Quiet is the New Loud

The world is a noisy place.

Traffic. Construction. Crowds. Other people's cell phone conversations. Horns. Bells. Whistles.

It can be hard to shut that out; even if it is managed, there's still the noise within to contend with.

All of the thoughts, the plans, the ideas.

The never ending list running through your mind of all the things that need to be done, the things that have already been done: were they done well enough? Could they have been done better?

Searching through all of the memories, facts, useless information stored in the deepest recesses of your brain, trying in vain to find the punch line to the joke you were in the middle of telling.

The fragment of song that has been stuck on repeat for your ears only.

Not to mention the distractions.

Finding a moment of stillness, of quiet and peace, is fleeting at best.

But that fleeting moment is just what Mexican photographer Miguel Morales (Oidos Sordos) manages to capture in his beautiful, double-exposed portraits.

Superimposing nature scenes, cityscapes, and sunsets over top of human profiles, Morales creates images of internal stillness and reflection.

 

 

 

xo

 

Metal Baby

I have spent the better part of this brand new year completely immersed in jewelry.

Turning old brooches into floral garden bib necklaces, the bigger the better.

Turning slightly smaller flower collages into corsage-like cuff bracelets.

Re-imagining old clip-on earrings, marrying them with natural stones to give them a more modern nod.

And just about anything not nailed down is now a cocktail ring; enough for every finger.

Rebuilding my collection; so much of what had been there found its way under the Christmas trees and stuffed in the stockings of lucky ladies all over Philadelphia and beyond.

The necessity for this rebuilding at such a fast and furious rate is the upcoming

 Clover Market Winter Market, which promises to be big.

And it's that promise that has me spending equal amounts of time staring into space in an uninspired panic.

 During those times of panic, I often find myself wasting hours online, clicking and searching and hoping to find that missing bit of inspiration.

And every now and then, I stumble upon something that grabs me and shakes me and makes me say wow.

Like these uh-mazing pieces by Taiwanese designer Heng Lee.

 

 

 

 

Combining metal pieces that look almost pixilated with embroidery inspired by traditional Chinese design, Lee's strange bedfellows make for the perfect marriage of modern vs. ancient, soft vs. hard.

And they are completely inspired.

xo

School House Rock

Way across the ocean, nestled along the borders of Germany and France, there lies a school.

But not just any school.

For this school, this very special school, is shaped like a cat.

Designed by artist Tomi Ungerer and architect d’Ayla-Suzan Yöndel for the Europe Without Borders project, Le Jardin d’enfants Die Katze provides inspired education to 100 very lucky little boys and girls.



{images via}

Purrrfectly adorable!

xo

Songbird

 

I have had a thing for vintage knick knackery for as long as I can remember.

The number of things I collect is vast, but I try, try, to keep the actual collections in check.

And by in check, I mean finding a dual purpose for a pretty tchotchke wherever possible: flower festooned tea and biscuit tins hold batteries and spare buttons; a couple of the well-coiffed ladies from my head vase collection pull double duty as bookends.

I blame my grandmother for this particular obsession. She got the whole ball rolling on my first birthday when she gave me my very first Josef Originals Birthday Fairy, a tradition she continued for more than a decade. My little fairies are still proudly displayed to this day.

So it's no wonder that I fell head over heels for these kooky little lovelies from Amanda Smith.

 

 

 

 

Part girl, part bird, and completely awesome, Smith's Singing Bird Sculptures are made using out of production mid-century molds.

Her spot-on eye for color adds the perfect retro touch to these sweetly left of center figurines.

I want one. Or three.

Really, you can never collect too many things if they're completely wonderful...right?

 

{all images via Amanda Smith; available here}

xo

Out With the Old

 

 

......and in with a bright, shiny, New Year.

A fresh start, a clean slate.

365 brand-spanking new days, each of them a blank canvas waiting to be filled.

And fill them, I will.

I have big plans for you, 2013.

New projects, adventures, possibilities.

Trials and errors.

So much to do.

So much to share.

It's gonna be a great year.

xo

Merry and Bright

 

 

 

To quote the Peanuts Gang, "Christmas time is here".

The halls are decked, the tree is trimmed.

The stockings are hung by the stairs with care (it's what you do when you don't have a chimney).

The leftover trays of cookies from last night's parties serve as today's breakfast.

And lunch. And, quite possibly, dinner.

It's snowing.

 The tv is on, and Judy Garland is singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas".

So do that. Make it Merry. Make it Bright.

And may all your Christmases be white.

Happy happy to you, my Dear Readers.

xoxoxo

And So This Is Christmas

 

Over the weekend, I dragged the big bins of Christmas decorations down from the attic.

Nephew 1 was so excited. His eyes, how they twinkled, as he opened box after box of carefully wrapped vintage glass ornaments.

Mine were filled with panic: visions of the two little boys, already deep in the grips of Santa Fever, invading my tiny, glass and glitter-filled space multiple times weekly, danced through my head.

So, back up to the attic with two still half-filled bins of decorations I went.

But the glass balls stayed behind.

In bowls and in vases, and on roll-reducing crochet doilies. And on much, much higher shelves than in years past.

And it looks like they're there to stay, at least for the next couple of years.

For this summer, those two will become three, and a new little bundle of awesome will be invading this space this time next year.

What a lucky aunt I am.

xo

Shop 'Til You Drop

 

Hey friends...

Just wanted to let you know there's a little sale happening in my Etsy Shop.

Enter the code MANYTHANKS at checkout

to take 15% off your entire purchase through Monday.

Because all of you are at the top of the list of things I am grateful for this year.

xo

Fly Like A...Turkey

As a rule, I generally steer clear of parades.

Something to do with a crippling fear of clowns. And things on stilts.

That being said, I've kinda always wanted to go to the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.

And, while I've spent many a Thanksgiving in New York, it's always been upstate, just a quick hop and a skip past the city.

But the giant, character-shaped balloons have me thinking that perhaps, one year, a detour, even the kind that makes you late for pie, might be an ok thing to do.

 

  

 

 

 

Wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving.

xo 

 

 

In Stitches

It is no secret that Jenny Hart knows her way around a needle and thread.

Her Sublime Stitching book (and those that have followed since) single-handedly brought the antiquated art of needlework solidly into the 21st Century, giving it a modern twist with stitch-by-stitch patterns for such kitschy goodness as margaritas, burlesque queens, and mom tattoos.

But her embroidered take on concert posters is just, well, sublime.

 

 

 

 

{images}

 

I can only wonder what my grandmas wou;d've made of that.

xo