vintage goodies from milwaukee
I have been getting a lot of new readers this week. Welcome!
Of course, you folks would show up on the week that I have absolutely zero time to do actual blogging… so not a lot of new content. I thought I would look over the last three months with a few of my favorite posts. Here’s to more time in the New Year! Happy Holidays!
I started in late September with some monoprinting from Emmanuel Pratt. This was a fun post and I have since done some of my own simple monoprinting at home. Here’s looking forward to finally taking a decent class in 2010.
In October, the bright, lovely home of Lekan Jeyifous. More homes are here. There are only three, so send them my way if you want to be featured!
In November, I posted about the junk store and got in big trouble with friends who wanted to keep it secret. And here I go bringing it up again. Oops.
I was thinking about 2010 way back in November, with a post on pretty calendars. Hard to believe it’s almost here! And the list in that post? Totally not done. Oops, again.
We visited Chicago, Miami and DC with Fourth Degree Friday. More coming in the New Year. Friends will show you their favorite spots in Lagos, Austin, Santa Fe and London.
Amanda Williams explained her ideas behind this amazing painting. It’s been my desktop image for the last few weeks and it always brightens my day. Thanks, Amanda!
All in all, this has been a pretty fun journey. I hope you continue to check back and maybe even hit that subscribe button in the upper right hand corner. Thank you so much for reading!
Categories: personally speaking
The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.
James Baldwin
Categories: inspiration
Tagged: james baldwin
Hugo Guiness Prints
No Fourth Degree Friday this week! I just couldn’t get it together with the holiday craziness. Instead, let’s look at some stuff that’s inspiring me to keep on keeping on. What’s helping you keep it together?
Rudy’s Roundup
A modern day general store on Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago.
The Handwork Group
Cute little dolls to raise money for a school in Michigan.
BackGarage
“Like Apartment Therapy for the Great Depression” and one of my new favorite blogs.
Chicago Postcard Museum
City scenes from the past.
Categories: inspiration
I have no time. None, zero. I am covered with thread and fabric remnants and puppy hair. Every year, I say I’ll get all my gifts done by Thanksgiving. Every year, I start around the middle of December. Pray for me.
Categories: personally speaking
…via living in penny’s
Since I was fifteen, when the paper version of the NYT was being delivered to my dad’s house, I’ve started Monday mornings with Metropolitan Diary. The paper version has been replaced by the app on my iPhone, but I still wake up looking forward to the city anecdotes at the start of the work week. Reading them leaves me with a warm and fuzzy feeling about urban living and I go about my day on a happier note. An entry from yesterday’s edition got me thinking about gardening; yes, even in twenty degree weather.
The Balcony
Their balcony is nice, but very small.
It overlooks the East River and all
it can hold is two chairs and four plants in pots.
He likes to tend the plants and spends lots
of time out there; often his wife is in the kitchen when
she will call him, and he replies, “I’m in the garden.”
James M. Shea
This is an ideal time to scope out sales and close-outs for container gardening. Do some sketches and see where you can fit some plants on your balcony or the windowsill in your kitchen. Plant stands are super cheap at thrift stores and a lot of outdoor gardening gear at home goods stores is being offered at deep discounts right now. I’m sure they’ll go even lower after Christmas. Thinking about how great you’ll feel sitting on that porch or balcony come June with a cold beer and flowers all around may just get you through the winter.
… via tiny bites
… via apartment therapy
Categories: pretty stuff · urbanisms
Tagged: balcony garden
… what kind of animal is this?
Okay, I made none of these myself. It’s a damn shame I can’t post some pictures of what I’m making for Christmas until the day after since quite a few of you readers will be the recipients–my gifts are that great. Handmade with love, fingers worked down to the bone, absolutely gorgeous holiday gifts.
…I’m totally overstating. They’re alright. You’d think I would have figured out how to sew in a straight line for all the time I spend hunched over my machine. Nope, can’t do it. I’ve decided that nothing looks handmade if it’s perfect anyways.
Since you can’t see my so-so work until after the 25th, (and I know you’re dying to) I’ll post some inspiration from the Flickr I Made It Myself Pool. Almost 18,000 folks and over 300,00 photos of everything from jewelry to mini crocheted monkeys.
…i wanna paint ceramics!
…love the fabric choices
… i would frame these bad boys on their own
…it’s a skeleton key hanger
Categories: inspiration
Hmmmm, decorating. One of my favorite things.
Hmmmm, decorating for the holidays. Terror takes hold.
Some inspiration to get me (and maybe you) out of my slump.
{images via the amazing junk garden girl}
Categories: inspiration
Tagged: vintage holiday decorating
Hometown: DC
Current City: Chicago, 4 years, DC this week though!
Occupation: Photographer
Four Words to Describe DC
Home of mambo sauce.
Four Spots in DC to Check For
I’ve been away for a minute so I have to name the classics.
clockwise
Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe: from breakfast to late night; good food, good drinks, good people watching
Tryst: for the best chai on the planet, always ask for extra animal crackers
Cafe Nema: good food, strong drinks, great vibe
St Paradise Cafeteria aka the church: best soul food in the city
Four DC Citizens We Should Know About
clockwise
The Bernos Crew: unique t-shirts
Loide Jorge: jazz vocalist
Wale Aristoz: photographer extraordinaire
Backyard Band: DC go-go (Ed Note: Slim Charles!)
Four DC Plans for the Weekend
Short weekend, since I’m headed back to Chicago. Maine Avenue Fish Market for some seafood, check out the new spots on H Street, sneaker shopping and a stop by Nandos.
Categories: the fourth degree
Tagged: backyard band, bernos, cafe nema, kramerbooks and afterwords, loide jorge, saints paradise, temi kujore, tryst, wale aristox, washington dc
I can’t spell. Every time I have written Chicagoian on this very blog, my husband has gone behind me and edited it to the proper Chicagoan. I swore up and down that I had the correct spelling and that he was in the wrong, so I googled. And found The Chicagoan Magazine, a short-lived counterpart to the still-trucking-along New Yorker.
Pretty much forgotten after its eleven year run, historian Neil Harris recently wrote an award-winning book about the magazine. From the press release: “Urbane in aspiration and first published just sixteen months after the 1925 appearance of the New Yorker, it sought passionately to redeem the Windy City’s unhappy reputation for organized crime, political mayhem, and industrial squalor by demonstrating the presence of style and sophistication in the Midwest.”
Harris’ book is perfect for the Chicagoan or urbanophile in your life this Christmas.
Oh, and… Chicago has nothing to prove to New York. Thanks.
Categories: midwest is best · urbanisms
Tagged: the chicagoan magazine
