Zella Brown...

In the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago, Zella Brown home decor store is filled with contemporary luxuries. This ecelectic boutique is famous for mod accents, lamps, custom consoles and rugs, local art and perhaps alot of unecessary objects/soon to be 'must haves'.

Cruisers...

BeachBikes.net was formed in 2005 when the founders saw the need to offer the public a well built, stylish beach cruiser at an affordable price, available online, that could be shipped to your door and assembled in under ten minutes. Done & Done!

They have just launched their own line of cruisers, the sixthreezero cruisers and also carry Nirve, Schwinn, Hampton, Felt, Electra and more well known manufacturers.

Check out the history of beach cruiser's origin.

Chengwin...

It's Chengwin, half chicken, half penguin. I really don't know what to say... sometimes you stumble into something on the web that was purely accidental. L'amour est un oiseau rebelle. Check out the story of lineage for this Chicken meets skunk, meets Nixon, meets penguin. Randomness.

Their tagline for logo'd cafe press T's..."The Chengwin store - it's like a fruit stand, but with t'shirts."

*I apologize in advance for wasting your time on this, but it's pretty funny actually.

Blueberry Tartlet...

2 packages (14 oz. each) frozen puff pastry
3 c (1½ pints) blueberries
1 T all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
½ c sugar, plus more for sprinkling
juice of ½ lemon
vanilla ice cream


Preheat oven to 375. On a well-floured surface, roll out puff pastry just enough so that four 5" circles can be cut out (use a plate as a guide). Roll out the other package of pastry, and cut out two more 5" circles (reserve remaining pastry for another use). Place cut circles on two baking sheets, and put them in the freezer for at least 10 minutes. While dough is chilling, combine blueberries, flour, sugar and lemon juice in a medium bowl, and toss to combine; set aside. Remove pastry circles from freezer, and brush excess flour from chilled rounds with a pastry brush. As soon as dough is pliable, pinch the edges until a pleated shell is formed. Spoon the berry mixture (about ½ cup per tartlet) into the center. Repeat with the remaining pastry and berries. Freeze again if pastry has softened too much. Brush edges with cold water, and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until edges are golden-brown and berries are bubbling, 30 to 35 minutes. Remove and let cool slightly. Serve with vanilla ice cream. Recipe from Domino.

Trix are for kids...

Sometimes! You definitely don't have to be a kid to have a theme party, but maybe you'll have to supersize a few items, because we're all Big Kids now. Either for your little one's celebration or picking up a few fun items for your own, Pottery Barn Kids has the most elaborate party collections I've seen yet:

County Fair party, Explorer party, Shipwreck pirate party, Water party

a few things that I could get into...(seen here)
Explorer party tumblers
Hanging paper daisies
Jumbo inflatable bowling ball & pins
Ship centerpiece
Skee ball canvas game

Late night pub grub...

Serving seasonal British & Italian cuisine, the Spotted Pig in the West Village in NYC is open till 2am 7 nights a week and it's a quirky decor fits the menu. This popular spot with musicians and celebs dishes up deviled eggs, pots of pickles, a killer char grilled burger, and corned beef & cabbage along with many other succulent delights. It's been said that this kind of comfort food soothes the soul.

Home finds...

InStyle Home's winter issue had a few custom upholstered pieces that you could grab online in a sec.

Furniture found at Curran Online, Ballard Designs and Jonathan Adler.

New York's downtown art walks...

When the weather gets warmer, you can foot blaze through downtown Manhattan, gallery hopping to exhibitions of photography, painting and sculpture. Check out the TONY art walk downloadable guide to galleries this spring.




A few notables:
American Painting
Calvin Morris Gallery
Carolina Nitsch Contemporary Art
Margarete Roeder
Rivington Arms
Robin Rice Gallery
Brownstone Gallery
Thierry Goldberg Projects
Westwood Gallery

Collective Music...

Keep abreast of new music...The Hype Machine is Web site that scans hundreds of music blogs every day and posts the latest tracks online so that you can sample new tunes and old faves, the files aren't available for download, but there are links to purchase the songs on Amazon or iTunes.

Belay on...

Dying to scale a boulder but trapped indoors? Visit Indoor Climbing, a website that has the latitude of climbing walls across the world.

Fashionable flats...

Gap eyelet ballet flats $39
Gucci canvas bamboo flats $344
JCrew Cristobal patent flats $145
Loeffler Randal Beulah Smoke Anaconda flats $385
Tory Burch laurel flats $295
Urban Outfitters printed animal skimmers $20

Inspirability...

A visual journal of graphic design inspiration, Matt Pashkow puts together an ecelctic collective of famous designers works in his new book, Inspirability: 40 Top Designers Speak Out About What Inspires.