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DIARY

The Great Impossible

No-Name Blouse (similar)  Destroyed Jeans Who What Wear Slides

Vivienne Westwood Purse Hat Attack Fedora

I'm going to call this look "Re-Emerging From Hibernation." All winter long, you know what I've been wearing? These. In public. The first time I did this my mom looked at me in mild horror and said "...But those are pajamas." Except I never wear them as pajamas, because that might mean they'll be in the laundry and I won't be able to wear them where I really want to wear them, which is everywhere, all the time. Whatever, I'm cold and my muscles have atrophied from lack of use and I've spent the past five months turning a very special shade of pale that is more or less translucent (with attractive red blotches in key spots, like on my face).

Crafts for the Uncrafty

Suddenly Surrounded By Makers

There's no friend like a friend who's willing to paint with you.

I was on the phone with Francesca the other day and we were talking about my solar fountain project and my mortar brick project and the park strip redo and the bananacakes and all the other things that you can find on Ramshackle Glam lately in the category of Awesome Things I've Never Done Before, and she said, "Huh. So...you don't really have to come up with ideas for your website anymore. You can just hang out with your friends."

This is true.

Lifestyle

Some (Very) Bad Takes On Some Pretty Cool Trends

Love the look, but methinks the coat is only cute on Gigi.

There are few things more fun than looking at truly terrible interpretations of the latest runway trends. Below, a few of my personal favorite you-probably-should-not-wear-this finds from the new spring arrivals...plus a take on each trend that you might actually be into (just click the "Shop" button under each image to see how I'd wear the look).

DIY Projects

Make Your Ugly, Boring Wood Look All Cool And Reclaimed: Video

OK first: my apologies for the not-so-hot sound in this one. I was sick and all blah and there was construction going on across the street and we accidentally left the camera on autofocus so it makes a little click-click-click sound throughout and excuses excuses excuses I know I know. Sorry.

That said, I had to post this anyway because it's just the coolest-looking effect (the before and after photos are here, if you missed the post earlier this week), and I wanted to show you just how simple it is. And you don't need to coincidentally have ugly support beams in your house - you can use this technique to create anything from an incredible-looking dining room table (like this one) to your own sliding barn door.

DIY Projects

How You Make Your Ugly, Boring Wood Look Like Gorgeous Reclaimed Barnwood – For Just A Few Bucks

how to create a faux distressed wood effect with paint

The poles in front of our house have always vexed me. They're ugly - just blah wood that's been painted white - but they're also necessary, being as they sort of...hold the house up. We're getting towards the end of our full exterior makeover - which I'll be posting later this week, as soon as I finish up the last few details - and over the course of the process I've toyed around with a few different ideas for what to do with them. I didn't want to paint them an accent color, because they're not particularly attractive and don't really need to be "accented," and sure, I could just paint them the same color as the body of the house...but eh. They felt like an opportunity to do something cool.

I considered "wrapping" the posts (basically covering them with pieces of nicer-looking wood), and even dragged a bunch of barn wood boards home from Home Depot, but ended up realizing that even if I could make this look good, the wrapping would create a weird gap at the top of each post. And then I also realized that the boards were too narrow, and dragged them all the way back to Home Depot, and got frustrated and decided to try something else.

That's how I found myself standing in front of my bathroom door - the sliding barn wood door in our bathroom.  You know, this one:

Lifestyle

Just A Few Tattoos

The stories behind all my tattoos are here, if you're interested.

I'm not particularly feeling a new tattoo at the moment - I went through a rash of tattoo-and-piercing-getting a few months back, and think I probably need to slow it down for a minute - but I'm always thinking about what I might want my next one to be. And since my birthday gift to my dad was a session with an amazing NYC tattoo artist (which ahem ahem ahem I kind of thought was the coolest gift ever), I spent a lot of time scrolling around on the internet helping him search for ideas. In the process, I found oh, so many ones that weren't quiiiiite what Dad had in mind - he ended up going for a fine-line drawing of his 1963 Fender bass guitar - but that I saved to my Pinterest anyway. You know, for later.

...And now I kind of want a new tattoo.

Entertaining

I Made Peepshi, And So Should You

The good news: Oh my GOD is Peepshi - a.k.a. sushi that has been constructed from Peeps and an assortment of other cavity-creating substances - ever cute.

The bad news: Cavity-creating substances are frequently insanely delicious, which means that you will make Peepshi "for the kids"...and in the process eat millions of little Peep remnants (you know, the ones that you cut off in pursuit of a perfectly-shaped piece of nigiri) yourself.

Okay. Now that we've established that you're making Peepshi, because of course you are, let me tell you how to do it. This geniusness was originally created by Serious Eats, but now that I've made one batch and am thus clearly an expert, I'm going to tell you the little discoveries that I made over the course of the Peepshi-making process that I thought were extra wonderful.

Lifestyle

Beach Bums

Davenport, CA

I remember very, very distinctly the first time our son touched grass, because it did not go well. He was already six months old - because he was born in October, and we live in New York City, and grass-touching isn't an especially popular pastime during the winter months - so once spring hit we immediately packed up a picnic blanket and popped a tiny fedora on his head and set out with our friends to spend the afternoon watching our son revel in all that glorious grass.

Turned out he hated grass. And sand. And water. And any other naturally-occurring underfoot texture (although he would happily toddle barefoot down the sidewalk, crushing shards of glass and discarded cigarettes under his tiny toes). As a native New Yorker myself, I get this. Grass is creepy, yo. There are so many things that could be in it: needles, broken beer bottles, bugs. Yesterday I saw a two-inch-long slug sitting on my front step, and then a few minutes later it wasn't there.

Lifestyle

Here Is A Present For Parents Of Toddlers With Sleeping Issues (a.k.a. All Of Them)

This happy face slept alllllll by herself last night. 

The amount of time that Kendrick and I have to ourselves in the evening has become an emergency situation. Because it doesn't actually exist anymore, and it needs to, both because theoretically two humans who are married and enjoy doing things together other than watching Moana for the 10,000th time should probably get to do those things occasionally, and also because the season finale of The Walking Dead happened on Sunday and I still have not seen it, and that is an emergency if I've ever heard of one.


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