(via Pedlars UK)

Well, where have I been? Who do I think I am, exactly, abandoning my blog for weeks at at time?

Well, I think I’m falling in love with working in the Art Department on film sets. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, ever since I realized that all that pretty stuff in the background of movies and TV doesn’t just appear magically, but has to be carefully chosen (or made from scratch!) and placed there by designers.

And recently, I’ve gotten the opportunity to help out on some sets, and it has been awesome! Creative, and hectic, and so much on-the-spot problem solving. I love it!

But… the (truly) long hours don’t leave a lot of time for blogging.

And if I’m not on set I’m up at the cottage, and soon I’ll be leaving to go on vacation with Liam soooooo… Sorry, friends, family and fans, things aren’t going to be getting much better anytime soon.

In the meantime though…

I love everything Pedlars UK has to offer, and always have. I make it habit to check their online shop once in a while and drool over the merchandise, dreaming of it one day being mine, all mine Too bad shipping from England is so expensive.

But now I’m working, so maybe I’ll be able to afford some choice pieces for myself!

I always love all their housewares, but right now I am particularly digging their curated clothing selection.

The trend these days is actually an anti-trend – the focus is on eternally lasting, classic, traditional, domestically made pieces.

The stuff at Pedlars is spot on, from these shiny silver hunter boots I adore, or their Guernsey fisherman’s sweaters, their selection of Cambridge satchels (I’ve already talked about how much I love those) and their gorgeous, custom designed brown leather brogues with tweed (gasp!) lining. I want it all.

I have loved Mad Men since before it even aired – advertising, and the early sixties long being two of my biggest fascinations.

But I was a little let down by the shallowness, darkness, and the seeming lack of humour of the last two seasons. A parade of pretty vintage dresses interspersed with misogyny was not so entertaining for me. I missed the complexity and subtlety, punctuated and contrasted by hilarity of the first season. I missed the real story telling, the character studies – especially on the women of the show who weren’t Betty.

My main disappointment, was that it seemed to be refocusing on the sixties as an extremely exaggerated pre-enlightenment dark ages, when all the men were boors, and all the women were victims. It was becoming a cartoon, a parody of itself.

So, if you’ve been watching this season so far, you’d know that it has me so very happy, and re-enthused!

And Peggy! Oh my little Peggy! How I love her again. She has definitively, and finally gotten her groove back, and I love everything she, does, thinks, says and wears, no matter how flawed (and can we talk about her hair – finally a cute haircut for her!).

Which doesn’t even address how in LOVE I am with the new Sterling Cooper Draper Price offices, as filled with mid century fantabulousness as they are.

So why am I posting this Malcom Gladwell Ted talk from 6 years ago?

Because it touches very much on some themes brought up in the last few episodes. Particularly last weeks episode focusing on coming up with a campaign for Pond’s Cold Cream. Don Draper will turn out to be prophetically right  (not simply arrogant) when he said that people don’t know what they want, and that it is his job to show them.

(Although, it is interesting  to note that it increasingly seems the real prophetic at SCDP is Pete Campbell.)

(via MarthaStewart.com)

I am not a scrapbooker, or keepsake kinda person. Mostly I just take all the ephemera and mementos of my travels and shove them into a pretty shopping bag from the trip, and shove that in closet. I wish I had it together enough to do something like this.

How wonderful would a whole shelf with a lifetime of these jars lined up on it be? Maybe once we start having kids, we could do this every year for our big family vacations.

(via Black*Eiffel)

Woah.

Oh Europe! Why are you so far away from me!

(via girlhula on Flickr)

A few years back, Girl Hula (aka Andrea) threw this mindblowinglyamazing china town themed party for her little girl – which I then more or less stole for our engagement party.

Recently, she thew a rainbow themed party for her little girl. It was also mindblowinglyamazing, and was complete with Rainbow Cake!

I myself am a rainbow enthusiast, and even had rainbow wallpaper on the walls of my nursery growing up. This is another idea that deserves to be enthusiastically stolen! Too bad my birthday is so very far away in February…

(via YELLOW OWL WORKSHOP)

This cloisonne necklace seems like it must have been made just for me! It is lovely, lovely, lovely!

Gettin’ back into the groove of things last week, we took a trip to our favourite little place around the corner (they make all their own pastries from scratch – that’s a rare find in a coffee shop).

Liam was working from home, doing some creative work and a change of scenery is always good for the brain meats, we find. Lots of good sketching happened.

Then I got sick with the flu, all weekend, yuck. Poor me.

I guess I was exhausted, but we have a lot to celebrate, as we found out not only do we get to go to Vegas (Liam, on business, me tagging along) but we’re heading to Vancouver after that to visit the plethora (really! plethora!) of friends we have accumulated out there.

Get ready, Vancouverites!

And, on top of all that Liam’s contract was renewed for another year, and six months early at that. Wooooooo to another year and a half of employment!

(via Ninainvorm on Etsy)

There is too much adoreableness going on up in here.

I love those old blueware plates you find from Northern Europe to begin with, but with the extra little splashes of colour? Oh, my, too cutie cute!

(via Ship’s cat – Wikipedia)

You all know, I’m a sucker for the nautical look, and I’m a sucker for cats.

Well, look! A teensy-tiny-kitty hammock! With Sailors! The kitty even looks like my little flora!

I should really get her a little hammock like this, she’d love it (if only I could find a sail-maker who’d whip one up for me).

Seriously, the whole Ship’s Cat article on Wikipedia is a fine read.

We bought Nelson Tethers off of Steam when it came out, and I played through it the other afternoon.

Yes, played throught it, all of it, in an afternoon. It’s short. Which is ok for a game that only cost ten bucks, but I feel like it could have lasted a whole lot longer if the puzzles were harder. In addition to that, there were a few puzzles that took me a bit longer to figure out, but – I feel like that was only because they were a little broken.

It’s obvious that for further episodes, Telltale needs to shell out and hire a real puzzle master to create content for them.

But other than that, the game is charming and funny, and worth the ten dollars, even if it is for only a few hours entertainment.

(via marcinema on Flickr)

Sorry people, I’ve been lazy and busy. But here’s a lovely little snap of the annual Governor’s Island Jazz Age Picnic in NYC.

Doesn’t it look positively dreamy? Someday, I’ll go. In the meantime, I am planning my own little picnic in my own little backyard.

(via Ancient Industries)

If your looking to re-create that summery, cottagey feel in your home (and aren’t we all?) take a look at Ancient Industries. The little web shop is bursting with lovely, rustic, old fashioned, European wares, in lickable ice cream colours.

I particularly love this Wedgwood dish set.

As babies, me and my brother and sister all ate off of a set of the ubiquitous Royal Doulton Bunnykins dishes. I think we even had the matching silver spoon – not that my upbringing was in any other way very privileged. They were indulgent shower gifts, that proved to be incredibly practical – good china lasts forever, even through 3 children. And of course, now we know plastic leaches all kind of icky things into baby’s food anyways.

I feel like this set is a much more modern and design-forward interpretation of that old tradition (but retains some very similar traditional origins). It would make a perfect shower gift for an expecting Graphic Designer friend.

It’s pretty neat to see a great design project completed right in your own neighborhood. Our new Sugar Beach sure is adorable.

The beach chairs look mint green (!) against the off-white sand and pink (!!) umbrellas. And they’ve brought in big hunks of Canadian shield and given them candy stripes (!!!).

It helps of course, that Christopher Hume and the dutch designer of this space star in this video in their minimalist designer uniforms of black and white suits. It’s a nice complimentary contrast to the vintage pastel hues of the beach itself.

Hmmmm… I’m picturing a lovely mid-century photo shoot down there… Pastel poufs of dresses (mirroring the swooping circles of the umbrellas), all in sugary candy colours, escorted by  mono-chromatically clad Mad Men…