Ailee Petrovic

Décor January 13, 2016

Nursery Color Scheme Trends For 2016

Today, I’m bringing you a guest post written by Cassandra of AFK, an upscale children’s furniture company, based in Orange County. They have furnished many high-end clients’ nurseries, such as Mariah Carey’s (which was gorgeous!). The decor is absolutely gorgeous, and I went googley-eyed over the photos that Cassandra sent for the post. I am not pregnant, but that doesn’t mean I can’t browse different nursery themes for the future. Cassandra’s post covers key color scheme trends for 2016, and I’m loving them all (namely ‘white on white’ and ‘neutral paired’). I hope you enjoy reading this post as much as I did!

Picking a color scheme for your nursery is one of the first steps in creating your dream nursery. This will help guide you when picking out nursery furniture to create a cohesive feel. Follow the post bellow for four amazing on trend color pairings for 2016.

White on White

Selected by Benjamin Moore as the color of the year, white is a complex yet subtle color. The interplay of whites and light creates nuance and subtle beauty. By choosing to pair this color with itself, your nursery will be transformed into a place of serenity.

White onWhite

Week in Review January 11, 2016

Week in Review

How does Monday arrive so quickly? I think every weekend needs to be at least three days – we love having Sasha at home! We had a busy week and traveled all over the great state of Texas, so decided to do very little yesterday, and it was pure bliss. I’ve already started packing for Australia because I am a) very OCD, b) an overpacker and packing early is a tactic to slowly remove unnecessary items, and c) so excited about a beach vacation! I haven’t sunk my feet in the sand since we went to Bali on our honeymoon in 2013!

Some highlights from the past week include:

Spending Serbian Christmas Eve at the Serbian Orthodox Church in Galveston, and then celebrating the following day at our Aunt Zlata’s house with all of the family – it was such a great evening. It’s always nice to have all of the family in one city! Sadly, we started taking down Christmas decor that evening when we got home. I was sad to see it go, but ready to have our house back in order!
Taking photos for my gorgeous sister-in-law, Ivana, and Bob downtown and at Memorial Park – I am dying to share every single photo, but we’ve got to keep some of them mum for now!
Having a spa day at the Houstonian Spa (Trellis) with Destiny – we both got facials (which were amazing), then spent time in the sauna before heading to lunch at True Food Kitchen.
Heading to Austin for a day trip to celebrate Sasha’s grandma’s 85th birthday and his Aunt and Uncle’s Slava. It was a lot of fun, although 6 hours in the car with Isla and very little sleep made us slightly nervous about next week’s long flight to Melbourne from LA. Thank goodness for amazing mamas on Instagram who shared helpful toddler travel tips!
Taking blog photos for Destiny, Alex and Caroline – three of the sweetest ladies! Love spending time with them.
Meeting Esther and Naomi at Discovery Green for pictures for her collaboration for Everlane – I love this momma/daughter duo!
Having an impromptu park date with Megan, Kristen and Destiny! It’s hard to have real adult conversations with toddlers running around, but Isla and I still had a great time.
Spending much of Sunday at home after a crazy week of being all over the place. We rarely have quite days at the house, and we all loved it. Sasha and I watched the Golden Globes last night

How was your week?

Events January 7, 2016

Merry Serbian Christmas & Our 2015 Cards

Merry Serbian Christmas! Serbia uses the Julian calendar (as opposed to the Gregorian calendar that most of the world uses). Therefore, Serbian Christmas Day falls on the 7th of January, alas, today our family celebrates too! I’m glad I get to keep our tree up an extra week (and dread taking it down tomorrow!). We went to the Serbian church in Galveston last night for a service and will exchange gifts and eat dinner at Sasha’s aunt’s house tonight.

I meant to share our Christmas cards in December, but I was very busy and never got around to it. I published a blog post (here) with most of our family photos (taken by Paige Budde of Awake Photography), and I couldn’t decide on just one or two photos, so I went with a collage card from Artifact Uprising (I’m obsessed with this company!). I made wrap around labels like last year’s card because they are relatively simple to create. I wanted to add a little something fun, as we’ve done a Christmas ornament card and gift label card in the past. I found these adorable ‘Naught or Nice’ scratch-offs by Sweet Potato Shop on Etsy and personalized them to say “Isla thinks you’ll find coal in your stocking!” and “Hooray! Isla’s vote is ‘Nice!'” We stuck pennies on the back of each scratch off, then strategically packed our envelopes, giving all families with kids the nice cards and mixing it up for couples. We got a lot of funny responses to “Isla’s decisions.”

Week in Review January 4, 2016

Week in Review

Happy New Year! I have already written 2015 a handful of times and expect that won’t change until February (at the earliest). I can’t believe that this is the year of my 10 year high school reunion – where in the world did time go?

This is a busy week, as we will celebrate Serbian Christmas on Thursday and go to a church service the day before. I’m currently working on editing engagement photos, which I love already! I cannot wait to share some soon (sneak peek on Instagram here).

Some highlights from the past week include:

Spending NYE with our friends Destiny, Sid, Jessica and Bubba – we had lots of fun ringing in the new year with them at our house!
Hosting game night with my sister-in-law, Bob, my sister, Kevin, and our friends, Blake and Michelle – we played Taboo and it got very, very competitive. The women obviously swept every round.
Taking two sets of newborn photos – two boys, of course (I feel like every baby born recently is a boy!). They were both adorable!
Taking photos of Lauren at Highland Village – she is the sweetest and looks incredible at 33 weeks!
Going to (and photographing) Lilly’s first birthday party on January 1! The details were unbelievable. Some sneak peeks below! Post to come soon!
Taking photos of Destiny at her house – we snuck in some NYE pictures, and she even got behind the lens to take some photos of me and Isla!
Photographing Caroline at her house and then doing outfit pictures at the River Oaks District. I cannot believe she just had Andrew – she definitely does not look like she was ever pregnant!
Spending quality time with my sister-in-law, who is in town from San Francisco! I love her!
Going to Bayou City Fellowship on Sunday! I love our church home.
Giving Meredith a brief camera tutorial at our house (which resulted in that pink photo below!) before she headed to Vegas and Palm Springs (lucky lady!).
Having our cousin, Kristina, and her sweet friend, Allie, over to the house and catching up with them – we even swung by HEB to do curbside pickup of our groceries (you don’t even leave the car… it’s a dream come true!)

How was your week? How did you celebrate NYE?

Food December 30, 2015

Stay Healthy this Holiday with Salata

It’s almost time to write your New Year Resolutions, which, for many people, will include something about getting back into shape or eating healthier. I’m still working on mine, and want to reevaluate my progress on my 2015 resolutions (shared here).

One of the easiest ways to make wise meal choices is to pick a healthy restaurant that won’t tempt you with high calorie menu items. I love eating at Salata, because every ingredient has the calorie count on the identifying label as you walk through the salad bar line. On multiple occasions this holiday season, we’ve had guests over to the house – sometimes just a handful and other times, a lot of people. We chose to let Salata take care of the food. Yesterday, my sister-in-law called to say she was coming over, so I went on my way home to get food for her, Isla and myself. I chose to make the Keen Wah (quinoa, get it?) Kale salad, which included kale, radish, red onion, jicama, cucumber, pumpkin seeds, cranberry, and quinoa, with balsamic vinaigrette as the dressing. Isla got a similar salad, and Ivana got the Green Goodness as a wrap. You can see the whole catering menu here.

I love having people over to the house and making fun cocktails, appetizers, and healthy desserts, but I’m definitely more comfortable with having Salata for the salad course. Everyone loves it.

What do you normally do for having people over at your house? Have you tried Salata’s catering yet?

Hope you have a wonderful NYE celebration tomorrow!

I am part of the Salata Blogger Program. I was not paid for this post, but received goods (food!) for free. You have my word that all opinions are my own (and are honest!).