Bonjour Tristesse

On this lovely Bastille Day, I wish I could be celebrating in the South of France. Instead, I'll live vicariously through this film.

If you haven't seen "Bonjour Tristesse", I highly recommend a viewing. Every single frame is drop-dead gorgeous eye candy, filled with breathtaking Mediterranean scenery and chic late-50s fashion. Directed by Otto Preminger, it stars David Niven with Deborah Kerr as his hard-won lady-love. But it's Jean Seberg who steals the show as his daughter, her presence on the screen light and magical. I was sad to learn of her complicated, messy life and eventual overdose on barbituates.

Images courtesy of http://jeandorothyseberg.blogspot.com/

Fun with Felt

BEFORE

AFTER


My first time felting! Like many craft endeavors, when I researched online, it seems that everyone uses a slightly different method. After experimenting with a few different ways, I used a wet felting technique that involved making a felt rope and then slicing off small portions to shape into beads (see image below). It took me the better part of an afternoon to make all if these little guys. I'm going to use the smallest ones for tiny little stud earrings. Cute!

Tote bag designs on Social Designer

I submitted these 2 colorful floral tote bag designs for a competition benefiting Global Green USA, an organization fostering a global value shift toward a sustainable and secure future. For 15 years, Global Green has spearheaded applying green technology to green schools and green affordable housing projects, while advancing groundbreaking solar, green building and energy efficiency legislation throughout California and the nation. You can vote on my designs and see the other submissions here.

My Little Drama

I first came across the amazing surface pattern design and illustration work of Swedish designer Maja Sten on Abduzeedo.com. She has since teamed up with her longtime friend, product designer Eva Schildt to create the whimsical jewelry that is My Little Drama.

Beautiful Brazilian Design

I stumbled across the lovely design work of Flavia Oliveira while researching Indexhibit, the website-building tool. Her work is colorful, tropical, illustrative. Warming me up on this surprisingly cool July morning.

Modern Radar

I purchased one of these cute pleated bags for my friend's birthday, and upon visitng the company's website found tons of other beautifully-made, mod, hand-silk-screened items. Since I have no sewing skills whatsoever, I have major envy of the simple yet elegant pleats they've created in these bags and totes. Modern Radar is a small company based in Durham, NC, specializing in stationery and accessories with a clean, modern, and playful aesthetic. They also strive to be eco-friendly and support fair labor. What's not to like? You can buy stuff in their etsy store, so go there now!

Cheesecake for Your Eyes

A friend gave me this wonderful little book, simply titled Tiny cheesecakes recipe book, full of the most delightful photo styling ever and printed on lush, velvety, slightly ribbed paper. Yum, yum. Best of all, the recipes are entirely in Japanese so there's no pressure to actually produce any of these lovely cakes. Just pure visual enjoyment.

Goods for the Greater Good at Social Designer

You can see a few of my designs on the Social Designer website, where they are part of a t-shirt design contest to benefit Kiva, whose mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.

Cheryl Z on etsy

My friend Cheryl, a professional photographer who typically works in the editorial/lifestyle realm, just opened an etsy shop selling limited edition prints of her work. Right now, she's featuring several reasonably-priced prints of amazingly dreamy imagery from her recent trip to Buenos Aires and Patagonia. Visit her shop here.

Welcome to etsy, Cheryl!

SUMMER!

Doesn't this picture just sum it all up? Image shot by my talented brother-in-law Andy who has taken up photography rather recently and obviously is a natural. The equally-talented jumpers are Andy's lovely wife Ginger and her sister Mary Ellen. Nice job, guys!

Happy 4th and Nice Type

Ending the week with a little something red, white, and blue. Enjoy the holiday weekend!
Poster by Supercinq
From FFFFOUND!

Muffin Madness

We had lots of delicious berries after our farmer's market visit this weekend, so I decided to try a new recipe. The recipe was called "Strawberry Muffins" but I had blueberries too so I just threw caution to the wind and tossed those in the mix. With all the fresh fruit and organic and whole wheat flour, these babies are only about a third the calories of one of those Dunkin Donut sugar bombs. So...that means I can eat three, right?

I topped them with some homemade lavender sugar, made especially for us by our friend Christy. The cute blue and white cupcake papers are from HeyYoYo.

The recipe came from this month's body and soul magazine. I also tried one for a sweet potato and chickpea hummus that made a perfect lunch yesterday. No pictures of that though. I ate it too fast.