Summer Hostess Gift

My roommate had a friend staying with her this week and on the day she left, we came home to this massive, gorgeous fruit salad. Seriously, that is the biggest bowl we own! Filled to the brim with ripe, sweet summer fruit. It was such a thoughtful way to say thank you.

Are you staying with friends this summer? Maybe while on a road trip? Make your hosts a fruit salad and I think you'll be invited back.

A-Thread

Have you heard of a-thread? I stumbled across them when I saw this bracelet on Pinterest. It's a great shopping site that gives 5% of every purchase to some great charities (Kiva, LA Animal Services, Thirst Relief and Children of the Night) and you can even choose which organization your donation goes to. I love when something I'd buy anyway can benefit someone else :)

Some of my favorites...



Cute jewelry, like this bracelet and this necklace.



Great dresses, like this one and this one.



And Scotch Naturals nail polish! I've had the darnedest time finding it here.

(Not a sponsored post.)

Summer Road Trips

When I was in high school my girlfriends and I spent out summers driving up and down the state of California to see boys. It sounds scandalous, but they were friends from church camp so that must be how four teenage girls were allowed to leave for days at a time with the only destination being "(insert male name)'s house." We rode with our feet out the window, turned the radio up loud enough to be heard over the whir of the road, and ate obscene amounts of licorice.

It's been awhile since I stuck my feet out of a car window, but road trips as a "grown up" aren't all that different. A carefree, schedule-less escape, with loud music and good, bad-for-you food. I started daydreaming about road trips today after happening across this New York Magazine guide. The first one is a road trip I've been dreaming about as long as I've lived in New York: NYC to Maine for lobster! I'd try to add some blueberry picking along the way, and maybe stick my feet out the window.

Photo via Kate Spade

(A Pink & Pretty) Weekend in Pictures

{pink and pink and pink}

{straws and crafts}

{lovely lanterns}

{favors}

{wedding crafting}

{how had I never noticed this?}

My weekend was mostly pink, which is a sentence I'd like to be able to say more often. I went to a friend's baby shower brunch, ate pink cake, and played baby shower-y games and didn't hate it (which is saying a lot for me, a frequent eye-roller at shower games). There was also some crafting for wedding #3, and a decidedly non-pink discovery at one of my favorite places. What color was your weekend?

Wedding Season: The Best Wedding Gift I've Ever Given

*I'm not a wedding blogger by any means (just a seasoned wedding guest), but with wedding season upon us I thought I'd share a few posts for brides and wedding guests alike. Today: my favorite group gift!*

When my friend Tracey got married last fall, a handful (eight, to be exact) of friends and I got together and gave the happy couple what turned out to be the best wedding gift I've ever given. It all started one late summer day when my roommate and I were walking home from brunch. We spotted a discarded chair that stopped us both in our tracks. It was super dirty and covered in weird yellow vinyl, but it had such a nice shape.



We considered keeping it for ourselves, but we didn't really need it. Then I remembered Tracey saying that she and her then-fiance were looking for a chair for their new living room. I texted her a picture and she liked it, so we carried it home. It was totally random that we ran across the chair, but I loved the idea of having it reupholstered for them as a wedding present.



Tracey and I went fabric shopping and she chose a gorgeous mustard yellow linen. We worked with a great (and relatively inexpensive) upholsterer in Brooklyn who did an amazing job restoring the chair to it's former glory. Actually, based on the weird yellow vinyl, I think the chair likely looks better now than it did when it was new!

Hands down, it's my favorite wedding gift ever. It's so fun to see it in their living room now. And it made me think about getting a little more creative with gift-giving. Being able to split the cost with a group made it so do-able. I could see doing something similar with a thrift store find, or hand-me-down furniture for a young couple just starting out. What do you think, would you give furniture as a wedding gift?

(A Little Late) Weekend in Pictures

{early morning at the flower market}

{perfect blue sky and fluffy, white clouds}

{awesome toddler hair}

{sunlight on my favorite street in my neighborhood}

{setting sail on the east river}

{brooklyn bridge sun flare}

{empire state}

{boat blues}

{one hot lady}

A weekend of glorious sunshine (and no humidity!) and a bachelorette party on a boat. It's still wedding season, friends. More wedding-gifty posts coming this week :)

A Tiny Little Piglet

Would it be overly dramatic to liken this little pig's journey down the stairs to the weekly process of getting from Monday to Friday? Monday throughThursday being the awkward/nervous process down the stairs, and Friday being the face-first dive into a bowl of oatmeal, of course. Too much? Well, just watch this tiny little pig and get ready to dive face-first into the weekend :)

via Jezebel.

Wedding Season: Bridesmaid Gifts

*I'm not a wedding blogger by any means (just a seasoned wedding guest), but with wedding season upon us I thought I'd share a few posts for brides and wedding guests alike. Up first: bridesmaid gifts!*

I'm not sure if it's a broader wedding trend, but among my friends I've noticed a mini-trend (trendlet?) of giving bridesmaids gifts that they can wear during the wedding festivities, of course, but also something they'd love to wear on any old day. My old roommate Megan gave her bridesmaids turquoise earrings, and she chose a few different types to suit her friend's style. And remember my friend Cholie's gorgeous wedding in Ireland? She gave each bridesmaid a cardigan that she customized with different buttons.

So, if you're a bride looking for a gift for your maids, or just looking for some new summer jewelry, here's a few ideas.



A simple, understated necklace. There's tons of these on Etsy, this one is by curious creatures.



A bright bracelet with her initial, like these from C.Wonder.





Lockets! For bridesmaids, it'd be fun to get a different locket for each girl. Again, Etsy is a great place to find these. (Above lockets from here & here.)







Fun, bright earrings. I've recently given and received the bright orange Kate Spade studs, and I'm obsessed with them. And the pop of neon on the brass earrings from curious creatures would be so fun and unexpected at a wedding.

How about you? Have you ever given or received a bridesmaid gift you really loved?

Top image via Paper Crave.

The Awesomest Book

The other night, my roommate walked through the living room with a book under her arm called "An Awesome Book." I, of course, asked if it was an awesome book and she stopped what she was doing to make me read it. By the third page, it was already in my mental Amazon cart. And halfway through, I had to start the book over and read it out loud to our other roommate, holding the book up like a librarian to show the pictures. Oh, and I was kind of choked up by the end.

Guys, it's that good.



"An Awesome Book" is by writer and illustrator Dallas Clayton, who wrote it for his son. I think it's a pretty big deal in the world of children's books, but as a grown up and a non-mom, I hadn't heard of it. It's about dreaming big, and how sometimes people stop dreaming big and instead dream of things like matching silverware (oops. guilty!).



You can read the whole book online here and I highly recommend that you do. I think this is my new go-to baby shower gift!

(A Lazy) Weekend in Pictures

{a quick trip to brooklyn before it poured}

{leisurely brunch}

{little friends and their tigers}

{free smiles}

{the start of lounging season in central park}

{more brunching}

After the fun and craziness of last weekend, I was pretty lazy this weekend. Lots of brunching, a little strolling, and a fun school carnival thrown in for good measure. It felt like summer. Did yours?

Gatsby

Because it's Friday and we'd all like the day to be over so we can get on with our weekends, let's watch something pretty. Like the trailer for the Baz Luhrmann-directed film version of The Great Gatsby. We'll have to wait for Christmas for this one (which is a shame, because Gatsby is one of my favorite books to reread in the summer), but I'm content with a sparkly trailer for now.



Happy weekend!