They make the coolest stuff in Japan

AAAAAAAAANNNNNNNDDDDDD I just died of the cuteness. That's it. I am now dead.

Southern Beauty

Image copyright Bloom Creatives 2009. All Rights Reserved.

One of the nicest things about what I do for a living, I think, is the ability to turn every day into a new professional opportunity. I can write an article about some cool new place I've visited or interesting person I've met, and I can photograph beautiful people and places wherever I happen to find them.

Okay, so I found this beautiful place - Eden Gardens State Park - and this beautiful person - Mischa Marie - before I actually left home. I had heard and read about the park before and had momentarily considered it as a possible wedding location. Found a local model through a database through which we both belong. Scouted the location a few days before and turns out it was perfect... And so was Mischa.

Interlude

I'm still on vacation (hence the lack of posting) but had to share this video... My awesome cousin Justin and his buddies are truly too fab for words!

Be back soon!

Sunday Zen

Copyright Bloom Creatives 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Sometimes, the best thing to do is just lie back and watch the deepening blue sky through the sea oats swaying above you. Find your inner beach bum this week. I'll be looking for mine on the Gulf of Mexico.

Deadlines

Image copyright Bloom Creatives 2009. All Rights Reserved.

When it rains, it pours... I have been blessed to have more than enough work to keep me busy this summer. I know far too many people who have no work, and am very grateful that my well is not dry. This week has been one of many deadlines, so many that I was so busy with one yesterday that I forgot about another and missed it. I got it in today, and luckily it was for a longtime client with whom I enjoy a great relationship, but still... No bueno.

But I truly can not complain about having too much work when others have none. I can not complain about a lifestyle in which my commute is generally from my bed to my home office in my PJs to write, and to beautiful places with beautiful people to photograph. No Office Space for me.

Speaking of beautiful places (and beautiful people), another lovely benefit of this self-made lifestyle of mine is that since I can work from wherever I want, I can pretty much go wherever I want whenever I want (as budgets allow, of course). Next week that means I'll be traveling back to the beach where I married, to enjoy 8 days of sand and sunshine with my family and meet up with an old friend or two. And only one or two deadlines.

Sunday Zen

A brand new baby panda was born at the San Diego Zoo this week! None of these are it, obviously, but enjoy this video of a bunch of fuzzy baby pandas play fighting and making adorable baby panda noises. Happy Sunday!

Ray Charles covers Johnny Cash

I was very, very confused the first time I heard Johnny Cash's cover of NIN's Hurt - until I actually listened to it and realized how heart-wrenchingly awesome it was. I was likewise very, very confused when I ran across this video on BoingBoing of Ray Charles covering Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire - until I watched and listened and realized how blues-gasmically awesome it is. Check it out.

John Hughes

One of my favorite directors of all time, John Hughes, died yesterday of a heart attack at the ridiculous age of 59. I won't write his obit here - you can read the article I wrote yesterday about his life on SheKnows.com - but I do want to share this incredible tribute montage someone put together on YouTube. Love the increasingly frenzied dancing at the end.

This summer's a bummer. The 80's are dying. I hope Madonna's had a recent check-up.

Inspiration Binders

Photo courtesy See Jane Work.

One of my favorite ways to spend a slow afternoon is poring through some of the multitude of magazines that seem to gather around my house. I currently subscribe to... hmmm, let me count... Glamour, Lucky, Arizona Highways, Writer's Digest, W, House Beautiful and Photo Pro, and pick up many others in airports around the country during my travels. Favorites include Coastal Living, Yoga Journal, Better Homes and Gardens and Vanity Fair (mostly for the portraits). I also have a nice size backlog of copies of The New Yorker from when I subscribed a few years back, and Mac World, which Apple automatically subscribes you to whenever you buy a new computer (and we've bought more than our share over the last five years).

You can imagine the stack that piles up after a couple of months. That simply won't do when you're living in a little house like we do, with a husband who despises clutter. But tossing them out, when they contain so much good stuff, isn't an option to me.

Enter the inspiration binder. I tear out anything that grabs me or that I want to emulate: paintings, drawings, portraits, fashion photography - any great artwork or things that I think I could make into great artwork. Anything that gets me going. Anything I think will get my creative juices flowing on days when I need a little, well, inspiration. All these pages are places in plastic sleeves and hung in the pretty binder, which sits neatly on my office shelve (right next to the binders that hold my tax receipts).

Inspiration can't be had from a plain old boring binder. Use the prettiest ones you can find (mine are from Greenroom and can be bought at Target). They should be a please to handle, a pleasure to use, and a pleasure to see on your shelf. If you have a hard time finding something that you love, decorate your own with old wallpapers scraps, fabric, etc. Make the first page something you love to look at over and over again - mine is part of an old article on Courtney Love, showing snippets of her diary and this fantastic snapshot of Kurt Cobain holding a kitten up to a toddler Frances Bean in her playpen.

After I've torn out the pages I want to save, then and only then do the magazines head to the recycling bin. You could also call up you local elementary school or after school center and see if they could use them for art projects. (Just make sure the subject matter is age-appropriate. 7-year-olds don't need to be reading Cosmo's latest article on Your Best Orgasm Now. But it's a good article, you should read it.)

Sunday Zen

I'm starting a new feature here at Blue Satin Sashes: Sunday Zen. Enjoy the first installment - this pup loves to swing next to his human kid companions!

"Religion is a smile on a dog." - Edie Brickell

(Via Cute Overload)

PS - Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Saturday!

Dandy Bejewelled by Algo. Used with permission.

Are you having a wonderful weekend? I do hope so. Here in Arizona it is scorching hot and staying inside in the air conditioning sounds like the ideal way to spend the day. Alas, I must bring my sweet little iBook to the Apple hospital as it seems to be suffering from general malaise (luckily my gorgeous iMac is undisturbed), so I do have to venture out into the heat. Heat which I have had quite enough of, thankyouverymuch. I do get a reprieve soon, though -- yesterday I found super-cheap tickets back to the Emerald Coast, so in 18 days I will be planted on Grayton Beach with a cold drink in my hand and a cool breeze on my skin. Aaaaaahhhhhh...