Hello Cali!

We're having a memorial for my mom in the Bay area this week and we swung by SoCal and the girl caught up with some of her lovely high school friends:

We grabbed lunch at Urban Plates:

with my cool crafty friend Linda:

The food was really tasty--reminded me of a smaller scale version of Lemonade:

And the girl and I squeezed in haircuts with Christina:

It was a really quick drop-by to SoCal but we packed every minute!

Reno 911! for Halloween party

This year we went to a Halloween party at our gym and I made our costumes for Reno 911! Lt. Dangle and Deputy Kimball.  I got both our khaki pants and shirts from the Goodwill for a grand total of $13, I printed our Sheriff Department patches on to iron-on transfer sheets, and we picked up our Sheriff badges at the Dollar Store where it was 6 in a package.  The big expenditures was the $7 "human hair" mustache for Paul and $6 aviators.  But not bad for less than $30 for the both of us right?

This little guy had the best costume--as the most adorable Chippendale's dancer EVER. You can bet he had dollar bills in his waistband by the end of the night!

And mad props to my favorite adult costume: Kenny Powers!

The other highlight of the party was the awesome food--I had at LEAST one of each of these cupcakes.  So tasty and so crafty!

I'm kind of at a loss for another costume idea for actual Halloween. Any ideas?

The Grand Budapest Hotel

I get so excited for Wes Anderson movies and after seeing this trailer that was just released (a LOT of times), I'm really looking forward to seeing The Grand Budapest Hotel.



I love, love, love the art direction, unexpected protagonists, and unique storylines. Seeing this made me crave watching The Royal Tenenbaums again.  Before I die, I would love to create something as lovely, magical, charming as these movies.

"Before I die..." Art installation

Stumbled across the interactive art installation, Before I Die, on Main Street a couple of weeks ago after the Race for Life:

Really appreciated the variation of people's specific declarations from the very heavy (...find a reason to live, ...have my son Alex back in my life) to wise goals (...stop obsessing over men) to interesting goals (...fart the loudest fart!)

I briefly thought about what I'd write on this wall if I was there during the installation and I kind of felt I wouldn't be able to come up with something to write. Does that sound weird? I'd feel this tremendous pressure that I had to come up with some life-defining goal, when I'd like to think I have many or that my goals are evolving and growing. I guess I kind of put a lot of weight in declaring something.

Or maybe I'd just come up with the fart goal.

Wish I Could Be at the Book of Notes Workshop

Anyone else love the Book of Notes that Danni of Oh Hello Friend puts together?  I wish I had a picture of my own but hit the link and you'll see some awesome Book of Notes she makes.  They combine my favorite elements: paper, crafting, and sentiment.  Could you imagine giving one of these?  Or just as good--receiving one? 

They kind of remind of these bestselling books sold in the 90s (totally spacing on the titles!) that were purportedly love letters back and forth and came in this colorful book with little envelopes attached inside to artful pages.  Though I never read them, I was definitely attracted to the tactile participation.  These Book of Notes remind me of them but obviously I would prefer ones made personally.  I guess the challenging part would be coming up with the various sentiments to fill up the pages.

She is doing a Book of Notes Workshop this Sunday at her Fullerton, CA shop and holy cow, how I wish I was there for it!  Any Cali friends going?   Would love to see the finished project!

Linda's Reusable handcrafted produce/bulk bin bags

I scored a couple of these cool Reusable Washable Drawstring Produce bags from Linda:

I LOVE them.  Besides the fact that she designed and hand-dyed them with some crazy UV ink, they are totally washable and practical.  As someone who does quite a bit of bulk bin and produce shopping, I felt wasteful using all those plastic bags that I would use to bag up my dry beans, seeds, spinach, etc. and then end up just throwing them away afterwards.  Depending on the store, I could bring in my own containers--but it meant getting them weighed first every time I went.  Linda's bag weigh .05 pound, which is pretty negligible.

So I'm ready to go--and just load up on pumpkin seeds, dried chick peas, and more at the store.

Stylish, hand-crafted, functional, and good for the planet--a WIN all around!

We Might Be Superheroes

Catching up on episodes of We Might Be Superheroes!

My friends shot a fun low-budget web series with strong female characters (good and evil!) that keeps getting better with each episode. Presented in short, digestible episodes that are great diversions from what's on TV. There is a pilot episode broken over 3 webisodes that introduces our witty heroines. A quirky episode about superheroes and taxes is probably my fave so far. Looking forward to the next one--check it out!