Thank you readers!

Someone emailed to tell me I was on the Apartment Therapy Homies nomination list, wow I am shocked and grateful, thanks for the preliminary nomination. Vote for the fantastic finalists here.

(image from AT, see story here)

Birthday Wish List

Today is my b-day and my husband always asks for a big WISH list, so here it is. A lot of them are luxury wishes, but it is fun to dream.

Ticket to France, and this poster would also be cool.
This print
Breville Juicer or something like it. (any juicer suggestions?)
Eames Rocker
Black riding boots like these or these
Stirrup pants
Nikon lens
A Year of Mornings
Olle Eksell
Tim Walker Pictures

shake it like a poladroid picture...

I love polaroids. My grandma has a vintage polaroid camera from the seventies that we always used to play with. And in fact, I used polaroids for my wedding guest book. So I was very sad when I found out that the film for this funky instant camera will no longer be manufactured {save polaroid!}. This alternative at Urban Outfitters - the Fuiji Instax Camera - looks kind of cool, but the price of the camera {not to mention the film itself} is a little hard to swallow.

So I was thrilled to find this application online - the Poladroid! This program allows you to drag digital photos into a virtual polaroid 'camera' and out pops a hi-res image that 'develops' into what looks very much like a polaroid picture - dreamy filter, greeny tinge, frame and all! Here are some of my poladroids. I truly could create poladroids all day.

{via Design Lovely}

almost oprah...

I have never told you about our almost brush with Oprah moment! Last year I was lying at home on the couch recovering from surgery on my poor twice broken nose. I was watching Oprah and the episode was one where Nate {did I mention how in love we are with Nate?!} was helping this family update the decor in their house because it was stuck in the 80's. He made a comment about how we don't wear the blue eye shadow of the 80's so why do we let our house wear it? This house had dried flower arrangements everywhere, wooden folk art, balloon curtains...you name it! I started to get really upset because I realized that our family home fell suspiciously in this category of blue eyeshadow. Its like the fog was pulled over my eyes and I saw it clearly the way it was. The problem was, the house decor was my mother's pride and joy. And she was really good at it too. But my mother is no longer with us and she was sick for so many years, the house got put on the back burner and was never properly updated even though if she had had the energy she would have most definitely done it herself. We were stuck in a rut, not wanting to lose memories, trying to preserve what we had left of her but living in an faded shrine full of victorian lacy curtains, floral wallpaper, sea foam accents and dusty, dried flower arrangements that probably had creatures living in them.

So, full of tears, I wrote to Oprah asking for Nate's help. How were we to update our home but preserve the memories we so desparately needed to hang on to? I sent it off all in a flurry. The next day, kind of embarrassed, I chalked up my letter to the left-over effects of the anaesthetic and forgot completely about it. I mean...like the Oprah show actually reads people's letters!

A few weeks later, I'm busy at work and my cell phone rings. Absent-mindedly I pick it up and I hear "Hi, I'm calling from the Oprah show, we got your letter and I would like to pitch it at our next meeting...would you mind giving me some more details about your family and sending me pictures of the entire house?" So I start freaking out, I call my sisters, we are all screaming and shrieking, thinking we have finally done it, we are finally worthy of being on Oprah! We are finally going to meet Nate! Nate is going to update our house!!!! We spend all hours of the next two days gathering details for the producer. I'm getting emails every five minutes asking more questions, looking for more details. And when I say details I mean novels of facts...then we get a call..."You've made it to our top 40 choices!"....a day later..."You've made it to the top ten, we need you to make a video telling us why you need this makeover and by the way we need it by end of day today"....CRAP!! So we put together this dorky home video all in the span of about 5 hours its Fed-Exed to the Oprah show. Then I get an email asking us if we have updated passports...OMG we are going to get this!!! Then we wait....and wait...and I guess a year later its kind of obvious that we didn't make the cut. Poo.

Soooo...we said to hell with them...we are going to do it ourselves! With renewed excitement we realize that we have it in us to update the house while preserving memories. Who knows the memories better than us?! We are talented designers who have been groomed for this sort of thing since we were born, we own Nate's book, we've watched what he does...we can so do this! We decided to begin with my Dad's room and bathroom. The room had remained untouched since my Mom's passing and we felt that it was an unhealthy environment for him to wake up in every morning. It provided him with a fresh reminder every day of what he had lost and it was overwhelming for him to think of sorting through it. It wasn't easy, but boy oh boy was it worth it! Here it is...move over Nate...I think you've got some competition!

Stay tuned, we've since over-hauled the entire main space of the house and we are still going...more pictures to come...

The dirtier the better

when it comes to flea markets, that is. Nothing makes me happier than stumbling upon a random, slightly run down one, preferably staffed by people that look like they might possibly be on the run from the law. I think the deals are better and the sense of excitement is exponentially greater.

I picked up these darling vintage Wedgewood tea cups this weekend. I have dreams of a collection of mismatched tea cups and saucers. I might have been able to bargain down from $5 per cup, but I was too intimidated (the only downside to sketchy flea markets).



Whenever I buy vintage kitchenware, I bring it home and bleach it, just to be sure I'm not getting any weird germs. Take it from a scientist - a 30 minute soak in a 10% bleach solution will kill absolutely everything, so you'll have nothing to worry about.

If you'd prefer your tea cups shiny and new, check out these beauties from Anthropologie. At $18 for a cup and saucer, they aren't exactly a steal, but I'll admit that they tempt me.

Engagement Photos

Joanna emailed me about her recent engagement shots taken by the talented photographer Max Wanger (previously mentioned here) and I am totally smitten. Congrats Joanna + Alex!

Yulia Brodskaya

Yulia Brodskaya does these amazing paper graphic sculptures, that pretty much blow my mind. Wow.

(via freshly blended)