Brownie Butts

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This came in to my inbox yesterday and I thougth it was one of the smartest things I have ever heard of...brownie butts. You know... the brownie pan edges. Not sure about you, but the edge is my favorite part of the entire batch. This company specializes in selling in only the edges, or the "butts" as they call them. It reminds me of Seinfeld's muffin tops. Anyway, it made me happy.

Drumroll, please!

A very special envelope arrived in the mail today! A "Congratulations. You've been accepted to the Prairie Village Art Show" letter! Needless to say, I'm absolutely thrilled. According to the letter, more than 350 artists applied to the show and 90 were accepted.

If you've followed my blog since I launched it back in October, you may be asking yourself, "Is the same Prairie Village Art Show that she said she talked her way into?" Well, kind of, but not really. I had a conversation with the director of the show in October and told her about my interest in participating. I was encouraged by the conversation and decided to send the director an email in February as a "reminder." She never replied, so I went ahead and went through the process of getting slides made from my electronic images. I've now come to realize that I had the wrong email address for her and she never received my email. So, I'd like to think I got in based on my work and not in my sly way of talking my way into things.

I think that it will be great to participate in my very first art show so close to home. Not only do I love the neighborhood and I'll surely have friendly faces stopping by (friends, family and blog readers...wait - my blog readers are only family and friends), but it will be so nice to try this thing so close to home. If I forgt something, it's only 3 minutes away.

Now I must get busy with my work. I've just felt so unmotivated since the holidays. This is exactly the kick in the pants that I've needed. There is so much to do. I need a tent. New supplies - canvases, paints, brushes. Antique letters and ephemera. Business cards. Credit card machine. Oy!

Luckily, I will finally have some work to share with you here. I started this blog to share my work and techniques and I've been bombarding you with stories about my dog and my bathroom. So sorry!

Anyway...yeah me! I'm SO excited.

Finished Bathroom

Woo Hoo! The bathroom is finally done. Actually it was done a week and a half ago, but I've been slow to take the pictures...

I've always loved the old look of subway tile. We choose this and then I freaked when I realized that the "good stuff"that we splurged on was made to look like handmade, vintage subway tiles, with waves on the edges and imperfections. Once the grey grout was in place I wasn't so worried about it. I'm pretty pleased with the overall look.

Here is shower curtain #2. I also bought a taupe damask shower curtain, but it made the small bathroom look smaller! Number 2 is still on a trial run.

New sink and toilet from Kohler "Bancroft"

Best of New York Magazine

Congrats to Russell and Carl of rePop in Brooklyn (formerly of Kansas City) for being voted Best Thrift Shop - Best of New York Shopping 2007 -- New York Magazine.

Etsy

For any of you that haven't discovered this little web site, you need to take a look. Etsy has the greatest art and much of it is very affordable. I just made my first purchase - a sepia-toned photograph with an open hand and a bird flying out of it. I received it on Saturday and I can't wait to frame it.

I'm completely addicted to jasna sokolovic - an artist from Canada who creates paintings and collages on ceramic tiles. LOVE!

Bluelines

Yay! Martha Stewart's newest magazine Blueprint, which I've blogged about in the past, now has a blog. I'll definitely mark this as one of my favs. Bluelines

Bathroom Update

There was a lot of progress made while I was out of town this week. Boy did I enjoy walking across my hotel room to hop into the shower ratehr than getting completely dressed to cross the street in below freezing temps. The bathroom still needs some finishing touches, which is exactly why I am home on a Friday night. Here are a few pre-grout pictures of the vintage-looking white subway tile.

I spent a wad of money at Bed, Bath & Beyond today for taupe and light blue towels only to discover that I don't think - as of tonight - that I really like that combo after all. I might lean towards a sage-y green color!? Geesh. I can't make up my mind about paint color in one teeny-tiny bathroom.

rePop

There are just a few blogs that I read religiously...one of them is design*sponge. It has great ideas about home design and indie artists and just some really cool stuff. I'm reading it tonight because I haven't checked in on it for a few days. What did I find about halfway down the page, but a link from Lena Corwin's site about the coolest dresser she found at rePop in Brooklyn. Yes, the same rePop that Russell and Carl opened and where my few small pices are on display. Yeah for Russell and Carl because I'm sure they are being bombarded with traffic from this very cool and very free publicity. Also, the comments on the blog make mention of how cute the owners are...go Russell and Carl.

Hint...click through to rePop and scroll down on the pictures on the left side of their page. The picture with the vintage white leather barber chairs have my little, bitty pieces in the background. The pictures must be a little old because I know that at least one of those pieces sold. Woo Hoo!

L.A.

I just returned from a fun work trip...a whirlwind tour of some of L.A.'s coolest shopping centers. We went to Irvine Spectrum, Fashion Island, Third Street Promenade, South Coast Plaza, Universal City Walk, Robertson Boulevard, The Grove and The Farmer's Market. It was a fun trip with some pretty fun marketing peeps. I learned some stuff, but mostly I feel like we drove on our short bus, ate and drank. There wasn't much time for meetings, but that's OK with me.


I did have a celeb sighting...Lisa - contact Perez. We were at The Grove and I was taking pictures of the directory advertising there because one of my newest responsibilities will be selling those at my center. Anyhoo, the advertisement in the signage holders that I was taking pictures of are for the new movie Black Snake Moan, which begins tomorrow starring Samuel L. Jackson (ohmygosh...does it have an L. in it or does it not...now that I'm typing it it seems weird), Justin Timberlake and Christina Ricci. (I noted in the USA Today that it got a half of a star). I took my pictures and we popped into a few stores and then I came out and Christine Ricci walks right by me! She was like an extra-small human, a mutant, but it was definitely her.

Here are a few pics from the trip...

This is the closest I got to the ocean...can you see it in the distance?