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love is a fabric which never fades

06/08/2011 by Jennifer Leave a Comment

Remember how I said my mom had a bunch of neat fabric? I decided to go around my house and take pictures of all the patterns I could find. Most of these are bags or scarves that are draped over chairs, but some are my mom’s dresses. Don’t worry, I won’t be cutting them into little headbands or anything :)

The one on the upper left is mine now, so I might turn it into something or just keep it as a scarf.

As I was looking around the house, I came upon this beautiful dress in the closet of our study! Who knew?! My mom doesn’t really wear it anymore and she said I could have it. It’s the perfect summery, long, (free) dress. I love it.

“Love is a fabric which never fades, no matter how often it is washed in the water of adversity and grief.”

ephesus ceramic

06/07/2011 by Jennifer Leave a Comment

Ephesus Ceramic, or Efes Çini was my favorite part of Turkey and possibly the whole trip! We entered this building, watched a demonstration, and found ourselves in a giant room of some of the prettiest ceramics I have ever seen.

All of the products are 100% handmade, lead free, and dishwasher safe. These are the ones I bought:

this one means eternity :)

Also, my dreams of making pottery may be coming true! I found a wheel throwing class that I will probably take in July at the Davis Art Center :) :)

air france: making the sky the best place on earth

06/06/2011 by Jennifer Leave a Comment

I know I just got back, but I really, really want to get on an airplane again. My best friend Sara came up with a brilliant plan to meet in Paris two weeks from now and go to London and Poland as well. But I decided against it because I just got back from Europe and also, I’m not a millionaire. (details…)

Now I am having travel withdrawals. Air France was a really nice airline (I mentioned before that they played Ray LaMontagne and had celebrity look-a-likes to entertain us). Well, they also have really cool posters :)

fresh-squeezed lemonade

06/02/2011 by Jennifer Leave a Comment

I mentioned earlier that I love lemonade, especially during this season (although it’s pretty cold outside still). Well, it just so happened that when I came home from my trip, I was greeted by tons and tons of lemons! One of my mom’s friends gave them to us, so we have a great supply. Since the lemonade in our refrigerator was super expired, I decided to make the real kind. I was hesitant to share this recipe because, you know, it is really complex and kind of a family treasure, but… okay fine.

So I took some lemons,

got out this trusty juicer device,

added water, ice, and sugar…

and voila! I like simple things :)

summer reading: the secret life of bees

05/31/2011 by Jennifer Leave a Comment

“At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched zzzzzz that hummed along my skin. I watched their wings shining like bits of chrome in the dark and felt the longing building in my chest. The way those bees flew, not even looking for a flower, just flying for the feel of the wind, split my heart down its seam.”

After reading it, I watched the movie which was so perfect because it was exactly how I pictured everything to be. I recommend reading the book no matter what though because it is well written and it takes you into Lily’s mind and heart. The dialogue in the movie was everything I hoped it would be, but it didn’t give me the same depth and understanding as the book. I guess that is usually how books-turned-movies are.

So, I have a thing about honeybees, honey, honeycomb, everything. All honey-related things are so cool and I really want to learn more about beekeeping. I bought Keeping Bees by Ashley White the other day. It would be a fun thing to do after I graduate and study up on it. Also, we have neighbors who are beekeepers so maybe they can take me to their apiary :) but I’ve got to meet them first.

etsy & hammerpress

thewheatfield on etsy
(my friend Sara sent me this)

flickr

design*sponge

“I looked again at the honey jars, at the amber lights swimming inside them, and made myself breathe slowly. I realized it for the first time in my life; there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don’t even know it.”

mediterranean travels

05/30/2011 by Jennifer 1 Comment

The past week and a half was very wonderful, but I’m so thankful to be home. I feel comfortable and refreshed, and with the time change I was able to get up at 6:00am, no problemo :)

I began the trip with food poisoning or something like that from the airplane food. This meant that I missed most of our tours in Rome (I did get to see the Colosseum) and I developed a distaste for pizza, pasta, and Italian food in general :(

Rome/Venice

After lots and lots of rest, I was well enough to get on the bus which took us to the Norwegian Jade ship in Venice. I had a few feelings about the cruise. It was very entertaining and there were shows every night, including breathtaking ballets and Motown show (yay!!!). The staff was so friendly too. They made me laugh all of the time, and the guys who cleaned our rooms would leave animal-shaped towels, which looked super creepy.

However, there was something unsettling about being surrounded by a couple thousand tan bodies just basking in the sun, not needing to move a muscle for seven days if they didn’t want to. One of my roommates and I talked about this odd lifestyle. Work, work, work, and then…do absolutely nothing. Laziness is equated to bliss. I guess it all depends on how you spread out your time. Ideally, I would like to have a life in which I eat and sleep but also, you know, walk, explore, read, create, etc.

Thankfully, we did a lot of that stuff during our port visits. Once we arrived at each port, we would begin a new tour and turn our minds on once again. Dubrovnik, Croatia was tiny but refreshing and beautiful. In the midst of all the souvenir shops, I found a little place called Atelier Ultraviolet, where a nice man sold his cyanotype sun-printed artwork. He told me all about how he made everything and it was so neat! I bought three bookmarks and now I’m looking up how to get into this sun printing business.

In Athens, we visited the Acropolis and a cute little restaurant near a peach building. I kept turning around to stare at it. I decided this will be the color of my room soon:

…but yellow will always be my favorite.

The most beautiful part of my whole trip was Turkey. Good gracious. I got off the ship ten minutes after I woke up (whoops) and felt so obnoxiously grungy. But then, we drove off to Ephesus, stopping at a ceramics factory that lit up my whole heart. I need to take a ceramics class.

Next, we visited some ruins including the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. And then we stopped at a weaving school where a man gave us coffee and showed us how Turkish rugs are made before trying to persuade us to buy them. Just a few thousand dollars, no big deal. Oh but they were gorgeous. That night, I dreamt that the man told me he would give me eight small square-shaped rugs for $100. Only, he had lied and brought out the $2,000 ones once again.

On our last day of the cruise, we went back to Croatia, this time to Split. We enjoyed yummy pizza and I finally found fresh squeezed lemonade. Summer brings upon lemonade cravings for days. We found a bunch of neat things at the underground market and I collected Croatian antique maps which will probably look nice in my new peach room :)

Finally, after leaving the Norwegian Jade, we arrived in Venice and went over to a cute hotel in Mestre. Venice was my favorite place to shop aside from the ceramics shop in Turkey. We went in tons of glass shops where the crowded touristy-atmosphere didn’t even matter since everything was so stinking pretty. I also found Italian yarn!

I couldn’t stop looking at these tiles.

The airplane rides were enjoyable (sans the food on the way over) and I had plenty of time to read Harry Potter Numero Uno and The Secret Life of Bees. I spent half of the first flight trying to figure out if the guy in front of me was Bill Cosby, but it was only his much younger French doppelganger. Twice, as we landed in Italy and departed from France, Ray LaMontagne’s This Love is Over played over the airplane speakers. Thank you for knowing what’s good, Air France ;)

What a long ten days it has been. Of course, next time I will stay for a lot longer. Tours are so helpful, but sometimes you’ve gotta be your own tour guide. I won’t do the cruise thing again, but it was nice to feel fancy for a week and have those free yummy desserts.

And now, I am home. I have added so much to my summer list. I have new craft ideas and I think it is time to get out the Rosetta Stone again. French :) Although, I realized last week that Croatian people speak the most beautiful words I have ever heard.