Finally! All it took was just over 1 year and just over 200 American smackers for me to have my complete web site up and running.
You’ve probably seen it before and, if you just came here from there, you might be feeling a bit like the little square in Pong being batted from one rectangle to the other. However, I’m really happy with it and I’m feeling, dare I say- a little accomplished. It even has a fresh CV, ready for the downloading!
images via www.thefedoralounge.com
images via www.thefedoralounge.com
Guys, I am kind of falling in love with Christian Chensvold of the blog Ivy-Style.
The other day he posted about “shirt jewelry” and today he is posting a small history of eyeglass frame style that continues to beguile me: the P3.
Bestill my heart, you handsome devils, I was just considering how I wish to invest in a new pair of shades this summer. After some investigating a cheapo pair from a second-hand shop last spring, I have been pretty committed to the P3.
Shopping time?
I’m really liking the Francois Pinton frames but I fear looking a little too “Uncle Jerry Horn” with that highly rounded brow line.
The Classic P3 frame is a little bit more my speed. Ben Silver makes them in tortoise
and grey!
The general Ben Silver P3 is a little thicker in a frame, perfect for a pair of sunglasses.
all images from www.bensilver.com
And they come in blue… So I can match my glasses to my coat to my belt to my purse to many different pairs of shoes. I’m not shillin’ for Ben Silver but its like they know me. Too well. A little too well….
You might not know that I have a real soft spot for do-it-yourself style stamp sets. I feel like my affections for my Labelon Custom Rubber Stamp Kit have come up before.
One thing I love about the Saver’s thrift store chain, maybe even the thing I love the most, are their little “bags of zen”- a hodge podge of small items that don’t really fit in with the larger house hold goods. They get bagged up into values of about $1.99 to $5.99 and hung up for viewing. One of the best joys of a trip to Saver’s is picking through those groupings and trying to figure out just what the curator was thinking, putting those items together. Sometimes, the zen of curation is a really far stretch. The bag that this stamp kit and birthday reminder notebook came seems pretty self explanatory. “It’s your birthday! I should send you a card!… which will get there too late, anyway. Why bother?”
Hunky dory! I tore that sucker open when I got home. All the pieces were there!
Except for the actual stamp part. Someone was too busy grooving on playing god to check out the merchandise, it seems.
Undaunted, I plucked the letters off of one of their little corrals and lined up my return address letters as if nothing was amiss. A little extra ink on the stamp pad and it worked perfectly!
At least I know who is responsible for this oversight:
February 17th, 2011.
Savers, Warwick, RI
A velvet blazer that fits in more places than it doesn’t fit in others! Finally, both my shoulders and my boobs are accommodated!
The buttons are nice and thick and look like cough drops.
A gray chambray shirt that fits like every shirt should: in the bust as well as the waist. Imagine!
A red, monogrammed sweater.
Oh. Wait. Did you catch that monogram? Let me show you again, more closely.
Darn tootin’.
I am a little divided as to the idea of the “thank you freebie” that seems to be becoming a standard of small mail order businesses.
At work, we really deck that shit out like a birthday gift- fitting given that the name of the company is “I’m Your Present”. I’ve always liked ordering records from labels and being showered with free stickers and pins as soon as you wrench open the first corner of your package. Sometimes, free stuff is reason enough to order something (or, in the case of cigarette companies, good enough to sign up for their mailing list and receive coupons for Camel Crushes for the next millennium… I guess the free cigarette case and pin-up girl matches were worth it.)
But I’ve been noticing that, sometimes, freebies are just another piece of shit that I don’t want and that I didn’t ask for but now, I have to find something to do with. Nothing says, “thanks for your money” like “Here’s a dopey pair of earrings that I don’t want and am foisting off on you.”
So, it is with that trepidation that I have given deep and sustained thought to the idea of my packaging and just what, if anything, I should include. Originally, I wanted to stumble upon a bag of woven friendship bracelets. So far, that has yet to pan out. A couple times I have supplemented a package with some sort of around-the-studio trinket that was related to whatever the purchase was. I’ve found that boardwalk arcade prizes work well but I can only pump so many quarters into the skeeball machines so often.
But today, ah! today. It was sunny and one of the first warm days of the year and I found myself walking away from the recycling center with a box full of these guys:
Prize ribbons! Of all kinds!
So, next time your order something, clear off a space on your bulletin board for a little ribbon-y memento of honor. Even if it says 4th or 5th place, you are still number 1 in my book!
Maybe number 2 if you ask a lot of annoying questions.
For many years, I have quietly chosen a yearly Valentine. Gender is no deterrent. Mostly, I just look in my heart for someone who has done or continues to do something unrepentantly cool that I find really interesting.
(Actually, upon further research, it turns out that every year I ask Wendy Carlos to be my Valentine only to forget and offer up my undying appreciation of her the following year. I love you, Wendy Carlos.)
Anyhow.
Dear Louis Theroux-
What can I say? I’m not trying to be deliberately obscure just because you are about as popular in the United States as I am. You are, hands down, my favorite documentarian, a word I may have created just for you. This should mean a lot because my boyfriend and I watch a lot of documentaries yet, we always come back to yours. The earlier ones are wonderful, silly, and slightly brash. They make me wonder how I wasted my 20s reading about all this weirdness while you spent your 20s mopping it up. While your newer shows paint you as a very human journalist (a difficult prospect, I think) I still could watch your piece on southwestern alien and UFO enthusiasts every day, expertly miming along to Thor Templar telling us that, “you wouldn’t shoot a ghost with a real gun; you’d shoot a ghost with a ghost gun.” It’s my favorite, sir.
So, Mr. Theroux. Be my Valentine. And please officially release your work stateside… so that we no longer have to steal it. And, if you happen to find this while Googling your own name, please contact me. I have some questions relating to the pictures featured on Rev. Bob Short’s walls.
Your friend in Valentine’s Day and TV land-
Liz Novak.
VALENTINE’S BONUS!
But, truthfully, guys, this is how I will be spending my Valentine’s evening:
All curled up and dreaming of scrambling and then unscrambling human speech.
It’s super new stuff time at With Care! Check out these new designs!
Celebrate President’s Day with a Washington DC ring!
Just in time for Valentine’s Day (rather, just in time to be shipped on Valentine’s Day)- Friendship necklaces!
Vintage hair clips!
Tiny brass whistle necklace. (Yes! It works, too!)
Ships in bottles as silhouettes as necklaces!!!!
Snakes on your head! The “Lady Medusa” headband!
If you are a local yokel, I will be dropping of some of these new goodies plus other one-off designs at Queen of Hearts this week. And be sure to check out their new blog, as authored by my friend, Nori. She’s a very funny lady and an adept wordsmither!
As I was exploring the wide realm of linen post cards, I came across the Boston Public Library’s Flickr stream. They have a whole set of 217 Rhode Island specific cards scanned and beautifully digitized! So, to keep from posting all of them at once, here are a few sights that I see almost on the daily.
Research outtakes from 2 years ago. Providence City Hall.
Action Shot!
