Ready for something totally cute and just a little bit weird? Marcel is a shell with shoes and a face and a completely adorable little personality created by Jenny Slate + Dean Fleischer-Camp. “Guess what wear for a hat? A lentil.” Check it out:
MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.
In another world, I think I would have made an excellent ballerina. Had I not been so hell-bent on trying to be a gymnast as a kid, I might have spent more time taking ballet classes and probably been much more successful (turns out long skinny arms aren’t great for back-handsprings). But I have no regrets. Still, I love dancing so much. And there is no dancer more magical than a ballerina – ask any 5 (or 25) year old girl, they are truly magnificent.
The Ballerina Project is a NYC-based photography project capturing the elegance and beauty of ballerinas paired with harsh, rough cityscapes and nature. I LOVE them. You must check them out. Here are just a few.
“Consider what you want people to remember of you and live accordingly.”
-Barb Rogers
Generous, daring, innovative, free, compassionate, brave, loving – what do you want to be?
image:
reefknot, via kitsunenoir
Wednesdays usually aren’t that noteworthy, but this morning was different. It’s not everyday you are woken from a deep slumber to see the most magestic and outstanding piece of art ever created. I beg you, feast your eyes upon.. the beached whale:
One of Julian’s fans drew this realistic interpretation of my darling Scout, made famous by her Papa’s video “Beached Whale.” It really looks like her! In the face, anyway. Her tail is much less like a seal’s, and more like a racoon, with rings. Still….. I can’t believe my eyes. I’m thinking of framing it and hanging it in the hallway.
I’ve seen this poster around the interwebs, but I’ve never been sure of just who or where it came from. I found a chick on etsy who makes/sells them – and now I’m determined to make it mine. These are just wonderful words to live by – especially for over-anxious nuts like me.
The crown is appropriate. 
I’m not a film buff, a designer, or even a photographer, but when I heard Julian geeking out over this piece made entirely out of CG animation, I decided to watch over his shoulder – and I was completely amazed by what I saw. Over and over I kept saying, “There is no way that is animated. Babe, look at it – it’s real. That is a real camera.”
But I was wrong. See for yourself (and watch fullscreen if you can) – The Third & The Seventh by Alex Roman is FULL-CG. I cannot believe something like this is even possible!! Forget Avatar, this man deserves some kind of award.
The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.
What makes a Saturday even better than eating nothing but donuts & coffee all day? Making pink and white paper snowflakes! I might be a terrible photographer (as these rough looking iPhone photos will prove), but I am a darn good snowflake-maker! Today I felt inspired by the festive paper snowflakes on Holy Experience, so I decided to make my own. I used a few sheets of pale pink printer paper I had stashed away, along with some tissue paper from Coach (from a clutch that I’m currently selling in the name of getting rid of crap I don’t need.)
I had to make do with the supplies I had – a few different sizes of scissors, scotch tape, thread from a sewing kit, and some snowflake patterns I found online (like this one, and this one).
It was very easy. Once I got the hang of it, I even make my own patterns. All in all, I made about 15 snowflakes. They’re a little flimsy, so they may or may not be destroyed by the end of the season, but I’m going to look into making more from cardboard/poster board and fabric that will last for years (hopefully).
I hung the pink ‘flakes in my kitchen window, and taped (carefully) the tissue paper snowflakes to the french doors on my balcony, so the whole neighborhood can enjoy them (if they can see them).
One tip for getting the snowflakes to be flat: iron them on a low-setting between two sheets of paper.
Fun!
So last night, I finished the first of the many art projects I’ll be working on in the coming months and (hopefully) years. This one below I painted for my Mom for Christmas – it is a quote by Thomas Jefferson, and well, she is a book hound. I’m planning a few others for gifts and what not, fingers crossed that I can get them done in time!
Here’s a short story about what this is all about: I had an epiphany about a month ago – that I really, really needed to get back into art! You see, I was an artist my entire life and planned on either being an illustrator or cartoonist as a profession, but dropped art in my late teens/early 20s, sometime around the birth of my online life (har har). I’m a creative person at heart and painting/drawing really soothes my soul (bow chicka wow wow) in a way a laptop cannot. So, I decided to freshen up my old art supplies and try my hand at painting on wood this time instead of canvas. Not knowing what I was doing, I bought some random cuts of poplar at Home Depot and some primer at the art supply store and went at it with the acrylics. Well, I REALLY like it! I have another pretty, smaller piece I recently made – it is painted black and has “live * laugh * love” written in cursive in gold leaf, it’s hanging up in my living room but I can’t share the photos with you because they are on Julian’s black hole of a memory card in his expensive and scrumdiddlyumptious camera.
Anyway, I thought it might be fun to make prints of these and sell them on Etsy, donating the proceeds to charity. Heck, I might even sell originals too. What do you think? Would you buy a print of this for charity? I’ll post more, higher resolution photos as I finish them, and you can grade those, too. My own little judging pool. So cute.
Now tell me what you think!!
One of the things I love the most about writing this blog is choosing the photos that I use in the posts. Sometimes I search for a specific item or “look”, sometimes I use a photo from my personal collection, but I always, always bookmark photos that I happen upon (most of the time on Flickr) in hopes of finding a perfect use for them in a future blog post. After seeing a pretty mosaic from one of my favorite bloggers (also named Sara) on Walk Slowly Live Wildly, I figure there is no harm in having an entire post devoted to some of my favorite photos I’ve found recently. It’s quite hilarious that I’m so obsessed because I am actually a pretty horrid photographer – just WAIT til you see the pics from our road trip.
Many of these are Christmas-themed, because I am oh-so-excited about my favorite time of year arriving. I’ve already hung white lights on my balcony, lit a gigantor-sized Yankee candle in the holiday scent and clocked over 10 hours (easy) of Christmas-music-listening… bring on the Christmas cookie baking, holiday shopping, countless parties, phone calls back home and non-stop holiday movies (I’ve already made a pact with Julian to watch only Christmas movies in December. Shouldn’t be hard to do. We started A Christmas Story Monday night because my lame self has never seen it…)
Weren’t I going to post photos in this post? Here they are:
1. our Christmas gift wrapping table 2006!, 2. Vintage Holiday , 3. I *heart* Christmas, 4. Sofa (nd) of Christmas!, 5. Reflecting, 6. Pink Heaven, 7. 005, 8. The Tree’s Up, 9. | s i l l y b o k e h |, 10. Tis the Season, 11. my magic Christmas bicycle………, 12. The dollhouse at Christmas, 13. Mossy’s masterpiece – Christmas cupcake toppers – Baby Girl’s first christmas, 14. christmas cookies 109, 15. shiny brite ornaments
What excites you the most about Christmas? And – whose wonderful photos do I need to see that I’m currently missing?
I just realized I don’t know what I look like. My Mom and Aunt posted cartoon photos of themselves, and being the narcissist procrastinator that I am, I got distracted and couldn’t help myself from trying to create my own. As I discovered, it’s REALLY hard! I learned today for example that not only do I not know what my nose looks like, but that I’m not quite sure what color my hair is either, or what kind of bone structure I have.
These things are always kind of embarrassing to post because you always wonder “Do I really look like this, or am I severely over-estimating my looks? Am I worse looking than this? Will everyone think that I think I’m super hot when in reality, I’m just average?” Hahaha, I’m cracking myself up.
Truthfully I don’t care, and I think it’s just fun. Plus, those cat ears are awesome! You should all try making one and then post a link.
P.S. Whatever you do, DON’T add the toolbar for this thing, I accidentally did and now I’ve got this hideous thing across the top of my browser, and I can’t figure out how to get it off naturally.
P.P.S. I promise I don’t have this much time on my hands… it’s just… well, it’s Friday, and the entire office is cooking Oktoberfest dishes in crock pots and drinking beer (or at least they will be soon). It’s just one of those days.
P.P.P.S. Don’t you think I deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for this?
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