Twinkle Loon

We arrived in Paris yesterday evening. We spent a few hours trying to figure out where our luggage was. Unfortunately there was a “system error” and half of the plane’s luggage never made it on when we changed planes in England. We made it onto the RER (metro) and walked to our apartment with relative ease and then went out to explore the city. We went to Notre Dame and a cafe where I had quiche. The we walked around a bit and saw some guys break dancing on the street and we ate crepes… I’m feeling a bit cliche but it’s fun! We are off to a giant flea market now. Bonjour!

Almost done packing! I think that every time I go somewhere I end up packing less and less. I like to just focus on bringing a variety of clothing as opposed to the quantity. So here is my little carry-on suitcase! I packed clothes that are all pretty much neutral and then a jacket, belts and two scarfs that are more colorful to spice things up. Oh and I can’t forget my sun hat!

Bon Voyage!

In just a few short days I will be travelling to Europe! Senior year of college I was fortunate enough to become friends with an amazing group of people. We have stayed close friends ever since and really have become like family to each other. We even take “family vacations”! Hence the Euro Trip 2009!

My dear friends Gabe and Thryn have now been in the Peace Corps in Cameroon for one year (read their blog here!). They only have a few weeks vacation so travelling back to the States would be difficult which is why we are meeting up in Europe. Also travelling some distance is my friend Kevin who has been teaching and living down in Costa Rica (read his blog here!). And to round out the group are my lovely and talented local men; my roomie Angelo and my boyfriend Nathan.

We will be meeting up in Paris for one week and then fly to Barcelona and spend another week there. We decided to rent apartments instead of hotels because 1. they are cheaper and 2. all of us really appreciate getting a realistic view of a place; not the watered down tourist attractions. Both apartments have washer and dryers (so I will be packing light) and inter-net (Yay, international blogging!).

I am unbelievably excited to go to two countries I have never been to before and also to see my friends I miss so much! Now to finish packing and practicing “where is the bathroom?” in french…

(Image: Found on Tomojazz… obviously this site is talking about Jazz. I like Jazz. But I just picked the image because it says Paris and Barcelona )

I have always loved vintage fashion and lately have become obsessed with the hair and fascinators. Fascinators are a funny thing, they can be fabulous or disastrously hideous! I didn’t really know what a fascinator was until a year ago when my friend Thryn and I were looking for hair decoration ideas for her wedding day (you can read her Wedlog here). We had a lot of laughs searching the inter-net for fascinators! But I decided to try my hand at it and after a few of my own fascinator fails I came up with the one pictured above. I am quite happy with the look of it and I think I might try my hand at selling them!

It would be remiss of me not to mention all the inspiration I got for this from Etsy so here goes. A beautiful Rosette Fascinator from Giantdwarf. A simple and lovely Eco felt and YoYo flower headband from Luminous Mom. And a slightly different take, the VERA Feather Band from The Candy Thief.

I put this pineapple doile down about a year ago with only two rounds left to go! But I rediscovered it and finally finished it. Yay! Now I just have to block it and it will be ready for the dining room table.

This weekend is Baltimore Pride! So of course we had to put up a painting of Divine in the store window! Isn’t she fabulous!

I love reading fashion blogs, they are my Eco-conscious replacement for reading magazines… the magazines that my Mom would always give me a hard time about reading. Whenever I would buy one with my babysitting money she would say something along the lines of ”why do you want to read that trash? They make women seem stupid. You are beautiful the way you are. Now go read a real book”. And thanks to her I did read a lot of real books… a lot of trash too but at least it got my reading speed up, right?

But I digress, fashion blogs! Just today over on Garance Dore she has a post up where she mentions her Mom buying a Bulgari necklace in the 80’s. I can’t imagine growing up in a household where you could afford buying a Bulgari necklace! This reminds me of when my Mom was informed that her beautiful chunky amber necklace given to her by a Polish Nun friend was not in fact the plastic she had believed it to be. My mom was never a fashionista by any means. The woman could get dressed and out the door in 5 minutes flat. She was ready to change a tire and get dirty in a skirt suit if she had to. They were after all, just clothes. But she taught me some very important things about appearance.

*Once your past puberty don’t show your belly unless you are on the beach in a bikini, otherwise you just look trashy.

*Dress appropriately for the occasion. Never wear jeans or flip flops to any kind of religious gathering.

*Know what works for you so you can get out of the house quickly in the morning. A swipe of pinky red lipstick, hair twisted up, curled eyelashes, spritz of Chanel no.5 and you’re out the door. That was her every workday without fail and she looked gorgeous.

*Chunky sneakers just look stupid

*Do your nails at home and save the money! Clean, filed, fingernails and “rich red” toenails take ten minutes and make it look like you did a lot more work than you really did.

*A kind smile and a strong handshake says “I’m nice but don’t try to take advantage of me, I fight back!”

*And lastly, possibly one of the most important in my book (and my parents, especially my Dad) is good posture. I can’t tell you the number of times that I was told to sit up straight and got a poke in the back. My sister and I to this day have the hilarious reaction to instantly straighten up when our Dad touches our back. We’re like Pavolv’s dog!

Maybe she didn’t have the best fashion sense when it came to picking out something stylish or the latest trend. But due to these few, simple things she came off looking put together but more importantly allowed her personality to shine not her clothes.

Image above: 50’s Department Store Ad

This past weekend my very talented Graphic Designer roommate Angelo threw his sister a baby shower. For the gifts he contacted his friends at Biggs and Featherbelle. He gave them a metal stamp of a baby’s face to imprint on each piece of soap. Angelo was able to find the perfect size muslin bags from muslinbag.com. They are unbleached 100% cotton and made in the U.S. He also had a stamp made of the baby face and we got a little assembly line down to stamp the bags and put a little tag in them with the bar of soap. It’s a great useful party gift and they looked so cute!

It will be a year in August that I bought my house and I feel like I have not done anything to it! All my grand plans went out the window when winter came along and I began my hibernation. I am really going to have to move some place warmer if I want to accomplish things in the winter! But I digress. I finally had a free weekend so I decided to start my fight against the layers of paint covering my 100+ year old wood stairs. When I moved in they had black rubber treads glued on! Yuck!

After searching around for a non-chemical stripper and finding pretty much nothing I decided to start scrapping and see how it went. There are low VOC strippers out there but over the past few years i have developed a lovely (not so) little case of asthma so I didn’t really want to risk it plus they got horrible reviews anyway! Above is how the stairs looked after ripping off the offensive elementary school style rubber treads. Below is during the scrapping process. It’s coming along nicely but I am starting to regret doing this in summer in an un-air conditioned house… sweat anyone!?

Elevation Burger is a new “fast food” place that recently opened up over in Harbor East Baltimore. Its site boasts that it serves only 100% organic grass fed beef. They also strive to be as sustainable as possible. So we decided to check it out and were very pleased! Their burgers are amazing! And the fries are made in olive oil and taste great! (I don’t even like fries, so that’s saying something) Seriously, if you like burgers you should check this place out. And yes, they have veggie burgers too. The atmosphere is relaxed and clean, not jarring and loud like most fast food places. It was a great experience all around and I will definitely be going back there.