Go download Playlister for KEXP, it’s totally awesome, and free!

(Santa, if you are listening, I love the Roberts revival radio, pictured above. I noticed that Anthropologie has them, but so does this place.)

Wes Anderson + Roald Dahl = UTTER BRILLIANCE.

My family crafted this enormous DIY movie screen from a pair of bed sheets sewn together and then put into the ground with stakes.  It’s one of life’s thrills to lay on the grass wrapped in cozy blankets and snacks with your gang ready to see your favorite flick projected into the night!

Maybe it’s because of my 80s childhood when Halloween was most exciting that I want to relive a bit of it and have a double feature of the Goonies and E.T. this weekend.

And maybe I’m sharing one of my favorite music videos that has nothing to do with Halloween but everything to do with the same creepy and visually stunning feeling it evokes…

Daniel – Bat For Lashes

I saw an interview with Natasha Khan (singer for Bat for Lashes) where she was describing how her art was fueled by the nostalgia in films that inspired her growing up.  It’s all so theatrical, I love everything from the burnt props matching the lyrics to the karate kid clothes and blue tears.  The dark faceless figures (who seem to represent the darkness) are actually ballet dancers pulling some really modern moves.  (Plus, how great would that be for a Halloween costume: Darkness.) I love that she works her way through the “cinder and rain” for the promise of Daniel in the end.  Anyway, I’ve seen this so many times that it’s almost ridiculous, but it still hasn’t lost it’s weird wonder for me.

I love Halloween not because it’s dark and menacing but because it celebrates childhood and imagination and make believe, the freedom to be whatever you want to be for a night.  We could use more of that.

Over the weekend, I went thrifting for the first time in ages. I didn’t have my usual shopping mojo, but I did come away with this incredible pair of twist earrings. I can’t decide if I will wear them as is, or turn them into rings…

Mars has many nicknames for me.  I love it when he chooses one of his many sweet synonyms for my real name and just throws it into conversation, as if they were my real identity, fact not fiction.  Say something often enough to a person and they may begin to believe it, I’ve heard, but I still can’t believe it.  I am his angel, he affectionately tells me.  And then he slips on a gold necklace to symbolize it.  I might never take these off.

What he doesn’t realize that this isn’t the first time he has given me wings.

One thing about selling my jewelry designs on supermarket is having a fantastic opportunity to lust after get to know the other designer’s work and adding them to my wish list. These are some of my top favs right now…so if you need any gift ideas for Jenny, hint hint hint.

Any of the gold necklaces by Stone & Honey. I am so in love with these pieces! I would wear these every. single. day.

Watercolor Print Angel Dress by Astridland. Gorg! I would pair this with some black skinnies and boots for fall.  Perfect for date night.

So I have a little collection of modern, designer made musuem-esque shaker duos and these porcelain polyhedron salt & pepper shakers from TaiDesign would make the perfect addition. I’m really selective with what I collect (I hate clutter) and these make my carefully edited list. Love!

Last and absolutely lovely is this Coat Range by Brave Space. As a northwest girl true and blue, I love having elements in our home that reflect Seattle’s green beauty.  Brave Space identifies their snow capped mountains as the Grand Tetons, where I have so many great memories from family trips! I think it’s just a sign that this was meant to be in our entryway.

I get on the computer these days and end up writing silly status updates or replying to just one of many many emails before I am spent of computer jenergy and find myself wrapped in blanketed baby cuddles or washing and folding tiny socks or smelling of baby shampoo and spit up.  Sigh. Is there anything more than this priority? I recently announced, to no one in particular (mostly because everyone in particular would gawk and call me insane) that “I have decided that I want a hundred babies. I always want a baby. Just a cute, soft baby around.”

But seeing as how that is a total impossibility, I am hormotionally banking on the idea that heaven, fingers crossed you and I make it there, is a place where my man and I can have hundreds of babies and all eternity to enjoy them in.  We can stagger their births so that I will get this one wish, to have a babe on my hip, chubby cheeks to spread in slow smiles, little fists to watch uncurling in sweet slumber.  And in that scenario (assuming that this IS heaven we are speaking of and will therefore allow for creative expression through our fashion of choice) I will dress all my babies in this cardigan.

Julia, a friend I’ve known for years but can you believe it -I haven’t actually met in the way that our grandparents knew each other, or how we say, “in real life.” Which, pardon me, can I just say that doesn’t make too much sense to me these days because what is more real life than having the turn of recent events we had, after finally getting this precious child in arms and then the unexpected emergency sad time at the hospital – and coming home to a box wrapped neatly in pretty kraft paper, hand stamped with love and a sweet page of tender words.  And wrapped underneath tissue paper, a heart melting gesture in form of a precious handmade sweater, with my favorite sailor style stripes and wooden buttons and soon also tears falling in between the cables of yarn. Happy, pinch me now, grateful tears.  Well!  That is real.

Even the cleaning instructions are graced with Julia’s adorable illustrations.  What is more, and something that Julia did not even know – I am a cardigan’s cardigan girl.  NO outfit is complete without one, something I blame thank my Seattle climate for.  (Not even a summer day in mid July is safe without throwing a cardy in my tote because as all Seattleites know, the weather can get chilly here at night. You are never safe!)  The fact that my little person can wear one too, and such a sweet one at that! Well, just tickles my heart.

Eli is growing and growing (one inch in two weeks already!) and so it won’t be long till he will be pictured wearing it like a real person, instead of posing under it like a blanket.  But, just between you and me, let’s just not rush into him growing up too fast.  He just got here, after all.  And so now that you have a taste of the incredible people I have in my life, just a taste, as there are so many, may I introduce to you the name that this gift shall be known as, throughout the eternities: The perfect hundred babies hand knit heirloom cardigan sweater. What could be more fitting?

Thank you Julia, thank you! If I could hop on a plane to Madrid to give you un abrazo grande, I would!

One of my favorite pieces from David Hockney, a collage made back in the day (1982) when polaroids were as dispensable as paint…