Mexican bulldogs

What a fun week and weekend its been so far. Finally the display world is slowing down just for a bit. The past few weeks we've been moving things around on the floor, remerchandising, and doing a "summer refresh" to the display. I took down one large scale display and made a few macrame chandeliers out of brown and white clay, model magic, pennies, driftwood, copper, and seashells to take its place. I'm in love with them and can't wait till we don't need them anymore so they can hang above our bed.

I also refreshed the bamboo arch with some strips of different colored fabric on top and I wove dried palms into the sides of the arches for an added detail. I strung new glass lanterns for the arch so that it had a less busy feeling than the prayer bells that hung there before. I also hung shear scrim fabric from the rafters behind the arch to give it a breezier, lighter, and more intimate feeling. Very happy with the results!

Marina was probably one of my favorite refreshes. The original idea for this concept was that the room should have an ocean, light, and beach-y feel using a lot of blues - which is why I made the 3 abstract blue paintings for the room (which earned me some commission work with some art-loving anthropologie customers). But throughout the weeks the merchandise changes, the bedding changes, we sold the bed frame that the bed was originally in so the room needed some new love and attention. While cleaning out the art room I was lucky enough to find some sea lace so I decided to dye it some different shades of blue and use it as smalll scale display in the room. The home manager put all new bedding on with blue shades, and the merchandising reflected that aquatic feeling as well. This room came together really well.

I made a few other items throughout the store including a small scale seashell display inspired by an abacus! Also I made a beachy umbrella stand to hold this gigantic bamboo umbrella in our front of store. Oh and bernard found a new home ontop of a table in our back of store. 

As for my weekend its been one of the best ones so far. Friday Mike and I both agreed that "Station house" that I've mentioned in one of my previous posts is competing with Jack and Nellies to be our regular spot. This time we had a couple of happy hour beers from the electronic beer board, sat at the industrial looking bar, and enjoyed a lamb burger with fried green tomato and feta on top with truffle fries. Shout out to Dan and Kase because these were BETTER than the pom frites in Cleveland - I didn't think it was possible. 

Saturday we went to bed, bath, and beyond because we're soooooooo crazy. Did some grocery shopping and then spent the rest of the day in the city. We checked out "Blockheads" which is a small mexican place in midtown with a HUGE patio. Of course it started raining on an off so enjoying the sun on the patio turned into hiding under the awning with a lovely group of people. We ended up hanging out with them for several hours and enjoying mexican bulldogs (which is a margarita with an upside down beer inside it) and having a lot of fun. Glad we got to meet some really nice people by total accident and we might see them again soon. 

As for today I'm trying to get out of bed a little later than usual because our downstairs neighbor likes to sleep in on weekends haha. But on the agenda is bacon, church, and a birthday BBQ on a brooklyn rooftop! Cheers.

Oh also Mike and I did some sound recording on his new phone on the subway ride home. I was trying to upload the short clip but there are several steps and its just us rambling for 2 minutes to its probably not worth your time, but it got us thinking that we may start doing a weekly podcast as we explore different neighborhoods in NYC. Might be a fun new project to take on.