highboy

I'm a little late in posting this but, while we were in New York, The Man was in an art show here in Chicago.  The show, "Dissecting Art, Intersecting Anatomy," was put together as "an homage to the medical illustrations of Pauline Lariviere."  The Man had been working every night and weekend for weeks on this walnut highboy that was commissioned to be in the show.  We were a little bummed that we were unable to make it for opening night, but the response to his piece has been amazing.

His was the only piece of furniture in the show.  I asked him to write a little blurb about it for the blog and this is what he had to say:

"The idea behind the 'exploded' highboy was to reveal it's anatomy. Each joint is opened to show the joinery within. All the exposed joinery was done using modern joinery techniques which gave the piece a post modern aesthetic when paired with the very traditional Queen Anne highboy form. The glass in the doors and on the sides of the cabinet are original master plates from Pauline Lariviere's anatomical prints. These plates were featured and available to all the artists in the show. Looking at these plates and the beauty found within the human body inspired me to reveal the beauty inside my craft."

The Man and his team rigged up stripes of LED lights so the highboy was lit from the inside to highlight the artist's plates.  I love the photos of the piece lit up without any other lighting around it. It gives off this feeling of ominous elegance.

Here's a link to more photos. I am still in awe of how beautiful it is and, if you can believe it, it's even more stunning in person.

As I'm writing this I'm realizing that this is the first piece of The Man's furniture that I've posted on the blog.  That needs to be fixed asap!!

a trip too short

Our trip to New York the other week was so fantastic.  As always we had the best time with our NY friends.

On Sunday we went into the city and Dana showed me her favorite kitchen supply shop.  Bowery Kitchen Supply is in the Chelsea market, which has an abundance of super cute boutiques and bakeries.

Bowery was awesome, they had everything you could ever want and it was all very reasonably priced. I wish there was a place like this in Chicago, where you can find the random little uncommon kitchen accessories that you rarely need and can never find (although, I bet there is and I'm just not looking hard enough). 

After convincing myself I didn't need sake bottles "just because they're so cute." we went up to the highline.

And I got to see Jean Nouvel's 100 Eleventh Avenue Building (the building in the back with all the different sized windows), which I've been coveting ever since I saw the penthouse featured on HGTV over a year ago. 

On Monday we went to the financial district via the East River Ferry, which was really fun (and windy) and a lot faster than riding the 3 trains it would normally take to get there from Brooklyn. We went underneath the Brooklyn bridge which was pretty cool and I somehow recognized another gorgeous building I know from HGTV.

The Clock Tower Apartment, which is behind the bridge in this photo, is so cool, the clocks actually serve as windows!

This post is making it sound like I follow New York real estate but I swear those are the only two buildings I would recognize!!

It was a short trip, just a weekend, but it was non-stop fun and, once again, I can't wait to go back and have more adventures with this crazy bunch of lovely people.

mani mondays

I've been trying to do my nails every week, and this week was no exception.

Since this week was in between holidays I had a little more freedom to do whatever. So just two colors ("Va Va Voom" by Orly and "Borrowed & Blue" by Essie) and some scotch tape and voila!

st. patty's

Did everyone have a green-guinness-filled St. Patrick's Day?!

The Man and I chose to avoid the outdoors on Saturday.  Last year we went out for lunch and even at noon there were so many sloppy drunk people falling into the streets it was like playing frogger (except instead of a frog trying to avoid cars, the cars were trying to avoid people in dumb hats). So we kept it low key.  I love almost every holiday but St.Patty's Day has never been a big deal in my book, day drinking is one thing, but 8am drinking is just gross.

So to celebrate I painted some shamrocks on my nails and called it good:

concrete bunghole

Last weekend we went to New York to surprise our friend for his 30th Birthday.  It was so much fun to see everyone and gallivant around the city  for a few days.  Although we stayed in Brooklyn I decided to paint a mini city on my nails in honor of our trip to NYC.

 We walked along the High Line and the Chelsea Market, ate at Katz (again), and took the East River ferry from Brooklyn down to Wall Street to walk around the Financial District.

 It was a blast.

P.S. Just in case you don't know what the title is referencing...

I love Liz Lemon.

chicago bucket list {italian beef}

I completed something from my Chicago Bucket List!
This past Sunday I ate my very first Italian Beef sandwich, and it was. . .

 good.

I had Italian Beef with sweet peppers and garlic fries.  I liked it, but considering all the options at restaurants that serve Italian Beef I probably won't get it again.  It was a bit boring, and I was eying The Man's gyro the whole time.  We went to Grecian Kitchen up in Skokie, everything on their menu looked delish! I wanted my first Italian Beef sandwich to be a classic one, with no funny business, but if I ever had it again I would definitely go with the Italian Combo, which is italian beef and italian sausage on french bread, yum.

So, what about you? Do you wholeheartedly disagree? Have you even tried one before? I'd say give it a chance, but leave room for a gyro!

matte about polka dots

I finally tried the essie matte top coat on navy, like I said I wanted to ages ago.  But of course I couldn't do just plain ol' navy, that's too boring!

You can't really tell from these photos, but the light blue dots were put on after the matte top coat so they'd still be glossy.  I like the matte/glossy combo, the only problem I see is that a few days of wear and the matte starts to fade and look a bit shiny-greasy on the ends.  So re-apply my friends!

 My hands sure are white!! :)!

the assignment

So last Tuesday I completed step-one of my assignment.  When The Man and I were talking about my misuse of internet inspiration, he decided to give me an assignment.  I was to create a list of 25 creative projects that I could possibly complete in 2 days (a.k.a. a weekend).  They didn't have to all be a piece of art, just as long as I was using the creative side of my brain and not just sitting on the couch all weekend long.

After the list was complete I was told to put it away and not look at it until the next day.

Wednesday's assignment:
Take the list back out and cross off 5 things, don't over think it, just 5 that you aren't as excited about as the others.  Put the list away again.

Thursday's assignment:
Take the list back out and cross off 10 things.  Seriously, try not to over think it, even though you over-analyze ev.er.y.thing. Put the list away.

Friday's assignment:
Take the list back out and cross off all but 1. By now you probably new which one you were going to choose, you've been thinking about it for the past 3 days, and you're actually excited.  After work go get any supplies you will need so there will be no excuses when you wake up on Saturday.

I love making lists, so this assignment was actually super fun, and what's great is now I have a whole slew of stuff to do... when I finish what I'm working on right now.