Bursting at the seams!

I've been sick and haven't been able to do anything besides sit in bed and PLAN. And dream up ideas and research options. And it's making me SO stir crazy. I can't wait to be better and jump back into real life and work on turning some dreams into some realities! The new year is going to be a pivotal point, a fresh start, a new beginning of something big. And I can barely contain myself. Inspiration, GO!

all images pulled from ffffound.com

❤love.

When your day goes wrong.

I just wanted to share with you a story to remember the next time your day goes wrong. Whether you're thrown off schedule or forced to go out of your way, sometimes there's reason in the small annoyances we face.

Right before Christmas, during some of the snowstorms, my Aunt's plane got delayed in North Carolina. Because the babysitter couldn't stay, my other aunt had to go pick up her nephew and feed him dinner and get him in bed before his mom finally got home. So she ended up pulling in her driveway about 9:30 at night, when normally she would have been in bed. It was freezing cold, and raining. That horrible bone chilling rain that's barely a degree away from ice. And as she drove in she noticed an unfamiliar car with it's lights on in the back of her driveway. She got out of her car, and cautiously walked to the far side of the strange vehicle. The door was left open, and on the ground was an 88 year old woman who had slipped, broken her collarbone and shoulder and could not get back up. She had gone to a Christmas party and had gotten lost on her way back home. After driving around for awhile, she decided to stop there for directions because the house looked 'friendly.' She had been laying in the freezing cold in the rain for over an hour. My uncle never heard anything outside and if my aunt's day had gone normally, she would have been inside as well, and no one would have noticed until morning when it would have undoubtedly been too late. My aunt sat there in the driveway with her while they waited for the ambulance to get there and the woman shared bits and pieces of her life story. She spent a few days in the hospital but is going to be just fine.

So the next time your plane gets delayed or you have to run an unexpected errand. You get stuck in traffic or your day just gets totally screwed to hell. There might be a reason. You might have to deal with a bunch of things going wrong, that in the scheme of things don't really matter, so that somewhere, for someone else, something can go right. In a big way. In this case a snowstorm, a delayed flight, a day that went longer than planned, all added up to the little old lady that lived.

❤love.

Dear Santa. (or Jesus.)

Whoever is more appropriate to ask for snow. Now, I am perfectly aware that something forecasted for the tenth day of the ten day forecast should be viewed skeptically. Mainly because weathermen have been known to crush dreams on the weekends for sport. BUT. This would make my life. Or you know, Christmas. But life is only a semi-exaggeration.

Seriously. Bing had it all figured out. White Christmas, people. And go big or go home.

No that's a lie, I'll take what I can get.

(PS. Who thought it was a good idea to name their child an onomatopoeia? Did he have a brother named Bang? That would have been perfection. But you know, in a totally cruel way.)

❤love.

Let's pretend it's 1950.

No really. Besides the whole smiley perfect housewife thing, which I would definitely have to be heavily medicated to achieve any aspect of, I think that women had a class and glamour that is currently few and far between. After looking through old found photographs and vintage Vogue pages, what we now consider glamourous somehow seems cheapened. I don't know if maybe it's because it's less honest or we've gotten the definition turned around somehow, but it's just not the same. I feel like then glamour was more about poise and the essence of the girl, and now it's more about what she's wearing and how expensive it looks. I think back then more women had pride in just being a woman. Not in what we were allowed to do, what rights we had, but just being female. That in itself was something to be confident about, to make you feel empowered. Today women are so busy thinking of all the things they don't like about themselves and pointing out their wrongs that it's no wonder we can't carry ourselves with that kind of confidence and poise. So stop it. Love who you are. Radiate that beauty and you WILL be beautiful. Go be glamourous for god's sake.

Just in case you decide to make the splurge to look the part, Timeless Vixen carries some of the most beautiful vintage dresses in amazing condition. It's really a good thing I literally don't have the money to, or I would be buying out half the store. You know, maybe we should all just go back to wearing clothes this fabulous.

❤love.

Online window shopping.

I'm still up in North Carolina, frustrated because my camera cord is missing. I'm going to try to buy a new one tomorrow, so I promise pictures will come soon. I'm about to go Christmas shopping in downtown Blowing Rock. It's the cutest place.

If you're stuck inside today, here are some things I loved while online window shopping. On Etsy, of course. Happy shopping!

Vintage American Tourister Set

King Owlie Locket

Set of Romantic Hairpins

Recycled Vintage Bingo Card Sketchbook

PS. It's going to snow tonight! Love, love.

❤love.

Boone!

So last night I drove up to Boone, North Carolina. I used to go to school up here at Appalachian State University. I miss this place a lot. I'm where I need to be education wise (design school), but I love the cold weather and the mountains. So I still come up every once in awhile, to see people I miss and to regenerate a little bit. There's not much here, it's pretty secluded, but it's beautiful. And sometimes it's nice to feel far away from everything for just a little while. It's an especially nice breath of fresh air after a stressful, uninspired ending to a semester. I'm ready for a new start in a sense, ready to reorganize. My life, my house, my work. I need to find definitive directions and make decisions about internships and what I want to do when I graduate. But for right now... for right now I'm going to breathe. Enjoy the mountains. Enjoy the snow. (Snow!) I'm going to rejuvenate and gain a fresh outlook to go back home with. Maybe do a little Christmas shopping at the antique stores and outlet mall nearby. I'm also going to make some delicious goodies for my friends still going through finals. I mean... I may eat some as well... but mostly for them. Pictures later!

❤ love.

Unvampirization.

It's what I call the process in which I get to introduce sleep back into my routine. And it is GLORIOUS. I slept for 17 hours last night. That's inhuman as well. Apparently I just alternate from inhuman extremes. Oh well.

So tonight some girls are coming over for a nice relaxing movie night now that we're all done with the semester! Ah, it feels so good to breathe. To actually have free time. I've been ACHING to Christmas craft. I know how super dorky that is but I just can't help it. Every time I've had to go into Joann's or Hobby Lobby for project supplies I've had to shield my eyes and practically run to the register. There's just too much goodness spewing out of the aisles. So all of this to say, you should be on the lookout for some photos of crafty delightfulness coming your way! I'll have to be careful and not reveal any Christmas presents though...

❤ love.

Smile pretty.

Picture time. I would say because I don't have time, but I took the time to do this so obviously I do. Well, not really, but I'm doing it anyway. Mostly this post will lack in writing because it took an extreme amount of effort to put together these sentences so that they are coherent to normal people who have gotten sleep and aren't thinking and doing ten million things at once.

❤ love.

Oh sweet kitchen o' mine.

So maybe you like to cook. Maybe you like eating what someone else cooks. Or maybe you just like sitting all over the counter with friends for random good conversation. (You know the kind where you finally look at a clock and realize it's 4 am.) I guess there's also option d, all the above. You should know that I renovate/redesign my kitchen in my head at least once a week. God help me if I ever have the time and money to cater to my musings.

all from housebeautiful.com

Something else I've been eyeing lately is the Etsy store of Trixie Delicious. Called Vandalized Vintage, it features vintage china plates, cups, and saucers that have been... well, vandalized. I love how completely unexpected they are. All elegant and flowery and then BOOM.

Sophisticatedly trashy china? Yes, please. My disclaimer is that some are more vulgar than the ones shown here. So visit at your own risk. And shield innocent eyes! That's about all for now, folks.

❤ love

Typophile.

I'm just going to go ahead and put this out there. I'm a type nerd. I'll be clear that my nerdiness encompasses much more, but we'll work up to that. Baby steps. Another of my favorite things? Christmas shopping. Or really any kind of shopping for other people. FInding that perfect present and watching for that reaction as it's opened. It's an art. And a science really. (The shopping part, not the watching part.) So I've created a little bit of a gift guide to share with you full of some typography I've been crushing on. A combination of my two loves. And maybe you know somebody who also has thing for letters that might like a little type lovin underneath their Christmas tree.

1. READ recycled wood $32 by William Dohman 2. Chicago $22 by Ork Posters 3. Winter Beverage Towel Set $21 by NestaHome 4. CMYK Necklace $20 by Plastique 5. Marquee Alphabet Lights $178 from Urban Outfitters 6. If Life Deals You Lemons laser cut $65 by Julene

❤ love.

My favorite four letter word.

Okay you guys. It's not what you think. Snow, people. Snow. And I need some. BAD. Even after tacky sweaters and ornament exchanges for some reason it just doesn't fully feel like December. It should, I mean, lord. I heard a Hanson Snowed In song in the mall the other day. Oh it takes me back.... to last year. Or I mean. Grade school. Because no one listens to them anymore... So anyway. Today would have been perfection with some snow, but alas it was nasty misting rain. We threw a Potluck, Ornament Swap, Tacky Sweater party and had an absolute BLAST. I'm so blessed with the friends in my life. We voted on a bunch of superlatives and I got... too many. Best Personality, Most Random, Most Likely to Not Use Their Degree (oops), Most Likely to Not Have a 9 to 5 Job, and Most Mischievous. I got that gleam in my eye...

So back to the snow thing. It makes everything better. It does. No matter what is happening in my life, no matter how stressful, when it suddenly starts to snow, it all falls away. It's like a giant hush. One of my very favorite things is waking up in the morning to that silence. Before you even get out of bed you can hear it. So peaceful. And like a slate wiped clean, it always makes me feel so hopeful.

There's a quote that I absolutely love from the movie The Family Stone. It's the scene where Meredith and Ben are sitting in the car and he decides to tell her about the dream he had. It's so innocent and beautiful.

"You were shoveling snow. You were just a little girl in a flannel night gown. And you were shoveling snow from the walk in front of our house. And I was the snow. I was the snow. And everywhere it landed and everywhere it covered. You scoop me up with a big red shovel. You scoop me up."

I think I feel better already. Just remembering that. Maybe I'll dream of snow tonight. In the meantime I'm sitting in a giant beanbag watching Baby Mama on the projector with some of those amazing people. We do this finals thing righttt.

❤ love.