

I’ve changed up my curriculum (so to speak) this time and there will be 3 made cards as samples that students can make themselves OR they can simply make whatever they want with the supplies provided. Here’s a preview of one of the cards:

And we’ll be making envelope liners too to make these cards that much more special. Hope to see you there!

1/52

I’ve decided to change up my Friday posts here and now follow suit with this fun idea I’ve seen on other blogs to post a photo of each of your children once/week. I hope you enjoy as much as I will. Here’s week 1:

Super cute even upside down!

A little lunch date with this sweet girl as M slept in the stroller.

kate spade Saturday and West Elm

I’m a day late since this collaboration officially launched yesterday, but have you seen the kate spade Saturday and West Elm collaboration? It’s so fun. I’ve loved Saturday since it launch a couple years ago and have a dress and their infamous weekender bag (my hubby got me one for Christmas!). I find the design prints of Saturday interesting and colorful, 2 adjectives I appreciate in both my style and home decor. Saturday has a few housewares so it only makes sense they’d team up with someone like West Elm to take home decor a few steps further. I’ve shared some of my favorite items below but you can check out the entire collection here.

The Anders Chair in kate spade Saturday floral print. I want to decorate an entire room around this chair.

kate spade Saturday Small Scale Maze Dhurrie Rug. This is the quintessential ks Saturday print and I love that made it into a rug! I have a dress in this print, too.

They make this kate spade Saturday Globe Table Lamp in a floor lamp too but I think it would look so adorable on a desk, right?

They also have tons of artwork that I found to be slightly overpriced, but this one made me smile. #iwish

Not Your Mother’s Pot Roast

Ok, it’s dipped below 20 degrees this week (and that’s during the day, it’s in the single digits at night!) so we’re pulling out all our favorite winter recipes to make for dinner. One such favorite is Tyler Florence’s Pot Roast with Vegetables recipe. I’ve always been a huge fan of Tyler’s – we even made it a point to dine at his Wayfare Tavern when we were in San Francisco a few years ago (if you go there/live there eat there immediately!). And recently Ty’s been interesting to follow on Instagram where he shares all sorts of ideas/recipes from his test kitchen. Did you hear about his roasted french toast? Read through each photo, what an awesome idea.

Any way, back to pot roast. The most important step to this recipe is searing your meat. This locks in the flavor and is so important when braising anything so that it doesn’t become flavorless mush.

We simplify the recipe and just use tons of carrots, tons of onions, and a bunch of garlic (such precise measurements).

It’s so easy to just toss it all in your dutch oven and let it cook for hours! A great Sunday dinner for sure.

We don’t artfully display ours on a platter to serve they way Ty suggests, rather, we serve it over good ‘ol fashioned egg noodles. And it’s so. good. Enjoy!

Happy 2015!

Happy New Year, all! A new year is always bittersweet: the end of the holidays (bitter) but the start of a brand new year (sweet)! It’s the start of when the weather gets realllly cold around here in the Northeast (bitter) but also when the ski season starts getting good (sweet)! And the sweetest part of all? It’s time for new calendars and day planners! I’ve been a nerd for notebooks, pens, and other such office supplies for my entire life so it really makes me happy to crack open a new date book every January and start anew. Ever since becoming a mom I felt it appropriate to use a momAgenda and I LOVE these planners. This year, though, I mistakenly bought a momAgenda that runs August, 2014 through August, 2015 (oops, I wondered why it was half price!) so I guess I’ll get to have the excitement of a new planner at the end of the summer this year, too! And in case you think I’m super old fashioned I also maintain a Google calendar that I share with my hubs so we know what we’re both up to.

In terms of resolutions, I’ve never been into them, rather, if something in my life isn’t working I like to change it as I go rather than wait for a new year to start. But, this year, it just so happens that I was in the midst of still losing my baby weight while simultaneously going a bit hog wild at the end of December in terms of cookies, more cookies, and even some cinnamon rolls. So – back to eating healthy for me! In fact, I got one of those Jawbone UP bracelets for Christmas and I just love tracking my calories out/calories in. It also tracks your sleep and it turns out I’m way more well rested than I thought (don’t tell my kids, I’d still love them to sleep til 7am). It also turns out I’m a weekend eater where I’m really good during the week and then things get nutty all weekend, re: wine, dinners out, impromptu cupcakes, etc… so I guess my goal is to get control of my weekend eating.

Any resolutions for you this year?

A Look Back at 2014…

As 2014 comes to a close I want to first thank YOU for reading, following, commenting on, and (hopefully) enjoying styledbyjess.com. I love putting posts together and appreciate that people actually take the time to read them. I always think it’s fun to check out my stats at the end of the year and pull together the most popular posts of the year, so….drum-roll please!

Here are the top 10 posts from 2014: