Easiest Homemade Donuts

We started a new tradition on Christmas morning. Making homemade donuts. This was about the easiest recipe EVER, and what better than to make some quick and easy yumminess before getting to the best part...opening presents.

All you need is non-flaky biscuits, something to cut a hole in the donuts...

Vegetable oil to fry the biscuits...

Granulated sugar and cinammon mixed together for the sugar donuts...

Powdered sugar, 2 tblsp. of milk, and 1 tblsp of butter for the glazed donuts (you can add 1/4 tsp of vanilla too, didn't try it like this but I think it's what it needed.) Melt about 3-4 tblsp of butter in another bowl, from the frying pan place donuts on napkin, then dunk in bowl of butter, then in glaze or sugar mix and fully cover the donut.

And there you have it...delicious EASY homemade donuts.

Just grab yourself a glass of milk...and enjoy.

XoXo

Iris

Christmas Gift Wrap

Merry Christmas!!!

I hope everyone spent the day surrounded by love. I can't believe how fast Christmas came and went..just in a blink of an eye. And just like that, Next year's Christmas will be here. Well before this Christmas is forgotten with the busy new year, I wanted to share bits of my gift wrap. It is super simple, nothing grand. The babe volunteered (ok, not really) in handling the glue gun, while I wrapped away (prefer wrapping 100x's to gift bags). The most challenging was probably finding pictures to use as the "gift tag" of everyone you are giving a gift to, but it was fun to go through pictures. The gift wrapping was such a success, I may have to do it again next year.

XoXo

Iris

Holiday Sweets

Hello loves. Been away from blogging for a bit, but wanted to pop in to say hi, wish you all a beautiful holiday season, and post some last minute holiday desserts in case your in need of some extra sweetness for Christmas. Hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful time of the year with your loved ones. It's so sad to think that Christmas, for 26 families, will feel so empty this year. Peace & Love.

Peppermint Crumble Bars

Eggnog Cheesecake Bars

Creamy Pumpkin Pie Bars

Snowballs

Peppermint Chocolate Cake

XoXo

Iris

Winter Hat Love

I love a good hat. And Winter is perfect for one of these fabulous floppy/fedora hats. I spotted some on my way home today as I was driving window shopping (that's just how I do it lol) but I might just have to go back tomorrow and get me a cute winter hat because I definitely don't have enough ;-)

velvetmoss featuring brimmed hats

1. Eugenia Kim brimmed hat / 2. Free People floppy brim hat / 3. rag & bone brimmed hat / 4. Eugenia Kim brimmed hat / 5. Eugenia Kim striped hat

XoXo,

Iris

Sweet Christmas Photos

Helloooo! Been MIA with so much to do for the holidays. Here is a little what I've been up to. Lots of cuteness and sweetness involved...love it.

Via my Instagram the past 2 weeks have consisted of christmas decorating, spotting dolphins and seals out in the bay, taking sweet photos of my little niece, capturing special photos of a sweet girl and her sweet mama, and re-arranging my art wall too (but more on that later this week.)

Here are the christmas photo shoots I did. (sorry about small photos, just click to make bigger)

Love this sweet angels smile. She melts my heart. Cutest baby EVER!!!

And how gorgeous is my friend? Love these two. So much fun taking these photos.

Seriously, this cutie pie might as well be a GAP model. Hello GAP model scouts out there, this is your girl.

Till next time

XoXo

Iris

Crate&Barrel: 50 Years

How cool is it to have friends over and serve them tea from a very cool teapot? But the thing is, I wouldn't know, since I don't have one. But I know I would have tea part-ays like nobody's business if I had one. Well, Crate&Barrel is here to save the day (not your wallet tho) as every month in 2013 they will feature a new teapot design to celebrate their 50th anniversary. I love them all...

but here are my favorites. Hints...valentine's, birthday, anniversary, and "just because" are all next year for me, so feel free to get me one of these cuties.

XoXo

Iris

A Baker's Dozen

I finally got the chance to frame this limited edition illustration by British illustrator Freddy Boo, who is among the 13 British illustrators that Ted Baker has collaborated with for "A Baker's Dozen." Each illustration features an iconic British past time.

I chose 'Traffic Jams' because being from L.A., well...it's one of our past times too. Plus I really liked the couple in the illustration, reminds me of my babe and I, ha!

Went to good ol' Ikea and purchased this green frame, matches perfectly.

Here are the other illustrations. I would have loved to have gotten another.

Drinking Tea

Fish N Chips

Village Fetes

Gardening

Croquet

Car Boot Sale

Fishing

Moaning

Sightseeing

Cockney Rhyming Slang

Queuing

Camping

Full English Breakfast

Hurry and get yours before they run out.

And while I was putting together this little post, I wanted to share what I was jamming to. Love this song. She is an amazing artist. Enjoy!

Christina Perri

XoXo,

Iris

Bottega Louie L.A. Review

Hello loves. I am back with a restaurant review. We celebrated a dear friend's birthday on Saturday night in Downtown L.A. The heart, 7th and Grand to be exact. I love this part of the city of Angels. Bottega Louie was the choice. It's apparently the place to be at (and has been for some time, just been out of the L.A. loop lately). We knew it was a popular restaurant so we were prepared to wait a long time to be seated...45 minutes they told us. Not bad I thought, I could really take in the feel of the restaurant as we wait, plus...I am a people watcher anyway. I am really loving everything about the restaurant; the colors, the structure, the brightness of the place, with lots of chocolates and other sweets in beautiful pastel boxes at store front, the overall ambience. I am excited to be here and eager to taste the food I heard so much about.

Well an hour passes and at this point I am getting tired of staring at the macaron trees, not to mention starting to get very hungry...grouchy hungry. We ask the hostess "what's the dealio?" she apologized and said it would be 15 to 20 more minutes tops. Well how about another 45 minutes!?! Ok, fine. I can handle this, not a big deal. I'm not a brat when it comes to waiting, I consider myself to be quite patient but they really tested me on this one.

But, here is what really got to me (that may just possibly keep me from going back). Not sure if it was only this night, or this is typical, but I noticed a smell that I couldn't ignore. It was the smell of cooking oils that came from the seemingly unventilated open kitchen that permeated the dining area. It was such an overwhelming smell. My hair and clothes were stinky, my nose hurt and my eyes burned. I'd like to give it the benefit of the doubt that maybe, just maybe since it was a busy night, they were having a "bad grease night." I kid you not, driving home all we talked about was how horrible our hair and clothes smelled.

Anyway, now on to the good stuff. The stuff that made my belly smile. In all my stinky an tired self glory, I was pleasantly surprised by the table service and how quick our food arrived. Thumbs up to the Eggplant Parmesan, the King Salmon, and the Chicken Carciofi. The food and service together just might make the funk in my hair worth it.

Okay, enough mumbo jumbo...on to the photos.

Enjoy.

Obsessed with the colors and the beautiful pastel boxes

Beautifully created desserts

More pretties

And I absolutely loved the marble and French detailed counters. Oh my, the counters!!!

Truffle galore...

and Macaron galore. Looks like the red is quite popular.

Love the bar area...more beautiful counters.

Ah, yes. The open kitchen. I love the look of it. It was like watching one of those "Master Chef" reality shows live. But, there was that smell.

Eggplant Parmesan. This was sooo delicious.

King Salmon

Chicken Carciofi

The chocolate soufflé was to die for.

Happy Birthday my dear friend Erica, love you girl.

All in all, it's a great location, convenient parking, delicious food, the crowd was loud, long wait, pesky oils. It's very L.A. Gotta love it.

XoXo,

Iris

All photos by me