I love these engagement photographs of Joanna and Alex.  The pink sky is a perfect pink and makes me think pink might be the color of happiness, don’t you?

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I’m loving anything with stripes these days and artist Jamie Shelman left me a comment about her work, thinking I would love it and I do!

I’m taking this week to organize my life and house for 2009. Which means there is a trip to the Container Store in my future (shudder — that place always make me feel inadequate).

Let’s see: We had a nice Christmas in Boston and a nice visit with my parents post-Christmas in North Carolina — my parents both made us amazing books (our homemade Christmas was a big hit!).  My mother made a book describing of all the make-believe games my sister and I played as kids for Tim and my father wrote me a second installment of Cooking and the Writing Life.  I made my father and sister cashmere blankets from fabric I bought at Mood and my mother finally (two and a half years later) got an album of our wedding photographs.  I hope you had a lovely holiday wherever you were and that getting back in the grove isn’t too painful. xo, Abbey

I just saw this amazing christmas “tree” from All The Luck in The World, via ATLA (although its been all over the web already) and just had to post it beacuse I think that this way of displaying ephemera is awesome and could be used all year round (in a variety of spaces — like circles!).  She put it together with blue tacky stuff and tiny nails.

Love the red bentwood here (and the whole apartment too — it has a cabana!)

We’re headed to Boston and then to N.C. for Christmas so I have a feeling the posting will be light around here.  No matter what you celebrate, no matter where you are, I wish you all the best of everything and love, laughter and good friends in 2009.

Photo from here.

As we head into the final gasp before Christmas I thought I’d post a great round up of $1 gifts produced for Domino by Katy Elliot. Pure Genius.

I gave my students their exam yesterday and spent last night and this morning grading up a storm and I’m DONE!  With classes and teaching over, let the holidays begin at the Nova/Wright household.  I haven’t made a single handmade Christmas gift, so that will turn the house into a veritable Santa’s workshop for the rest of today and over the weekend. Browsing Flickr this morning I fell in love with these two christmas images from blogger Hello Yarn.  See her Flickr set here.

PS If you’re as obsessed with this Tord Boontje Garland (for Target in 2007) you can still buy them on Ebay for $3.99!

I’ve always thought custom made monograms were delicious.  Even though I didn’t change my name when I got married, I secretly coveted a cool custom monogram of our new married life/name. When I saw this  great how to on Design Sponge via the NYPL I thought well, maybe I’ll finally get (make!) that custom monogram!

Isn’t this dress just a nice shot of color? via Armas Design

This past Sunday our apartment was featured in Page Six Magazine’s lifestyle section (and yes, that’s me on the couch!)!! You can see the whole article here and all the photos here.  The best part of the experience was working with such an amazing team including totally rad photographer Karin Kohlberg, talented stylist James Massenburg, super savy editor Kirsten Matthews and hip photo editor Michelle Yoo, and funny and charming writer Kristin Fleming.  They made the house and me look wonderful and somehow ensured that I even had fun doing it! So, a huge thank you to Page Six and these pros.

Now that I’m in my second trimester I can share the happy news that we’re having a baby due at the end of May!  After so long of keeping it a secret it is a little strange to finally be telling people, but also really really nice. Now, for the part you’ve all when wondering about: how have I not been blogging about baby stuff??? Well, I’ve been channeling all that design scouting baby energy into my new blog: Design Tots. I’m sure there will be the occasional baby post here, but mostly I’ll keep it to Design Tots. LOVE, Abbey

This week’s arrangement! See them all here.

Lots of new goodies in the shop.

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.  Tim and I did some holiday browsing (but no real shopping which was liberating) and took in of the holiday lights on Madison Avenue as we walked home in a gentle dusting of snow on Saturday night.  Then last night Joanna and Alex came over for some wine and cheese while we trimmed our tree.  It was a sweet start to the holiday season.

These are fancy cardboard cookie boxes from William Sonoma, but I’d use them for storing jewlery or stationery or my candy stash.  And I think I’d just get an “A” for the monogram since I’m not crazy about three letter monograms.  Found via Design Crush.

via Apartment Therapy.