Reverb10

Thanks to Kim of KimberelyMichelle.com I’ve decided to participate in #Reverb10.

What is #Reverb10? From the website - “t’s an open online initiative that encourages participants to reflect on this year and manifest what’s next. It’s an opportunity to retreat and consider the reverberations of your year past, and those that you’d like to create in the year ahead. We’re connected by the belief that sharing our stories has the power to change us. We look forward to reading yours.”

Considering how quickly this year seemed to pass, I’m pretty excited about reflecting on everything that happened :)

NaBloPoMo Phew!

TGI – Novemeber 30th! Quite honestly, I never thought I’d make it! Right now, I’m in the middle of finals and I’ve been spending most my free time working on notebooks and boards from my classes. It difficult, when I sit down to the computer, to justify squeezing in a little blogging time, when I really should be squeezing in a little more homework time. Boo homework! For example, this board :-P

I’d like to say I’ll keep this up through December, but I know that won’t happen. I will, however, be posting as often as I can. Hopefully, those posts will include more gluten free recipes and product reviews. Perhaps I’ll tell the story of how I came up with my design company name.

Anywhoodle, thank you for sticking with me :)

Giveaway: Honey My Heart Necklace WINNER!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and it was a relaxing break from work. Even though I was sick the whole time, I still feel better having had 4.5 days off. Hubs and I met up with his sister and her fiancé at Hubs' Dad's new place in Santa Maria. My stepMIL made a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday and on Friday we went wine tasting. Saturday we drove home in time to take a nap and go to my parent's house for Cornish game hens. Sunday my sister and I saw Harry Potter and I finished up my final projects due this week. I have 3 days left in the quarter before my winter break - YAY!!

Okay, on to the winner of the Honey My Heart necklace giveaway…


Congratulations Holley with Dead Flowers, aka Mrs Mouse from Weddingbee! Please email me your address.

Thank you to everyone who entered. As luck would have it, Honey My Heart is having a “Cyber Monday” deal today. Enter TGHONEY at check out and receive 10% of any item.



Happy Shopping :)

*If anyone else is interested in doing a giveaway for the holiday season please contact me at HisBirdiesNest (at) gmail (dot) com.

Sundae (A Sunday Short)

I saw this on Pinterest and I cannot wait to make it! I’m thinking it will be fun to serve at our cocktail party.


The recipe (and this picture) can be found on (Never Home) Maker.

Giveaway: Honey My Heart Necklace – Reminder

Just a friendly reminder that tomorrow is the last day to enter the Honey My Heart Necklace giveaway!


Hurry, go to this post :)

Five for Friday

Previous Fridays

1 – You shared a gluten free pizza with me at Selma’s in San Clemente.

2 – You promised to take me to the succulent place in Los Olivos this weekend, while we’re up there visiting your father for Thanksgiving.

3 – You absolutely love the holiday season.

4 – You bought me a mini light up snowman for our apartment when you were at the drug store last week.

5 – You tried to get out of the house last weekend so I could study without a distraction.

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope you’re all having a wonderful Thanksgiving and you remember to take time today to reflect on the things you are thankful for.

I’m thankful for my amazing husband, my wonderful family, my awesome sister (yes I know she counts as family, but deserves her own mention), and my incredible friends.

Good Day

I love this print by Polka Street Studio.

Plus, I can most sincerely reasonably and happily say that today will be a good day because it’s a half day at work! Hubs is going to pick me up and noon, we’re going to stop at the local food truck meet-up and then head up to Santa Maria for Thanksgiving with my FIL, SMIL, SIL & FBIL :)

Posting will be light this weekend because I’m away from my computer but don’t worry I’m still going to complete NaBloPoMo :)

2 Months Without Beef Liver

Yesterday was the 2 month mark of the day I received my food allergy test results. Yes, that means I’ve been eating a gluten free diet for 2 months now. Remember my first, very exciting, gluten free discovery?


A couple of you have asked in the past 2 months how it’s going? In a word – Great! In more words… I no longer have a constant stomach ache. About 4-5 days after I started the diet, I was getting ready for work and I thought, “I feel great today!” and then it hit me – I'd been feeling that bad for a least 3 years and I’d just gotten used it. That was my normal. My cough is completely gone and I’ve actually begun loosing weight. Before I didn’t really eat poorly, but I just couldn’t get below a certain weight. Now, with my new eating habits and Jazzercise I’m seeing a big difference – YAY!

A lot of people have asked me if I’ll continue to eat gluten free after the 2 month mark. If you remember after giving up the items in the orange column for 2 months, I could start introducing them back into my diet sparingly.


The only thing I really miss on that list is cumin, so that is pretty much the only thing I’m going to experiment with adding back into my diet. I could try gluten every once in awhile, but with all the great gluten free alternatives out there, plus the fact that I really don’t crave it anymore and I feel so much better, I really don’t see the point. I will also have duck, lobster, apricots and nectarines once in a blue moon. Since those weren’t foods I ate very often to begin with, eating them sparingly won’t be a big deal.

I want to thank you guys for your support! Many of you emailed me gluten free recipes and articles you found around the web and I’ve really been touched :) In two weeks I’ll be on winter break from school and I cannot wait to cook more and of course blog about it.

xoxo,
Ali

Giveaway: Honey My Heart Necklace

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend and you’re work if going to be as short as mine. Thank God for Thanksgiving! I’ve decided to kick-off this beginning of the Holiday season with a giveaway.YAY!



Jeannine over at Honey My Heart has graciously offered to giveaway one of her gorgeous necklaces on my blog.


I won a similar necklace on her blog a few months ago when you opened her Etsy shop. I love it so much I purchased another one for my sister.


Jeannine’s necklaces would make a great Christmas present or a little something for yourself ;-)

There are 2 possible entries…
1 – Comment below and tell me whether you’d keep the necklace for yourself or gift it.

2 - Tweet the following and let me know in a separate comment - “Win a beautiful @HoneyMyHeart necklace on @FrenchieBirdie blog! http://tiny.cc/hm9r2 (Please RT)”

This contest will end on Sunday, November 28, 2010 at 12 noon PST and I’ll announce the winner on Monday, November 29, 2010. The winner will be chosen randomly using Random.org. Please remember to comment with your email address so I have a way to contact you if you win.

Legal Stuffies: I’m not receiving anything for hosting this blog other than the joy I get sharing Honey My Heart with all of you.

WTF? – Mini Chair Light

I found this light on Moggit (the guilty pleasure of the design world) and I cried a little.


Here I am dreaming about owning one (or five… let’s be honest, ALL) of these Vitra Miniature Chairs and some artist (?) bought all of them and made this. I know art is subjective but this makes me angry and I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the artists intention.

I Want, I Need, I Have to Have: Vitra Miniatures

When I first started at idi (Interior Designers Institute) there was a display in the main hall of miniature iconic chairs. I wanted the whole display! I Googled miniature chairs and came across the Vitra Miniatures.

I tried to justify paying more for a miniature chair than I could afford to pay for a chair I could actually sit in, but I never bought one. The next semester they took the chair display down and put up real life work from past students and I forgot all about my dream chairs. Until last week when I received the latest Design Within Reach catalogue.


Hubs likes to refer to it as Design out of Reach because, seriously, it’s still pretty pricey. Also, these Vitra Miniatures are just as expensive as I remember. Naturally, I want the more expensive chairs like the Eames Lounge and Ottoman or the Corbusier Lounge. At that point I might as well buy a life-sized one. Why oh why am I not a Millionaire?

What thing, just outside your price comfort zone, do you covet the most?

Five for Friday

Previous Fridays

1 - You've been trying to get me to go to Clearman's North Woods Inn for weeks. We went last Saturday and you bought me a Mai Tai to drink in a log cabin.


2 – You are as excited as I am that class is over in two weeks

3 - You went with me to stellaLucy, the gluten free store in San Clemente and had just as much fun finding fun gluten free foods to eat.

4 - You agreed to go to a Gallery viewing of LED lighting with me on Friday night.

5 – You love having different cheeses and crackers for dinner… cheese platter dinners :)

Birdie and A Fry

Have you heard of Pinterest? I just learned about it this week. Pinterest (as they call it) is a place to catalogue things you love. I see it this way – instead of bookmarking pages on the internet of things you like or saving picture upon picture in folders on your desktop, you can just “pin” it to your board.

I just started yesterday, but here’s what my boards look like…

Look, a categorized list of my obsessions!

You can follow other people and see the things they recently posted to their boards.

And, that is how I found this adorable poster pinned by Brooke with Claremont Road.


You’ve seen a bird with a french fry right? They’re like, “JACKPOT!” I think this is a great motto :)

If you’ve like to be invited to Pinterest comment below with your email address and I’ll add as many of you as I can.

The Obligatory Christmas Card Post

I really wasn’t going to post about our Christmas cards… at least not until after we ordered them. We did the Wedding picture Christmas card last year so there isn’t a couple pictures I need you all to help me choose from. Hack, if I’m lucky I’ll find one good picture of Hubs and I to put on this years. We just didn’t take a lot of pictures this year. In 2011 I resolve to take more pictures with my husband!

Okay, so why the post now? Christiana at US Meets UK, tweeted this morning about a deal on EverSave - $20 for $50 worth of personalized eco-friendly cards from Paper Culture.


Paper Culture is a CarbonFree® Partner of Carbonfund.org. Their paper is FSC certified as 100% post consumer recycled paper and elemental chlorine free. Plus, all the envelopes and packaging made from recycled paper! Oh, and it that wasn't cool enough, they pant a tree in your honor with every order you place.

I love sending out picture Christmas cards but I feel guilty about all the paper and ink etc that goes into it. Now I can feel a little better about my cards and save a little money at the same time. They have a lot of great designs too! Here are a couple of my favorites…

1 - Poignant Poinsettia

2 - Reindeer Family

3 - O Christmas Tree

4 - Christmas Ornaments

5 - Holiday Ornament

The sale ends some time on Friday (if I can add correctly) so hurry over and snatch up this deal!

Fun with Free Fonts

Yesterday I made an invitation for a small Christmas cocktail party we’re having in a few weeks. While designing the invite I came across a number of really cool free fonts. If you love a good free font as much as I do, I thought you’d enjoy them too.

The first few I downloaded from Andy Nortnik and came in a pack titled Free Retro Fonts.


My favorite is Diner Sparkly, but I ended up using Brody and Expo for the invite.



Another great font I found was from Tack-o-rama called Air Conditioner…


Tack-o-rama has a lot of great fonts and clip art, like…

What is your favorite font find?

Product Review: Gluten Free Bisquick

*Bisquick isn't giving me anything for this review. I purchased the box of Gluten Free Bisquick all by myself and decided to tell you all about, all by myself… I’m independent like that ;-)


After entering roughly 10 giveaways for Gluten Free Bisquick, I decided last week to break down and purchase a box myself. I don’t normally eat a lot of pancakes or waffles, but I was really excited about all the other things I could make with Bisquick… Shortcake, Biscuits, dumplings etc.

However, since I’d never cooked with Gluten Free Bisquick (and to be honest, I haven’t cooked with regular Bisquick in quite awhile) I thought it would be best to make pancakes or waffles the first time. This way I could compare them to something I know and I would know how the batter tastes without much added to it.


I dusted off the waffle maker my mother gave me for Valentine’s Day and made Belgian waffles for dinner last night. Hubs and I LOVE breakfast for dinner.


They didn’t turn out as perfect squares because it was my first time making waffles, but I think I like them better this way… more homemade.

Verdict: Delicious! The middles are fluffy and the outside have a great crispy crunch. I was pleasantly surprised how fluffy they turned out because most of the Gluten Free breads I’ve tried are really heavy and dense. Hubs forgot I’d made GF waffle until I reminded him halfway threw the second waffle. I’ll definitely be making these again, as well as attempted the other recipes they suggest!

Frenchie Kisses: The End… of the night.

After the tosses we walked around and mingled with out guests as the night started to whine down.

We also got a few final pictures in with our wedding party.


Ohana, our photographers, set up these awesome shots with an old carriage, behind our reception area.


I have to give them props for rallying our wedding party and getting them to stand still for these shots because, due to all the free wine, they were pretty drunk by the end of the night.


In fact, I’m surprise I managed to stay serious in these photos because they had us cracking up.

We didn’t have a big exit at the end of the night, we’d already done our toss at the our ceremony.


Mr Frenchie and I walked around and said good night to as many people as we could. Then we disappeared to the parking lot to meet the car our hotel sent over.


It was actually really fun sneaking away with my new husband. We still had a lot of the night left because our reception ended around 9:30. We went to our hotel room and drank champagne on the balcony of our room and talked about the day.

The End :)

You’re not rid of me yet though, I still have a few more post planned with the Bee Series.

Did you miss anything?

The Beginning

Gettin' Sassy

Me & My Bridesmaids

Mr Frenchie's Morning

Waiting to go down the aisle

The "I Do"s

The Big 'Oops'

Family Portraits

Portraits with my New Husband

We're Here and We're Married Birdie Details

Papa Frenchie’s Speech

... and then there was cake!
The Tosses

The Other Details

***Note: All photos, unless otherwise noted, are by the fabulously talented, and super awesome to know, Ohana Photographers***

Frenchie Kisses: More Details

I’ve already shown you all the Birdie Details from our wedding, but I had to show off the other details.

I really didn’t want a flowery arch, but Mama Frenchie and my florist talked me into. I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised with the result.

A last minute DIY project, thanks to this post by Mrs Lightning.

My gorgeous bouquet, that still can bring myself to throw away.


Mr Frenchie’s manly boutineer and FIL Frenchie’s tie from the 60’s, gifted to Mr Frenchie around the time we got engaged. MIL Frenchie’s dress ended up matching the tie perfectly.


My bridesmaid’s colorful and wild bouquets.

My wedding clutch that Etsy seller, IMH Designs overnights to me days before the wedding. Nothing like waiting until the last minute to decided on clutch.


My bright yellow Calvin Klein pumps. Like the clutch, I couldn’t decide which shoes to purchase. In the end I decided to wear a pair of yellow shoes I already owned and they were perfect.

Our rings on a bunch of grapes from the vineyard.

The “Wish Dish” – at the meeting with our DOC 2 weeks before the wedding, Amanda suggested a “Wish Bowl” when we had no clue what to do for a guest book. Mama Frenchie surprised me by getting this made at Color Me Mine. We nicknamed it a “Wish Dish” because it wasn’t really a bowl.


Like many other brides I wore two garters. The one below was the same garter my mother and her mother wore in their weddings. Mama Frenchie also made me a similar one for the toss.


My favorite champagne… err, Sparkling Wine…

… and a closer shot of Mr Frenchie’s Grandmother’s glasses.

So Far...

The Beginning

Gettin' Sassy

Me & My Bridesmaids

Mr Frenchie's Morning

Waiting to go down the aisle

The "I Do"s

The Big 'Oops'

Family Portraits

Portraits with my New Husband

We're Here and We're Married Birdie Details

Papa Frenchie’s Speech

... and then there was cake!

The Tosses