Troublemaker

Boozer has this bizarre love of milk. If you leave a cup/ bowl with milk in it anywhere near someplace he can reach, you are sure to lose some of it. So last night J had the carton of milk out & accidentally left it on a side table (with the top on!) while he ran upstairs to grab something. We hear a strange noise coming from downstairs... never a good sign with 2 dogs!.. and this is what we found*:

No idea how he got the top off, and the carton was empty. He does look like he is heaven! In honor of Cute Overload & their COXCU (cute overload extreme close-up) shots, check out that tongue! He even had a reverse milk 'mustache' on his chin, but I couldnt get a good shot.

Yes, I know that milk isn't really good for dogs & that most are lactose intolerant. We certainly didn't intend to give him milk... and aside from a slight case of the runs this morning, he seems to have survived ok.

*So my first instinct when seeing this was to.... run back upstairs & get my camera. No, not stop him. Gee, I am gonna be an awesome mom one day! ;)

Helvetica the movie

I realize that all other true artsy types probably all already know about this movie and have seen it, but I recently stumbled upon Helvetica the Movie (via Design is Everywhere) & am super pumped to see it.

I realize I must be a huge nerd of some sort to think that a movie about a font sounds so amazing. This will definitely be a solo watching... I can't imagine there is anything I could do to get J to watch this!

Plus it is perfect - I've been thinking about trying to pointedly work to increase my graphic design knowledge - I semi regret that I didn't study it back in college, so am gonna try & make up for it on my own. With all my business/ product dreams, it would probably be good for me to have some more knowledge about what works & why (rather than just relying on what I like or 'feels' right to me). I have been researching the must-read books & such to help educate myself, so this movie is officially added to the sylabus! ;)

If anyone has good suggestions for me, I'd love to hear them!

A Year of Flowers

Abbey's husband gave her such a creative, thoughtful birthday gift -- 52 tiny red envelopes with a handwritten love note and a bit of cash in each, just enough to run across the street to the flower stand and make a bouquet, once a week. You can see all her arrangements here. Swoon.
(found via A Cup of Jo)

Word of the Day

Have you ever played Balderdash? It's this boardgame where you are given a word & everyone tries to come up with a believable definition for the word... each fake definition is read with the real one & winner of the most votes wins the round. Anyhoo, I learned a new word today that is just perfect for its definition. Guess what a group of porcupines is called? A prickle. Isnt that perfect?!

Picture from Brookfield Zoo

Fierce

A co-worker of mine, Alan, has a Project Runway love that rivals many women. Today he forwarded a Bluefly email he received, announcing Christian's new line, with a subject line of "FIERCE" (of course!)

The following email exchange cracked me up:
Alan: It’s a tranny hot mess at Bluefly, see below
Cindi: I like the little pleated ruffles on the t-shirts. BUT REALLY! $96?!
Alan: I didn’t get far enough to look at prices. You know, being heterosexual and all.

Friday Inspiration

It's weekend time... hope that this brings you some inspiration as you get the weekend started, hopefully with fun & relaxing plans!

If you have trouble getting it to play, try the direct link

Dance it out

I came across this from Erica* - I am guessing that some of you have at least seen the first video, but thought this was too cool not to share!

So Matt is a guy from Australia who, after quitting his job in 2003, used the money he'd saved to wander around Asia. A few months into his trip, a friend gave him the idea to do 'that dance' (apparently the only dance Matt does!) and he videotaped it. It ended up online for Matt to share with friends & family with updates as to his travels.
A couple years later, someone found the video online and passed it to someone else, who passed it to someone else, and so on... and now Matt is a web celebrity!

You can see his first video here:




Stride gum ended up sponsoring him, sending him around the world to keep dancing. A lot of people wrote Matt, wanting to dance with him... and so this latest video is the result!


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.


So cool to watch so many people just letting loose and having fun together! For more info on Matt, visit his website.

* For anyone who is a Lost fan, you HAVE to check out her Lost blog... everyone I know reads her religiously when it comes time to follow the happenings of our favorite Losties!

Loving It: Maramiki

I mentioned a while ago that I was taking a Screenprinting class at Lill Street Art Center. While it was really neat to learn how to screenprint (though I think the Gocco has spoiled me... 'true' screenprinting is just so much more work! hehe...), part of what was fun was getting to meet other crafty/ artsy types.

So in this class I met Mara, who draws the most amazing things. I was initially blown away by her 'stencils' in class - seriously, she came up with the cutest things with only scissors & contact paper! - but the products she is now creating are amazing.

I have a couple items shown here, but visit her shop on etsy to see everything she has created: maramiki.etsy.com. She draws everything by hand, and then screenprints her designs onto fabric, which she sews into various items.

Her shop has only been open for a little bit, but already she had had quite a bit of business & buzz... and now she just got accepted as a vendor at Renegade Chicago! So excited for her... plus excited for me, since I get to help man her booth! Hopefully one day I'll be selling my own stuff, but it will be fun to be a part of the experience!

Lotta Prints

I'm anxiously awaiting my version of Lotta Prints to arrive from Amazon, but I came across some Lotta resources to help tide me over that I hope you'll like!

A video of Lotta demonstrating Stenciling & Yam Printing... love this bag she shows near the end (shown to the left).

Link to a podcast from Lotta.

Enjoy!
Nicole

Wedding Matchmaker

Though I've never introduced a couple that ended up getting married, I did introduce my friend Suzy to her Florist & am so excited!
Suzy is planning a Chicago wedding from out of state, and since I love weddings I tend to nominate myself as the unofficial wedding planner for my friends. Which basically means that I send them ideas until they tell me to stop. Which nobody does, so they either like it or have learned to ignore me!

So a while I came across the gorgeous arrangements April Joy Events created for Orange Beautiful's open house. So pretty! So unusual! Plus at the time Suz was thinking yellow flowers... when she said that it just made me think of sunflowers, so was on the hunt for something a bit more chic.

Suzy rightly also loved April Joy, especially when they met... and when she spotted that she had been featured on Daily Candy she knew she'd better book April before she wasn't available!

Rather than yellow, a fateful trip to Paper Source when Suzy was in town led to the current color scheme of pale blue with a tangerine orange... I am so excited to see how it all turns out! more pictures to come after the wedding in August!

Collecting

I love collections... the most mundane items become so amazing when grouped in large numbers... but some just don't seem practical for the space we live in. I once saw a collection of vintage train cases that was so cute. True, they can double as storage (and I love storage containers like you wouldn't believe), but they're just kind of big items.

I think I'm going to start a vintage key collections. Like skeleton keys. So ornate and unusual... I love thinking about what they once unlocked. Plus a wall covered in them would be so amazing!

I think you have to be a little careful about collections... with the invention of eBay, it is just too easy to amass items without even trying. Growing up, my dad had the most amazing collection of items from the Columbian Exposition, the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. Every Antique fair & store was a fun hunting expedition... you never knew what treasure from the Fair you'd come across. But then eBay came along, and suddenly all the items were readily available, no effort required. Boxes were delivered at our house in amazing numbers (dad tends to be a bit obsessive about things!) and soon he had everything he could ever want. The fun was over.

I think for my new collection I'll need to pick items up one at-a-time... hopefully I'll have a memory of the places I acquired each one, making the collection more special...?!

I'm back!

Not sure what happened, but I got out of the habit of posting for a while there... I'm recently inspired/ re-invigorated about creating the life I want... and this is part of that vision, so I'm back here too! :) An amazing back from YetAnotherLisa on flickr. Wow... makes me want to work out!