Hello all who still happen upon this blog. Things have been pretty crazy over here..in short, we did get the house and are very happy with it, though we are in the midst of giving it some needed updates before we can start sleeping there. It's alright because even if it were move-in ready, we'd both be mostly at my parents' still. The only down side to getting a house, a new place to live, and then have to do little renovations that force you to imagine how it will be, is that there is nothing solid for me to envision going back to when this is all over. It's difficult to imagine it all when you've not lived there before this sickness. Before, I could try to envision going back to our apartment in the city, that was familiar..though admittedly, it actually was still difficult to imagine..so who knows. But I like to be able to have a vision, otherwise I become worried that it will not happen.
The holidays have are proving to be a nice distraction to everything. Still no new kidney inside of me. I go to dialysis and in the waiting room I wonder how I can do this so often. I am so lucky though, because according to the days I usually go, their holiday schedule works out that I do not have to come on Christmas or New Year's eve. That is a huge massive deal to me. I will have my weekend for that week as the eve's and days of Christmas and New Year's.

Did you see Anabela's wedding on the Etsy blog? You may have spotted a Glittering Fringe Banner that I made for her and Geoff! I am still sad I couldn't be there for their day, but she's told me it was lovely and reading things like this Etsy piece is very nice. I am so happy for those two.

I should have stopped in sooner to remind you that my mom still has her shop, Oh Merci, open and is shipping until the end of Sunday December 16th. You can also contact her for rush orders. I decided to whip up a little gift guide including some special items that will be lovely for your Holidays...

So that is that. I am hoping to pop in again this week with another tiny surprise. I've been meaning for a month or so now to share something with you all. I hope your having a wonderful December! xoxo

Pretty Places

photos by Anabela / Fieldguided

Today the Etsy blog is featuring Anabela + Geoff's home! Head over to the feature to be inspired and find lots of nice things to add to your own home. I have been trying to spring clean when I have a free moment, and so this post serves as some more motivation. Sigh. I have too many treasures. Too much stuff. And not enough time to keep it all organized properly. I digress.
I'm so excited to see my Shoegaze Light Shade, as well as a shot of my one of a kind Happy Cloud Light Shade which Anabela purchased from me a while back. I am flattered that she has chosen to hang it in her sewing room, a place where she creates lovely things.

My Eskell Window

I wanted to pop in quickly to (finally) share with you some photos for the window display that I did for Eskell! I mentioned it was inspired by the opening for Picnic at Hanging Rock, so here is that..

The song always gives me chills! So yes.. Doing a window near Valentine's Day, how could I resist drawing inspiration from a favorite movie that is involved around Valentine's Day. Lace, candles surrounded by glittering rocks, roses floating in a basin, feathers, Victorian Valentine cards, vintage lockets..

The In God We Trust engraving event with Eskell was a lot of fun, especially since some great pals came out! We all got a lil something engraved..here is what I got:

It says 'girlfriend', cos James and I are silly in love and way back when we started addressing each other as such (as in, "Oh hey, Boyfriend!" or "Girlfriend, do you want to go get something to eat?") because we were/are so happy to be that special kinda friend. awww, I know.

So that's that! It was a lot of fun and I just may do a few more windows for them in the near future! 

But in the nearer future I will be finishing up fringe banner orders (I've got to take the time to think of a better name for them)..hold tight! I swear they are comin soon to your mailbox! I've got a lot of Love Always to make... 

xo

My Window for Eskell

So the window that I did for Eskell is up! I was very excited to have been asked..nervous..but mostly excited. There was limited time so I kept it pretty simple, though installation took longer than I thought it would. My mom actually came down to the city to help me put it up! I knew she'd really like the store and it was really nice having her help. Anyway, it's up! And I hope people will enjoy it.

I don't have any photos yet, but I'll tell you that I was inspired by Picnic at Hanging Rock, specifically the opening sequence.

I hope you can all swing by Eskell today from 4pm - 8pm or so for the custom engraving event with In God We Trust! I'm really looking forward to it....although strangely I am having troubles thinking of sayings or words I'd like to have engraved on something...I've been so busy I haven't been able to give it much thought. Hopefully I'll come up with something good!

Cool Happenings

Nice was featured on Refinery29 and Nylon Daily! Pretty, pretty cool!

Christmas Time

 

I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season! These photos were taken out apartment on Christmas Eve. We had a very pretty snowfall that night. This is our first Christmas at this place and it was pretty nice. We have lots of trees in this neighborhood and it was very pretty to watch the snow collect on branches outside our window.

James and I had a very nice holiday this year. Christmas eve was spent with most of James' family and that was very nice and relaxing, as always. Christmas day was spent at my family's and in the evening we had a fun time with my parents going for a drive to see extravagant holiday lights and staying up very late playing games and laughing.

In shop news, another custom Hooray Banner has had the honor of being a part of a beautiful wedding! Click on over to the Style Me Pretty blog to see the rest of Colleen's wedding, photographed by Jonathan Hoffner.

Also, one of my Hooray banners made it into the Green Wedding Shoe's top 10 Favorite Wedding Fashion Moments of 2010!! 

Awkward

Hi, I'm James - Caitlin's boyfriend. I'm here to tell you a bit about what Caitlin's been up to lately.
So a few weeks back Caitlin learned that she would be featured in a local magazine along with some of the vintage items she sells
(by the seashore). We were both very excited but Caitlin was also terribly nervous about the whole ordeal. I received frantic
phone calls at work and, at our home, was privy to a Faulknerian string of fretting and cursing. Being featured in magazines
isn't the sort of thing that comes naturally, or regularly, to either one of us, and so I could at least empathize while also
encouraging my darling girlfriend that all would go well. When the magazine asked Caitlin to drop in to be photographed (along
with her vintage items), I believe just about every single anxious nerve in Caitlin's body must have melted. Again, I did my
best, reassuring Caitlin that she had nothing to worry about. We worked out a plan, of sorts: Caitlin would consult her
brother, Douglas, a photographer by trade, the day prior to the shoot, and I would accompany her to the shoot.

The day of the shoot was brilliant, better weather than we've had in weeks due to torrential rain and sweltering heat. We
packed the car with some vintage goods she would have on offer at the forthcoming Vintage Bazaar and headed down. I thought
Caitlin looked lovely, and I was happy to have the afternoon free to be with her. The shoot itself was over quickly and seemed
relatively painless for both photographer and subject, and we enjoyed a much-anticipated (and deservedly so) lunch at XOCO.

Flash forward a week, and the magazine's spotlight on local vintage sellers is published to the web (I don't think either of us
have seen it in print just yet). Caitlin had her eye out for the faintest mention in tweet or Facebook form, as her nerves about
the whole ordeal had never truly died down. Sure enough, when she did come across her published likeness, she was mortified, as
were her friends, family, and quite possibly even the cat, Constable, who as of this writing refuses to look in the direction
of the screen displaying the image. I chose not to look - bad idea. Caitlin was after me to do so, and she definitely wasn't
having any of my stoic optimism - perhaps not optimism, but apathy (in the best possible sense of the word), meaning that today's
nightmares are forgotten in a week's time, more often than not. When I did look, I, too, was shocked to find that the image was,
indeed, an exceptionally poor representation of my dear and darling girlfriend, Caitlin. My initial reaction was to say that it
appeared as if the magazine had chosen to publish the worst frame of the shoot.

And so there was much sobbing in our home, rhetorical questions asked through tears. It was a sad two, three days for Caitlin.
She wasn't happy, and she's still not, which is why I write here today, to tell you that I have a lovely, darling girlfriend.
She is beautiful by every measure and I am immeasurably proud to know her. She looks nothing at all like the woman in that awful
picture even on her worst days. That may sound like an overstatement but it's the honest truth.

To lift Caitlin's spirits I suggested she ask her brother shoot some photos. I think / hope she'll share one or two here, at the
bottom of this post, just for the sake of comparison (provided she's "over it" enough to also share the link to the magazine feature).
Should she choose to do so, know that this is the girl I've known, the woman I love.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

That is my boyfriend. xo haha. What a swell guy to vouch for me. So yes. This was my first time being featured in a magazine, and the first time that I have been
professionally photographed since senior photos (summer of 2000, people), so I was nervous. I was able to spend some time with my brother beforehand and he snapped some photos and gave me some tips (and lots of laughs). He even tried to create lighting similar to what a studio would do (we referenced their previous photos and anyway, he has experience). So by the end of that I was feeling ok and just ready to get the whole thing over with.
I gotta say, I'm certainly not trying to blame or bash the photographer, it's just a fact that I am a difficult person to photograph. I am not a person who is comfortable
in front of a camera, especially when behind the camera is a stranger. I do wish I had more direction though. Instead of direction on how to stand, I was asked questions about my business which at the time was like asking me the most difficult math problem known to man! It certainly did not help me relax when I'm standing with a camera 4 feet from my face in a small dark room while trying to remember all the tips my brother gave me. I assumed it was going to be a head shot (I've seen shots like that in their magazine) so I wasn't thinking about my hands at all. I also probably blinked in every other photo- maybe even every photo but the one they chose.
But enough! I consider myself a person who has a great sense of humor- and while I do still feel crummy about my first published photo, I for sure see how funny it is. I mean, let the photo age a decade and you'll see it on the Sexy People blog. Or maybe it's bad (good) enough that they'll make an exception. And Alison's post seriously could not have come at a more perfect time, as her exact thoughts are the same that have often crossed my mind.

I thought I'd of course show you the photo from the shoot, but also the ones my brother, Douglas, took. Some are nice, some are funny..they were all meant for practice (hence the tank top, just what I happened to be wearing that day)..all are better than what happened in Time Out...let's indulge in the many faces of Caitlin...

 

Above, Time Out Chicago Caitlin
Below, fun times with my brother..

Photo for my new age healing book

'You Can Do This' Photo for my new age self help healing book

 

'It's warm even' face

'It's hard for me to not smile but I want to try' face

such a caring expression, it's gotta be my campaign photo

Promo photo for my comedy tour

Candid cult photo

Photo for my realtor billboard or broadcast news anchor bio (I went from 0 to 60 for this and we laughed for a long while)

not having fun anymore

judge or high school guidance counselor

oh cool rock band photo

So there you have it. MY FACE. haha whatev. That is the most you'll see of me for a while, I think. Hope you had a lil' LOL. 
I should also make clear that I am indeed grateful and flattered to have been asked to be part of this Time Out Chicago mini round up of just a few of the awesome vintage sellers Chicago has to offer. I am also honored to be part of the Vintage Bazaar which in my opinion is the best thing to happen to local vintage in a long time. Libby and Katherine are doing great things!

Also, in case my face gave you the urge to buy some vintage, here are the items they featured, which are all currently available in my shop!  

Summer Water

Hey pals!
It has been a while..summer really makes one busy! I've got a lot to share with you, so I hope you'll stay tuned while I try and get back in the swing of blogging.

Right now I have some great news! Perhaps you've already heard, as I'm sure many of you who read this blog also enjoy my great friend Anabela's blog........
We are working on a project together called Summer Water! It has been in the works since the spring of '09- I guess we are daydreamers and value the wonderful ideas that come when you take your time and let them evolve, haha. Anyway, it's here and it was worth the wait for us. I hope you'll enjoy it!

The name Summer Water was drawn from one of our most favorite artists, Colleen. Here is the song..

A love for Colleen was one of the first of many things that Anabela and I bonded over when we first began talking in 2007. It was very exciting for me to come across a girl who also enjoys Colleen! haha I am a dork like that- but really, she was the first! I think most girls (especially) can appreciate Colleen once they hear her music...it's so dreamy, peaceful, yet sometimes spooky. Just like all those movies we seem to like, right? Picnic at Hanging Rock..Valerie and Her Week of Wonders..you know!

I hope you'll bookmark the Summer Water blog where we plan to update often, and keep your eyes peeled on the Summer Water shop. We decided to give Big Cartel a try (I'm excited!), and will most likely expand to Etsy, perhaps after this first run of items.

You can read more about Summer Water and see another sneak peak at this post on Anabela's blog.

I'll be back soon with more things to share :)