Quiz Me Le Fancy Geek

So a couple weeks back, my blogging buddy tagged me in a question and answer post. I normally wouldn't engage in such frivolous and inefficient use of my time (yeah, right) but since Nina is my Geek Sistah (check out her so cute blog, Le Fancy Geek) and since her questions are super fun, I engaged. Premise is simple: I answer her questions and then I post my own questions, tagging 3 more bloggers. This is like those chain emails you used to fill out when the internets were still new ;-). Anyway, if I were taking a test, hopefully I passed! Also, if you haven't checked out Nina's blog, it's so delightful. I suggest you stop by.

Some Snapshots from Glam Media Dinner

Just some pictures from the Glam Media Fashion Week Dinner that I attended on behalf of The Fashionable Housewife. It was loads of fun and I met some fabulous ladies!

Will Ragozzino/BFAnyc.com

Will Ragozzino/BFAnyc.com

Who Did I See?

So I am sure you know by now that I hit up my first fashion week and let's be honest, I have no shame... I did have a few celebrity sightings and celebrity chasings... I may or may not have run after Rachel Zoe, I may or may not have interrupted Austin Scarlett's conversation, and I may or may not have yelled "HEY! Stanley Tucci!" at Stanley Tucci. That being said, I do not regret a moment of the excitement. I do however, regret not having the guts to ask Nina Garcia for a picture. She was so tiny and well put together and beautiful that my legs immediately started to shake and I wimped out... Hoping there will be a chance in the future... anyways, want to see a couple pictures?

Vote for my Lucky Mag Contributor Entry!

I am totally going for a loooooooooooong shot and entering to be a contributor for Lucky Magazine, which to me seems like such an awesome opportunity. If you are feeling fanciful and giving of your "click" then I would certainly appreciate a vote from you so that I can make it into the next level of competition! Who know... what is that saying... you miss 100% of the shots you don't take? Pure Cheeze but truth. You can vote for my entry here!

Open Markets are Awesome

I had the pleasure of hitting up one of the best open markets in my area, the SOWA Open Market in South Boston, which has an amazing selection of farmer's market items, food trucks, antiques, handmade goodies and some randomy fashion stuff (YAY!). We had a great time, besides how friggin' hot it was. If any of you have the chance to buy from markets, I highly recommend it. There is such a great sense of community as well as such a great selection of super fun stuff. Some of my favorites goods are below. (Pssst. I tried not to make this too image heavy)

 

Celebrating a Year (Oh and Giveaway!)

Soooooooo today is my blog's one year anniversary! HIP HIP HOORAY! Can you believe it?  I stuck with this for one year and have done my darnedest to make it better, improve and forge ahead with my ever changing creative goals... I am just so happy to be blessed with people who support me in my endeavors and with their encouragement, I make it through the blah days!

This blog started as a diary of sorts that basically only the man friend read but as I started to become more involved with the creative community, I started to make some friends; and seeing comments on posts  from people you don't know in real life? AWESOME! Over the past year, I have made "friends" from all over the US and some even overseas (the UK and Australia!). I am happy to say that Prim and Propah had over 10,000 views in the past year which, in my humble opinion, is nothing to sneeze at.

So anyways, while I am at home celebrating this achievement with the manfriend, pup and kitterface (possibly dancing and/ or drinking wine), I thought I would let all my new friends share in the celebration as well! What do people love more than a giveaway? Wellp, a BIG giveaway. Over the past year, I have discovered so many amaaaazing and talented ladies (see sidebar where links are of my favorites thus far)... and four of my faves jumped at the chance to make a one of a kind item in honor of my blogiversary! AWESOME, RIGHT? Sooooooo, wanna check out what you can win? One lucky winner will get all 4 of the following super special handmade items....Tadaaaaaaa!

Gale at Wichser Studio's amazing contribution...everything Gale does is truly original... I should know, I only own like 37 pieces of hers:

Use the code "BLOGPARTY" at Wichser Studio checkout through June and get free domestic shipping!

My girl Erin of Petal and Pink whipped up these darlings... she has a romantical way about her, making her jewelry some of my faves. These beauties? Inspired by The Great Gatsby:

Use the code "PrimPropah" at Petal and Pink checkout through June and get free domestic shipping!

Stephanie of Earth Mama Artistry shares a love of peacocks (hence the creation below), cute things and Massachusetts... her items are surely some of the more adorable I have seen:

Kristen of Creative Stash is my sweet Arizonian beauty and ultra talented to boot... painter, jewelry maker and Mommy:

Use code PrimandPropah in the Creative Stash shop and get 15% off your puchase!

Ok so you wanna know how to enter? One mandatory entry: Leave a comment with your favorite way to celebrate your achievements and happy stuff. Like if I were entering, I would leave a comment below that said "I like to celebrate blogiversaries with dancing, wine and giveaways!" Make sense? Good!

You can also enter in any one of many other ways (mix and max if you so choose... like a salad bar!). Leave a separate comment for each of the following you do. If you already follow? Leave a comment too!

• Follow me on Google Friend Connect (see my sidebar)
• Like Prim and Propah on Facebook
• Like Wichser Studio on Facebook
• Like Petal and Pink of Facebook
• Like Earth Mama Artistry on Facebook
• Like Creative Stash on Facebook
• Follow Prim and Propah on Twitter
• Follow Wichser Studio on Twitter
• Follow Petal and Pink on Twitter
• Follow Creative Stash on Twitter
• Tweet about this giveaway or Post about this giveaway on Facebook! (link would be lovely in the comment)

Sooooo there's tons of ways to enter and believe me when I say I wish I could keep this stuff all to myself! Oh and be sure to tell you friends 'cause chances are we would be good friends too! MUAH XOXO and Happy Blogiversary to me!

Giveaway runs from Monday 06/06/11 until Sunday 06/19/11 (at midnight). I will be choosing a winner with Random.Org so as to be totally fair. Go fairness!

A Prim and Propah Weekend

I helped my good chica Nathalie ring in her 30th birthday just a weekend ago... and let me tell you... IT WAS A BLAST. It's not every day that someone turns 30 years old and kisses their twenties goodbye, MUAH! But at any age, what is most important is having a glorious time, enjoying life and obviously wearing Snuggies at a New York City Bar.

Scarf Loving with a Dash of Buttony Goodness!

So my crafty self was looking at some of the fabric that I just had hanging around and thought that I should try to find a quick and easy project to work on so that I got some crafting satisfaction pretty quickly, ie instant gratification. Enter this little project off of the "I am Momma Hear Me Roar" blog, reconstruction-esque area of the site. Yay for fun projects whilst also being simultaneously awesomely easy! See my take on the Buttony wrap/scarfy thing. Yay!

I started with a scarf that has been in my "Ghosts of Scarves Past" drawer for quite some time. I mean, if I did a botch job on this, then well, I would give it a proper burial without shedding too many tears. Anyhoo, I took that, about a 1/4 yard of cotton fabric from "The Collection" for the pockets, and some buttons from the stash... and was on my way. (Note: Here is where I get nervous because, well, I am ashamed to say I had never done a button hole before)... Anyway, I did it and my only issue came when I realized the scarf was too short. Next time, I'll know. All in all, it was fun and easy to do!

AND

Watch out for these guys today!

Near Perfect Day Date!

I don't know why I want to share this nearly perfect day date with you...but I will. So it's restaurant week here in Boston so manfriend and I decided to partake in a little yum yums for less than usual, ala price fixe menus at some swanky swank establishments. We made lunch reservations at The Chart House on the waterfront, planned to "wing it" in Boston until our dinner reservations at Lineage in Brookline. Well let me just say that having those two bookend meal reservations not only gave us freedom but also day date creativity for a trip into Beantown.

We got our morning coffee at Starbucks; manfriend ran in and took so long, I had a lot of time to do the following photoshoot with my Blackberry; please note that any extended amount of time waiting + brand new Coral colored lipstick = America's Next Top Model moments:

We had an absolutely lovely lunch at The Chart House. Our meals, a combination of Lobster roll and Tilapia, clam chowder and Boston Creme Pie (which we took to go), we "yum yummers" as the man would say. We took a walk around, with the wind whipping, did a mini photo shoot and grabbed our car from the valet. It was decidedly too windy on the waterfront. We headed inland.

The original plan was to try and catch The King's Speech or an indie film at Coolidge Corner but but we took our time getting there and the shows were already sold out. Oh well, there was plenty to walk around and see. We went to a comic books store (yes a comic book store) and wouldn't you know that I was the only one to make a purchase. I needed reading material for a business trip, people!

We then decided to just walk around and see where the mood took us... and the mood took me right into Pier 1 Imports, much to manfriend's dismay... buuuuuuuuuuut we did come out with these awesome fishy votive holders for our "by the sea" themed upstairs bathroom and this ginormous birdie soap dispenser that we just had to have, for our downstairs bathroom, theme be damned!

Next we went to an awesome papercraft and gifts shop called Paper Source where I picked up a card for Emma, some stickers, and some stamping materials. I was giddy with girly delight while manfriend was merely along for the ride...

Here is where we lost our steam... with nearly 2 hours until our dinner reservation, the wind a whipping and me with packing left to do, we decided to cancel our dinner reservations. We vowed to come back to Lineage very soon but just didn't have the walking and waiting in us for the rest of the day. We ended up getting Thai, watching Extras and relaxing on our last night together before I left town... Sometimes the best laid plans don't pan out but this nearly perfect day date did, even with the canceled dinner reservations.

Stylish Blogger, What What?

Well a thank you very much Miss Angela Flicker of The Artist's House, you have very sweetly given me the Stylish Blogger Award! I have to thank Angela because I joke that she is my blogging mentor... her blog is one of the first creative blogs that I really took a shine to and LOVE to read. She also let me creepily befriend her via Twitter Haha ;so thanks Angela for being awesome! If you haven't checked out her blog, please do yourself a favor and hop on over there!

So this is how the award works.  Honorees do the following: thank and link back to the person that awarded them, share 7 things about themselves, and pay it forward to 15 recently discovered bloggers. This is a great way to make some hard working bloggers feel special! I know I work pretty hard to make my blog stylish and in the very least, decent to look at and read... ok, so let's get to the juicy stuff!


7 incredibly INTERESTING things about me, in no particular order:

• It took meeting my boyfriend to really believe in myself creatively again. Going to school for Business really took a lot of the creative juices out of me. He is the guy who gave me the push to be a "crafter" again and blog about it. He is the guy who encourages me even when he might not know what he is looking at. He is the guy who reads every single blog post. He is my biggest supporter.

• Some of my favorite people are actually animals. A Shetland Sheep Dog named Henry Winkler (after the Fonz) and a Calico named Sigourney Weaver (her mother looked pregnant with Aliens)

• I am a Bravo TV addict. No ifs, ands or buts about it. I will watch 99% of any programming on Bravo. It's probably pretty pathetic but I don't care. Real Housewives of Poughkeepsie? I'd watch it.

• Celine Dion has been one of my favorite people since I had her on cassette in the early 90's. Think Twice? Almost best song ever. I met her in person and she was dazzlingly French Canadian.

• I collect fabric like it's going out of style and in the process am probably collecting fabric that actually is going out of style... so all in all, I have a lot of fabric. 

• Human suffering, in any shape or form, even my own, keeps me up at night. I worry a lot. Even though I don't know you per se? I'll worry about you, so don't worry. 

• Despite my best efforts in NOT adopting some of my mother's less desirable habits? I now have a "sock" basket. ( This is a basket where socks are thrown when they come from the dryer. This basket acts as storage for said socks and often leads to pairs being separated from one another for extended periods of time and sometimes, GASP!... never reuniting. How sad.)

 
I really appreciated the Stylish Blogger Award. More than anything? I am really happy to have some great blogging encouragement out there. My blog just turned 6 months on the 4th of January and really, I cannot believe how far a little hard work and encouragement  has taken me so far. The online creative community is an amazing one and I am so happy to be a part of it, every little part of it.

Time after Time

So it's a new year and what do you need in a new year? That's right, a new calendar. Well I bought a "My Little Pony" calendar for the workplace (Juvenile? Maybe. Awesome? Definitely.) but I didn't want something like that in my home, mainly because manfriend would probably not want to look at that all year. Also, I wanted something where I could attached notes, business cards and such so it would be at my eye level. So I devised and conquered a plan as follows:

The idea spawned from Spoonflower which, if you haven't heard of them, is an awesome website where you can get your fabric designs printed, get others designs and enter contests and such. It really is a lot of fun. Any ways, one of their contests was a fabric design contest for calendars for 2011. You know what this meant? I had a TON of options to choose from (see here) for my 2011 Calendar. Once I chose my favorite? All I had to do was order a fat quarter and viola! It was a calendar printed on fabric. I chose 2011 Birdies by Cynthia Frenette.

 

Second, I got myself a regular ol' memory board type thing on the cheap at Micheal's (a thank you coupons):

Next, I took my pinking shears to those edges and made my Calendar fabric nicer to work with (buttered it up!). I then smocked the edges a bit to give them the effect of a fitted sheet.

You get where I am going here? That's right. I fitted that sheet right over the bed (ie the edges of the memory board):

And Yes, that is Henry sitting in a chair watching me intently...

Once I fitted it around, I took out some of my extra pins (because Lord knows I have extra) and am using them to attach the things I want to my calendar. Get it? Because there is a memory board underneath the cloth calendar... Genius!

Thrifting is a Joy!

I have recently joined an open blog for those of us out there who love to "thrift" ie get out there and rummage for treasures at yard sales, thrift shops, estate sales, vintage and consignment joints etc, etc and so on and so forth... That wondrous blog of blogs? Yes, it's The Thrift Collective. This blog is open to anyone and everyone who gets their thrift on and wants to share in their finds, is searching for that elusive piece or wants to create a Thrift Guide for their area (which I did for Boston and suburbs).

I love buying previously loved (and sometime unloved) for a multitude of reasons but my main ones are as follows:

*Buying used is a great way to find unique items that might even be one of a kind. Character is key for me. Thrifting? is great for finding some pretty funky characters.

*It saves me money! It's a great way to feed my shopping addiction without cleaning out my change purse.

*I love my crafting and with my crafting comes experimentation. Going to thrift stores often finds me coming home with great items to re-purpose, fabric to experiment with (sheets, curtains etc etc) and a feeling of creating something new out of something old. Hurrah!

*It's good for our Earth. If I can reuse, recycle, re-purpose, re-imagine, reconstruct something? Then I am not buying it new.

Do you love to thrift? Do you want to shout it from the rooftops? Join The Thrift Collective! You can shoot off an email to Ana and ask to join! They are on Twitter (and while you're there you might as well follow me), on Facebook (oh I am there too!) and Flickr (nope, I'm not there). I'd love to see as many people as possible sharing in their love of all that is thrifty!

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NYC Jaunt!

This past weekend, manfriend and I hopped on the Amtrak from Providence and jaunted down to NYC for the weekend. One of my besties Nathalie and her man, Dave, moved to Brooklyn this past summer and we hadn't seen them in MONTHS! Gah! Nat and I share a mutual love of Kate Nash (as she is amazing, check her out) and Kate just happened to be playing in NYC (perfect!) sooooooo what better excuse to head down, right?

Manfriend had never really experienced NY so Nat and Dave offered to explore the city with us and it was just plain fun. Obvi, Manfriend and I are tiiiiiiiiiired but that being said, we had an awesome time; so it was totally worth it.

Highlights, you ask?

Kate Nash at Terminal 5... please do yourself a favor and look her up!



Manfriend and I in Times Square




Nat and I in our hand crotcheted hats from Nepal!




Big Bird Sighting in Central Park!



This is that bull on Wall Street... there were too many people taking pictures in front.

So obvi, we plan to head back to visit them in the near future and take in a show. Now that we know how easy it was to get in and out by train (we highly recommend the ease of travel), we will be making it a habit to get out more. Gah, I miss Nathalie so much already!