Vintage Spring

Hello, chickadees!  Just stopping in to share some spring blossoms.  The crabapple is blooming in the front yard, and the lilacs and azaleas have just joined in, too.  Next up will be the viburnums and rhodies, and then the weigelas, mock oranges, and bridal veil spirea will follow not long after that.  

Life is a rush of activity this spring, but we did take one day to hit Brimfield Flea Market with our friend Kazeem, from Portland Trading Co.  I'll have some photos and finds to share soon!

My photo above was featured by DistressedFX on their Instagram feed and Facebook page this week.  If you haven't tried this app, I recommend it for photos that you want to really manipulate and push in exciting directions.  I use this app as well as Stackables to create moody effects for some of my iPhone photos.  I think I ended up using both apps on the top photo of the crabapple blossoms.  Before I used the textures, though, I upped the exposure and desaturated the photo a bit.  The background of that photo is my picnic table, which most people would think really needs a paint job, but I use it a lot for photos, so it will stay shabby chic a while longer.  ;)  

For photos I take with my big girl camera, I often use fewer textures and stick to subtler processing techniques in Lightroom.  I do some of that processing from scratch or with my own presets, but I also use presets by other folks, including this exciting new set from Kim Klassen.  Presets provide me with so much flexibility, and they give me ideas for creating several moods with one shot.  If you've never tried them before, take a peek at Kim's collection.  I think you will love it.

Vintage finds from Brimfield in the next post!  I have some exciting things to show you.  

Happy weekend, my friends! 

The Would-Be Archeologist in New York

Times Square

For me, travel is an archeological dig.  On the surface of a place there are the things we expect to find: the statues, fountains, buildings, and parks we see on every tourist website and in every travel guide.  Those things are fine, but they usually have very little to do with the everyday life of a place, and they tend to leave me wanting to run to the nearest hole-in-the-wall diner for a slice of something real.  So, I see an "attraction" like the current-day Times Square as the top layer in my dig.  Everything is obvious, commercialized, boring.  Once I emerge from the subway at 42nd Street, I can't wait to walk a few blocks over to get to the Hell's Kitchen Flea Market.  There, the real fun of the dig begins.  I get to meet locals, haggle for bargains, and discover unexpected treasures. 

Hell's Kitchen Flea Market

A box of chandelier crystals at the flea

Treasures at the flea

I love getting a little lost in Greenwich Village, finding beautiful, one-of-a-kind shops I've never heard of, and eating cannoli at a local neighborhood bakery.

Incredible offerings at Pasticceria Rocco in the West Village

Venus at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

I also love wandering for hours at the Met or the Public Library, finding exhibitions by chance (like the Mary Cassatt prints at the library right now).

In the Reading Room at the NY Public Library

The beauty of traveling in a place like New York is that one's "digging" involves looking up as much as it does looking down--up at the cornices and pilasters and water towers and skyscrapers.  I especially like to stop, turn, and look back at where I've just walked, so I can see it from another direction.  I find some of my favorite discoveries this way.

And last but not least, seeing a city from above is always a good way to get a sense of its scope and scale.  I highly recommend taking the Roosevelt Island Tram (next to the Queensboro Bridge).  Mr. Magpie and I took it at sunset, and the views of Manhattan as we headed over the East River were spectacular.  It only takes a few minutes to get to Roosevelt Island, and then you can go exploring there or hop back on the tram and head back to 59th Street.  

View from the Roosevelt Island Tram at Sunset

Here are few links to some of the highlights from this last trip to New York, in no particular order.  I can't wait to go digging there again soon.

• Kalustyan's ~ A fabulous spice and specialty foods market in Murray Hill.  
• Pasticceria Rocco ~ Traditional Italian bakery on Bleecker Street in the Village
• Cafe China ~ Unique and beautiful Chinese food in a 1930's Shanghai atmosphere on 37th St.
• Alloro ~ Experimental Italian food--I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but the food is wonderful and fun--on the Upper East Side.
• Chelsea Market ~ For a quick and delicious lunch for after you've been walking the High Line, stop by Chelsea Market in the old Nabisco Building.  Yes, it's for tourists, but it's lovely, and the food selection is great. 
• Hell's Kitchen Flea Market ~ It wouldn't be a vacation for the Magpies without a trip to the flea.
• The Frick ~ An awe-inspiring collection.
• The Morgan Library ~ I can't believe I'd never been here before.  Book, library, and manuscript lovers must go here.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art ~ Always, of course.
• The Mary Cassatt prints at the NY Public Library ~ they'll be up until June 23, 2013.
• Washington Square Park ~ Yes, I love Central Park, but there's something magical about Washington Square.  It's a great place to have a picnic lunch, people-watch, listen to the various street performers, and get a strong sense of the neighborhood.  

Next trip: We'll be heading to the Neue Galerie and Cafe Sabarsky as well as the Noguchi Museum!

At Home

I've been looking at a lot of photographs of people's homes lately.  Not photos that were staged by stylists and lit by photographers, but everyday photographs in natural light, and I've been loving them.

This afternoon I went around our apartment--the place we're living for a year or two until we can sell our loft in Massachusetts and buy a house up here.  For a temporary house, this place has loads of charm, and we immediately felt at home here.  There's plenty of room for my magpie collections and our books. Oh, and a bed of some sort (red wagon, wicker basket, old suitcase . . .) for Scout in every room.  

I purposely didn't stage anything.  Everything's as-is in these photos, dust and all.  I'm sick of staged home photos.  What I like to see are the everyday traces of lives lived.  We all leave a mark on each day--by the things we wear, the words we say, the objects we use, and the way we move through the world.  That's what I love.  That's what inspires me.  

Everyday bling in the bathroom.

We collect and write with fountain pens, 

so there's always ink in cubbies and drawers.

I buy beat-up old medicine cabinets at flea markets, 

sand them, paint them, and use them 

to store curios, spices, books, etc.

Treasures.

A long hallway runs like a spine through this apartment 

with our kitchen at the head.  

Near the kitchen entrance is an old brick arch,  

and that's another of my medicine cabinets on the wall.  

This one stores spices and essential oils.

Yes, that's Bananagrams on the hutch.

Our kitchen walls are covered floor-to-ceiling 

with the original subway tiles.  

I love the border of black tiles near the ceiling.

Like our kitchen, 

the bathroom is tiled in white with black.  

The bird vase is from my friend Melissa.  

This step in my study leads out to the sunporch.  

It's too cold out there in the winter, 

so the step becomes a book shelf and landing spot 

for random plants and paintings.

These vintage suitcases store CD's 

and double as an end table.

Last but not least, the boots.  

You know we love our boots around here, 

but there's no place to store them, 

so we decided that they are art.

As I type that I realize 

that so much depends upon 

how we choose to see and value things.  

The small stones in the first photo

are some of the heart-shaped stones

I have collected over the past couple of years.

Once I spot them, gather them, 

slip them into my pocket,

they become talismans--

they become what I need them to be.

This "home-for-now" has done the same;

it is just what I need it to be.

More photos soon.  

Can't wait to show you my old pilasters 

and favorite books!  

xo

  

The Keys to a Blissful Weekend

A visit home to Maine, 

a lot of gardening at Mum's,

a lot of good cooking and eating 

(like jalapeno shrimp with lime and cilantro on the grill),

Bananagrams,

bargains at the Montsweag Flea

and Reny's,

snapping a few good shots,

thinking a few good thoughts,

penning a few good words,

taking one good, long walk.

Thanks to Skeletal Mess for the old paper texture in photos 1 & 2 

and to Kim Klassen for the grubbify texture in photos 1 & 3.

This Week Around the House

Okay, so I promised some photos of home improvement projects around the house, and these are not those.  I'm realizing that most of our home improvement projects, while thrilling to us, will be literally like watching paint dry to everyone else.  Here, though, are some random shots I took around the house this week.  Above are my vintage clay marbles.  Many of my New England friends will know the flea market where I bought these: the Montsweag Flea in Maine.  It's one of my favorite flea markets, ever, and these little guys came stored in this sweet milk bottle.  They live next to my desk.   

If you've been reading my blog for a few months, you are probably beginning to realize by now that I have just a bit of a collecting habit.  At the same time, and in direct conflict with my collecting tendencies, I hate clutter, so over the years I have developed a solution: many of my collections include items that can be used to store other items.  Brilliant.  Thus my memere's lovely Roseville vase is the home of my knitting needles.  And, as you might have seen in my post from Wednesday, I collect old suitcases and paintboxes.  They house CDs and, well, paints.

The desk above was my father's.  For years his parents rented out a small apartment in their home, and one of their lodgers left this desk behind.  It became my dad's, and when I was a kid I would sit at it writing and drawing and playing with the little drawers and compartments inside.  Now it is mine, and I treasure it.  Some of my favorite books rest on the shelves underneath.  On the top left side next to the lamp is a vintage radio tube that I bought for my husband because he researches and writes about, among other things, early radio at the BBC.  The chair in this photo is an old Haywood Wakefield that I bought for him, too, at one of my mother's antiques shows.  Oh, and I have to mention the pretty leaf lantern made by pachadesign.  

Above is a close-up of the desktop with the beautiful Buddha my mother gave me and and one of a pair of Art Deco lamps she gave us for our wedding anniversary.  We had admired (drooled over) them in her shop, and my thoughtful mum took notice.

Last but not least, it's those paperwhites again!  But I included this photo because it has the only piece of the renovation stuff that wasn't too boring to show.  We took down a godawful light fixture in our master bath and replaced it with something much nicer (I hope), but I was left with all these globe-shaped light bulbs.  I suddenly had the bright idea (forgive the pun) to put them under this cloche.  I actually love them when the sunlight streams through them in the morning.

So now I'm curious . . . What are you collecting these days?  Any favorites or wish list items?

Indigo, Azure, Topaz, Plum, and other Shades of Joy

Cate's here for a visit. We have been magpies and adventurers.

It seems like everything we've done has been bursting with color.

~this tiny pot from the hollis flea cost 2 whole smackeroos~

~ sunshine in a blossom~

~endless plums at lull farm for grilling with butter & honey~

~endless blooms too~

~cake just because~

~settling in for an afternoon snooze~

~lights in the trees at peet's in cambridge~

~a rare blue sky~

~lavender for heart sachets~

Hope your weekend was full of color, too, my friends!

Harvard & Hollis

The weekend began with pink tulips and the promise of summer weather.

Friday afternoon we found ourselves in Cambridge

with Marlowe & David.

A peek in Colonial Drug was called for . . .

. . .as was some time spent lounging in front of Cafe Crema 

with the birds and the young couples in love.

Saturday was a lost day.  

As gorgeous as it was, I spent most of it inside 

working on a reading/talk I'm giving Monday.

I've been feeling under the weather, 

which is a pity on such a weekend as this,

so Todd dragged me out of bed today and off to the Hollis Flea!

The farmers were out plowing this morning, 

and the dealers were out dealing.  

Tons of great stuff at the market. 

 I bought a few vintage-y treasures, but here's a look at a few that I passed by:

My Memere always had a ceramic tree just like the green one 

on her kitchen table in Old Town, Maine.

A chorus of Kermits.

Fabulous barbells.

It was hot at the market today, 

but this mum and daughter made my heart melt even a little more.