10.31.2012

lisa congdon for hygge & west

Although we went the dark gray route on our living room walls (and absolutely LOVE it), I still pine after beautiful wallpaper, especially designs with gold accents like the wallpaper Lisa Congdon designed for Hygge & West. Gorgeous!




[via Design*Sponge]

10.29.2012

sea ranch


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We spent a relaxing weekend with our friends Devon and Simon and their son Ari up the coast of California at Sea Ranch. We cooked some great meals, read lots of stories, took walks down to the beach and to the tide pools, feasted on homemade apple galette and pumpkin pie, explored a driftwood beach fort, watched the Giants take the World Series, played Bananagrams, went to the pool, took the babes for rides in the wagon, and had way too much fun together. 
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Sea Ranch weekend
Beach fort
Fort plaque
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Devon + Ari
Baby toss

10.24.2012

the couple

The Couple
I spotted a version of this print by Ashley G over at my friend Celia's house yesterday and fell in LOVE. After a look at Ms. Goldberg's Etsy shop, here are a few others that I want to put up on our walls...

Welcome
All My Little Friends
A Moment of Solitude
Let's Stay Home

Hello June
The Neighborhood

10.22.2012

weekend pics

Unstoppable at Boot and Shoe
"Unstoppable" at Boot and Shoe Service on Saturday night.
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My parents took Stella for a ride on the carousel at Tilden Park. I love her smile in this picture. Half excited, half terrified.
Morning cup in marimekko
A morning cup of Ritual coffee in one of my favorite Marimekko mugs.
Rustic apple galette
I made a delicious country apple galette with apples from my mom's tree.
I'm sewing Stella a pillow case and duvet cover. This is the pillow case. Who wouldn't want to rest her head on kitties and dew-drop trees and rainbows?
I embarked on a new sewing project: a pillow case and duvet cover for Stella's new toddler bed. Here's the adorable fabric I'm using for the pillow case. Sweet, right?

10.19.2012

"i see a darkness"


Love this upbeat [albeit a little creepy...the eyes, they freak me out a little] Bonnie 'Prince' Billy video.

[via the Anna of my heart]

10.18.2012

clearing the sill of the world

The Writer
BY RICHARD WILBUR
In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,   
My daughter is writing a story.


I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys   
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.


Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:   
I wish her a lucky passage.


But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.   
A stillness greatens, in which


The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor   
Of strokes, and again is silent.


I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;   
How we stole in, lifted a sash


And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,   
We watched the sleek, wild, dark


And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove   
To the hard floor, or the desk-top,


And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits   
Rose when, suddenly sure,


It lifted off from a chair-back,
Beating a smooth course for the right window   
And clearing the sill of the world.


It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish   
What I wished you before, but harder.
[via enhabiten]

10.08.2012

stella at 22 months

Fangs.
Stella at 22 months is a chatterbox starting first thing in the morning. She usually wakes up saying "hi Dada, hi Dada, hi Dada," and gets nose-to-nose to wake him up. She's also been known to sit up and point to her pillow and say "Stella's pillow!"

She is in her element in music class every week as she is now following along, finding rhythms, copying movements and generally enjoying the sh*t out of the hour-long sing-a-long. We listen to her music class cd in the car most every day (save me!) and she now requests certain songs and chimes in on lyrics she remembers. When I turned on NPR last week she yelled "hot dog!" from the back of the car so many times that I finally turned on the hot dog song just so she would pipe down. I didn't mind having to listen to the same song over again as I was happy that she vocalized what she wanted without any prompting. I'm always surprised and amazed when something clicks in her brain and she gets it. It's pretty magical to watch.
Same photo, different day
In general Stella is great about telling us what she wants. One of her most used phrases is "I want." "I want to go to the park." "I want mac cheese right here." "I want boobie on the couch right now." 

Stella is a big fan of collaborative drawing at the moment. On more than one occasion she has taken off her shoes in a restaurant and demanded that we trace the outline of her foot. She also demands we draw kitty cats on the backs of her hands, fish, dogs, and Pap-pap (my Dad).

When I'm in the next room and Stella is quiet for more than a minute I know she's doing something she knows she shouldn't. Isn't that the way of every child? Last week I walked into our too-quiet living room and Stella held up the fuchsia pencil she's been using to scribble over color-in the leaves on our off-white chairs and said "hi Mommy!" as she glanced from me to her pencil and back. Finding she has climbed onto the back of our couch and is staring out the window is usually accompanied by a wave and a "hi Mommy!" as well. Dropping her toothbrush down the sink drain when my back is turned also elicits a wave and a "hi Mommy!"
Sailing in her box boat.

Some things Stella loves right now:
All Johnny Cash, but especially Ring of Fire
Going to the park with her Aunt Olivia ("Aunt Eee")
Broccoli with cheese
Going through tunnels
The puppet show at Fairyland
Grammy and Pap-pap's pool
Drawing
I'm a Little Teapot
Mango lassi
Kitty cat shoes (they're actually bunny slippers)
Stickers (we finds them everywhere)
Brushing her teeth


10.04.2012

popular Hermès designer is a postman

This is kind of amazing.
Kermit Oliver is a postal employee who lives in Waco, Texas. He is also the designer of a very popular series of Hermès scarves:
How that happened is an interesting story.
The sixteen scarves that Kermit has designed for Hermès represent three decades of work. Kermit takes six months to a year to design each one, depending on the intricacy of the image and the research required. When he finally arrives at a finished composition, he paints it onto a ninety-by-ninety-centimeter square of watercolor paper, the same size as the scarves, and sends it by FedEx to Hermès in Paris. After the design atelier there approves it, it moves on to the production facility in Lyon, where each color in the painting is traced onto ninety-centimeter-square slides and, in turn, each slide is etched onto a silk screen. That is to say, every color requires its own screen, and because Kermit's work is both so colorful and so intricate, his scarves are some of the most laborious to print. They are also some of the most beloved. T. Boone Pickens's wife, Madeleine, and Chase Bank executive Elaine Agather are said to be huge collectors. And while there are thousands of scarves designed by Kermit in the world, they are so treasured that few are ever available for purchase at any given time, and the handful that do make it to eBay sell for $800 or $900. An employee of the Hermès store in Houston told me that when a new design of Kermit's is announced, it usually sells out before it even hits the floor.

[via Kottke]

10.02.2012

felt flag garlands

My friend Devon (a super talented illustrator) totally inspired me this weekend with all of her crafty talk. She's in the process of making her son Ari a teepee for his room. And she's making him a wolf costume for Halloween (Stella is going to be Little Red Riding Hood). I was bemoaning the lack of make in my life of late. At the end of the day I'm so exhausted from running after/entertaining/talking to Stella that I rarely want to make anything except something to eat before falling into bed.

Since I'm hosting a beer party/baby shower for my friend Andie in a few weeks I decided it was high time I make something. 

I've wanted to make felt garlands for Stella's room since before she was born, so I figured why not make festive flags for the party and then hang them in Stella's room after...

Getting crafty :: felt flag garlands


So there. I made something.