Paris in a Day

I was in Europe over Thanksgiving weekend, and was able to spend a day in Paris.  We had planned on finding a place to stay and seeing the sights ourselves, but luckily met up with some friends who put us up and took us around from a local's point of view: the best way to do paris in a day.  

First they fed us a breakfast of café, croissants, baguettes with butter and jam.  It was so good; the croissants were still warm from the oven, and we met her parisian kitty, Gatto.  We saw Sacre Coeur, Arc de Triumph, the Seine, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, multiple carousels that day.  We drank wine, met firemen, went vintage shopping (more on that later) and made some wonderful friends and then proceeded to stay up very late into the night getting to know all of them. This weekend was a very good one.

 Feeding the sparrows outside of Notre Dame might have been the highlight of my whole day.  They will alight on your hand if you hold a piece of white bread between your fingers, but you have to beware of the pigeons which are not quite as cute as the sparrows.

Paris at night

Saying goodbye from the plane the next morning.

To Paris

I hope everyone has a great thanksgiving! I know I will!

Banners and Bust!

We were asked to make a small banner for the Bust Craftacular vendor's page.  I'm very happy with ours, and now I know how easy it is to make animated gifs in photoshop!

You can view everyone's banner here. Can you find ours?

City and Green

I love these rooftop gardens. Sometimes it's hard to get direct sun here; our poor little garden suffered from too much shade this summer--but there's always sun on the roof.  It is kind of surprising how much green there is above the city and it makes me happy to see the gardens, even if I can't visit them.

The Guggenheim

Justin took the camera to work the other day, and it came back with these photos.  I like them.

My Favorite Place

Some of my new favorites from trash beach.

We are so Excited!

Mark your calendars now: Saturday, December 4th at 3rd Ward, and Sunday, December 12th at the Metropolitan Pavilion for the Bust Craftacular!

These are both very big shows for us, and we'll be busy busy until then--so come see us!

Living Downtown

I have a great friend that just moved away...but this is where she lived while here. I like the simple, uncluttered space, the circles on the red chair, the color palette, the views, and did you notice the bottles in the first photo? She has a blog, too- check it out here!

It's so Fall

The squirrels are all out, stocking up on food for the winter. Every time I go out, I run into a squirrel who is looking at me warily, wondering if I'm about to drop some food.  I'm a huge rodent fan, so I think it's cute!

Ancient Jewelry

Some of my favorite pieces of at the Met are in the Roman, Etruscan, and Greek jewelry collections.  The simple, hand forged earrings and rings with rock crystal (I love all the rock crystal!), agate and other polished stones always make me want to go straight home and hammer some metal.  Everything is technologically simple, but also has a  beautiful sophistication, and of course, I'm always enamored with the immense volume of gold in the collections! 

Here's that elegant and simple construction

Look at all the gold!

I love these earrings. 

There are a lot of earrings and rings with animal heads: rams, dogs, dolphins, lions.   

Three Treasuries

We've been lucky enough lately to be included in some incredibly beautiful collections on etsy's treasuries.   I'm so in love with some of these pieces (and I'm not talking about ours!)

I love this necklace, this painting, and these earrings

Origami porcelain figurines! and chalkboard silver trays!

But this treasury is really my favorite.  I like this ring, and this necklace, and this print, and these insulators (I have a collection myself), but I really would have to say that I'm completely drooling over this collection.   I may just go and buy it myself. . .

Of course, you can click on the image to view the actual treasury on etsy.