Ask & Ye Shall Receive

Sometimes the universe just answers your prayers. I was lost and now I am found:

Cute Ideas Department

Make a stuffed animal version of a kiddie drawing, thanks for the idea Martha Stewart Crafts Dept.:

Mirror, Mirror

Shiny shiny side table from West Elm, $349. Also in a larger desk size for $599. I need the mini desk size which does not come in shiny, so I will have to get icky laminate.

Booty Call

My wardrobe is seriously challenged due to my post-baby shape. On top of that, my mom wardrobe is sort of bringing me down (tee shirts, jeans, and sweaters....I have only been to the dry cleaner about 3 times in the past year). So it seemed like some new accessories would liven things up.

I thought these Robert Clergerie boots would bring a 1990s Peter Lindbergh panache to my look, especially with the black leggings I have pathetically adopted as my new basic:





The husband surveyed them and told me they reminded him of Ropers. He didn't necessarily mean this as a put-down, just an observation. It was a straight-guy moment:



note: photo from Sears, where Justin Ropers are available for $54.99

After this underwhelming reception for my new look, I looked a bit more and found some other Clergerie boots, these ones a bit more on-trend:



Anyway, I'm not so sure which to keep, if either of them. Needless to say the flat ones are way more comfortable but the crazy ones add a lot more panache. Maybe too much? Then again, I do live in NYC, not the 'burbs.

Incidentally, I got curious about the Ropers and first went to the Ropers website before I was informed that "Ropers" was the style not the brand. Clearly it was meant to be because if I hadn't made that mistake I would never have found these little gems for infants and toddlers. There are more where these came from:

Pot Pot and more Pot

Unfortunately I cannot have this item:


Even worse this is not available to me:


So should I settle for this eBay number?

Workin' for the Weekend

Need To Know Basis: imboycrazy

Alexi Wasser's imboycrazy blog is a window into the mind of a totally insercure but wickedly funny and spot-on bitchy cool girl. Her Blind Leading the Blind lists are easily the best thing you will find online.

Chomp

I am obsessed with this photo and have had it on my computer for years. The nonplussed big cat, the deadpan dog, the panicked kitten....

Coulda Woulda Shoulda

Probably should have bought this on eBay. I couldn't decide if use of the word "pad" suggested it was faux vintage. Did people really talk that way?

Frisco

James Franco......fascinating. From Terry's Diary.

From Andy Spade's blog.

Work It

OK, maybe the hat isn't quite working for me, but I like the overall not-trying-too-hard style, at the Chanel runway show no less.

A Subtle Beauty

Always fascinating to see closeups of celeb makeup

Shine On

The Selby just did a little feature on cool company Confetti System. I love their stuff, which manages to be sophisticated and somehow edgy at the same time. I just want to put it all over my apartment. Of course, since it's all handmade in NYC it's really quite expensive. A year or so ago they did a little capsule collection for Urban Outfitters and I snapped up a few pinatas which have been hanging from my ceiling ever since. One is gold & pink and the other is pale blue & silver, and I love them, maybe even more than these more subtle ones for sale on their website.


The photos on The Selby basically show how to make the cool shapes and attach the mylar (or tissue) fringe, and although it's highly unlikely I will ever get motivated enough to actually make some of these myself, I like to think that i will.

Need to Know Basis

You need to know about the Wary Myers blog. It is basically a rambling account of the flea market adventures of a 70s-loving couple in Portland Maine. At least one of them used to work doing displays at Anthropologie. They now do interior decor and also write books about revamping vintage stuff. The downside is that their stuff can get a bit overly artsy-craftsy for my tastes, but that is mostly contained to their books. The only other issue is the gloating over their amazing finds at insane bargain prices.
Now that I've gotten my complaints out of the way (sorry to be a downer) let me share a few recent images from their site that will hopefully help convince you of the urgency of following their blog (The second photo is a snack bought from some kids at a yard sale. I need one. Now.):

Mapping It Out

After installing Clementine's big-girl bed, the next step was to put up some artwork. I'm in love with the cut-out maps from French company Famille Summerbelle. They sell silkscreened prints of various exotic locales, but my favorite by far is the world map:



As a major added bonus, it fits perfectly in a $20 Ikea frame. Finally, a way around the frame job that costs ten times as much as the artwork. That's what always happens to me anyway. My taste in frames is far more expensive than my taste in artwork, but I think it is true that an ebay find can look like a million dollars when properly framed. And I despise mats!
That said, I think I am going to break down and get a mat for the Paris map I got. For some reason this print is not made in the same size as the world map, so it's too small for the Ikea frame and I can't find a readymade frame anywhere that fits it. I love it anyway! Ours is fluorescent pink but they are now printing it in coral. I had a pang of regret when I saw the new colorway, but I've come back around to the fluro.

Lastly, I purposely bypassed the NYC map, but if you've got a sentimental thing for this crazy city then this might be for you. I found the accuracy of this map to be a little off, which distracted me, although that is probably true for Paris as well and I just don't know the difference! Now that I look at this in "Mulberry" (love those Frenchies and their way with color) I'm sort of coveting it!

Movin' On Up

Clementine is gearing up to move to a big-girl bed, and needless to say this kicked off a whirlwind of obsessive preparation from me. We started with the tres cute Minnen bed from Ikea:



I like it because it's expandable, and eventually can be a regular twin-size bed. That means we don't have to buy all sorts of special toddler-bed size stuff and she can be in it indefinitely. For now, it's only about 5 feet long (it can be smaller, but this leaves plenty of room for pillows and toys). Of course compared to a crib it's very wide so she looks quite tiny in it.

Next, the bedding. I have always planned to get Clem a teeny tiny comforter...for some reason this has been a long-held fantasy. Something about a wee tot swathed in a fluffy duvet is very sweet. Of course, with a twin size duvet, it would be more like "drowning" in a fluffy duvet, but luckily Pottery Barn Kids makes a toddler size that's perfectly sized 36 by 50 inches and perfectly priced at $49. Of course, there's more: now I need a cover for the duvet, and PB is not kind enough to supply this. My original dream was to get some Liberty of London fabric for the cover, but it's a mite pricey at $35 a yard. Purl Soho has an amazing selection so I went in to check it out and came across something totally different. It's a Japanese linen/cotton blend, not too thin, with some nursery-rhyme designs printed onto an oatmeal-colored background. I got two different designs, the Rapunzel and the Owl & The Pussycat:




For sheeting, I decided to go with a grey-plum color, since it would be neutral. I've got a bunch of small throw pillows on her bed (helpful to cushion against the metal frame), and I think sooner or later I will get some of the Liberty fabric for covers. Now I just need to learn to sew.
And by the way I also have in mind that these new fabrics will coordinate well with the green dandelion fabric I am slowly admitting to myself I need to get for the curtains.

Vivienne Strauss

I can't even remember how I came across Vivienne Strauss and her artwork. There is something about her intentionally naive style that never fails me. And the titles of her paintings always titilate: The one pictured here is called "Despite Bill's best arguments, Pamela was never going to concede that "less was more'". Another gem is called "Hitsy Parnell Pirtle and Bon Bon aka Prissy Britches, prepare for the arrival of their guests to their annual watermelon party."
The watercolors are my favorite. I think the only reason I haven't bought something from her etsy shop is that I can never decide which one to buy.

Straight From Nature

A certain friend of mine happens to hail from the great state of Maine. So naturally I thought of her when I saw this perfume, which the company assures me, "dries down into the musky scent of sensual skin coupled with sun-dried grass." OK, sure.

Funny enough I once bought some perfume for said friend--in retrospect I wonder what I was thinking, because scent is so personal and how can you possibly choose one for another person, but anyway I did--and I came across it the other day at L'Occitane:



I guess I liked the scent from the start since I bought it for her, but now I just associate it with her, giving it a different added appeal. So I bought one and spritzed it right on that night. I may not smell like Maine, or sensual skin coupled with dried grass, but I'm happy with it. (Incidentally while I was in the L'Occitane in Columbus Circle, a man in his early 70s came in, appearing perfectly normal, but then made a beeline for the Cherry Blossom eau de toilette and proceeded to spray it all over himself about 8 times. Weirder still he was opening his jacket and spraying it inside there repeatedly. It was so creepy I had to leave and come back later for my purchase.)

Stars...They're Just Like Us!

Terry Richardson's favorite sandwich is the same as mine: monterey jack, sprouts, avocado and red onion on whole wheat. A lemonade and a cowgirl cookie (chocolate with white chocolate chips and dried cherries) and I'm set.

Surfer Crew/Folk Heroes/Cold-Blooded Murderers

Buying silkscreened posters on Etsy is a dangerous game...there are just so damn many of them, and most often the design is mediocre. But I kind of like this "Surf Crew" one from Slidesideways.



But then there is a very weird Ned Kelly look to their heads, which I think is unintentional since the designers aren't Australian and probably don't know about the Aussie outlaw/folk hero best recognized by his homemade headgear:



Rifling around the National Library of Australia's online collection of National Treasures did reveal that Ned undeniably had a way with words, referring to some policemen as "a parcel of big ugly fat-necked wombat headed big bellied magpie legged narrow hipped splaw-footed sons of Irish Bailiffs or english landlords." Thank you, Ned. Anyway, being an Aussiephile, I saw the Heath Ledger movie in theatres (possibly in Australia--was it even released in the US?) but unfortunately not the Mick Jagger version. In the end, folk hero or not, it's a sad story that ends badly, so yeah, I think the Ned Kelly masks sort of ruin it for me.

God Bless the USA

This picture of Jamie Lynn Spears and her family is old as the hills, but it continues to inspire me. I mean, what better way to share your newborn with the world than by posing with a pot of coffee straight from the coffeemaker, some muffins from the bakery department of the grocery store, and the infant propped up in an insane motorized rocking device????? I am SO recreating this when my next baby is born this fall.