Ode

My little niece is going to be born in less than a month!!!!  I am ecstatic! I get to be an aunty!

The idea of having a new little niece to spoil has had me thinking about little girls clothing.  My sister and brother-in-law have a very modern aesthetic that is really clean and fresh.  So it can sometimes be hard to find clothing I can imagine their daughter wearing among the piles of pink princess, glittery sweatshirts, light-up sneakers, and other terribly gross little girl clothing.

Which is why I like Ode Kids so much.  A line of dresses for girls, they look just like what a modern but still feminine little girl would wear.  I can't wait until little baby Tsu is old enough to wear them!

olive spoon studio

I think that these hand-stamped vintage spoons and forks from olive spoon studio are wonderful.  Wouldn't this be a fun spoon to eat your cereal out of every morning?

 Or a great gift for a new mom?

 Or a sweet way to say you're sorry?

Pitter Patter

Now that Tate is running, there is nothing more fun than listening to his feet pitter-patter up the hallway.

It has had me thinking lately about how, if I were an artist, I would create a piece called "Pitter Patter".  It would consist of the sounds of bare baby feet running on different surfaces.

Fifteen month old on wet marble.

Twelve month old on french oak.

Two year old on concrete.

Thirteen month old in mud.

photo from weheartit

July 17

Dear Zach,

Seven years ago today, we had this celebration:

Waslking down the aisle to meet you stands out in my mind as one of my dearest memories. 

 Life with you is a great adventure. I can't wait to see what's next.

Carla Caruso Jewelry

When I was a little girl, I had a necklace that was a gold cursive "j".  My sister, Lissa, had a matching necklace except it was an "l".  And my mom, Gwen, had a matching "g".

Sadly, I lost it when I was a teenager, but I have thought about that necklace often, and I think it has led to my desire for having a piece of simply jewelry that I can wear every day that is meaningful to me. 

I'm not a fussy jewelry person. I like clean and simple and delicate.  And you know how sometimes you find one designer who just toally gets your sensibilities?  That's how I felt when I discovered Carla Caruso's jewelry.  I love all of it.  I shouldn't be surprised, since she does such beautiful cursive letter necklaces.

Her work is very organic.  Based on natural elements like leaves, or wishbones, or blueberry bushes, or willows.   I think it is stunning.

This one is called "soap bubbles".  Isn't that perfect?

 The mix of metals in her work is really interesting to me...



 This was the first piece of hers I saw in real life, and I love it.  I think about it constantly.  It is just the perfect, simple, small, and utterly feminine necklace, isn't it?

Summer

We've had a bit of a rough go at summer this year in Portland.  It starts!  With a week of beautiful, sunny, perfect days!  And then- just when you thought summer had finally, really arrived- a week like this happens. Rainy.  Cold.  Gray.  The other night Zach and I were eating bowls of warm beans and broiled cabbage.  In July.  When you should be eating burgers and watermelon.  And it felt strangely, oddly right.  Because it was literally pouring outside.

So we are having to grab summer when we can.  We've been making the most of our sunny weather.  Tate is gardening:

And he's learned how to pick these from the garden:

And enjoys it when we turn them into these Dutch Babies for Sunday breakfast:

We've gone on vacation, where Tate saw bunnies with Grams:

Petted horses with Daddy:

And we all enjoyed Tate's first concert, Modest Mouse.  

 All in all, summer has been pretty good...

Special Touches

Lindy and Javi are getting married!  In addition to a fantastic excuse for a vacation to Mexico (yay, destination wedding!), I can't wait to see what special touches she comes up with for her celebration.  And they have already begin!  I was utterly moved by the way she asked her sisters to stand with her at her wedding:

Lindy took the time to find vintage handkerchiefs and then hand embroider them as invitations to her sisters to be such an important part of her Big Day.  Isn't that so sweet?  I can only imagine what a beautiful moment it will be for them to walk down the aisle with their handkerchief tucked away...

Once the handkerchief was completed, she made the outside of the envelopes just as special, using caliigraphy and constellations to invite the girls to participate in her own starry night:

I can't wait to see what other wedding surprises Lindy has up her sleeve!

P.S.  Have you read Lindy's blog?  I almost spit out my coffee laughing today over her realization that Neville Longbottom has gotten super, super hot in the latest Harry Potter movies.  It made me laugh, because just this weekend Zach and I watched Deathly Hollows for the first time.  And I too just had this realization.  Ah, best friends.  How minds can be alike despite thousands of miles of distance...

Ooooh... or Ewwww?!

I can't totally understand my own feelings about artist Judith G. Klausner's work.  I am at once intrigued and grossed out.

Can you figure out why?  Believe it or not, the cameo above is carved out of... you guessed it... an Oreo. 

An Oreo cameo.  Strange, isn't it?

I much more genuinely like her other work, in particular the embroidery she does on breakfast food.

Like toast: 

Or cereal:

Not exactly food as art.  But not not food as art.  Kind of food-as-part-art.

Odd.  But strangely captivating.