a little peak of madrid through my lens // food

a little peak of madrid through my lens

tomate // tomato
I've been compulsively eating them like it's my job. So ripe and sweet.
Probably have had more in the past 4 days then the last year.
(raw, not including tomato sauces ;)
did you know: "Tomatoes are the biggest vegetable crop, and the single most eaten foodstuff in Spain. However, Spain is not even in the top 5 tomato producers in the world, which are, in order, the U.S.A,, China, India, Turkey and Italy." -Francis Barrett
jamon de madrid // madrid ham
ham is so widely consumed here (especially iberian ham) that it's basically found in every food market + restaurant in Madrid
a local favorite: french fries with a fried egg or two, topped with lots of iberian ham - variations served at from little pubs to luxe dining establishments

The Old Red Hen + Happy Friday

I recently stumbled across The Old Red Hen, a delightful etsy shop filled with wonderfully selected vintage finds. What completely captivates me are the beautifully styled, amazing photos so I wasn't shocked to hear that Julie, shop owner, is also a professional photographer - check out her website/portfolio here. Julie, you need to open up a shop and start selling prints of your photos.

--------------- for your reading / viewing pleasure ---------------
a few of my favorite reads + finds from this week

+ Flash Mob Resource Party // doobleh-vay
+ 8 Steps To Get Over Post Alt Summit Depression // Old Sweet Song
+ French Onion Soup // Tartelette
+ I say this to myself every morning // One Sydney Road
+ Rachel & Tylers newly remodeled bathroom // Raenovate

La Bonne Vie on Pizzelles

Hello sweet friends! Today you'll find me guest blogging at Pizzelles. If you didn't know, Pizzelles is a food blog written by Brandi of {not your average ordinary}. A must read. Won't you head on over and join us for some french macarons and tea?

una vida hermosa

{ image source, photographer: Ira Chernova - found via }

Life is beautiful.

Months before the trips to LA and Salt Lake City (for Alt) were planned, my mom and I booked a vacation to Madrid. It's our first trip to Spain and I'm (quoting Rachel) pee my pants excited. We're leaving later tonight and for the next week, we'll be people watching in Retiro Park, browsing the Prado Museum for inspiration, walking Gran Via to finally see the Metropolis building for ourselves, going to Plaza de Cibeles to see the famous Cibeles fountain and consuming vast amounts of delicious food and vino. What makes this trip super special is the fact that I can experience this all with my mom! I'll for sure share our adventures when we return but in the meantime, I would love any suggestions on places to go, things to try, or could work some kind of a miracle and teach me Espanol in a couple of hours!

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Alt Summit silliness with Piper and Lillian
...these pictures make my heart burst <3 size="2">(photo booth from getpicturethis.com)

Macaron Love

I find it funny that days after I manage to satiate a macaron craving, it just comes back stronger - almost as if I'm going through serious macaron withdrawal. Because I know you're wondering, my overall favorite macaron flavor is lemon - you know, on the off chance that you'll be in my neighborhood. ;) Until my next macaron encounter, I'll be lusting after these delicious looking prints.

Want them too? You can purchase these prints here, here, and here.

the stars align

Sometimes we're lucky enough that the stars somehow align and we end up, by choice or chance, being apart of something truly amazing... something that is life changing. For me, it was Alt.

Being at Alt was like going to summer camp and you're having so much that you just don't want it to end. I'm genuinely inspired by the beautiful people I met - the drive, ambition and sheer talent that each individual possesses is incredible. The best and most unexpected part was coming home knowing that I made lifetime friendships.

{images 1 & 2 by me, 3 via, photographer: Brooke Dennis, and 4, camera booth hosted by Kate Spade NY}

Off to Alt...

I'm super excited to be off to Alt {Altitude Design Summit} today. The schedule and speakers look inspirational and I'm also really psyched to meet up with Brandi, Erin, and finally get to meet Piper, Rachel and Lillian. We're starting off the summit with dinner tonight at a farm to table restaurant, Pago - a highly anticipated feast (at least by me) because the menu looks amazing and I simply cant wait to meet and catch up with these wonderful ladies!

Now please keep your fingers crossed for me... hopefully my flight out of NYC won't be delayed so that I make my connecting flight and arrive on SLC on time and in one piece. Happy Wednesday, friends!

missing the sun...

While it is good to finally be home (sweet home) from our little adventure to LA, I have to admit the brutal weather in NY is a shocking change from the sunny, spring-like weather in Southern California.

...dreaming about summer in midst of our freezing rain/hail and slush on the ground.

images found here, here, here and here

Bottega Louie

I hope you're all having a wonderful MLK day! While in LA, every time we mentioned that we were staying in the downtown area, our friends would suggest we have a meal at Bottega Louie. It has amazing reviews on Yelp. Bottega Louie has a full service restaurant but in the front, they offer their pastries and an assortment of sandwiches to go as well as a small open seating area (perfect for when there is a huge wait for the restaurant but you just want a quick snack). In the 4 days we were there, I went three times - once with one of my oldest, dearest friends, once with Ryan just for the chocolate souffle, and again with Ryan for brunch. The chocolate souffle is a must have, it takes about 25 minutes so make sure you have the time but it's worth the wait. I'm not a serious chocolate person but this souffle is chocolately but not too sweet. Absolutely divine. They have a colorful assortment of delicious french macarons - my favorites are lemon and earl grey but what Ryan raved about was the pizza. He ate until he was stuffed... and then ate some more. I wish we were around longer so I could try the pastries and the other items on the menu. If Bottega Louie was in my neighborhood, I'd be in there all day, everyday!

(all images are from the Bottega Louie blog)

Journey to the West

The past few days have been completely nuts. Ryan and I had a trip planned to LA leaving in the evening on Wednesday (1/12) but because of the impending blizzard, we thought it would be smarter to leave a day earlier and *hopefully* avoid the snow storm. There was an important meeting scheduled that we absolutely could not miss. Ryan rushed home from work and we scrambled to pack and get ourselves to the airport.

So, we arrive at Westchester County Airport on Tuesday at 7PM (first of all, who knew there was an airport in Westchester?) and were told that the plane we needed to board to get to DC was still on the ground in DC. Our flight was delayed. Boo. Then, we were told that because the flight to DC was delayed, we would be missing our connecting flight to LA. Boo again. They booked us on the next flight out to LA - a good 11 hours later, a little after 8AM Wednesday morning. Boo x3. We thought, hey! as long as we get there on Wednesday, we'll be fine. Three hours later, they announced that our flight to DC was canceled. At this point, we were tired, frustrated, and slightly delirious - it already started snowing hard and we were told that all fights on Wednesday from all NY airports were canceled. What could we do to get to LA?

So like the bright, intelligent and, at this point, mentally deranged people we are, we rented a car to drive down to DC (did I mention that the blizzard was coming up from DC?) A trip that should have taken us 4 hours took almost 8. For the first half of the drive, the snow was so bad that we could barely see the road, much less go faster than 20 miles an hour. I was surprised we made it at all! Thankfully we rented a big SUV with 4 wheel drive (we owe you our lives, Avis guy). Otherwise this post would probably have ended with, "we got stuck in a snow ditch off the side of the highway" - something we saw plenty of on our little road trip. By the time we got to Dulles International Airport (which, FYI, is apparently NOT in DC but in Virginia... but anyway...) We were officially incoherent but very thankful the flight to LA was not canceled. 23 hours later, we arrived in sunny LA, safe and sound.

Of course, now that we're rested.. kinda (I think it may take me a few days to completely get over this absurd trip) I realized that in the chaos at the beginning of our adventure, I didn't pack very much except cardigans and tights. I know it's warm here but I think I need articles of clothing to cover my toosh. :) At the very least, Ryan made it to his meeting... and this was an interesting adventure - something Ryan and I will be talking and laughing about for years to come.

A few side notes:

+ Working for an airline is a thankless job. We don't pay much attention to airline employees when things go as planned but they feel our wrath when things go awry. Thank you to the United Airlines ladies at the Westchester County Airport that really took the time to help us book and rebook our flights when our first flight was canceled. I do have gripes about United Airlines as a company as well as their planes but I'll leave that for another day...

+ I want to apologize to Ashley of A Hasty Life as well as the other participants of her "It's In The Bag" blog crawl. I was scheduled to post yesterday but in midst of our rush to get to the airport, it slipped my mind. I'll post mine early next week :) To check out the other posts, see her schedule here.

+ Lastly, we'll be back to regularly scheduled posts on Monday. In the meantime, have a fabulous weekend folks!


Image sources: here and here

New Save The Dates - Becca and Curtis

I recently finished these whimsical save the date postcards for Becca and Curtis, (available in my shop) who were a stationer's dream to work with. They had three requirements for their save the date postcards, 1- color scheme (yellow, navy & a little bit of grey), 2- Nelly Script and 3- boy+girl silhouettes. Aside from those details, Becca gave me carte blanche to work my design magic. I'm thrilled with how they came out and most importantly, they are as well. :)

Dear Anthropologie...

...um, when can I move in?

(all images from Anthropologie)

Simple Luxuries

...coveting the simple luxuries bag by One Language. Such a simple, lovely design that is still incredibly functional with different pockets and spaces to store all of your little goodies. Best of all, it's made of 100% natural canvas and comes with laptop sleeve that also doubles as another bag. My favorite little detail? Each bag is lined with handwritten, inspirational quotes.

Speaking of simple luxuries, we spent our weekend catching up with friends and family, eating delicious food and relaxing. It was a great way to ring in the new year. I need to do a better job balancing my "work life" and my "social life" - as some small business owners may understand, it's really hard to step away from your job when you are the only employee and the company is your baby. That is one of my resolutions for 2011 - because spending time and catching up with friends and family is what life is really about.

On a side note, I've been rockin' my brand new bunny slippers from Urban Outfitters for a couple of days now. We have pretty destructive pups - when they were puppies, we used to buy them cute, fluffy toys like this and this but they would shred them up in a hot second. Now, the toy collection looks more like this, this and this. In any case, I was terrified that my bunnies would be without eyes and ears the moment I left them out and forgot they where alone with the beasts, uh, I mean awesome pups. But surprisingly, all is well. Eyes? Ears? Nose? Check, check and check. My my, I think our babies are growing up!

(All images from One Language website)

Happy Twenty Eleven

source via pinterest

Happy 1/1/11 everyone! I wanted to start off the new year by thanking all of my readers and clients, bloggers and designers that I've had the honor of befriending in 2010. Your love and support motivates and inspires me every single day. Cheers to a phenomenal new year, friends!