Beat the Grinch and Make Merry in Berry Hill this Saturday

As I took a right onto Bransford Avenue, there was activity everywhere. A huge white tent was set up in front of a Curious Heart and merchants were bustling preparing for the holiday open houses.  And, in a show of support, all of the participating shop owners prominently displayed the open house posters in their windows.

Over 24 retailers are participating in the Making Merry in Berry Hill Holiday Open House this Saturday. I must tell you this is not a stop by and have some punch and cookies affair; this is a total ALL OUT PARTY.   The festivities kick off at 10AM with the Coco Bon Bon’s Kids Fashion Show and ends at 6PM with a Jazz Quintet and Wine Tasting hosted by Robert Lipman Brothers– all under the big white tent.  There are tons of musical activities throughout the day: everything from Swing bands, to Ballroom Dancing, to an Americana singer named Susan.  For the kids and fun-loving adults too, Hair Mafia will offer holiday hair painting and face painting.  The Piece of Cake Bakery will sponsor a cupcake decorating lesson and Santa will arrive at the  Pfunky Griddle at 1PM for pictures.  If your pooch feels left out, tell him or her not to fret because See Spot Eat will have a special Christmas for Doggies from 10-3PM.  By the way, there are 3 pet stores in Berry Hill so Bowser can have a darn good time all day long.

A couple of merchants on Franklin Rd decided Berry Hill’s boundaries can extend outside of the ‘hood and are offering some great specials: Fabric Gallery is having a 10-20% off sale and Melrose Neighborhood Pub will have drink specials featuring their new brews.

I couldn’t wait to knock on the door of some of my favorite merchants to see what was cooking inside. Gilcrest & Gilcrest had brown paper on their windows to keep out suspicious types as Gilcrest & Gilcrest truly  wants to unveil their gorgeous wares in a dramatic way.  (By the way don’t forget to pick up the holiday issue of Southern Living and see owner Genia Gilcrest’s spectacular home.)

I did sneak in the back door of G&G to take some preview pictures that were allowed just for our readers. Genia takes shabby chic to the next level with a sophisticated eye for furniture and vintage collections.   After leaving Gilcrest & Gilcrest,  I stopped by Manor– right next door.  Manor was also locked, but someone forgot to re-lock the door so I slipped in quite unassuming.  Once inside, I couldn’t believe some of the gorgeous holiday items and displays.  Another daring shopper did the same and walked in and after a quick assessment said, “I’ll take that  cabinet because I can’t bear to see anyone else have it.”  I kept wondering if it was some important country music type since it is CMA week.  I asked Earl, the owner, right after he wrote up the huge order, “Is CLOSED is the new OPEN?.”  Let’s face it,  you’d feel just a teensy weensy bit obligated to buy something after you barged in on the owner of a locked store.

Most importantly:  BOTH GILCREST & GILCREST  AND MANOR ARE OFFERING 20% OFF OF EVERYTHING -except items $10 and under THIS  SATURDAY. If that lady had just waited until Saturday.  But, I guess when you have to have it, you HAVE TO HAVE IT!

So let’s take a look at the WONDERS behind the locked doors of Gilcrest and Gilcrest and Manor, again, for your eyes only (but feel free to forward to friends!)

At Gilcrest & Gilcrest, gorgeous chaise lounge with pillows, christmas tags and trees

Vintage Christmas tree waiting to be adorned with ornaments, sale price $250 @ Gilcrest

Gilcrest has an impressive collection of Florentine for the holidays

I love these icicles made from fossilized salt, large $7 and small $5

Please Santa, I want this handmade pillow at Manor with REAL metallic threads

Don't get your hopes up for the cabinet, but don't you love the snowflakes from Manor?

Manor has great holiday hostess gifts including these candle duets in holiday fragrances

Making Merry in Berry Hill

Saturday, November 14,

10A-5PM

Gilcrest & Gilcrest/Manor

2823 Bransford Avenue

picture courtesy of Discovery Education

Elizabeth and I have been working hard behind the scenes here at StyleBlueprint. We are in the midst of a site overhaul with the help of Mitch Canter and Elizabeth Trabue.  We are getting close and we are excited.  Close is a relative term as we spend hours on end wondering if we should really have the word ‘Style’ be in script or block form, what shade of blue is perfect, what icons we should pick for our categories, and exactly WHERE do we want the ad placements to be.  It’s crazy the amount of time this is taking, but we want this blog to look FABULOUS (you know that is a favorite word of mine!)  I think poor Mitch C. and Elizabeth T. are wondering why they ever got involved with us crazy blueprint girls.  I can tell you the the new design is far easier to navigate, will download faster and let you be even more plugged into this community.

We really are having a hard time picking the best logo. WE NEED YOUR HELP and we value your opinion.  Our top three logos are posted below and we want YOU to vote on your favorite one.  That’s a lot of power…are you up for it?  Elizabeth and I are holding our breath waiting on the results.  All logos were created by Elizabeth Trabue, a dear friend and a great designer.

Before we show you the options, a note about why having an email subscription to StyleBlueprint is about to become a huge deal…(hint: the huge savings)

You already know that subscribing for StyleBlueprint email is free and easy. You just plug in your email and name over there on the right where it says SIGN UP FOR STYLEBLUEPRINT EMAIL  (if you are reading this on your phone, you’ll need to access the blog from your computer to sign up). The obvious reason to do this to ensure you never miss a post.  We are committed to 4 posts a week, but many times we do 5.  Those emails arrive in your inbox about 3:00 a.m. so one is sitting there upon waking.  Easy enough to read or not read depending on your level of interest in the topic.  Lots of people read us multiple times a week arriving from Facebook or just looking us up online.  We love that.  But- ONLY EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS will be getting our new (hopefully weekly) emails which will once a week offer a great deal from local and web-based shops. This is a great way for these shops to advertise their products and assure, through the discount, that you will have an incentive to stop by.  And, for our out-of-town readers (we have lots), I can tell you that the three deals we have lined up for the next few weeks are are NATIONAL and web-based.  And, of course, the more email subscribers we have, the more attractive such an offer becomes to these stores.  Our list is currently at about 500 subscribers with 95% reading every week!

Why are these discounts available only through email and not posted on the blog? These companies don’t want these deals sitting online for a worldwide audience.  They are for StyleBlueprint readers ONLY.  Come on, don’t you feel special?  I have to admit that I do as I want to use all of these great deals!  If you are a store owner, talk to us about including you on on a future email.

If you have some friends who need to be reading, voting and subscribing, send this post their way. You will have our eternal thanks:-)

After signing up, you might want to check your junk box.…sometimes our emails end up there at first.  Us, junk?  Noooooo.

Now, onto the VOTE! Here we go:

Ignore the tagline.  We may or may not use it.  Feel free to comment or send us your tagline ideas as well…

I can’t recall a better Summer to enjoy my front porch.  For our non-Nashville readers, I hope you, too, have been delighting in a similarly glorious summer.  The amount of time I have spent on my porch has given me the opportunity to have a critical eye and re-evaluate my decorating choices. I hope this post inspires you to bring a critical eye to your porch and then enjoy a St-Germain cocktail from the recipes provided at the end of this post.  We all need some porch time before Old Man Winter blows in.

I can’t remember the brand name of my porch furniture.  But, I know that I got it on a 75% clearance sale at Home Expo about 6 years ago.  It was obvious why no one had purchased it: it was grey with grey damask outdoor fabric.  It was just kinda blah.  And, an expensive blah at that.  But, I saw the bones were good as it was light-weight rust-proof aluminum that carried a heavy visual feel.  I think it was made by Lane, but if not, it was a reputable name that I knew made good furniture.  I knew I had to recover the pillows.  Thus, a call was made to my hubby and he agreed to the purchase.  The furniture came home with me that day.  Flash forward 6 years and you know what has happened: the cushions were never recovered.

As we put our house on the market, I thought about having those cushions redone, but elected to put my money elsewhere. But, the grey cement porch, grey aluminum and grey cushions were actually making me gloomy. Now that we have decided to stay in Nashville, the first thing I did was buy the fabric and have those cushions redone!  I ordered some Sailcloth by Sunbrella at The Fabric House.  My FABULOUS decorator, Rachel Halverson*, mentioned that she thought I should have the furniture painted while I was at it.  The results are fabulous.  Rachel picked out a Sherwin Williams color: Black Beauty in exterior oil and my painter came with this awesome equipment that can “blow” the paint on to give it a professional powder finish.

Rachel also suggested that I remove the frosted glass from the side table and have a piece of stained wood cut down to fit there. I NEVER would have thought of that and I love it.  At this point, I will probably paint my porch swing next Spring and add an outdoor rug.   But, for now, phase 1 is complete.

There is a story behind my porch coffee table. It was purchased from Pier One 13 years ago as my DINING ROOM TABLE!  We could fit six, tightly, around that table.  But, as I’m a believer that the tighter the fit the better the conversation, that never bothered me.  When I inherited my fabulous dining room table from my husband’s grandmother 10 years ago, I took this Pier One table and sawed the legs off to make it coffee table height and moved it to my family room.  Then, it was moved to the porch and lots of rain fell on it.  It has warped and peeled as the laminate top was never made for the outdoors.  But, I love the weathered look and I believe in recycling furniture as long as you possibly can, so it’s a perfect porch table for us.  Funnily enough, Rachel LOVES this table and asked me where I got it.  Sorry, it’s not one you can ever go out and buy!

The wooden trivets, upon which the glass hurricanes are placed, were purchased at Merridan Home Furnishings on Franklin Pike. The hurricanes are currently at Pier One, as well as the candles and sand that you can see in them.  The new green pillows were purchased at Restoration Hardware for 50% off.  My orchids are going CRAZY outside right now as this weather is perfect.  Import Flowers has wonderful HUGE orchids for about $40 that you would think were well over $100 as they are so large.  Mums are courtesy of my dear friend Kristen who just pops over with things that make me smile.  One day my life will calm and I will be able to be that friend to her as well:-)

I hope I have inspired you to make sure you have a welcoming porch that beckons to you each day to enjoy.  Rarely used before, this weather and the new look have us outside reading or conversing daily.

Now, the story of St-Germain and why it is the perfect cocktail for your porch: Over the course of only a few days each Spring, 40-50 men hand pick and gather wild elderflowers from the foothills of the Alps in France.  They then climb down the hills and bicycle the blossoms to market…as that is the only way to gather these precious blooms!  Thus, those few days of gathering give the world its only St-Germain for the year.  It is hand-made in limited quantities and “the first liquor in the world made in the artisanal French manner.”- from website. The liquor also comes in the hands down most beautiful bottle I have ever seen.

Cocktail recipes for this coming weekend! Reader beware: I make a drink the way I cook “a little of this, a little of that.”  So, feel free to interpret these recipes the way YOU see fit!  These recipes are courtesy of my equally rebellious recipe friend, Jere.  Thank you, Jere!  And, St. Germaine can be pricey, so a big THANK YOU to The Wine Chap for offering 10% off St. Germain this week to Styleblueprint readers. So, don’t feel cheap.  Speak up and say we sent you!  Get that discount! -Liza

• Take a vodka tonic and finish it off with a splash of St-Germain. Squeeze a little lime in there for good measure. (I like this with Blue Saphire Gin instead of Vodka)
  
• Mix some vodka with Italian lemon soda (available at Whole Foods and Target), add a splash of St-Germain.
• Muddle some blackberries, strain them if you need to, add (you guessed it)—vodka and perhaps a little cranberry juice, and St-Germain.
  
• Bellini—mix champagne with St-Germain. Throw in a slice of fresh peach.
• For more precise recipes, including margaritas, mojitos and martinis, see their website.

*I know I know!  Rachel is super busy right now for those of you trying to get on her calendar.  Never fear, just book that appointment even though it’s 3-4 weeks out.  That time period of “after the kids go back to school and pre- Holiday crunch” is always crammed busy in the decorating world.