Infinite Color + Play

I've loved Yayoi Kusama Dot exhibitions ever since learning of her work back in art school. This past summer we visited the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh and I was excited to see her Mirror Room.

But this particular exhibit at the Queensland Art Gallery might be my favorite yet. It started off as a completely white room and she allowed kids visiting the exhibit to become artists themselves and completely cover the room in colored stickers. Absolute amazingness.


{top 3 images for Queensland Art Gallery by Mark Sherwood
bottom image by Stuart Addelsee}

all via inspiration lab

Happy Home

Everything about this home makes me happy. The interior design and lifestyle of Alexandra Angle is soft, colorful, happy and welcoming. The pops of color they've used in this Fire Island home might be some of my favorite color usage and product placement I've seen to date. The rainbow hanging chair is incredible and I love how they painted the ceiling a sky blue while keeping the wood beams white.

{photos from alexandra angle interior design via remodelista}

Pretty Sweet

London based cakestress Peggy Porschen is a masterful genius of hand crafted cakes. Each and every cake on her website is a work of art; they are all truly breathtaking. Pure perfection.

{photos by the amazing georgia glynn smith via peggy porschen }

Inspired Hope

This photograph has so much hope and magic associated with it. What an inspiring moment.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

{photo by victor fleming}

Shapes & Motion

I love this identity for the fashion label G T B designed by the fantastic design studio Hort. The colors, movement and subtle graphic shapes are amazing.

{images from hort}

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}

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!

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}

Inspiration & Beyond

Oh dear, where has The Society been all of my life. You know when you see something that really inspires you and you can actually feel it? Well, needless to say, that's exactly how I felt when I came across stylist Sibella Court's site. Take a look, I guarantee you will be just as inspired.

Oh and she recently came out with a book. Patrick, if you are reading this, Valentines Day is right around the corner.

My husband says he reads my blog, but I don't think he does - this will be a sneaky little test...


Have a lovely weekend!

{photos from the society via style-files}

New Year, New Journey

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. I have to admit, I have been a very bad blogger lately (thank you for being so patient.) My husband and I were lucky to take some time off over the holiday season and enjoy Lyla Belle's first Christmas here in Brooklyn. It was lovely!

Lots of things happening in 2010 for me both personally and professionally. We are in the process of buying an apt. (fingers crossed) and I have been in major interior design research mode. We will be doing a little bit of renovating and I'll be sure to let you in on all of the exciting decisions I'll be making.

To break it down simply, the last couple of years have gone like this:
2008 - Wedding !
2009 - Baby !
and now 2010 - Home !

I'll also be updating Thoughtful Day soon with all of the work I've done over the last 8 months. I have to admit, 2009 was one busy year, and it FLEW by. I'm so very thankful for all of the lovely support I've had from all of you.

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Now to these beautiful images!

These photos are the work of stylist Finola Inger. Her balance of color, pattern and texture is just brilliant. I dream of capturing her romantic essence in some type of livable way for our new home.

{photos from finola inger}