After making this DIY bookshelf, the bf has been in the mood to build more things for our little apartment.  His most recent venture are kitchen shelves that we modeled after these West Elm wood shelves.  We were *this close* to buying those shelves at $79 a piece until Kyle decided to make a version of them himself.

So he bought a few slabs of wood, used the same stain as our bookshelf, and picked up a few cheap-o wall brackets at Ikea.  And now, we have 10x more storage in our kitchen!

To make these shelves, here’s what we used: 

Wood Shelves
3 – 8″ x 24″ red oak (or any other hard wood, custom cut at Home Depot)
1 Minwax wood conditioner (to prep before the stain)
1 Minwax wood stain in “dark walnut”

Wall Brackets
6 – Ikea Ekby Valter brackets, black (it comes with screws)

Screws
12 – #12 2″ screws (to screw into the wall)
6 – small screws (to screw into the wood)

Other tools
Extra fine sand paper, 220 (to sand the wood before staining)
Hand drill
Stud finder

You basically just sand and stain the wood, drill the brackets into the wall (preferably a stud, but if not, then use drywall anchors), line the shelves on top, and drill them into the brackets.  Voila!

• I know it’s a bit old but this video truly makes me smile.  Oh what I would give to prance around in stripes and sequins all while listening to Carla Bruni.  It sounds like a dream come true.  Obsessed.
• Speaking of obsessed, Kyle and I started watching Homeland on Wednesday and have already seen 5 episodes.  By the time the weekend’s over, I can imagine we’ll have watched the entire season.  IT’S THAT GOOD.  I mean, really, really good.
• Avocado chocolate pudding.  Sign me up.
• I am ALL OVER Martha Stewart’s new home office line.
• This heat proof glass tea kettle needs to be mine.

What are you lovely people up to this weekend?  I’ll be hitting up Jason Wu for Target HARD and then maybe watching the puppy bowl.  No super bowl for me, thanks.  Whatever you’ll be doing, I hope you enjoy every minute of it! xo

A few things:

A.) I’d like to first sincerely apologize for looking like I graduated with honors from Tool Academy with my sweet Myspace pic above.  If this was 2003, THAT would be my Myspace pic, just sayin’.  I have a perfectly good explanation for it though.  My boyfriend, Mr. Taylor, is too busy to take pictures of me so I’m forced to do so myself.  That guy!  Sheesh.

B.) I’m wearing a sweet Peter Pan collar in this photo but you can’t see it.  Ugh.

C. ) I don’t normally share these extra mundane details of my life, like getting haircuts or what my new car insurance rate is (by the way, it’s really good), but since I did a little hair inspo post a few days ago, I felt it was my duty to follow up.  As you can see I didn’t take any of my own advice and did something completely different.

D.) And by “completely different,” I mean I showed my hair stylist the Olivia Palermo photo and she took a few liberties of her own and chopped like 90% of my hair off.  PS – here is what it looked like before.

It’ll do, right?

I mentioned that we did a little brunchy brunch on Saturday for this lady’s big 25.  Brunching is my absolute favorite activity of all time.  If I had to choose between going to brunch or winning the lottery…well, let’s just say I’d have to think about it for a solid minute.

So we went to Cafe Stella in Silverlake.  Can I just say that it takes us 4 freeways to get to Silverlake and I live like 10 mins away?  Why is this crazy town so crazy?  Who designed these freeway systems and street maps?  Anyway, I had the lemon ricotta pancakes with a side of breakfast potatoes.  If you haven’t had ricotta in your pancakes yet, you haven’t lived.  Go order/make some ricotta pancakes immediately.  They were little pillows of heaven.  Kyle had the salmon eggs benedict but who knows what those tasted like because he didn’t offer me any…….

The patio is my favorite part – it’s quintessential Parisian cafe.  So lovely and chic.  It was a perfect place to spend the morning on such a warm and beautiful day.  PS – their coffee and lattes come straight from Intelligentsia next door, so that right there is a win-win situation.

So it was 80 degrees on my birthday this weekend.  That happened.  I’ve never experienced a warm birthday before and it was kind of amazing.  We went over to Silverlake for brunch in the morning (more on that tomorrow) and then popped over to my absolute favorite place in all of LA, Griffith Observatory.  It was so clear and beautiful outside – I could not have asked for a more perfect day.

Later, my fam-bam came out and we ate, ate, ate some more.  All I ever want to do on my birthday is eat good food and be around loved ones.  That’s all you need to make this girl happy.

*These are my new green pants – obsessed!  Wearing an H&M sweater, Ann Taylor Loft shirt, J. Crew green jeans, Steve Madden boots, & J. Crew shoulder bag.  Oh, and I desperately need a hair cut.  PS – the below photo is the view of Griffith Observatory and Hollywood sign from Silverlake.

And this bad boy is the Observatory.  Seriously takes my breath away every time.  You guys!!  Thanks for all of the sweet birthday wishes, by the way.  I. heart. you.

• I’m absolutely head over heels in love with the newly launched Mignon Kitchen Co., created by Rachel of Elephantine (photos above).  She’s curated a collection of quite possibly the cutest kitchen supplies a food lover could ever need.
• This J. Crew leather iPhone case needs to be mine.
• How to make homemade almond milk.  I’ve been searching the interwebs for the perfect nut milk bag (that you need to make the almond milk with) and thinking how drastically my life has changed.  Two years ago, I was looking up photos of Edward Cullen.  Today I’m searching for nut milk bags.
• Craving this roasted broccoli soup.  Yumskies.
• You guys, I’m going to be 25 years old TOMORROW.  I mean, what in the heck?  I’ve been really stressing about it lately for some reason and then just yesterday, I decided that I was going to embrace it.  What is the point of stressing?  Getting older is going to happen whether I like it or not so might as well just enjoy the ride.  Is that cheese ball?  It’s true if you think about it!

Happy weekending!  I will be gorging myself with good food on Saturday and then work, work, working on Sunday. xoxo

[Images via Mignon Kitchen Co.]

Oh my gosh, my Photoshop decided to crap out last night as I was putting my instagrams together and thought it was a grand idea NOT to save any of my open projects.  So these here instagrams are a screenshot from inside my Photoshop program as it was frozen.  So that’s why it looks like crap – but oh well, we all can’t be winners, am I right?  Here’s what’s been going on lately, according to my instagram account (@thestyleeater):

1. Working from home over the weekend in cozy layers and wool socks.
2. My favorite notebook: Blogs I Follow and Like
3. Kyle’s been working so much, I rarely get to see that cute little face.
4. Tea from a nostalgic cup is 100x better than regular tea.
5. Delivery of Fonuts to the office for an afternoon pick-me-up.
6. Sending cards to two of my best friends.  THEY LIVE SO FAR!
7. White bean stew on a cold night.
8. Black on black on leopard – one of my absolute favorite combos.
9. A lovely “thank you” card designed by my talented bff, Jaymee.

I’ve been in a bit of a hair lull lately and I’m desperate to get a fresh, new cut.  The only problem is I have no idea what to do.  Keep growing it out or chop, chop, CHOP it?  The age old question, eh?  I decided to pull some inspo from Pinterest and am now leaning towards the Olivia Palermo ‘do (2nd photo) – just below the shoulders.  That would be a solid 4 inches chopped off for moi.

What do you guys think?  Which one should I choose?

[Images via 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 - several unknown originals thanks to tumblr]

That right there is preeeetty much what my weekend looked like.  Yes, I have an office in my apartment but the kitchen table (and/or couch) suits me just fine.  Work, work, work!  The beginning of the year is always a busy time for me.  I get to experience so many fun and amazing things, but I also have to hunker down and do real work at the same time.  I’m not complaining though!

I also went back home to visit my family for a quick minute.  It was supposed to “rain” on Saturday so I wore my trusty rainboots.  It ended up looking like this and I was that loser wearing rainboots on a bright, sunny day (always happens!!):

Also, when I was back home, my mumsie made this amazing butternut squash caprese salad:

So delish, I highly recommend.  She pulled the recipe from my Pinterest – is that not the most precious thing you’ve ever heard?!  I may do a full post on it in the near future, we shall see.

Hope your weekend was lovely and full of joy!  Cheers to the new week!

+ Is it coo de la to wear Christmas plaids still?  What’s the cut off date here?  Also, is “coo de la” a real phrase or did Kyle make that one up?  One never knows.

+ I really need to “finish” at least one room in my apartment so I can show you.  I mean, ouy vey.

+ Although this earl gray hot chocolate sounds like it would be all types of weird, it combines 2 of my favorite things so I must try it.

+ I think it’s time to chop my locks off.  I could really use a new hair do.

+ That awkward moment when your friend/coworker introduces you to someone who you’ve met several times and says “Do you know Janelle?” and that person says “No!  So nice to meet you” and you’re thinking oh wow, we’ve met like 3 times in 2011, cool.

+ Gosh, I really hate blogs that don’t post regularly.  How rude of them.  Oh wait, that’s me.  Please forgive me!