sunday was where it was at

sunday was beautiful! so beautiful that i had to wear a sunshine-y dress. i was so happy to visit my friend heather and her brand new, just hatched most adorable baby boy in the hospital. i always forget how tiny newborns are...so seemingly fragile and just impossibly amazing. his name is dashiell a name that i love because it is french, it is unique and it is oldy timey.
after my visit, greg and i decided to take marshall up the hill for a hike. i don't normally wear a dress or jewelry when hiking(nor do i carry a vintage bag, but i needed it for the camera) but in my defense, i had just watched 'picnic at hanging rock' the night before and felt inspired by lasses hitting the foothills in their frocks and i was wearing converse.
i also managed to save a drowning bee from some hooligans who were too idiotic to just scoop it out of the rock fountain. there were cheers of "ohhhh she's brave" to which i replied"hmph my father raises bees." they found this impressive and really my dad only just started with bees and is still in the "learning" phase. mostly greg and i figured that the hooligans just wanted the old folks to move along so that they could smoke pot. oh to be young in the summertime...

saturday

saturday was chilled and misty and made for sitting on the couch and finishing a book. also i made a sort of french peasant stew(no pics, i have yet to figure out the fine art of food styling and my indoor lighting sucks when it isn't sunny) and snuggled with the dog.

friday

friday was nice with a walk to the cafe for some apple juice, some goofing in a phone booth and the videostore...

bambino

this is my first little baby from the garden. sweet little lemon cucumber, how lovely you will taste sliced with some feta and sardines...

standin' in the shadow of the stinkiest flower ever

yeah, i know the shadow picture is kind of played and not so artful, yet i kinda like it. except that i look a little hippy. not hippie as in patchouli wearing, but wide, but i was carrying a big ol' purse and wearing a cardigan and it is an exagerated shadow and...anyhoo, sorry for the hip rant, greg and i went to see the very rare corpse flower. actually, we smelled it waaaaay before we saw it.
it did smell gross. but not like two day old cantelope rind in the garbage can gross or like my cousin russell's week old feet migraine inducing gross. it was a damp and musty and sickly sweet odor that permeated the air and zapped our nostrils. it was most incredible to take in(rare too) the last time one flowered at the huntington was in 2001. i should add that it was difficult to get a clear picture, because old folks were literally jumping in the way of the camera to get a closer look.

check your head

this is a little summer straw cloche that i am working on. the vintage straw has been repurposed from a crap 80's sort of bridal hat that i found at the thrift store. i just reblocked it with a little steam love and separated and reshaped the brim. i sized the crown with my handy dandy gelatin sizing and voila! i'm leaving the brim unwired to give it a softer shape. it is still kinda mid process and the velvet ribbon will actually go around the exterior of the crown(not just the front, i was feeling lazy for pics). i heart it so. but i may want to list it in my shop. my goal(dare i talk about goals???) errrrr my dream is to do more projects like this ie. repurposing sad and unloved vintage millinery and breathing new life into them. i have another smooshed up old beater that i am just starting to play with. is beater a word? did i make that up??? i think it actually means junky car, but whatevah. k, i'm off to pollinate my squash plants. oh don't mind the self-portrait, that was thrown in for good measure.

sunshine

photo by me
ha! the "sun" in sunny southern california is finally returning. i knew it couldn't be much longer. i love the grey and all, but it has been pretty chilly. mostly i know that my garden needs some helio motivation. supah shout out to Ben in bucolic Lutterworth(UK) for sending me a zip file full of photos from my first european journey. I should have known that you would have them...my hero for the week! Cheers!!!

a little swap...

i participated in a secret friend summer swap this week. the idea was masterminded by the talented and inspirational nadia. i think that there were about forty of us participating from parts near and far across the globe. the plan was to put together a mix cd, a couple of postcards(one with a favorite quote written on the back), and a little something extra of our own choosing for good measure. she would randomly give names to people and it is all rather anonymous. nadia gave us links to that person's blog and their mailing address and that is it! the rest was up to us and the postal service. the odd thing was that i put together from my giftee's blog that we had a mutual friend. in fact, someone who is very dear to my heart (of years past when i lived in the south). so what a lovely small yet absolutely freaking crazy ass large world we live in...so very random. i hope that my person likes her things. one card i made and the other is from a trip to paris several years back. i made the earrings which are vintage beads and sterling findings...the music is...well, one never knows how one's musical taste will be received. cheers!!!

the day the pictures stopped

this is a subject that i am not fond of...the day that all photographic records of my european travels were lost. there were hundreds of them. parisian doorways, an english country church, a glaswegian cemetary, self portraits of swinging high above the grounds at the carnival outside the louvre. i cried once i realized that my little ibook had deleted them at the hands of my own folly. anyway this was about three years ago and it has been hard for me to pick a camera back up with the same vigor and vim. that is one of the reasons that i wanted to start a blog...to wake up my dormant photographic eye. i'm trying!
the three pictures above are all that is left from the deleted photos. i had stuffed them into photobucket back in the friendster days. it makes me a little crazy that i can't enlarge them any more than they are because they are but copies of the originals.
p.s. one of the lipstick kisses on oscar wilde's grave stone is my own...

circus~y

all pictures were taken in the shop today...
i was bored and needed a break from bingeing on atomic fireball candy. i've had circus on the brain for the past few days. it started last friday when i caught sight of a big red and white striped tent going up in a field. the wind was blowing and the clouds tumbled a bruised grey over the foothills.

dream...

i want to live here. period. it is southern gothic at it's best.
i look at my own small apartment in sunny california and sigh...
images are from the blog beauty everyday located here.

weekend

my weekend was filled with thrift stores, shop updates, music, strong coffee, and the pasadena flea market with a friend. i fell in love with the mirror in the top picture. i have been telling people that i stole it from the palace at versailles(re-watched Marie Antoinette last week....guilty pleasure).
greg and i are now hooked into True Blood. we don't have cable so we are patiently waiting for the dvds to trickle into the video store. i want the books now too.i hate to admit it, but i am a sucker(ba-dump-bump) for vampires and sultry southern towns with sketchy inhabitants.

little baby smershalls...

under the sea...

i just remembered these pics while i was watching a shark show on PBS. i took them at the monterey bay aquarium last summer.
floating tendrilly blobs of coloured gelatinous goo.
i could have watched them for hours.
~i ate four of greg's freaking amazing cookies

untitled

lower photo by lara jade
june gloom is upon me. my fingers and toes are chilled and i wish that i had a big mug of cocoa and a fire to curl up in front of...or at least a fancy umbrella. please note that anyone reading this outside of southern california will just not understand.

luckily G has whipped up some chocolate chip cookie love.

i've always been a closet anarchist...

photo courtesy of apartment therapy
guerrilla gardening...check it out here.

nice...

last week was new shoe week... the black ones are from miz mooz and the sandals are bandolino.
i have honestly never worn sandals like this, but i am digging them(and not because the kooky lady at macy's said that they looked sexy). in reality errr the reality of last weekend, i let my sister jessie talk me into wearing them to the zoo. it rained. i had "zoo feet" the exotic cousin of "7-11 feet." this is the story that i shared with my boss today after she complimented them. i think i amuse her.

i can't get enough of this song...

some things...

i like to do paper cuts. they make me smile. i did these a few months ago.
another thing that makes me smile is ye olde thrift store. i have a special favorite.
it is unorganized. one time an old timer chatted me up about a copper embossed painting of san francisco. i think that he was the root of a dirty diaper smell that was wafting throughout the aisles. while on another day a geezer in wrap around sunglasses tried to get my opinion on a crusty juicer and my phone number in the same sentence. but...they do play some toe-tappin' tunes and if you look past the rubble heap of the housewares area, there are treasures to be found. my most recent most cherished find is "mary under convex glass with ooooold wooden frame." i have a very similar version of this immaculate heart tattooed on my right arm. it was kismet that i found her...lucky me!