Delicate

I love how dreamy and gorgeous this fascinator by Style by Soca is. I think anyone would feel pretty wearing it.


{photos from style by soca}

Brilliant Finds

Vintage French hat hook from the 1950's - AMAZING.

My friend Ben's apartment is in the latest issue of Lonny. We used to work together at Jonathan Adler; he's the curator of all JA stores and he clearly knows what he's doing. Ben is just as lovely, charming and full of personality as his apartment reflects. And did I mention stylish and smells good? Whenever I mention Ben, Patrick always asks, "The guy that smells good, right?"

Ben was also my karaoke partner in singing "Island's in the Stream" by (the best music duo ever) Dolly and Kenny. It was the first and last time I will ever do karaoke. And lucky me, Patrick has it all on video...

{photos from lonny mag}

Perfectly Coiffed

If only I was as stylish or my hair was as perfectly coiffed as these amazing dolls by Beeb Design...

{photos from beeb design}

Blueberries & Lobster

After our stay in Vermont, we headed east to Portland, Maine. As a family, it was our first trip to Maine (my second, years ago I went to see Phish at the Great Went - a much different experience this time around!). To sum up our trip - beauty, bluberries and lobster. For every meal, other than breakfast we ate lobster and in every meal, we had blueberries. The food in Maine was delicious! From lobster to lobster rolls, to tons of fried calamari, shrimp, and scallops, we ate pretty decadent and unabashedly so. Lyla seemed to like it too, especially the morning buns from the Standard Baking Company (which btw is an amazing bakery!). Seriously the best sticky buns I've ever had - ridiculously gooey and flaky at the same time.

On a Saturday morning we went to the Portland Farmer's market, which was definitely the best farmer's market I've ever been to, and supposedly one of the country's oldest. Situated in a lush park, there were tons of old school and new school farmers displaying their weekly crop. It was so lovely to walk through and see the wood shingled trucks, and the farmers proudly talking about their product. We were staying in a hotel, so buying lots of produce wasn't really an option - but we did eat a whoopie pie or two, and gobbled down a few bins of blackberries and blueberries as we walked the market.

Maine was the perfect way to end our weeklong New England vacation. As cliché as this sounds, it really looked like the "pictures". The coast was pure beauty and the weather was perfect, nice sunshine during the day with crisp air in the evening. And, I have to say, road tripping with a child is definitely the way to go. Lyla's been on over 10 flights since she's been born, and as wonderful it is to travel, at this age, a slow paced road trip of 7 hours, was much easier for us than a 2 hour flight, if you can believe it! Aside from cost, now I get why family road trips are a common summer time mainstay. Oh and another little treat - every morning around 4 or 5 am, little Lyla Belle would make her way in bed with us. This my friends, was a "when on vacation only" deal. I just don't want that habit to become a part of our daily lives. Although, it's pretty sweet for her to snuggle with us, you just really don't sleep. Most of the time she sleeps sideways, pushing both Patrick and I near the edge of the bed. She's made it clear, she is the queen in this household. And she deserves it. It's amazing how a little 25 lb. child calls the shots.

That's it for now, have a wonderful weekend everyone! The weather in NYC today sure is lovely!

Lovely Envelopes

A lovely collection of envelopes as art by photographer Andrew Bush. The envelopes are just as beautiful by themselves as they are together. Very inspiring...

{photos by andrew bush via another something}

Vermont Fancy

This summer we've had the opportunity to take a couple of vacations. Once Patrick got back from Portugal, after being away for almost a month, we took a road trip up north to Vermont. We had never been and I have a feeling after our amazing trip, Vermont will be a destination we frequent often throughout the years. We stayed up in Stowe and it was breathtakingly beautiful. Surrounded by lush green mountains, with waterfalls and swimming holes off of hidden paths, just sitting outside and staring at the pure beauty or taking a simple hike through the mountains was pure bliss. Lyla was a trooper as well. She loves being outside running and playing with sticks. On some of our more tricky hikes, miss little independence wanted to walk and climb all by herself which of course was a challenge reeling her in. It's amazing how fearless she can be.

As we were leaving Vermont and heading to Maine (I'll share our pics in a couple of days) I realized I forgot to buy some maple syrup. And lo and behold as we were driving we stumbled upon a little sugar shack where a retired husband and wife have been making maple syrup in the back of their property for the last 15 years. We pulled up to the driveway and Patrick got out and rang the owner's doorbell. The owner, Mr. Rogers, graciously welcomed us and gave us a little tour of his sugar shack. Throughout the years he's been in business, he's won multiple awards for his varieties of syrup and we ended up going with the Vermont Fancy & Medium Amber. Since we've been home, we've tried the fancy and by golly it's delicious!

Have a lovely Monday and I'll post photos of our trip to Maine in a bit.

{photos by thoughtful day}

The Faile Temple

As many of you know, I went to Lisbon, Portugal this last month to view my husband Patrick's (one of the two Patrick's of Faile) monumental sculpture project. The work is titled "Temple" and it quite possibly is the most amazing piece of art I've ever seen (said with a slight bias, of course).

The Temple project has been two years in the making. It is made up of huge ceramic relief sculptures, cast iron gates, marble sculptures, mosaics, not to mention the 1000's of tiles placed on the interior and exterior walls of this piece. Every single element in this sculpture was custom made and thoughtfully considered. Everything. So much went into this project. The structure itself is made to look like a ruin that has been blasted open to show the hidden beauty that rests inside. And once you're inside, you're blown away by the layers upon layers of detail within the mosaics, the spinning prayer wheels, the marble scuba horse fountain, and well, everything. Every detail was above and beyond breathtaking.

It was a lot of fun to hang out around and in the temple. Tourists would walk up to it with their travel books trying to figure out what was this "thing" they were looking at, old men and their wives would stare in awe at the level of detail in the ceramic and mosaic pieces, while children would run through and speedily spin the prayer wheels. The temple was built and designed for this specific site, Praça dos Restauradores Square, in the heart of Lisbon. What was so impressive is that it felt like it belonged there and had been a part of the city's history for hundreds of years. It was so delicately considered for it's location. It was and is perfect.

As you can tell, I'm incredibly proud of my husband and his partner. Patrick and I started dating 10 years ago this Fall and to witness the progression of his work to this point is nothing short of awe-inspiring.

To view and read more about Faile's Temple, click here.

photos c/o faile

Smooth Brass

The etsy shop, Secret Base | Bee Alice King has a fantastic assortment of decorative trinkets that could become part of any party or celebration. How amazing would these little instrument gems look stitched on a place card? And solid brass to boot? Okay, now your place cards can also be your favors! Especially if your theme is heavy on the instrumental side. Think Jazz - as in these fabulous photos from The Sartorialist (a couple of weeks ago).

That's it for now folks, have a wonderful weekend! {I hope you all have summer Fridays :}

top two photos from secret base
bottom b&w photo from the sartorialist

Sweetly Stitched

Lovely hand embroidery by Joetta Maue.

{via pink olive blog}

Inspired Moments

The photography of Trine Thorsen transports me to little golden moments. Browsing through her photos, I kept thinking, "I want to be there." If you're looking for a bit of inspiration on this lovely Monday, you'll find it here.

Wouldn't the bottom photo of the flower lined wire basket be the perfect way to hold ceremony programs? How lovely to have a little area like this before guests walk down the aisle...

{I'm going to be sharing photos soon of my little trip to Portugal last week!}


{photography by trine thorsen via trendey}