sweetness

does it get any sweeter than this? my niece and nephew holding hands on the jersey shore... my word.

i'll likely be posting this long weekend but just in case you're not around have a good one and get out and enjoy the heat if you're in SF! i'm headed to the lake!

DNC street art

The Denver Egotist has been blogging all of the street art he's been seeing in town for the DNC. This is one of my faves so far.

well loved

i don't make duct tape wallets nearly as much as i used to. barely ever actually. long ago are the days of me staying up until the wee hours of the night pumping out wallet after wallet. it was part fun and part industrious and mostly i think i just loved the rhythm i would fall into after hours of making the things, picking out the colors and images, lining them all up and running them through the sewing machine. i always loved seeing them packed together and ready to go out into the world.


one of my favorite things is being somewhere and having someone-- a stranger or friend-- pull out a wallet i had made long ago. it's happened at bars, craft fairs, and once even on BART when the girl sitting next to me heard me talking about making my wallets. i love how the wallets all show their own signs of wear, they always look so well loved and there's just something so neat about being able to view what you created years after it's been used.


this is randy's wallet. when he was in town this weekend visiting from LA and pulled it out of his pocket after dinner i did a double take. i made him this wallet 5 years ago. i couldn't even believe he still had it and used it on a daily basis. when i questioned him about it he told me how perfect it was and how much he loved it in it's current state. people comment on it all the time he said and we all joked how no one would bother to steal a wallet that looked like his. it's been a long while but i'm busting out my duct tape to make randy a long needed replacement.. maybe i'll send two this time so he has a back up.

favorite things from the weekend..

..this letter i received from rebecca. oh how i love mail, and not just a 'note' but a nice long juicey letter complete with lists and and ramblings it made me so happy. so many people are leaving this city which is sad but also offers up new places to visit and a chance for more letter writing.


Eli's horses which he has been collecting since he was a kid. He has 22, 19 of them are originals from when he was little the other 3 he found on ebay to complete the collection. it's the first thing you notice when you enter his house, all these fantastic horses lining the wall. he's leaving this city too so i'm glad i got to snap some pictures of these guys before they head off to portland.

tofu for Obama

ummmm. hello? could this get any cuter? Chris Creatures created this amazing little Tofu for Obama Plush. i'm totally with the tofu.

Venus Zine craft-off contest

I've always wanted to enter this but have never gotten it together in time.. more details here.


Also if you're in SF this week be sure to head over to the RockMake Festival.. something else I just couldn't pull it together to do! It should be a great event with tons of local bands and crafters.

what's right in front of you. . .

sometimes i have a problem not seeing what's right in front of me. i mean that both literally and figuratively. the other night in the kitchen with JJ i couldn't find the wine opener. i opened all of the drawers, looked in every room of the house, texted my roommates, and was about to bother my neighbor for his when JJ got up, looked in one place and said 'it's right here'. you know when you make an assumption about something and you just believe it so much you don't see anything that's proving it wrong?


that seems to be a reoccurring theme this week. a few weeks ago i went out with a boy and during the night he had a mission to take our photos in a photo booth.. as soon as they popped out of the machine i took a look than he quickly stuffed them in his pocket. i thought that was cute. weeks after that night, after a lot of bad had transpired between us I thought about those photos and how they remained somewhere as evidence of something. a moment in time, a freeze frame of us at the height of anticipation and of course I wondered where they were, what he did with them, why he stuffed them in his pocket so quickly.

last night i came home and upon opening the fridge i saw a strip of photos. let me preface this by saying a few months back i cleared the fridge of all the junk it had been gathering for years, old photos, worn magnets, pieces of paper that had long lost their meaning-- all that remained was a new set of photo magnets a friend had given me. than i noticed the photo booth pictures. they were from that night and were held on the fridge with my friends magnets. three frames were hung the one with us kissing in it was gingerly torn out. at first i freaked out and wondered how he had gotten in the house to put those photos up but than Alison said they had been there for weeks. how had i never noticed them?

a sign

I've recently developed a thing for collecting anything with zodiac signs on them. So when I saw these pint glasses that Joy Deangdeelert Cho designed for Urban I found my next internet purchase. I especially love the definitions of the signs on the back of each glass. Read them all and buy your own here.

yearbook me

i resisted and resisted but when a co-worker sent this link to yearbook yourself today i finally caved. it's pretty fun. and i really like that hair on me.

blogging around

Before I left for Vegas I did a major clean and reorganization of the craft room and I think I need this hookmaker from Curiosity Shoppe to complete my new tidy space.

Elsa Mora has some great quotes on her blog today. one of my favorites: To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. - Elbert Hubbard

This weekend I plan on going to the farmers market and doing a lot of cooking. And I wouldn't mind an excuse to make these roasted ricotta tomatoes from the pioneer woman cooks.

I loved this postcard from Post Secret, I communicate with my cat all the time through winks and I swear he understands me.

jack has good taste

or maybe he's sitting on my bag so i don't go anywhere.

vacation all i ever wanted (redux)

.............heat heat heat........................................................


.............cooling off..................................................................


...........getting ready.............................................................


...............the happy couple....................................................

vegas vacation

i'm off to vegas for wedding #3, not mine-- although that would probably make for a much more interesting blog. it's currently in the 90's in vegas so lots of pool time waits for me. bring on the air conditioned palm trees! !

morning jazz

saturday morning as i was waking up and getting ready to start my day i heard some sweet jazz coming from outside. i didn't pay too much attention to it at first but as it went on i thought to look out my window as it sounded pretty close. and there was this man, playing on a what i think was a saxaphone, it was hard to see from my view. i have no idea why he was on my corner, as there isn't a ton of foot traffic, but i felt pretty lucky to have such a sweet soundtrack start my day.

for jennifer

this is for you.

for me this year has been filled with lots of big events. starting off with my grandfather passing away in january. four close friends have gotten or will be getting married, i have been to countless baby showers and just recently my great aunt (who i get my middle name from) passed away. so much birth, death and marriage around me this year. maybe it's just a reminder that i'm getting older and life is moving along. maybe you just notice these things more as you creep deeper into your 30's. amidst all the big things i'm taking more stock in the small things ... my cat curled up against me each morning when i wake, the countless times during the week i look around and am surrounded by amazing friends who make my belly hurt from too much laughter, the pleasure in a spiked coffee after a good long meal, this city even though it's hijacked summer from us.

i've been thinking about how to write of all the big things but i don't really know how to yet. i just know they're what makes my life richer...and i feel pretty lucky to be a part of it all.

walls and windows

going downtown on weekends is something i try to avoid, especially at the height of the summer when tourists abound. but what a pleasant trip it turned out to be this sunday.


i've always been a big fan of Anthropologie's window displays, and this one using old books and pages just got me. i tried taking a photo from inside the store and got yelled at, i pretended i was an unknowing tourist and promotly went outside to snap a couple more. the reflection in this one is pretty bad but i love how you can see the girl that told me not to take pictures looking out at me.


who would have thought that i would have run into some friends downtown on a sunday, but lucky for me i did and after some shopping we sipped on some cheap margaritas at the Gold Dust- the only redeeming place on Powell street.

some more street art from the weekend.