A Little Polka Dot Inspiration

I recently did a polka dot project (coming to the blog soon!) and it made me pull up some of my favorite polka-dot street style/fashion inspiration.

Here is model Poppy Delevigne looking awesome in polka-dot pants and an awesome blue scalloped jacket at fashion week.

I bookmarked this look from Shopbop because I think it's totally wearable. (And something about polka-dots plus red feels really classic)

Another iteration of b&w spots with red. This time red takes center stage....

And... how Vogue editor Filipa Fino styled the same top,  with a polka dot skirt for Vogue's Five Days, Five Looks, One Girl

Here is a shot of Mary-Kate Olsen from way back in 2007.  Except for the shoes, this still looks fresh to me...

And here's Blair from Atlantic-Pacific mastering the double polka dot look.

Easy Homemade Granola Recipe

Granola & greek yogurt is one of my favorite breakfasts so I've been working on perfecting my homemade granola recipe.  It's surprisingly easy to make, and I love that I can customize it with whatever nuts, dried fruit, or spices are available.

Here is the basic recipe I used most recently:

Ingredients:

8 cups rolled oats

1 ½ cups flax seeds

1 cup ground flax seeds

1 ½ cups coconut

2 cup almonds (or other nuts), chopped

1 ½ teaspoons salt

½ cup brown sugar

¼ cup maple syrup

3/4  cup honey

1 cup vegetable oil

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 and line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine the oats, nuts, cocunut and seeds in a big bowl.

In a saucepan over medium heat, stir together the brown sugar, maple syrup, honey, oil, cinnamon, salt and vanilla and bring to a boil. Then pour over the dry ingredients, and mixing to coat the oats

Spread the mixture out evenly on the baking sheets. Bake in the preheated oven until crispy and toasted, about 20 minutes. Stir once halfway through. If you want to add raisins or dried cranberries, stir them in after the granola has cooled.

Store the granola in airtight container.

Happy Friday! (And one oversized ice-cream print)

Consider celebrating the end of the week with this large scale print of a tasty looking soft serve ice-cream cone. (Just $50)

More fun (and huge) prints by artist Debbie Carlos on Etsy here.

(I also love this bunny!)

Orange Decor Inspiration

I'm in an orange kind of mood.  If I had a front door, I would want it to look like this:  

 

Following Blogs: A Quick Little "Reader" How-To

A break from my regular style postings for some technical advice: I often have family and friends ask me about how to keep up with the many blogs and sites that they are visiting everyday, so I figured a quick "how to" might be helpful.

Are you bookmarking every blog you  like and visiting it every day? If so,  there is a better way!!

Using a Reader:

RSS readers allow you to subscribe to feeds from sites  and read them from a central location instead of visiting each individual website on a daily basis.  (Saves time and puts all the content you're interested in, in one place!)   Most sites will have a little orange RSS logo or a link that says "Subscribe to feed" that allows you to easily add that site to your "Reader" of choice.    I use Google Reader  because I'm always on gmail and that way I can pull up my reader on any device (personal computer, work laptop, iPad, iPhone etc)  I also love how it allows you to label, file and "star" articles so you can reference back to them (I especially found that useful pre-Pinterest).  If you use Microsoft Outlookto manage email, you can also subscribe to RSS feeds so they pop up right in your Inbox. This is great if you want to read messages offline. (Microsoft Outlook RSS info here)

Here is a quick step by step on how to set up your favorite blogs on Google Reader:

1.  Find a blog (uh.... Style-Edition.com.. duh)

2.  Find & Click on the RSS/Subscribe to Feed link.  With some browsers, this takes you to a page where you can select your reader.  Here you can select "Google Reader"

3.  If you can't find th RSS link and/or it doesn't give you the option to select a reader,  Don't fret!  Google Reader is smart.   Just copy the URL of the blog  and click "Subscribe" (image below)  Smarty-pants Google will automatically find the feed and add it to your Google Reader list.

   

 4.  Now, you should be all set up!  Instead of using a bunch of bookmarks etc, just go to Google Reader everyday  to see the new articles from your favorite sites.

Bonus:  If you follow a wide variety of blogs/sites (for example I have fashion, decor,  news, work-related sites etc)  You can creat "Tags" for each them to file them separately. 

Bloglovin:

Bloglovin' is another easy to use  "reader" to follow your favorite blogs.  I prefer Google Reader, except for when I'm on my iPhone.   Bloglovin has a great, easy to use app that allows you to read blogs on your mobile device.   Setting up Bloglovin is super easy.

1. Create a Bloglovin' account

2.  Find the Bloglovin link on your favorite blogs

3.  This link should take you directly to Bloglovin, and as long as you're logged in, you should just have to click "Follow" and it will be added to your list.

4.  Either head on over to Bloglovin.com or download the app, and then you can use the site to read all the new articles an aggregate every day.

I hope that helps!

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PS - Here are the Style-Edition links:

Style-Edition Blog RSS Feed

Follow Style-Edtion on Bloglovin