Stenciling Parties in SF this week!

Last minute I know but if you're in San Francisco hope you can make it to one of these fun parties to celebrate the release of Stencil 101!

This event is on Saturday 1/31 from 1-3pm at Cliffs in the Castro:

And this one is this Thursday at the Chronicle Books store on Union Street in the Marina:

you got a problem with Jersey?

On my way to work today I noticed a section of the paper face up on the ground about 5 feet from my office. Normally I wouldn't pause but the bright block of colors on the page was reminiscent of the shape of my home state. Sure enough at closer inspection it was an article from the Arts & Culture section of the Wall Street Journal titled, The Hidden State of Culture. The article focuses on all of the talented folk who hail from the great state of New Jersey. I haven't even read it all the way through yet.. but I had to share, take that New York! I only wish they had made Tom Cruise's head a little smaller.

remodeling...

What do you think? I wanted to brighten things up around here and yellow was calling out to me. Next up I want to actually add a real banner, but we'll see if I do that anytime soon. Is it too bright now?
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Nancy told me about Coraline a while back and I meant to post about it long ago, it opens february 6th and I'm looking forward to seeing it, mostly for the button eyed people and crafty looking elements. The clever marketers for the movie sent bloggers these neat handmade boxes that also appear in the movie.

50 people 1 question

i love these videos, the dreamy quality they have and they way they make everyone in them look so beautiful.. .

Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn from Crush + Lovely on Vimeo.

via swiss miss

YES!

many more on flickr here.

photo above by flickr user nocturnae.

words for a new year.. .

i love both of these quotes:




via swiss miss.

happy friday friends.

This is just about the sweetest thing I've ever seen. An elephant and a dog, best friends, so awesome.

it's a small world

chris recently told me about tilt shift photography-- maybe i'm the last one to this party, but i love this effect. a special lens and tilt of the camera makes real life size things look like doll house furniture. this explains it a lot better.





london by cloudsoup
toy bridge by darktiger
sf city hall by envios
eiffel tilt shift by anarbi

seal it and send it

One of my new years resolutions is to not just remember the birthdays of those I love but to also send cards. I've been carrying around this cute little organizer so I can pull it out when ever I need to record friends & family members birthdays. I like this resolution because it feels attainable. My other resolution is to judge less. Try that-- it's harder than you think although we'd all be better off if we practiced this.

In order to help me stay true to my resolution I've had to make sure I have plenty of cards on hand. And I've been taking some time to pick out new cards I love. Lucky for me the designer of one of my favorite card lines, 8mm ideas, is a good friend and she always arms me with lots of her fantastic designs. I'm looking forward to seeing the new cards Molly will be making for the Stationery Show this Spring. I stocked up on Hello Lucky cards at the book event we held at their studio in December, I love their simple and fresh look and no matter how much it's out there now I'll always be a sucker for letter press.

I would be thrilled to receive one of these Hammer Press cards on my birthday, a greeting you'll want to frame. I love the layers and layers they print.
Of course if I get really lazy there's always someecards.. would that be cheating?

converted 747

converted into a hotel that is. man i love those Swedes.

via Wired where you can read a full piece on the details of this clever project.

Orla Kiely for Target!

I've drooled over Orla Kiely's designs for so long and I kind of want everything I've seen from her housewares line for Target. Her line goes on sale in February, and I have a feeling it will sell out awfully fast.


via apartment therapy.

listen to this

You know those people you have in your life who are always telling you about things long before everyone else is listening, wearing, reading, watching said thing? My friend Jennifer is that person for me. When I told her the other day that I was recently obsessed with a band called bon iver she shot me an angry look. Jennifer reminded me that she had sent me a link to bon iver urging me to give a listen and saying we should buy tickets to his upcoming show in SF, that was a year ago. Oops! I should have listened to her back than. Among my other few resolutions this year one of them is to pay attention to what Jennifer is loving, cause chances are I will too. She's done a round up of her favorite songs from 2008, with videos and links so you can study up too, find it here.

One of the people she lists is Kristian Matsson who is in many bands but for his solo work goes by the tallest man on earth. Jennifer insisted I listen to him last night and called him the Swedish Dylan, i like him very much.. maybe you will too, that Jennifer's got good taste.

this is fiction

When I was in Jersey my mom gave me a copy of The Good Life by Jay McInerney, it's a well written book with a story that sucks you right in. After reading it I was hungry for more of McInerney's prose and decided to go all the way back to his first novel Bright Lights Big City, a book I never read but held the faint memory of the movie and Michael J Fox playing a somewhat unbelievable young coke addict in NY. I could have finished this book in a day but I loved it so much I drew it out over a week. Bright Lights is written entirely in the second person, not a common narrative for writers to use. The voice of the narrator would run circles in my head as I fell asleep reading this past week and I had visions of writing a story in second person, instead I wrote the bit below which was completely inspired by that 1980's novel.

Fog
You love this city but you realize now that you need to leave it. You need to leave it before you get too old and too tired and fall into the rhythm of complacency and comfort that all of your friends seem to be sliding into. You are aware that you hate them for this, for the ease in which they move in and out of relationships as comfortably as moving into a new apartment, which seems difficult at first but once everything is in boxes is really quite simple. They always hire movers and you resent them for that. You love them but you also hate them for putting friendship after new relationship, even though you would likely do the same, you like to think you wouldn’t, that you would remember the years of friendship like battle scars, that you would be eternally grateful for the times they sat and comforted your crying ass, that you would never forget. And maybe they don’t, but it feels like they do and it makes you want to disappear, not die, but just fade away from the background, like leaving a party without saying goodbye. You think they will appreciate you more when you are gone. So you decide to move. You pack your things and you leave in the quiet of the night. When the plane takes off it is a good ten minutes before you can see anything. The city is wrapped in a fog like someone is protecting it from the cold. You see nothing. And there is a moment when you picture the plane exploding, the air traffic controller has looked away, it’s a split second but the smell of Louise has distracted him, it’s her new perfume, the scent fills the room when she shakes her head hard at a good joke, she doesn’t laugh, just moves her head back and forth, back and forth, and of course you would die as a consequence of someone else’s lust, that’s just how it’s been going these last few years. But the plane is steady and you fly above the city while it is entrenched in fog and you love flying over the city when you can’t see it, it’s as of that big white cloud is keeping it hidden like a secret. You can’t see it from this high above and it can’t see you and it’s just as well because you wouldn’t know how to give it a proper goodbye anyway.

breafast club

how appropriate i saw this while eating cereal. via ad freak. full poster at ironic sans.

this won't help your new years resolutions...

happy new year! i am very tired and very ready to get back to san francisco! i spent new years on shelter island ny with one of my oldest friends and since it was 50 degrees on sunday i didn't think i would need my winter coat. i forgot winter happens here and i was ill prepared for the blizzard we got new years eve, dumping about five inches of snow and turning the roads into blocks of ice. it was great to be in a snow storm but man i wasn't prepared for that weather!


i'm ready for san francisco winter, and am eager to try this new ice cream place i just read about over on beer & nosh. humphry slocombe just opened up an Harrison and 24th and offers some delicious sounding flavors of homemade ice cream, including honey thyme, peanut butter curry, and white chocolate lavendar.

san francisco, the perfect city for ice cream all year round, bring it!