snowglobe of a city

When it snowed last week, I got up really early the next morning and went to the High Line and the West Village and took some pictures.  It was such a pretty day.

the light that day was so clear and soft and lovely

windows on the High Line

♥

 

color me pretty

Whenever I'm designing a lot, I watch the movie Amelie over and over.  It's so lovely visually and creative and inspiring.  One of my very favorite things about is is the color palette, especially the combination of mint green and dark red.  It manages to be contrast-y but soft and not at all Christmas-y.  Pretty pretty pretty.









[caption id="attachment_447" align="aligncenter" width="365" caption="the woman wearing this actually crocheted it herself. sooooo pretty."][/caption]

 

1.2.3.4.5.6.7

it's like gravity doesn't apply

So.... Guess who I'm seeing on Monday night?





so. excited.

fill-in-the-blank friday!

Yay!  It's Fill-In-The-Blank Friday.  This is something started by the lovely Lauren over at the blog The Little Things We Do.   It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like-- she posts beginnings, and lots of people repost them and fill in the blanks.

1. If my house was on fire and I could only grab 3 things I would grab: my art bag (which holds my sketchbooks and markers and pencils and portfolio-- sneaky sneaky, huh?), my laptop, and as many family photos as I could.  (Obviously, this is assuming we're just talking about inanimate objects, my cat trumps any of these in the 'things to save' category.  But she mostly lives outside, so let's assume she was already out.)

2. A smell I really like is: the milk-scented soap in a set that I got for Christmas.  It's creamy and warm-smelling and mmmm!

[caption id="attachment_431" align="aligncenter" width="420" caption="the white label is the milk-scented one"][/caption]

3.  Something you might not know about me is: I'm kiiiiind of nerdy.  I love Lord of the Rings and Star Trek and Harry Potter.

4.  Some of my favorite websites to putter about on are: Pinterest, Etsy, and Ravelry.  I've restricted myself to only looking at them during tea breaks, because it's entirely possible to lose hours and hours clicking around on any of them.  Especially Pinterest, because it leads you to different blogs and Flickr photostreams.  So addictive.

5.  This weekend I will: work work work on a project for school!  I have the basic requirements done, but I want to go a bit further on it, because I'm so excited about it that I want my professor to be excited about it, too.  Although I do have a few crafty projects in mind, to reward myself if I get enough done on my project for school.  Yay, motivation!

6.  Nothing makes me happier than :  waking up early on a weekend, or a weekday when I don't have any classes, and seeing the whole day stretched out in front of me.  I like going grocery-shopping early in the morning, before the crowds get to Trader Joe's, and then coming back to my room and putting everything away, and still having it only be 9:30 or so.  I also get really, really happy when my room is nice and clean, it makes me feel clear-headed and ready to have a productive day.  Oh!  And when I have everything done for the day, and I get to curl up in my big blue cozy chair with whatever I'm crocheting, and a movie on Netflix.

....A lot of things make me really happy.

7.  A bad habit I have is: spending ridiculous amounts of time making the perfect playlist for any occasion on my ipod.  Like, 20 minutes making a playlist for an hour walk.  But the feeling of having found just the right combination of songs for a particular activity is so great!  Y'know, when you finish it and are listening to it and think, "Yeah!  This is exactly the right song for my mood!  So is the next one!  And the one after that!"

♥Do you do Fill-in-the-Blank Fridays? Leave a link to your blog in the comments, they're so fun to read!♥

music for snowy days

I always find myself listening to The National a lot during the winter... Their music is soft and a little melancholy, but really, really beautiful.  Kinda like winter.  Here are three of my favorites from them.



"Geese of Beverly Road"-- The lyrics in this just get me every time, especially the first line.



"Driver, Surprise Me"-- I love the mix of hope and desperation in this song...



"Slow Show"-- I think I've posted this before, and I probably will post it again... I've fallen asleep to this almost every night for over a year.  (You have to click the video and go to Youtube to hear it, but it's totally worth it.  This is one of the few fan-made videos that I think goes perfectly with the song it's for.)

yay for snow and the music for watching it fall♥

tea time ♥

One of my New Years to-do list items was to buy tea from independent sellers on etsy, but when I found out about this fantastic brick-and-mortar tea shop, I had to check it out.  And oh my gosh, it is like a tea-lover's paradise.  McNulty's Tea and Coffee Co. is on Christopher Street between Bleecker and Hudson.

I don't like coffee, so I was pretty focused on the tea selection, but they had lots of different kinds of coffee beans, too.  And there are these great antique scales where everything gets weighed.  And when you walk in, it smells so good. McNulty's sells tea and coffee accessories, too, lots of tea infusers and tea pots and French presses.

I picked out three different black teas-- Mint Chocolate, Berry Creme, and Lemon Spice.

The fourth tea is an herbal tea mix of peppermint and lemon balm, from our garden at home.

The labels (minus the words and a little recoloring in Photoshop) are from here, here, and here.

keep warm, lovelies! ♥

 

 

how to care for introverts

So, I just reread my post from yesterday, and I think it reads pretty much like I felt-- stilted, awkward, and uncomfortable.  I love writing and blogging and sharing photos and ideas with people who read this (you're out there, right?  RIGHT?), but when it comes to putting more personal things out there, I clam right up.  Even if it's something as general and lighthearted as the questions were yesterday for Fill-In-The-Blank Friday.

Since I go to a college that specializes in art and design, I think a lot of us who go to school here are comfortable because we're surrounded by other introverts.  Everyone's pretty considerate of being careful with other people's feelings of validity, and we're all used to the slightly hermit-like behaviors of everyone around us.  But outside of school, people sometimes aren't sure what to do with that.  Sometimes we get upset for what seems like no reason, or we go into weeks of just not seeing anyone, or we get excited and happy and get frustrated with people who aren't.  I ran across this fantastic post on Pinterest the other day, and thought it might help to de-mystify the seemingly strange behaviors of a more anomic persuasion.

I couldn't find the original source for this, but if anyone knows it, let me know and I'll link it ♥

♥happy weekend!♥

fill-in-the-blank friday

The (lovely and adorable) blog The Little Things We Do posts fill-in-the-blanks for everyone to answer and post to their blogs every Friday... Here are my answers for this week.

1.  My favorite quote is: Oh, I have so many... Anais Nin has said some of the best, I think.  Two favorites from her are,

"There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

and

"Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through.  Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and stay in it."

One of my other favorite quotes is from the author Joseph Campbell, who said,

"We must let go of the life we have planned so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."

2.  A bad habit I have is: bottling things up.  I'm a private person and I really don't like being angry or upset, so sometimes I just ignore those particular emotions.  Usually this works fairly well, and I'm generally very happy, but it has the unfortunate side effect that when unwanted feelings do start rattling their carefully locked internal doors, it can turn into a riot with everything insisting on being heard all at once.

3.  The first time I felt like a "grown-up" was: when I started developing routines for myself at school-- tea in the morning (and afternoon and night),  getting fresh flowers for my room every week, and going up to the High Line park to read and journal and people-watch.  ...Okay, and the first time someone asked me for directions in New York, that was pretty exciting.

4.  Weekends are: when I'm at my most productive.  I like having long stretches of uninterrupted time to do schoolwork and make things and edit photos for my Etsy shop.  I also love how quiet the city is on weekend mornings.

5.  When I was a child, I wished my name was: Julia, so that the song John Lennon wrote could be about me.  But then I read The Beatles Anthology when I was ten or so and found out it was about his emotionally distant mother and then I was perfectly happy just as Julie.

6.  I wish: that courtesy would come back into style.  I know this is going to make me sound old and cranky, but I haaaaaaate it when people are rude, and it seems like so much of what makes up popular culture right now is based on the idea that being rude and mean and snarky is funny.  It isn't.

7.  A secret I have is: I do my best preliminary design sketches when I'm in my big blue cozy chair, with newsprint and a 64-count box of Crayola crayons.

♥

brought to you by the letter M

The alliteration was completely coincidental, but here are a few things that are currently making me happy.

mums

meringues, especially half-melted in tea

Meaning of Bryce, The (I know it's a stretch to get the M, humor me.).  My lovely friend Bryce writes this spectacularly charming blog.  She's sweet, witty, and articulate and she has a very pretty turn of phrase.  She does weekly features like "Tea Tuesdays" and "Musically Inclined Mondays" along with various other musings, and I always get really, really excited when she puts up a new post.

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No photo credits, all my own photos this time.  Except Bryce's blog name photo, that's hers.

 

♥

 

nyc water is wreaking havoc on my hair!

Aaaaaaaaugh!  I got back to school last night, showered and used the exact same hair stuff I always use, but somehow...

THIS happened.

What happened to my cute little spiral curls?  Does anyone else who perms have this problem?  What is this nonsense occurring on top of my head?  Help!!!

warming up

some lovely warm photos for a very blue-tinted time of year...

1.2.3.

♥

unresolutions

There's something so clean and fresh about a brand new year.  It's a chance to start again, to do all the things that you wanted to do in the year before.  Yet I find the idea of New Years resolutions completely unappealing... I think it might be the word 'resolution' itself.  Resolution is the name for the end of something, not the beginning.  And I don't want to do something that I have to be resolute about.  It sounds so forced and unpleasant.

I was inspired by this post on the lovely Besotted Brand Blog, where Miss B. makes a list of her goals for this year.  That sounds so much less ominous than the r-word.  I really liked how her list was a balance of professional and personal ideas.  So I decided to give it a try, too-- here are 11 things I'd like to do in 2011.



The background is by orangedotgreen, who makes and posts lots of very pretty textures.

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I can't get enough of this song today.

mmm!  such a good song.

happy weekend everyone!

 

doors

sometimes they open

sometimes they close

and sometimes it's hard to tell until you're far away from it.

so I guess there's only one thing to do.

1.2.3.4.5.6.

1.2.3.

tea and warm socks

I love, love, love this sweet sentiment from Ornamelle.

Delicious cinnamon-vanilla black tea from Trader Joe's with milk in one of my favorite blue teacups.  The sandwich is peanut butter and homemade strawberry jam (don't sandwiches just taste better cut into triangles?).  Oh yes, today was a very good lunch day.

New wooly over-the-knee socks from Lisa B. These make me happy beyond all reason.

Slightly less wooly, but still very cozy thigh-high socks from American Apparel.

One of my very favorite places in the house, which I had alllllll to myself today.

♥

 

stormy weather

today was rough.

 

tomorrow will be better.

 

photos

old and new

New perfume, yay!  Miss Dior Cherie.  I've wanted this for months, and it was a Christmas present from my parents.  It smells soooo good-- feminine and sweet, but not cloying.  On my skin, the notes that linger are the strawberry sorbet, caramel popcorn, and a softly mossy scent.  I love, love, love it.  And the bottle is so pretty!

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Old Dinkie Dino virtual pet!  I used to get these all the time, but this little guy was having some issues.  The Dinkie Dinos are notoriously glitchy to start with, but they're so cute that I can't resist restarting them every few years.  After a battle with a stripped screw over the battery compartment and some nerve-wracking button-removal and circuit-cleaning, he's up and running.

 

[caption id="attachment_327" align="aligncenter" width="420" caption="snoozin'"][/caption]

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I finally got a new phone.  I've had my razr for two and a half years, and while it has served admirably, it was getting a little weird in its old age.  For instance, it would insist that it was charging while not actually plugged into anything, and I started receiving text messages and phone calls exactly twelve hours after they were originally supposed to go through.  Also, people would sometimes see it and go, "Ohhhh, a Razr!  I used to have one of those!"  Time for something new.

 

[caption id="attachment_328" align="aligncenter" width="360" caption="they didn't even want it back..."][/caption]

I decided on the Blackberry Curve for a bunch of reasons.  It wasn't outrageously expensive, but it does all the things I wanted, like helping me get directions when I inevitably get lost in Lower Manhattan (Does anyone actually know their way around down there?  It's like a labyrinth.).  It's also way more convenient than lugging my Macbook around or running up to my dorm room to check my email if I'm expecting something.

 

[caption id="attachment_329" align="aligncenter" width="360" caption="no more alphanumeric texting, yay!"][/caption]

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Lastly, I'm restarting the book "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron.  It's basically a course in nurturing your creativity.  I first started it when I was in an English class called Creative Imagination.  My professor was fantastic (you can find her blog here ) but I just didn't have time to keep up with this book the way I wanted to.  But I'll post about that as I go along.  If anyone would like to do this along with me, or has questions about the book, feel free to leave me a comment and I'll answer anything.  It'd be lovely to have someone to talk about this with.

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My dad listens to a lot of Elvis while cooking.  I think this is my favorite song that's on regular rotation in our kitchen.

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Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!