Lil' Miss Consumerist: Betty Pepper

I love to go and browse through the pretty pictures on NOTCOUTURE, tempting my little materialistic brain with lovely things I don't need at all but thanks to the website's pretty polaroids, suddenly desperately want. As I am currently stuck in the airport, waiting for my very delayed flight, with only my brand spankin' new macbook (Hanukah came early this year!) to keep me company, of course I'm participating in a little online window shopping. 


These rings are made out of pages of books and are my latest NOTCOUTURE crush. Their style name is Love's Labour Lost. Swoooon, I loves it. UK jewelry designer Betty Pepper's designs, and the materials she uses, such as books and vintage textiles in muted colors are relentlessly romantic. Have an old novel or piece of clothing with sentimental value you would like turned into a keepsake necklace or ring? You're in luck, as pieces can be commissioned. Her website is also a great place to get some DIY inspiration...

Willoooooowwww

Watching Willow has become a sort of Thanksgiving tradition in my family, which is either incredibly nerdy or totally awesome depending on your point of view. Ron Howard, George Lucas, a pre-flab Val Kilmer, fairies, hobbits, an evil queen, drunken brownies, sorcery, an unlikely love story and good prevailing over evil?...
I'm gonna go with totally awesome, thanks.

P.S. Val Kilmer married his on-screen love interest Sorsha ( Joanne Whalley) in real life and had 2 kids with her. He is also a Christian Scientist, which is pretty weird. I pass on this random trivia for your next cocktail party courtesy of pop guru Chuck Klosterman's IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas, an awesome read. As this book is a collection of Klosterman's work for different periodicals, you can read the Val Kilmer chapter on Esquire.com.

Mika Ninagawa

I have fallen in love with the saturated hues of Japanese modern artist Mika Ninagawa's photography. As a flower-child Pisces, I couldn't be happier with her chosen subject matter: flowers, goldfish and portraits of women:
You can learn all about her collaboration with Shu Uemura over at ChicShopper.

Shameless Puppy Promotion

These pictures of Olive bugging the much older and wiser Luann courtesy of my bf's iPhone.

Captive on the Carousel of Time

Back in the good ole days, 2007 to be exact, I used to post random musing, rants and other nonsense on this blog. I was then offered a chance to write the fashion blog on Pricegrabber.com, ChicShopper (I highly suggest you check out this awesome blog, the author is totally cute and fashion savvy if I do say so myself), offering my insight into trends, clothing and the like to their shopppers. The days went by and life takes over and it seemed that the only blogging I really had time to commit to was for ChicShopper. So Valley of the Blogz fell by the wayside and I eventually hid all my posts as the thought of my unfinished ramblings existing in blogosphere purgatory rather depressed me. As much as I love the writing I do on ChicShopper, I have been sort of yearning for a more personal place to post my thoughts, especially the types of things that have no place on a fashion blog, such as shameless gushing over cute pics of my puppy or photos of an absolutely wicked good dinner the bf and I cooked up. So I guess I'm admitting to a bit of blogger-narcissism, assuming that someone, somewhere actually cares enough to check into Valley of the Blogz and see what book I am reading, what song is stuck in my head, or just how much I love Chuck Bass. BTW...

Then again, I could just posit that this blog is a meant for my number one fan, the woman who reads every single one of my ChicShopper posts despite thinking my taste is just a little too expensive: my mother. So this one's for you Momma. And now that we've got the awkward first-blog-post-why-am-I-writing-this explanation out of the way, let's get on with the cute puppy pics!!! And don't worry, all posts of yummy dinners made by me will include recipes...