irene suchocki.

canadian photographer irene suchocki is really making my heart sing via my eyes. she takes a lot of pictures of carnivals, balloons and dreamy overseas locations that i want to visit. her snappy snaps are L O V E L Y and you can buy them for yo'self via her etsy shop. (and btw, if your name is sugarbear, i would not mind a copy of Paris is a feeling for myself.)

anna dello russo.

anna dello russo hates white walls and pants (a gal after my own heart, natch). these photos of anna in her (italian, i think) apartment(s), taken by juergen teller, are super TMI, but i lovelovelove the wackadoo palazzo gangi scenery wallpaper. LOVE IT. papering your home with a photo of another home is FIERCE, anna. some quick sleuthing tells me that anna's an italian stylist, possibly part of uomo vogue mag and recently launched a fragrance called ANNA DELLO RUSSO, which according to anna, will make “You smell so good that I want to eat you, they will tell you.” per the nytimes: "A woman in her 40s who maintains the figure of an 18-year-old through disciplines a sadhu could admire (that is, if he had a subscription to Purple, the relentlessly hip fashion journal in whose latest issue Manuela Pavesi has photographed Ms. Dello Russo in all her sinewy glory, and very few clothes). Regardless of what the clock says, Ms. Dello Russo dresses as if it were always time to head out for the clubs. She changes clothes many times in a 24-hour span and that perhaps is why she is among an elite group here that is famous in Japan."

her fragrance commercial and the making of the commercial are also below, should you need to see more of her swanky pad.

{via decorno and w magazine.}

chemistry.

i believe this is from 1971, which would have been three years after johnny and june were married (1968 for you mathletes). it's pretty magical to watch two people so in love with one another. i feel like this is a good time to mention that i have read (devoured, really) johnny cash's autobiography and found it to be riveting. johnny cash may very well be the most complex and conflicted person i can think of, and he and was pretty damn lucky to have met a precious angel like june carter. i also massively heart walk the line, and i watched every single one of the dvd extras. the ones where joaquin and reese discuss getting to know johnny and june are FASCINATING. did y'all know that johnny passed away just 4 months after june? i like to think they were like those pups in where the red fern grows. also a great book.

{via bestest song ever.}

marthas and arthurs: apes in aeroplanes EP.

pre-wedding i was in dire straits with regard to time, and post-wedding, i'm still catching up. i can't believe i'm just now getting around to sharing a marthas and arthurs update, HOWEVER, i'm sure you remember my post on marthas and arthurs, which detailed a hardworking indie group that was willing to sing at your dinner party or event in exchange for free dinner. now they have an album, and (hold on to your pants), it is available for free download. FREE DOWNLOAD HERE.  this is the most philanthropic band ever, right? aside from being exceptionally generous, they are tremendously talented. i'm a huge fan of their style in general (singing for supper? so clever) and an even bigger fan of their heavenly harmonies, i recommend you download this album immediately. it is dreamy.

switcheroo.

i have changed the background of my blog. i'm not sure i love it. however, it is making my brain hurt to think that if i monkey around with it much more, i might lose everything. and that, ladies and gents, would be a national tragedy. which reminds me:

{via april and may.}

hair dress.

what the h. are these? i seriously don't know. maybe they are inspirational? i like how the girl in the middle has her hairs did under that wig. i would be lying if i said i didn't want an I HEART FRENCH MOUTH sweatshirt.

in a related story, i've been really into wildfox lately. you know, because i am 17 years old or something. and live in california. and have such a flexible dress code at work. and generally despise pant-wearing of all kinds. kidding. do you know about wildfox? here is what i know: wildfox (which is totally not that new, but i just caught on to it) is some sort of los angeles-y fashion label that embraces the oversized t-shirt, sweatshirt and sweat pant, plus they feature really grown-up prints like CATS, unicorns, hearts, splatter paint and cartoon native american themes. based on my internets search, wildfox couture is best donned sans pants for tickle panty girl fight sleepovers, parties and camping trips. say whatever you want about it, that shit is comfortable. as an added bonus, and this i swear to you, whenever i wear my wildfox gearrrrr, i feel YOUNGER. and cooler than most people.

{top image via doggieeyes. other images via wildfox.}

fireplaces that don't suck: brad ford.

i'm sure we've all seen our share of barf-y fireplace mantles. as a designer, i unfortunately see them all the time, and only get the occasional chance to rip those suckers off the wall and start over. thusly, i am always sleuthing for clean, fresh takes on the typically traditional mantle. additionally, i'm forever hounding inexpensive solutions, as this is an area that can go overboard if you're not careful. today i stumbled on a handful of mantle inspirations in brad ford's design portfolio, which are featured below and fit all of my aforementioned bills. i like that they are unexpected and also could be re-interpreted for a reasonable price. although generally contemporary, they could work with a variety of styles, especially if you are a mixer-and-matcher like yours truly. a quick trip (and coincidental timing) to brad's blog reveals that a lot of his inspiration comes from international architecture firm studio ko, which GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. just go to their website. try not to eat your computer screen when you do.

rose gold and nicki k.

now that this is a classy fancy ladies type blog*, where i abstain from the eff word and posts about funny cat photos, i would like to direct your attention to a) rose gold (a trend i totally saw coming) and b) the unparalleled beauty of the lanvin gown draped so stunningly over nicole kidman's skeleton frame. both are gorgeous, and i think that dress is one of the lovelier apparel items i've seen in awhile. and as for that diamond-encrusted timepiece, i'll take two: one for each of my wrists. i would also like to point out that this particular line of rose gold watches is a relaunch of omega's 1955 collection, called the LADYMATIC (which i will promptly add to my ever-growing list of imaginary band names). take a better look at ladymatic here.

*not really.

2K11: the big read.

read more. blog less. get things done around the casa that have been in slow- to non-moving progress for three years. how is your 2K11 to do list working out on this sixth day of new-ness?

below, i've outlined a plan that will likely be pushed to the side in mid-february, reunited with briefly in late april, and pick up strength throughtout the summer only to crash and burn circa-halloween times. fortunately i'm a fast reader. this list and idea came from my imaginary blogger friend persephone of what possessed me, who seems so much smarter and cooler than me. hear that, p? i stalk you from a safe distance, but if you lived in space city, i'd totally hit you up for a book club of revolutionary proportions. anyhow...

The Big Read, part of the national endowment for the arts, claims that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed. surely you are above average, right? so why don't you

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you love.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or for whatever reason loathe.
5) Reprint this list (preferrably in your own blog) so we can have a collective gasp about whether or not you've ever been caught up the romatic escapades of Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery BEST. BOOK. EVER.
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

clearly, my reading level and material choices are on par with a 16-year old girl. a 16-year old girl THAT READS A LOT. so here you have it (or i have it)-my reading list for 2011. unless they come out with more twilight books. i figured out how to do the kindle on our ipad, but b-rad prolly has most of these tomes.

i would tag the lovely and beautiful leah, but let's face it-you've read all 100 of these, right leah? and i tag the blogless: audrey, sarah and shannon.

{image via this gal.}

strangers in my bedroom.

i am kind of in love with kate spade's bedroom, specifically this great art piece of a dude with a giant yeller dot on his face. like maybe he's rocking a fierce 'come hither' look deemed TOO SEXY by andy spade, aka brother of david spade. did y'all know kate spade is married to david spade's brother? yeah. me neither. while i'm at it, did y'all know kate spade grew up in kansas city? and attended the university of kansas, making her a jayhawk. i had no idea we were midwestern homies. BEAK 'EM, HAWKS.
{kate spade's bedroom, photographed by eric morin for world of interiors, december 2006}