Balanced Interiors

I found all these amazing interiors over at Trendir.com. All the wood and concrete and lighting mixed together really gives a balance to these rooms. It's all about the balance. No one wants their place coming off as too woodsy, or too cutesy, or too industrial. I think these places captured it all perfectly.

-XO

Holland Has Pretty Colors

-XO

Lost and Found

Cut from the original Fantasia, Claire de Lune, by Claude Debussy, stars an elegant crane who eventually meets another in the moonlight in the bayou. The print was completed with lineart, cellshading, and never made it to the final Fantasia line-up, so years later it was redistributed with an alternate song as something else for Disney. This version is found only on the special edition release of Fantasia.

This is most certainly my favorite classical piece, and with animation it just makes me love it even more.

-XO

Color Lover.

Color inpsiration from Alix over at TheCherryBlossomGirl.com!

-XO

Every Girl Goes through a Photography Phase

...I just never got out of mine. Unfortunately for me though, my cameras went out before I was done with them (outdated or what happened to the last two: the first was dropped - broken LCD screen - and the second, along with the first, was stolen when my apartment was burgled in February). In any case, I would really love a new camera, and the Olympus Pen is looking mighty attractive (except its price tag! $800?? Yikes!).

Of course I found it in a Japanese magazine, and of course their advertising and promotion of the camera is a hundred years beyond the American style. Advertising in the US still revolves around streamline blahhhhh-ness, especially when it comes to digital devices. Everything is sharp and shiny and designed by guys who wear Oakleys like it's still 1999. Anyways, it sounds like a phenomenal camera for what it is and it has the style to make it worthy of anyone who likes taking photos but not lugging around a giant SLR all the time.

-XO

PS! - Check out one of the aspect ratios of the photos it takes! Almost perfectly square like a polaroid (which has been my favorite photo-shape since first seeing Diane Arbus's photography in my first year at college). Neato!

Magazine Clippings One

So I decided to share some of the inspiration I get from some of these awesome Japanese style magazines that I keep referring to in my posts.

These two outfits from Liniere are two of my favorites from the most recent edition. I may not love over-alls, but the green ones the girl is wearing in the photo on the left are almost more like artist clothes. The over-sized, buttondown, navy shirt that is masquerading as a jacket is great because instead of having to wear a heavier, real jacket or sweater you can take it on or off all summer to avoid sunburns and keep cool too (bonus points!).

I also love both pairs of shoes (especially the mini-wedges on the left) and both bags.

Super awesomes.

-XO

Bookshelves.

I love bookshelves. Walls that are made entirely of bookshelves; that cross over doorways and corners and know no boundaries.

I love books.

-XO

The Root of My Vespa Adoration?

It wasn't until last summer that I saw Roman Holiday for the very first time. I've always loved Rome, so that was an automatic plus, and Gregory Peck is delightfully devious, and Audrey Hepburn was the fashion icon of mid-century films; really there was no room to go wrong.

One of my favorite parts of the film, aside from every scene that involved riding a Vespa, was when Audrey's character buys these cute, cheap sandals while walking down the street, even though she has almost no money. It's her appreciating the culture, the style, and the every day fashion of people she has never had any contact with (if you haven't seen the film, she's a Princess who decides to run away in the middle of a tour of Europe).

There's something about this movie that makes me smile just thinking about it. Hmmm :)

-XO