Crafter, Photographer, Artist Extraordinare: Meet Livy

Meet Livy, an art student and truly extraordinary blogger. Her blog is one of the most beautiful, unique (everything is created by Livy herself) inspirational and practical I have found. Not only does she supply beautiful photos and collages like the one below, of my town San Diego....
or here, the Santa Monica pier....
or here, a flower field....
but she is also a complete artist, tremendously talented with line drawing and illustration, as here...

AND! she also offers step by step instructions on many of her beautiful creations, like the lanterns above, and the seed kit below. The steps are illustrated with photos and careful instruction.

visit her at A Field Journal

xo, Flux

Tod Brilliant and the End of Polaroid

see his work here: Tod Brilliant
maggie may ethridge
making blog posts short and sweet
since 2008

Meet Fashion Blogger and Author: Andrea Eames

Meet Andrea Eames, blogger, thrifter, fashionista and novelist. Andrea blogs her daily fashion

choices at her blog, A Cat of Impossible Color - most pieces she wears are cleverly thrifted by Andrea herself. Andrea has one published YA book and now her first novel has been purchased by a Random House branch, due to be published in 2011, and entitled Ngozi, meaning ' venegful ghosts' in zimbabwe (sorry the capital z is broken on my keyboard!)

Andrea has a light hearted writing style while addressing working from home, writing ideas and discussions, and fashion. As you can see she prefers a very feminine, old school vintage look. I've been reading her blog for over a year and love her daily updated photos of outfits and the writing life.

Here is the blurb of her novel, Ngozi :

Being a white Zimbabwean in the 1990s is a near-perfect life. Your clothes are always clean and ironed, there is always tea in the silver teapot, gins and tonics are served on the verandah, and, in theory at least, black and white live in harmony. As Mugabe’s presidency turns sour, however, this idyllic and privileged world begins to crumble into anarchy. Told through the eyes of a young girl, Ngozi follows the struggle of one troubled white family to stay afloat in the collapsing economy and escalating horror of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. When the farm invasions begin, the violence threatens to destroy their way of life forever, and escaping the vengeful ghosts (‘ngozi’) of their past seems impossible. Can they stay, or must they go?

Humanizing the Devil?

Are you going to see The September Issue, the documentary about Anna Wintour and Vogue?

I can't wait to see it. My friend Mary Pols reviewed the documentary for Time Magazine last month. She wrote: "The Wintour we meet is still capable of the kind of arbitrary intimidations that might inspire a damning best seller. But this empress definitely is wearing clothes. Flattering ones."

Lula

Have you seen Lula Magazine? It's my new favorite. The magazine's website is still under construction, but there's a fantastic Lula fan site on Facebook -- with lots of pictures. I especially love the photo of the girl with the polka-dot tears. (The photos of Kirsten Dunst and Keira Knightley are pretty wonderful too.)

xo

vimeo beautiful

Hauschka - Morgenrot from Jeff Desom on Vimeo.

What is rushing toward us on the internet tide is a seemingly endless array of art- the ugly, mundane, and here- the beautiful, the haunted:
it is September. We do not forget.

Flux Capacitor

Happy Saturday

Hello everyone. Happy Saturday! Hope you're having a lovely day. I wanted to share this Polaroid with you. I took it last week on the beach in Santa Monica. (You can sort of see the Ferris wheel in the background on the Santa Monica Pier).

What are you doing this weekend?

Tavi

Meet fashion's latest -- and perhaps youngest -- muse: Tavi, the-13-year-old fashion blogger from Chicago.



Here she is on the cover of Pop Magazine, on newsstands this week. And that's not all...



Her Blogspot blog, Style Rookie, was featured in today's Wall Street Journal. It turns out Tavi's blog inspired the latest designs of fashion house Rodarte...



She's in New York for Fashion Week (with her dad) and Rodarte's designers, sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, have invited her to sit in the front row of their show on Tuesday.

This is how she describes herself:
"Tiny 13 year old dork that sits inside all day wearing awkward jackets and pretty hats. Scatters black petals on Rei Kawakubo's doorsteps and serenades her in rap. Rather cynical and cute as a drained rat. In a sewer. Farting. And spitting out guts."

Love her!

(photos by Jamie Morgan for Pop Magazine)

Baker, baker... baking a cake.

A couple of the cakes I recently baked for some friends' birthdays.

Yeah. Sorry, Kids. Yes, I just went all Tori Amos on ya's with that title. But I couldn't help it! Just always seems to come up when I'm baking a cake. Forgive me. And, stick a toothpick in me, Kids, 'cause it looks like your Uncle Beefy is done!

Just thought I'd leave you with some sweet treats as I bid you all farewell from The English Muse! Just want to thank Tina for letting me hang my hat here for awhile and to thank all of you for reading and commenting along! I hope to see you 'round "The Bedlam" and you know we'll see each other here!

Have a wonderful weekend, Kids! Thanks, again!

A small sampling from a marathon cupcake baking session. Chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel buttercream and cocoa-dusted vanilla bean buttercream. Gotta say... they were tasty.