first things first.

My trip started out wonderfully before I even left because of my incredibly thoughtful friends. First off, Megan gave me a new memory card for my camera. (thank you!!) It was so sweet of her. I've been needing one for a very long time, and it was so nice having a card that would hold a bajillion pictures. I went crazy and now have 7 bajillion pictures to sort through, since I would download them every night and start afresh each day.

Krystyna gave me a present which had the instructions "to be opened on the plane". I just love surprises, and this one left me in awe—a book for my trip full of ideas, notes, and thoughts of what I should do in New York. Everyone else in my group was jealous.





These were my favorite spreads, but there were many, many more with suggestions such as: buy a New York Times newspaper off the streets of NY, take a picture with a policeman on a horse, feed the pigeons in times square, squeeze a NY fireman's bicep, and create your own graffiti. She even gave me money to give to the homeless people. How thoughtful is that?

thank you Oliverhandmade!

The onesie that I won came! And I love it! It's so adorable. Me and my roommate let out a collective awwww! when I pulled it out. It was especially wonderful that it came packaged so nicely, even with a hand sewn dog bone on the note card. Thanks so much to Marta for holding the giveaway, and especially to Oliverhandmade!!

She's at it again!

Go to Bridget's blog to see more pictures of her incredible work with painting shoes. She's amazing.

Bridget Smith

All right, time to brag about my friend Bridget. She is my oh, so talented friend and such an inspiration. (I've mentioned her before because she taught me how to use google reader.)

She recently told me that her latest adventure has been painting shoes. I was very confused at first, and then realized that she was being completely literal. Check these out! She did them all herself. So impressive.

She's amazing! You can look at other stuff she's done at her art blog. And, here's the great thing—if you want to purchase some of these awesome shoes, Bridget is auctioning some of them off on this blog for a good cause! Her and her husband have been donating their time and talents in order to raise money to help baby Mia—a baby born with a severe congenital heart defect. Hundreds of people have been raising money to help Mia's family pay the medical bills to keep their dear little girl alive. Hooray for people helping people! So...you can save a life and get great stuff...check it out!

going green...if you're into that sort of thing

Now, I know that going green is all the rage right now and so cliche to talk about on your blog. However, even though I haven't totally jumped on that band wagon, there are some things that I don't mind doing with a more eco-friendly attitude. A couple of these being: not using so many plastic bags for my groceries, (although I still like to have enough to use as little trash bags, and since that's recycling I don't feel bad about it) and reusing water bottles.

If you don't have a good bag to put your groceries in, this is a cute and very inexpensive idea from Martha Stewart on how to make your own out of a t-shirt! I totally love it. Here is the tutorial, or if you're a more visual person you can watch the video on how to make it on her website.

buttontop brads

If you're like me, it's painful to throw away any leftovers of pretty fabric or paper. So, I'm always happy to find ways to put little pieces of them to good use, and here is such an adorable solution! I loved it so much I couldn't wait to share it with you.


Are these great or what? Brads covered in bits of fabric, and you can use them for all sorts of things! I found them on Laura Gunn's blog, paint in my hair. What a good idea!

You can spice up presents with them, make cute hair pins, or any other thing you can think of! I love it. You can go here to get the tutorial on how to do it. (This is the best way I could figure out to get PDF files to you all, it'll take you to another page, and then just click buttontop brads...and it also seems to work best in Firefox) Enjoy!

If you have a hard time getting this PDF, let me know and I'd be happy to get it to you some other way. Thanks again to paint in my hair for sharing!

matching pictures with stripes. love it.

Today's pretty thing was inspired by my friend Erin. She did this entire arrangement (pillow not included...I wish) for only 14 dollars! Way to go. She got cool frames from DI and Savers, spray painted them black and then went to the library and made copies out of old photography books. So, instead of going out to Applebee's tonight...use the money to awesomely decorate a wall instead! Thanks Erin!

lovely prints

Are these gorgeous or what? Prints from Wonting NYC that you can find here.