Future Momo Jewelry

Muir Woods

I went with the honey to Muir Woods recently.  I still can't believe I had never been there!  We had actually tried to go several times during the summer, but it was always too crowded so we couldn't get in.  The great thing about Muir Woods is that it's close to San Francisco, but it's almost too close as it gets incredibly crowded. At any rate, we finally made it there and had a great morning walking around.

I liked how new growth was growing from a fallen tree.  Similar trees were all over the park




We went over to Pelican Inn for lunch, an adorable recreated English Inn and Tavern.

It was beautiful, so we ate on the lawn.  While we were eating, I noticed something moving across the blanket from the corner of my eye and it was a baby snake!  It moved too fast to get a picture, unfortunately.  I was very surprised to see a snake!

The Inn has lots of historical ephemera inside

From then, it was on to Muir Beach.  It was incredibly windy, so we ended up not staying long, but it was very pretty and hopefully we can go back on a better day.

A beautiful day!

Impressionism exhibit

I just had the chance to see the Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musee d'Orsay exhibit at the De Young museum.  It was spectacular!  I have to admit that I never studied art and don't know too much about it, but I have always loved many Impressionist pieces so I was super excited to go see this exhibit.   It was a really big collection and in the beginning, it was organized by painter: Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, etc.   There was also a large section from the Pont Aven school. 

Two of the highlights for me were seeing Starry Night Over the Rhone by van Gogh

and a few different pointilist paintings by Seurat and Signac.   It was amazing to see the detail in person. 

Of course, a lot of people know A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Seurat because it was in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which is admittedly where I first saw it too!  It wasn't at this exhibit, but I did get a chance to see it in Chicago a few years ago and it's what I know best by him.

Pretty much everyone was leaning over the barriers to be able to see the details better, including me! I would definitely go back to see everything again and since it doesn't close for over a month, I am sure I will.  It was incredibly crowded, but well worth it.

I also went to see the Japanesque exhibit, which is in conjunction with the bigger Impressionism exhibit. The Japanesque exhibit shows how Japanese prints influenced the impressionist movement.   I've seen a lot of Hiroshige and Hokusai prints in my day, but this was a beautiful collection of those artists plus others.  What made it great, however, was seeing the Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower by Henri Riviere at the end.  They showed Hokusai's Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji and how it influenced Riviere.   The views show the tower being built, as well as views from various angles in Paris, sometimes only the very tiniest part of the tower being seen.  I think I may have to go back and get the book!

Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed in the exhibits, but I did wander around the permanent collections and found some other beauties.

Henry Benbridge
Mrs. Robert Shewell, Jr. (Sarah Boyer Shewell), circa 1775

Edmund Charles Tarbell

The Blue Veil, 1899

Charles Courtney Curran

Afternoon in the Cluny Garden, 1889

Thomas Dewing

Elizabeth Platt Jencks, 1895

Friday Favorites - Mary Engelbreit Halloween and more

A few of my favorite blog posts from this week!

A Mary Englbreit inspired Halloween on Bluebird Papercrafts.  I really miss Mary Engelbreit magazine.  As soon as I subscribed, it went out of business :(

A tutorial for soldered jump rings from HeArt Collective.   A really helpful technique that I'll have to practice.  My soldering is still a bit lumpy sometimes.

 Pretty pumpkin images and a pumpkin latte recipe on French Garden House.  Yum!

A sort of recipe for pink pasta on Hardaker and Pope.  Ive been wanting to try making my own pasta for awhile and this sounds like a fun recipe to try out.

Some free pretty postcard images on Little Pink Studio.  I love vintage postcards and the birthday one is adorable.

 
I'm not even really into baseball, but I am getting caught up in the Giants World Series fever here in San Francisco.  Lots of the buildings downtown and our city hall are lit up in orange in honor of the Giants and after last night's huge win, I'm hoping they win the series!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch with Barbe

Over the weekend, I had lunch with my friend Barbe to catch up on her recent trips to Chicago and Ohio and life in general.  Going down to meet her, I couldn't figure out why her neighborhood was so much more crowded than usual until I saw the enormous battleship in the San Francisco bay and remembered it was Fleet Week.  I always seem to forget unless I hear the Blue Angels zooming around.

I think this was the ship I saw and it was a surprise to see it docked right by the piers

(pic from Fleet Week site)

Anyway, we grabbed lunch at Panera and chatted for a couple of hours.  It was pretty interesting to hear her stories about her trip and to hear what an Ohio accent sounds like.  Unfortunately, Barbe is moving out of the city soon, probably back to the Midwest or East Coast, so this might be our last outing together before she leaves.  It's kind of sad to think of her leaving the city, but it really is the best move for her at this time.  Some days I dream of moving somewhere where I can get an entire house for only $19,000 and have a ton of space and other days I really like living in a really urban - yet somehow very tiny - city.

We haven't had many chances to see each other this year - dang it, should have taken a picture! - so she gave me a couple more belated birthday gifts, which was a fun surprise.

Kimono fabric barrettes and a pretty chandelier crystal pendant

And a collage she made plus a vintage print

Hopefully we'll have the chance to get together another time before she takes off across the country and maybe I'll remember a camera!

I also picked myself up a huge Sharpies pack on sale the other day

I don't know about you, but I love Sharpies and I couldn't believe the whole pack was on sale for only $10.  I snatched them right up!  I love impulse shopping!

 

Veggie Fest

Yesterday I went over to the annual World Veggie Fest with my new friend, Christina.  It's somewhat small, but I go mostly every year to check out the free food samples and the great speakers.  In the past I've seen Howard Lyman and John Robbins speak.  This year there were a bunch of interesting speakers, but we decided to check out Colleen Patrick Goudreau, who hosts a vegan podcast and does cookbooks and things.

I'm not a vegan and frankly, I have no desire to be, but she made some very well-reasoned points about going vegan, or as she calls it, "being compassionate".  The point I remember most is that most people say they could never be X because they can't give up Y - like you can't be vegan because you can't give up cheese.  She said if you can't do everything, that doesn't mean you have to do nothing.  You can go vegan for everything but cheese, or whatever your vice is.  It was an interesting thought.

We also saw Rory Freedman, co-author of the Skinny Bitch books.

I have to admit, I had heard of the books but never read them and I had no idea they talked about vegetarianism.  I had to leave partway through her talk, unfortunately, so I don't have much of an impression about her or the books, but I'm thinking of checking them out.  I think I avoided them because I was turned off by the title or something.

In between speakers, we wandered around the fair.  It was mostly vegan and veggie food products, as usual, plus the usual anti-cruelty booths.  We tried some good - and not so good - food samples.  The next time I make it to Whole Foods, I might pick up a couple of the things we tried.  There seemed to be a lot of fake meat vendors this time.  I don't really get the point of eating fake meat, but that is just me! 

As a bonus, my friend Roni of Daisy Wares was vending at the fair so I got to chat with her for a bit.

I also picked up some of her vegan shea butter in rose.

(Photo from Daisywares.etsy.com)

We also had lunch and I tried a tamale with soyrizo.  I'm still debating how I feel about that.  Like I said, fake meat isn't really on the top of my list of things to eat, but it didn't taste too bad.  All in all, it was a pretty good day except for being freezing!  I don't know how we went from 94 on Tuesday to 60 on Saturday!  

More lomo pics

I wanted to share a few more of my favorite lomo pics that I took the other day

At Union Square - the "Hearts in San Francisco" were created for a public art campaign a few years ago. Tony Bennett painted this one.

 

 

I took these at Justin Herman Plaza on the Embarcadero.  I like the top one much better.  I'll have to remember to try for angles more!
 

Experiments in canning

I adore summer fruits and since I can't find local and organic stone fruit year round, I decided to give canning a try. I had seen my mom make some jam once, so I knew the basic idea and decided to give canning plums a try since the steps were pretty simple.

First, four pounds of absolutely deliciously sweet plums

Cut in half

Warmed up in a sugar syrup and left to sit for about half an hour

 

Then sealed into a jar and voila!

Yum!

I won't lie, it took a lot longer and was a bit harder than I thought it would be, but I'm excited to give them a try.  Next I think I might try canning peaches, but the season is running out soon, so I better get a move on it!  I'm also really trying hard to eat better and cook more, so the more fun projects I can find to get me inspired in the kitchen, the better!

I am of course behind on my blogging, as always, but wanted to show off a gorgeous little piece I bought from Maija a few weeks ago. 

Isn't she pretty? I meant to post a picture ages ago, but my almost new digital camera decided to stop working and I have to keep taking out the batteries and sticking them back in to take a picture, so it took me awhile to take this pic! 

It has been a very unusually cold summer here, even for us San Franciscans.  It's barely gotten over 60 degrees for months but thankfully, a couple of days ago we started having sunshiney days and I have really been enjoying it!  I better enjoy it while it lasts, because it's supposed to be back to 60 by Friday!  Crazy!

SF Gift Show

The San Francisco Gift Show was Saturday through Monday and I went down and helped Barbe out and hung out with her since we hadn't seen each other in so long.  Fortunately for me and unfortunately for all of the vendors, traffic was slow so we had plenty of time to catch up.

Here's Barbe (in red) and the lady who had the booth across from her.  That lady made the most amazing, enormous necklaces and bracelets from vintage pieces.

Barbe's booth was lovely and showed off her jewelry beautifully. 

I hadn't been to the gift show in years, so it was interesting to walk around.  Sadly, it's a big no no to take pictures inside, so I don't have many to share, but the Tokyomilk both was set up like a store and I wish I had snuck a picture to show how gorgeous it was!

In between customers and chatting with some of the other sellers, I wandered over to the Tinsel Trading Company/Wendy Addison booth, which was soooo gorgeous and I wanted to buy everything! I really, really wish I had taken a picture of their booth!  I did pick up a few things, though. 

A Christmas kit, a couple of ornaments and a treat bag.  I love Christmas, so it was fun to grab these, but I can't believe it's already August and Christmas is indeed coming up fast.

I didn't even know what was inside the kit, but I knew I wanted it!  There were also floral and Halloween kits. Inside, I found...

 

Fun!  I might just make a couple of ornaments instead of cards from it, but we'll see.

But best of all, Barbe gave me this beautiful necklace as a late birthday/helping out gift.

As always, she was overly generous. I wore it yesterday and got tons of compliments on it.  Thanks, Barbe!

Wonderland

A little while ago, I was approached by Irene Hernandez-Feiks about putting some of my jewelry in her new store, Wonderland San Francisco.   I have worked with Irene for several years as a vendor at her very popular Chillin' shows.  Needless to say, I was flattered and excited when she asked and gave her some necklaces and earrings to try on consignment.

(Photo from Wonderland SF site)

Irene has always been very supportive of local designers and artists, so the space is half gallery, half retail shop and it's filled with local designers.  The shop is in an up-and-coming area of the Mission that has been filled with taquerias and panaderias and Latino markets.  It's gorgeous inside and she and her husband are very sweet people, so be sure to check out the store the next time you head down to Humphry Slocombe for some Guinness or Candied Ginger flavored ice cream!

Catching up

Happy Belated Mother's Day to all the mothers out there!  I am yet again behind on everything, thanks to smacking my head on Thursday night and getting a mild concussion.  I've been trying to rest since then.  I need a month without injuring myself!

Anyway, I spent Mother's Day with my parents at the Palace Hotel, a beautiful hotel downtown where we usually spend Christmas at the amazing all you can eat extravaganza.  They have a similar, but smaller, Mother's Day brunch so we went this year for the first time.

 

The Garden Court in the Palace is so pretty.  You really can't beat the ambiance and it's one of my favorite places in the city.  I managed to not eat til I wanted to puke this time. 

Afterward, we wandered through the How Weird festival that was just a block away.  Not much was going on yet, but I found some pictures on the SF Chronicle site (both photos from www.sfgate.com)

There were some vendor booths, but I think it was really all about the dancing.  There were three or four areas where djs and music were being set up when we walked through.  After 45 years in San Francisco, my parents still thought the festival was weird, so I guess that means it was a success.  They were hippies in the Haight during the 60s, but somehow this was weird to them.

I gave my mom some really pretty mochi from Minamoto Kitchoan, that was all wrapped up a pretty nekko box.

Isn't the flower mochi so pretty? It's a seasonal one, but I can't remember exactly what was in it.

Anyway, the move went really well, except that I didn't have an internet connection for a week.  Now I feel connected to the world again! 

This is what my new dining area looked like on moving day

There were even more boxes in all of the other rooms. Luckily, I have managed to unpack most of everything and am now down to the stuff that I don't know where to put yet.  I love this new place.  Love, love, love!  But, there is much less storage so a shopping spree at the Container Store this week is much needed.  I need to buy tons of organizers for the kitchen cabinets and maybe a couple of things for the other rooms too.  But even with the stress of moving, I am so happy.  Now to unpack some more things!