Party Details

I am loving these party details by Fete owner Jung Lee. Here Jung shows off some of the personalized stamps Fete has created for wedding and save-the-date invitations courtesy of Zazzle. http://www.feteny.com/ I love the idea of paying such close attention to every visual detail of a party invite. Just think of all the endless ways you can make your invitations stand out with personalized details like modern, designed stamps. And when I think about trying to balance motherhood with the very real fact that I (as my sister says) "don't want my home overrun with plastic crap", I was excited to see these chic, disposable placements/napkins called My Drap. You unroll and tear them at the perforation just like papertowels. It is when I find things like this that I think "of course! Why didn't I think of that?!" Because the idea of using cloth napkins for dinner or picnics is so appealing. But is it just me and my messy life, or do cloth napkins seem to get stained within just one use? So I feel like they are a waste of money. The My Drap products have such clean design details to take them above the humble papertowel but below the expense and potential fussiness of formal cloth napkins and placemats. And they come in all sizes, too! Cocktail napkins- dinner napkins- the perfect way to teach little kids about place settings without worrying about anything being too precious. And you can wash them, and use them a few times, before eventually throwing them in the compost pile (because yes- they are compostable!!)

And aren't these disposable plates and cups amazing? Who says having kids and kid parties means cheap, wax-covered disposable dinnerware? www.branchhome.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=39&products_id=612

Lines

http://www.etsy.com/shop/studiokmo Ever since I saw these handdrawn, pen and ink city maps, I can't stop thinking about them. Black and white lines seem so insignificant, don't they? Then you see them reinterpreted in a meaningful way by an artist, and tada! A map of Rome... From a distance, it is hard to tell they are even lines. It is such a neat graphical piece of art, don't you think? There are maps for most major cities, including Paris, Amsterdam, Manhattan... and I am sure you could get your city made custom if it isn't already available. In other O Chickadee news, it has been a busy weekend filled with much handmade love. Will update tomorrow with shower pics and news, and other loving handmade gifts that Zach and I have been lucky enough to receive lately. For now, settling in with a movie and letting challah sit out overnight for french toast tomorrow.

Perfectly Impractical

Friends, our first baby is due in just a few months now, and you would think we would be focusing on practical necessities. After all, it is our first baby. People still refer to the baby nursery as the “alcohol room” due to its previous incarnation as the room where we line up all the champagne glasses and beverage buckets at our annual Christmas party. Clearly, transitioning the alcohol room into a nursery is going to require some necessary equipment. Cribs, changing tables, onesies, thermometers… and doesn’t the hospital require a car seat to take the baby home in? To this point, Zach and I have focused on the non-necessities (well, to us they are necessities, but they aren’t very practical). Books, books and more books… the baby’s library is already well-established, from his first sushi book (thanks to my sister and brother-in-law, the baby will recognize maki maki at a very young age) to this year’s Caldecott winner, we have been snapping up books almost every time we go out shopping. But I have to admit that this weekend, I reached the height of impracticality. But it is such perfect impracticality, the kind where you have stumbled across something so wonderful and so perfect that you make a deal with yourself that you will abstain from Starbucks indefinitely just so that you can justify buying it. So what could it be? What nursery room addition could be just that fantastic? Well, here it is…

Like wreckage that we discovered buried deep into the Atlantic, the moment I saw this pirate ship metal sculpture, it just screamed “boy nursery”. And then, when I looked at it again, it screamed “sophisticated 40 year old man’s apartment” and then, when I looked again, it was “cool 14 year old’s bedroom” and suddenly, I realized that this pirate ship accomplished what no boy name we have discussed so far seems able to- to grow with our son through all his stages and ages. The only problem? It was over $800, friends. And with the new sofa and the new carpet and the various house repairs we have been doing in anticipation of the little guy, there really was no justifiable reason to purchase such an unnecessary object. (For, as Zach pointed out when I called him to get his opinion, “Little boys typically like to touch things, not look at sculpture”). But on the other hand, as my mom pointed out, there seems to be such a need as a mom to create a story, a history, for our children. And what better story could there be then “before you were even born, we picked out your first piece of art.” And if I didn’t buy it, I could imagine a day, perhaps in 5 or 6 years, when all of a sudden our son has a surging interest in Peter Pan and Captain Hook, and as he sits reading the story in his room, I would reflect back and kick myself for not having purchased that one-of-a-kind pirate ship. It was that kind of thing. When I knew that future Janelle would regret current Janelle’s practicality if I passed it up.

So thanks to owner Matthew at Cielo (the beautiful little shop in Portland where we found the pirate ship, amongst about $10,000 worth of other things I would have happily purchased), who I think could see me practically split in two as future Janelle (“buy it! buy it!”) and current Janelle (with Zach on her shoulder “There are so many other practical things we need!”) fought with one another, we were able to take the ship home. In what I believe is his understanding that certain one-of-a-kind pieces in his shop just belong to someone, and that this pirate ship belonged to me, Matthew worked with me until we came to a place where I could afford to walk out the door with the ship, feeling good about the purchase and perfectly happy to drive it home and show Zach (who, for the record, also loves it). So there it is, friends. He doesn’t have a stroller, a carseat, or a name. But our son has his first piece of sculpture. And I hope that it does travel with him throughout his journey of life. That when he is little, he dreams about where it came from, and the pirate wars fought upon the high seas. And when he is a teenager, he dreams about where it could take him, far away from home for adventures that will fulfill his most secret dreams. And that when he is a man, he wonders about the artist, the person who crafted such a detailed representation of a ship, and how much passion he must have had for the project. It is our first real gift to you, little man. P.S. We also walked out of Cielo with this adorable orange chair.

Thank you Matthew! It will be the perfect reading chair for our little one to consume all those books we have already bought him!