Uber Cute!

I'm the kind of person who enjoys grocery shopping, it brings me a sense of peace to walk up and down the isles looking for something new or just being so fascinated with the amount of choices we have now a day to spice up a meal.

I remember being in Israel and grocery shopping with my uncle, which was one of my favorite moments because we spent hours upon hours there trying to figure out what things were because all the labels were in Hebrew. Luckily I pride myself in the kitchen so I was able to figure out what things were by just the taste and touch test.
Ok so that was a bit of a side track to the theme of this post. Back to the topic at hand, another thing I like to do it walk up and down the card isle. Some of my favorite places to meander is Where's the Party? on 17th and also Papyrus. I purchase cards in case I need to quickly send one out to a friend who is not feeling well, or a birthday that has snuck up on me.
Recently I found the uber cute online store called The Paper Wink. Adorable stationary, note cards and labels (which are shown below). Our culture has lost the art of writing cards and we now send impersonal emails or facebook messages. I propose that we all go out and buy (or even make your own) cards and send it to someone to brighten up their day! You'll be surprised how good it makes you feel just for that little gesture.

Summer Lovin

So now that summer is around the corner (as well as my bday) I have been trying to come up with cute ideas for summer dinner parties or a cute cocktail idea. Also fun things to do with the little ones during those hot SoCal days. So the other day I went and checked on to see what Martha would say.

Yes we all know martha, the crazy lady with lots of crafty ideas, the lady who went to jail for investment fraud, but really the lady is amazing! Check out some of these ideas for the summer, super duper cute!

Yummy to do with the kids, a scoop of ice cream rolled in sprinkles!

Very classy way to dress up a candle, wrap around some string or rope and pop in a flower and you have a very attractive center piece!

One of my favorite ideas. Decorating a vodka bottle from the outside. You can use fruit, flowers anything you decided. So fun!

A little Change Goes A Long Way...

My roommate and I have been redecorating our apartment since the beginning of the year and it has been quite a fun process. We started out by taking a day trip up to LA's fabric district which is always an adventure. We came home with a wonderful cream colored (washable!) fabric, we managed to barter down the price quite significantly, as two well knowledgable ladies would do. My extremely talented roommate then made a slip cover for our lounge chair from scratch with no pattern. We also rearranged some items so give more height and depth to the room, painted a mirror, ordered at print online which I saw at a store in Fashion Island for $250 but found online for $25 on esty, a great source for all things creative and hand made.
The next step was to pick a color for the walls. This came from an inspiration pictured below which my roommate found. Now that we are in the just about finished we are so pleased with the results and will catch each other staring at the walls.

Redecorating can be done on a budget from getting discounted fabric to saving on paint at home depot and just a simple reorganizing of a few fixtures. You'll be amazed at how a little redecorating can change the whole feel of your home and makes everything look fresh again!

Need I say more...

The all time cream of the crop, numero uno, utmost favorite place to get a cup of coffee (or tea, or bagel or acai berry bowl for that matter) is Kean coffee on 17th. It is a favorite to the locals here in Newport and I place that I splurge on at least once a week. I used to get my usual sugar free vanilla soy latte, but I have recently been introduced to the soy lavender infused latte. Yes I said it infused (said in a fancy drawn out way).

Knowing that I would want to blog about Kean someday I have been racking my mind how I was going to convey to my audience the magnitude of it's greatness. There are so many reasons why one would be attracted to their coffee shop and justify paying $4 or $5 for a cup of joe. Maybe it's the funky urban feel, maybe it's a leaf or a heart they skillfully design on your foam or the fact that all of their coffee is fair trade thanks to the coffee aficionado and owner Martin Dietrich.

For me it's the memories I savor there. Memories of my roommate and I strolling across the street to our old friends at Kean to pick up a cup of coffee, enjoy the sunshine and wander back to our apartment. Or the memory of when I met my sister there and she pulled out a little black and white photo to tell me about the new baby in her belly.

I love when my mom or sister call to say they are going to be there knowing that I will drop what I am doing to run across the street to meet them. Now that I think about it those poor barista's have seen me in every stage of my day, morning, afternoon after a work out, and night. And well let's admit it...my morning after look as well!

Below is a photo my roommate took on the beach at Corona Del Mar on a 80 degree day in January. I think it is the best depiction of my love of Kean simple yet oh so enticing!

So Creative

I was on the plane on the way to Nelson, New Zealand to visit Mum's side of the family and found these in the Air New Zealand Magazine. Kiwi's are so creative, little ginger cookies dipped in chocolate in the shape of a spoon. Yum! Don't be surprised if you see these for your next birthday present or Christmas present as I think they are darling!

Universal Language

Note the Kosher sign below it.

Kosher Hamburger with unleaven bread cause of passover. It was interesting for sure.

Yogurt land can you believe it!! I didn't go there though because I didn't want to have it taste different and ruin my love for froyo!

This is where we got the furniture, but the weirdest thing is that is was so expensive there, not the typical IKEA we are used to!

What Can I Say...

I've got a new obession! Today we travelled to Hebron because I have been seeing these amazing pieces of palestinian pottery in the Old City, but it is basically a joke to buy it there if you have access to Hebron where it is half the price. So fortunatley my uncle needed to pick up a few things for his new place and made a work trip out of it with a UN driver and all.

So we stopped at a pottery and glass shop which was just amazing to see the guys blowing and making the glass right in the front of the shop. Then we went in to where all the beautiful and colorful pieces of pottery were. I could have spent many hours just looking (and a lot of money). I had to keep reminding myself that I need to some how get all this stuff back to the states with me.

While we were shopping there was also a group of about 30 palestinian school girls on some sort of field trip. After about 5 minutes I began to feel a bit cramped and realized that these girls were literally following me around the store and were standing right next to me, no matter where I went. They tried practicing their english by asking; What your name?, "Amanda", Where you live? "California", Are you Hebrew? "no no", and at the end of the round of questions they said "Amanda we love you" and walked away.

Looks like I am moving to Hebron.