Cannelle et Vanille + Escape from the Meringue Crevasse

I'm entering the world of google reader so I have a place to keep straight all the blogs that I sometimes read. When I get organized, I'll clean up my blog links here so that I only include those that I really read a lot.

I wanted to pitch this lovely food blog, Cannelle et Vanille, which has some of the prettiest food photography I've seen. It got me wanting to figure out how to set up a light box myself.

And then I remembered another food blog, Omnomicon, which is both funny and has beautiful pictures, and the post I read a long time ago about how to take nice food pictures. It has some really helpful advice about light balances and f-stops and so on that I attempted to employ when I made some little mountain climbers to climb into the crevasse in the lemon meringue pie that my roommate made.

Isn't it awesome? I spent a lot of time taking pictures of it, so perhaps I can dig the better ones out soon.

Never Again

Along the lines of the earlier post about typefaces we once loved:
I'm so embarrassed, I used to LOVE papyrus. Photo by Becka Knight of Studio222, via Riflemade blog <-- (which I love), and it was made at Lure Design Studio.

Inchmark

We were reading blogs instead of working today, and via Cup of Jo came across Inchmark, and we've now added it to "list of people we hate because they are too creative and how do they have time to make all that adorable stuff while we have to work on a Saturday." This woman, Brooke, used to be art director for Martha Stewart Living and then Martha Stewart Kids, and now she's a book designer & mom. Her children's birthday parties & valentines & Christmas presents are incredible, it's almost offensive to the rest of us.

(I don't use "we" in the "royal we" but rather, me & my co-worker)

Duo Blog

Stumbled on a cute blog, Duo, with lots of ideas about how to reuse stuff. They have a nice balance between re-purposing ideas that strike me as kinda obvious, like use beer bottles and glass jars as vases and candle holders, and research about sustainable products that you might not think of buying eco-friendly, like eyeglasses and leather shoes.

Also, I love glass jars. They are among my favorite things.

Listening, Watching, Reading, Wearing, Wanting

Listening: I got this video of some peep-looking robot dancing to Spoon's "I Turn my Camera on" from No Good for Me, which it's clear that I'm obsessed with, but I also can't get enough of this song. I've been spending a lot of time in the lab & in the library, so it's my jam.

Watching: A friend at work just told me about Chatroullette, and I am both alarmed and intrigued. I bought a new computer yesterday, and it has a webcam. I can't wait until it comes so I can resist the temptation to get on Chatroullette. She was like, "I can't believe you've never heard of it! Where have you been?" It's quite nice under my rock, actually. Out of the rain.

Reading: nothing, I don't read, I'm too burnt out reading for school. A couple weeks ago though we went to Filter & I sat in the boiling hot sunshine and caught up on all the articles I'd been putting off, and it was fabulous.

Wearing: "it's like a sexy version of Minnie Mouse" except with two pairs of tights and my grandma's old boots and an old thrift-store navy hoodie + this year's favored winter accessories

Wanting: to be out in the sunshine, for my final papers to write themselves, to go pick up the clay beads and birds that I made last night at a friend's house and to string them on some red library string, and to show off the pots that I finally got glazed from my pottery class last spring.

National Women's Month

I no longer know where I found this photo, but I just love the expression on her face. For no other reason other than it looks like photo of a woman looking resolute and smiling and awesome, perhaps doing a difficult job in a "man's world," I give you a quote by Lady Gaga:

"Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore."

Procrastination

“Distractivity is what you’re doing when you get distracted from what you should be doing. It’s generally what you want to do, often what you need to do, and arguably, what you’ll do best.”
-John Goodman from Distractivity
“The work you do while you procrastinate is the work you should be doing for the rest of your life”
-Jessice Hische, whose funny blog includes this funny graphic about the evolution of her taste in typefonts, full size image here
both via swiss-miss

Well, that's all nice for creative folks, but that's kind of like saying I should abandon my difficult but arguably useful career and what, read design blogs for a living? Bake? Write emails to my friends? Arrange and re-arrange furniture, sew clothes, clean? Please. Even if I thought I should be a designer, what about the part of me that cares about social justice and doesn't believe in accumulating more stuff, no matter how well-designed or fashion-forward it may be?

Random Music Videos

I don't remember where I came across this video, but I also like the version of the song by Eydie Gorme.

I'm trying to remember a video I dimly recall as a French young woman singing a 60s American pop song, in French. She was terrible but it was somehow so very cute and endearing.

Also, nothing can compete with how cute this video is.

Hedgehog in the Fog

My friend Claire is doing a project on Soviet children's books, and she sent me this incredible animation by 1970s Soviet illustrator Yuri Norstein. It's so good!
Also, Claire is super-smart. I hadn't looked at her blog in awhile, and wow, she is so cool. I think you forget, when you are having dinner with your cute friend and talking about boyfriends, that she speaks like 4 languages and is probably going to be a professor.

My roommate showed me this video, it rules.

Girl Crush

This is from Bakerby, I think it is the blogger herself, Cecilie, she lives in Copenhagen and is 18.

She has a really nice blog and takes good photos, but really I was just floored by how beautiful she is. Scandinavia looks like a nice place!

Stripes for Spring

Here is my mom circa 1983 wearing an awesome striped dress, holding my baby cousin. Nice hair, mom.

Fact: blog world is obsessed with striped stuff, especially blue & white or gray & white. Good thing my family is way ahead of that curve.

Example: this striped French shirt from etsy seller modaspia, found via Cup of Jo.

Joanna Goddard thinks it's a french thing, and real-life French babe Garance Dore agrees.

This picture caught my eye on Cup of Jo, and it is from the early days (July 2008) of The Selby.