monday dose of Inspiration: Lobster & Swan

I think I want to join the ranks of giving you (and me) something to look forward to on a weekly basis. What better day than Monday: blah, back to the whole week ahead Monday? Soooo... I'll post each Monday about a blog or site or something out there beyond all of us, that so thoroughly inspires it might make Monday seem like a day to look forward to and maybe even brighten the whole week? Here is my first installation of my new self-proclaimed monday dose. And then there was...

all photos by/from Lobster & Swan

I am always late to the party. Maybe this awe-inspiring blog isn't news: I depend so much on you to introduce me to new things and new places to go on this here interwebs, but sometimes things just get past me. This morning while tossing about avoiding all responsibility, I finally visited Lobster & Swan, which I had heard of and passed in comment-land but never actually visited (bad me). Now I've just spent over an hour perusing her beautiful photos and installations and artistic ways of doing just about everything...I am so inspired by her aesthetic and now, while I'm thinking of fresh display ideas for my stand in Paris (like Custer's Last), she has put my mind at ease with just how simple beauty can be strung along...merci, L & S for inspiring my first monday dose!

Bonbon Rocks the Kasbah

photo by Elizabeth Wix

Hey, Valentine's Day: We just booked a ticket to Marrakech...we leave from Paris after the show. It's a place I've always wanted to go and now...we are going. 

How lucky to have Elizabeth and Maryam to inspire us many times over and more serendipitous still that my brother just published this book by Richard Bangs, a companion to his PBS series Quest for the Kasbah. I can barely breathe.

Happy Valentine's Day

 these.

Wishing you a sweet day of heart shaped filters on everything, doing something nice for yourself, some pretty things, maybe a little romance...

Valentine's Day for the past 2 years has been a stressful day since my countdown to Paris officially begins. Jim always helps melt that away...

This year, I think I've almost got it. 

a green valentine

(It's climbing all over my apartment)

A sweet friend met via blogland -- I know I've gushed about her before but I just can't help it--I am so happy to see her beautiful photos or poetry and when she writes, I'm always so inspired by her loveliness. She sent me a wonderful package over the holidays, filled with beautiful thoughtful things, her own handmade earrings and a book I can't wait to use in Paris...and this little can...
I opened it in January, gave it a little water and took a picture of it each day. It's such a lovely gifty and sweet symbol of friendship, to nurture it and watch it grow and grow...Thank you Nadia...

The Meaning of Flowers

by Jason Logan

Loving this lesson on "floriography" from today's NY Times. Happy almost Valentine's Day.

A Wartime Valentine Story

I'm really involved in other people's love lives. I talk to significant others all day for about two weeks straight about the perfect Valentine--I do really adore being in on the surprise...I get weak in the knees being around so much Valentine Love. I'm a helpless romantic it's been proven. But this Valentine had me awestruck for some reason...

Kevin wrote to me two weeks ago about a Valentine for his fiancée. We exchanged a few mails about the Pheasant Necklace, this year's favoritist piece it seems, which he knew he wanted (because his girl sent him the link and said "this is what I want!" Right on sister! Get what you want!) but he wasn't sure where he wanted it sent. ..and then this:

Deborah, Thanks so much for the quick response. Is it possible to ship to an APO address? My fiancée is currently deployed to Iraq, and I think it would be even better for her to get the necklace there than to wait until she's home. Kevin

And then, (because I need his billing address as well)...
I am also deployed right now (sadly, not to the same location) and my current address is:
etc.
etc.
etc.
We all got really choked up that day. None of us could explain it, but we had a moment of silence and took a collective deep breath. It made the stress I feel here seem somehow trivial and inconsequential.

He sent me this picture today of her, Katherine--she took it to let him know she got his Valentine and then he sent it to me to let me know she got it too.
So while I'm involved in an abstract sense in other people's love lives, this one made me appreciate the power of love even more and, more than ever, to wish all my strongest wishes across the oceans to them for their safety and for them to come home soon.

Captain Katherine, in her bonbon

last minute valentines

I'm babysitting tonight for my pal Namiko. I think we're going to make valentines, but I really would love to give (O.K. get) one of these--anything red or pinky and as swell as any of the following will do:

Valentinish in my estimation. These are by Betsy Walton via Morning Craft:

or hadley hutton (mix and match Valentine's prints--it's not just love here--I am in love):



From lab partners in San Francisco, cute for someone little (and 100% of the proceeds from this little guy is sent to the Uganda Village Project Scholarship Fund...what better way to show love and then more love?):


Total beautiful sweetness from susyjack*:



and downloadable(!) adorableness from little brown pen:


and then of course, when "you care enough to hit send" there's some e cards:




In the meantime, I'm busting out the doilies and glitter tonight and painting some cards red.

Namiko

The Chosen Ones

The postcards have been chosen:



And the Le Showroom catalog and website shots as well...(it will be up this afternoon!), chosen:





I wanted it to tell the story of the collection but to add a little intrigue as well...

The rejects were so sad to leave---there were so many stories I could have told.
Here are two that broke my heart to leave out but...too many choices.

Jim Knudsen is a damn good photographer if you ask me...so good it's taken me two weeks to pick out photos...