When it comes to unexpected pieces of jewelry to signify your never-ending love, we’ve only got eyes for one brand: Anna Sheffield Bridal and Commitment. We know you’re familiar with Anna Sheffield’s namesake line and her lower-priced jewelry collection, Bing Bang, but she’s just debuted a stunningly gorgeous wedding and commitment range that will blow your socks off. Filled with precious stones in unexpected cuts, (we love the East-West oval diamond ring, and her inverted stones are unlike any other we’ve seen) her newest offerings are for the supremely hip lovers who want to tie the knot with the most breathtakingly original jewels around. Of course, Sheffield goes way beyond the engagement ring—for every anniversary, birthday, and baby, there’s a piece of jewelry that will tell the story of your love and become heirlooms you will treasure forever. Trust—once you see these gems, you’ll be screaming, “I do!” If (s)he gets you enough to buy you one of these babies, the answer’s gotta be Y-E-S.
Photo: Courtesy of Anna Sheffield.
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I am not a talented decorator, but I love decorating for the Holidays. I have collected knick knacks over the years to turn my house into a seasonal wonderland (although I admit that I could do better…).
Tips for bringing the holiday spirit to your house
- Have seasonal-only artwork and decor. Because we only pull certain decorations out once a year, they feel even more special. We retire the normal wall hangings for the last month and a half of the year.
- Save seasonal toys and books, too. We have Christmas toys, books, and videos that only come out for the holidays as well. They are like “new” toys every year!
- Fill your home with music. Yes, I love Christmas music. Having music playing always adds to the special holiday feeling.
- Enjoy the holiday smells. I love baking during the Holidays, but I can’t bake every day. When I’m not making a holiday treat, I like to light a cinnamon-scented candle or put a simmer pot on my stove. And then there’s the wonderful smell of a fresh-cut Christmas tree!
How do you bring the Holiday Spirit into your home?
Gallery Direct would love to help you decorate this holiday! Whether it’s adding a new Holiday-themed piece of art to your walls or finding the perfect gift for someone special (like yourself!), Gallery Direct is here to help.
Enter to Win Gallery Direct Art for your home
Gallery Direct and Better in Bulk is giving YOU a chance to get some new art for your home.
To enter to win a $200 Gallery Direct Gift Card, let me know what piece of art you would like to add to your house.
For extra entries, you can follow @GalleryDirect on twitter and tweet the following message: I’m getting my home ready for the holidays! Enter to a $200 #gallerydirect gift card from @gallerydirect & @1momof5 #art #giveaway (or you can use the tweet button on this post) – tweet up to twice per day.
Added bonus: Connect with Gallery Direct on Facebook for a ton of additional chances at prizes and news.
This giveaway will end on Monday, November 21 and a winner will be chosen at random and notified via email. Please note: Giveaway is open to US residents only and winner can not have won from Gallery Direct in the last year. Also shipping is not part of the gift card, but if your art piece is less than your GC amount, then you can use it towards shipping.
Gallery Direct Twitter Party!
@GalleryDirect is hosting a twitter party tonight (11/7) at 10pm ET. They’ll be giving away two $200 pieces of art, one $100 giftcard and one $50 giftcard. RSVP on Thrifty and Chic Mom…. I hope to see you there!
Disclosure: I am a Gallery Direct Ambassador and receive Gallery Direct artwork to review and test out regularly.
© 2011, Lolli. All rights reserved.
love on a farmboy’s wages
Far too much work on my plate these last few weeks. Naturally, this comes at exactly the time I’m frigging desperate to get out of this job, with no time to go through the Civil Service’s diabolically non-intuitive, cumbersome Job Search site where all the vacancies are uploaded these days.
I did spot one job that looked quite interesting last week. Rang the contact person to ask her about a couple of things related to my eyesight and current working patterns, and got the third degree about what was wrong with me, and that distinct feeling she was already looking for reasons why my disability would make me unsuitable, rather than how they might be able to make what’s politely and compliantly known as ‘reasonable adjustments’ to accommodate me if I was in fact to turn out to be the candidate. Well you know, fuck that, Ms DDA Non-Compliance. You want to be an old-school bigot, your loss. I’m trying to get out of the current job but luckily, right now they’re still pretty keen to hang on to me, so I’ll take my time to find somewhere where the potential future colleagues aren’t giving out ‘fuck off cripple’ vibes.
(Home Office vacancy, though, so what do you expect? That place has been falling apart for the last 15 years. Watch Theresa May’s space, folks.)
I’m a serial fandom monogamist, so the sudden and unexpected 100% upswing in the quality of this season’s Merlin is confusing my shippy little synapses no end! The two XM1C fics I’ve started have been ruthlessly kicked out of the nest by a giant Merlin cuckoo hatching out of nowhere. That just guarantees I’ll have three WIPs on the boil and 33% less chance of any of them seeing the of day now. Tut.*
This week’s Merlin once again left me satisfied. It’s not too hard to understand why it’s all working much better for me than the last year or even two have done. Basically, the writing is smarter and funnier, the characters are interacting with each other in a variety of amusing ways, everyone feels a bit less immature and more assured, and the balance of entertainment, drama, comedy, poignancy and optimism is – I think – just about perfect.
Most of all, there’s a real warmth running through everything these days. That comes across in part from the affection the characters are showing for each other: everything from Arthur’s unabashed concern for Merlin, care for his safety, desire for his company, and (finally) a totally straight-up expression of pride and praise for Merlin’s true loyalty and courage, to the quiet moments of affirmation – Gwaine riding off with Arthur to search for Merlin, the knights being touchy-feely, everyone’s snarky-fond banter (fair reminds me of happy S2 Torchwood heydays, sob!), Leon’s pride in the armoury while he’s cheerfully joking with Merlin about wanting to kill Arthur, the effortless team-working between Gaius and Gwen, and Gwen’s exchanges with Arthur – the naked Arthur most of all. She’s so charming and playful in that scene, while lying like a mofo to keep Arthur and Merlin both safe and save the day.
There also seems to have been a real change under that, with the writers and showrunners themselves actually loving all their characters, treating all of them with humanity and affection. The way mindfucked Merlin behaved, for example, his brisk, scornful determination to assassinate Arthur with Real!Merlin’s eternal cheerful bunny demeanour, as well as his fatal clumsiness. It came over to me as amusing, playful, when similar Merlin’s-a-clumsy-prat sequences last year felt cruel and contemptuous. Arthur’s still a bit of a clueless posh chump, still a terrible judge of character – but he’s also got a kind of quiet dignity these days, which makes him less the butt of the joke. I like that they’re also rationalising his dependency on the sinister Agravaine, by making Arthur himself point out how lost he feels without the wisdom of his father’s experience, how much he wants to live up to Uther’s greatness, at the same time as not emulating his cruelty or brutality.
I like shows that treat the characters I like with some measure of compassion, so I do want to see even the villains given some sympathy – and that’s coming across in the twisted tiny relationship between poor desolate Morgana and Agravaine himself, who actually treats her tenderly and with respect that he shows to no-one else. The sequence between herself and Old Merlin (what’s this ‘Dragoon’ business, Merlin peeps? Did he do that name for the old dude disguise some time last year? I thought Old!Merlin was called Emrys? #clueless) was nicely done, with Morgana herself making the point that she knows exactly what loyalty is, even if there’s no-one left alive tho whom she feels loyal. Even if the fight was just two mages smashing the shit out of each other all across the forest floor, it still felt strangely potent, this sense that these are the Morgana and Merlin of legend, very closely matched in their powers and abilities.
I also just adore Old Merlin, he’s every kind of awesome and his grumpy delight in running rings around the knights who tease him so gleefully when he’s not wearing 60 years of disguise is delicious. Colin Morgan plays the shit out of that role and the age-makeup, plus his acting skill, blows me away. Most of all, though, it’s his tee-hee-hee naughty relishing of his own scope for mischief that’s just wonderful and fun!
I could do with Gwen having more to do than be Arthur’s ballsy love-interest. I could wish Morgana had more to do as an ace Big Bad, but that’s limited by her having no regular allies anymore apart from five minutes of rather UST-ish nattering with Agravaine each week. I could really wish for some other female presence on the regular cast, especially if that could be Lindsay Duncan again. Why can’t she come back and be Arthur’s go-to Wise Adviser, instead of Uncle Badtouch?
But at least the creepy hint of misogyny from last year also seems to have been put away for the time being, so fingers crossed. And right now everyone’s pretty mutually loved-up, which works for me, and also no-one bats an eyelid anymore about how the King of Camelot is desperate to drop everything and send half the kingdom off to look for his lost and favourite servant – least of all Arthur himself: this also works for me. I can’t be doing with shows that have a panic attack any time a man shows an ounce of emotional interest towards another man he’s not actually directly related to, and Merlin went down that path pretty sharply for the last couple of years, pimping its bromance and then frantically cringing and flailing in what felt like an absurd homophobic shame. Now all the knights grope each other shamelessly, Merlin spends most eps draped right on top of Arthur, and Arthur can’t wait to grab Merlin and give him a great huge hug even when he’s covered in shit. And if that isn’t the mark of a good King, I don’t know what is!
(sorry about the cut-fails: posting interface is like Wank Central these days. Livejournal, what the fuck?)
*Pish, of course I’m not going to write it really! I just like, uhm, thinking about it a lot.