Women with tools are hot, and Beatrice has an entire workshop filled with 'em. This lady's got pliers, hammers, an ancient sewing machine, a pneumatic staple gun and a whole lot more in the back of her vintage furniture shop, Atlantis, in sleepy-cool Red Hook, Brooklyn. The store is filled to the brim with all sorts of mid-century treasures, and I left the proud owner of juice glasses painted with a buck-in-forest scene.

The furniture shop isn't the first endeavor for this born organizer. Not only did she learn how to play bass and start a band the same week, but she founded New York's first all-female moving company and schlepped Roseanne Cash's stuff (I can only assume this is how she got those kick-ass guns). You have before you a New York original passing on time-honored furniture trade secrets. A crochety old man at a former job taught Beatrice how to restore 50s dinette sets (an invaluable lesson since vinyl dries out and is usually cracked once you stumble across a set at a junk shop), and she teaches us here how to do it. The secret weapon? A space heater. Prepare to be wowed by a hot lady and a red hot chair.



Materials:

1/2" or less double stick tape
1/2 yard vinyl per chair
1 yard vinyl in a contrasting color for trim
dacron or upholstery batting
chrome upholstery tacks
scissors
hammer
000 or 0000 steel wool
screwdriver
pliers
space heater or blow drier
welt cord for piping
sewing machine

In a Nut Shell:

1. Dissasemble and chairs and pull off the old, crummy vinyl
2. Clean chrome with steel wool
3. Cover seat of chair and front of the back rest with dacron
4. Cut vinyl to size and heat
5. While heating, stretch and staple
6. Cut contrast vinyl into 2 inch strip
7. Sew piping
8. Make magic strip (watch video to know what this means!)
9. Tack vinyl strip
10. Staple Piping

Voila!

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When I read Elsa Maxwell's informative romp How To Do It or The Lively Art of Entertaining earlier this summer, I doggeared approximately 47 pages for future reference. One of these pages contains advice on invitations for "the city woman who entertains often, at home, and with some degree of formality." Let us say that this city woman is me. According to Miss Maxwell, it would serve me well to have 4x5 inch cards engraved as fill-in-the-blank invitations: Miss Sarah McColl requests the pleasure of [so-and-so's] company [for cocktails, luncheon, etc] on [such-and-such a day and time.]

Though this advice is about sixty years old and somewhat irrelevant to my current salary and stage in life (there are higher priorities than having custom cards engraved for my impromptu -- though with some degree of formality -- entertaining, if you know what I mean), the advice is still basically sound. Invitations set a tone for your party and are the first impression your guests receive about exactly what kind of fete they are getting themselves into -- in my case, a party with good intentions that's ultimately a bit rough around the edges.

Because they are charmingly unexpected, invitations are perhaps the best kind of antiquated relic, especially for a low-key affair. For such a gathering, with perhaps only a week's lead time, only a hostess with a death wish would blindly drop informative bits in the mailbox hoping they arrive in the right place at the right time. In this modern age, email seems faster, safer, and surefire.

Now I'm no technology whiz, so I like to make my humble, hand-scrawled invitations as if I were sending them by post (perhaps adding some snazzy clip art -- I'm so old school!) on good old fashioned paper with honest to goodness ink. Then, at the last moment, I drop them in the scanner and zap them off to my guests with the click of a button. Then, respondez-vous-ing is a snap.

Posted by sarah at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

We missed you! The last month has been a big one here at Pink of Perfection HQ. Not only have we upgraded the site and added new features (sign up for the newsletter!), but Sebastian and I moved into a new apartment. In the new Chez POP we've had our heads locked in summit, brainstorming ways to make POP better.

If we've heard one thing, it's that you love what you're seeing (awesome!) and you only wish there were more POP to get you through the week. Happily, we've found a way to deliver just that. Now we will be posting photos in addition to our regularly scheduled video programming. With photos we can share a lot more about living in the Pink. Not every aspect of thrifty la dolce vita warrants a three minute video. But as a fan of the beautifully mundane and miniscule, I'm really looking forward to sharing more of the small stuff that makes up a keen little life.

On Pink of Perfection we've always been eager to get our hands on every crafty, stylish gourmand we can. For this reason I'm super excited to announce that we're going to have special guest posts. Our first POP correspondent is the wildly talented, Alison McColl. You've seen her bake a hell of a birthday cake; get ready to see a lot more.

We want to thank you for your patience as we figured out ways to make Pink of Perfection better and unpacked the last of our boxes. It's the same old POP you know, there's just a whole lot more to love.

It feels great to be back!

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When September rolls around, I know my garden has passed its heyday--and by garden, I mean the potted plants on my balcony. This year I was particularly ambitious and attempted to grow a whole host of vegetables in containers, but with unimpressive results--all in all, the yield amounted to about half a cup of pico de gallo--three scrawny tomatoes and two freakishly small jalapenos. Home sweet apartment.

The one exception to this underachieving crop was a little pot of herbs that I planted in a sunny container positioned on the railing. Perhaps it was the direct sunlight, or maybe just dumb luck, but my rosemary, basil, and oregano grew like the dickens. Except for a brief wilting episode, the byproduct of a long neglectful weekend Duncan and I spent at the beach, the results in that single pot were stellar.

Now, I don't know about you, but having been raised on a hearty helping of Little House on the Prairie, for me, the ultimate satisfaction is actually cooking something using ingredients (well, at least one ingredient) I've grown myself. This doesn't happen frequently, but on this particular afternoon, I happened to have a shaggy rosemary plant on hand, and some yeast, flour, and olive oil in the pantry. The recipe below is easy, tasty, and fast. Add a glass of red wine, and it's the perfect way to wash away any feelings of gardening inadequacy.





Ingredients: 1 c. warm water 2 tsp. olive oil 2 tsp. salt 2.5 c. flour 1 pkg. yeast 3-4 rosemary sprigs

Dissolve yeast in warm water Gradually add flour and salt (mix in 1/2 c. more warm water if needed to keep consistency sticky and pliable) Remove any dried parts from rosemary and discard Chop rosemary Mix rosemary and olive oil Add a pinch of salt for flavor Add rosemary mixture to dough When dough holds together in a sticky ball, you are done mixing! Cover bowl and allow dough to rise in a cool, dark place for 1 hour After 1 hour, roll the dough out into a snake-like shape Cut into 4-5" pieces and score with a knife Bake for 12 minutes at 450 degrees

Mix some salt, pepper, and dried oregano (or any other seasonings you have in your pantry) into some olive oil for dipping, and enjoy!

Posted by alison at 8:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)