8 days of pure vacaction!!!! I’m packed up, checked the work email one last time and I’m ready for a break. We’ll spend 4 days at the lake in NH, 4 days with my parents in N.C. and then back to NY to recover for a day. NH has me thinking of picnics. More Ebay for vintage photographs, vintage tin picnic baskets and finally, a modern retro inspired basket.

We have our day jobs and then we have what we do at the end of the day. Afterhours, my friend Karen is a fashion designer, my sister Tate is a filmmaker, my husband a graphic designer. It seems everyone I know is juggling two (or more) parts of themselves. And, increasingly, we’re all proud of each. But, how to present yourself when you do two very different types of work (one corporate, one creative)? Increasingly, I see friends using the old fashioned calling card to represent their creative sideline businesses. These minicards from Moo are fresh.

So, in my Flickr searches I stumbled upon the Re-Ment Addict Pool and just had to look them up. A japanese minatures company, their website sheds some light on why I’m so drawn to miniatures. “Your world, your memories… in miniature”. It all comes back to memory with me. I’m fascinated with the human desire to remember, to memorialize, with the tendency toward nostalgia. Even if you don’t share my academic interest in memory, the site is flat out cool and worth checking out.

Via Flickr some delicious miniature rooms to inspire. I can’t quite tell you what fascinates me about mini models of everyday things. My favorite of the lot is the first image which is a model of the kitchen at Monet’s house outside Paris. I was charmed by its yellow cheeriness when I saw it in person, and this model is brings back that sense of wonder at seeing Monet’s talent turned toward his interior.

The Hutton couch arrived on Saturday at 8:49am via two very nice Room and Board delivery folks. First came the awesome blue seat cushion… the color looked as amazing as we thought it would. 9:04am the couch makes it through the front doors. 9:10am the couch won’t make it though the second doorway (1 inch of extra lovely frame). Horror. However, 9:20am a peppy Room and Board customer service person calls and offers to ship the couch to Dr. Sofa. We google him, note that one of the illustrative examples is OUR couch (relief, we’re not alone) and send it on its way.

After a long hiatus I’ve made some new abigail cards, inspired by high school science. They are up on etsy, too. While most of my old cards are from wallpaper or gocco‘d, these are professionally printed and usher in a new era of abigail cards. With school and work and the new apartment I’ve been neglecting craft and my love of making things, so I felt such relief at making these and using my creative brain.

This russian nesting doll pillow from Urban Outfitters.com caught my eye this morning as I was trying to throw out catalouges old mail and generally tidy up. I had a set when I was 5 and loved the nesting aspect. This pillow is fun (the couch will be delivered in 10 DAYS!!!). Not to mention, I’m inspired to make Russian Doll greeting cards … cool, no? And, speaking of cards, I just got a delivery of my first patch of non-gocco cards. EXCITING. I’ll post later on here on and on Esty.