You Smell of Apples

For the Love of Creating

2012-01-14T22:20:00.000-08:00

Party Romper!

2011-12-28T10:58:00.000-08:00

At some point during my time at Stephens, I've started a personal tradition. Whenever I go out with my girlies or there's a party on campus, I pull out the Party Romper. It's the perfect mixture of looking half decent while being ironic enough to avoid the pressure of needing to look good, and it's a great conversation starter. And that's the point of parties, right? Plus, as far as I'm concerned, the ONLY way I'm able to pull off such a ridiculous outfit is in an ironic way.

Here's me in Party Romper on Halloween on the far right:

Anyway, recently tragedy has struck and Party Romper got a little torn to pieces in the dryer. Morgan, in the polka dotty dress in the front, swears all it needs is a little repair, but I say, HEY! Forever 21 is having a buy one get one free sale, and I bet it would be awesome if all my friends had party rompers, too. Let's make this a big deal. Let's.

Oh, for the love of Parties, and the love of Rompers.

love, rudi

Calendar Love

2011-12-22T16:26:00.000-08:00

I'm getting antsy about beginning another semester in the graphic design world, and my excitement has sent me on a search for calendars and planners to start my new year off with a big productive bang.

It's gearing up to be a really exciting semester. A week or two ago I interviewed with a local marketing and advertising company in town, and I earned a great internship position. I'll be helping them re-evaluate their current directions and tactics, and re-branding their company while I'm at it! I can't tell you how completely excited I am about this opportunity, and what better way to jump into a big organization/design project than keeping myself organized with a sharply designed planner or calendar?

Leah Duncan

Claudia Pearson

Sheep's Head

I'm crushing super hard on this one, from Julia.

So sweet :)

love, rudi

Canoe

2011-12-10T22:27:00.001-08:00

I've come across another great online shop. Canoe is the perfect mix of Dainty Squid hipster and Ron Swanson from my favorite show Parks and Recreation.

If my life was only filled with deliciously simple and efficient Canoe stuff, I feel like I'd get so much done.

The future is looking so clean and tidy.

love, rudi

Le Bon Marche

2011-12-10T20:46:00.001-08:00

I've been watching Amy Sedaris interviews on youtube all night. She gives me the confidence that yes, I can be bad at crafts and still do them, and I can be completely entertaining while badly doing those crafts. My favorite video may be this one, where Amy just insults and antagonizes Martha Stewart the whole time.

Anyway, I began doing a lot of online window shopping and found the cutest tea towel prints.
Le Bon Marche is a festive little company that has made my hankering to buy a goat and sheep farm stronger than ever before. Their products are inspired by the French countryside, which, now that I think about it, sounds like a pretty great location for my farm. But before that happens, I've got to get some of these tea towels.

When I have a kitchen, you can bet your bottom dollar that I will not only own beautiful tea towels like this, but I will use them while cooking wonderful snacks and meals and sauces and hot drinks. Especially hot drinks.

love, rudi

Musak

2011-12-04T21:29:00.001-08:00

I can't believe my luck in finding this video.

love, rudi

And After All This Time...

2011-11-17T19:47:00.001-08:00

I have an announcement to make!!

After spending my entire semester learning about design and branding, I've decided that pumping life back into this old blog of mine has become crucial. Yeah, Pinterest is great for finding and organizing awesome finds, but the truth is I need to start connecting myself to my style. And that means reconnecting myself to my blog.

I'm going to start sharing my discoveries with my ever-so-loyal readers-- thank you, by the way! It's time we were re-aquainted. A lot has happened to me in these past months.

Look for more soon. :)

love, rudi

Just 5 More Minutes...I Mean Weeks

2011-08-16T21:10:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to sugar coat anything: until about an hour ago I was completely dreading going back to school at the end of this week.

I've been reading all of my friend's thoughts on Facebook- everyone's reaching out to each other with "I can't wait to see you!"s. It will be amazing to see my girls after a few excruciating months without them, but I'm not feeling ready to cope with the less ideal parts of college after spending all summer in the comforts of home and laziness. When I think of college I find myself remembering late nights every night under a mountain of work and how cold those treks to class and dinner are during the school year. Being with my family after a year away has made me appreciate and miss them even more, and I'm just positively dreading not being able to see Truchi until November.

The family fishing when summer began.

I'm also nervous about my coming year. I'm sort of going through freshman year twice because I'll be in all new environment- new major, new teachers, new people. Last year I was so full of leftover angst and frustration from high school that I attacked my first year of college with fireworks of energy and eagerness but now I'm just feeling drained. I hope I can pull the same enthusiasm into this year and less magnetism for negativity and bad luck. I'm proud to have made a good impression on my teachers and classmates last year, but now I have to wonder if I can do it again. Thinking about all this makes me hiccup with worry.

But like I said, about an hour ago I had an epiphany. I was thinking about how freshman year was all about standing out at auditions, going to rehearsals or crew until ten at night, building up and repairing a reputation from scratch, and simply learning how to survive sanely in the giant college juggling act. But this year I don't have to worry about any of that stuff, not really. Those things were about 85% of my daily life, and I realized that means I now have 85% of my life to fill with...well, whatever I want.

That little schedule shift in my head made my whole body loosen and relax instantly. Finally things I imagined myself doing in college seem reachable, like working on my organization, which is hard to do when you barely have time to grab some lunch. Now who knows- I may have time to go to lectures, all those campus events I missed out on last year, and I'll actually be able to commit to a few clubs here and there! It sounds so simple and insignificant but I've always wanted to hold a leadership role in a school organization. In high school that was never an option because elections were just disguised popularity contests, but college is different, right?

Anyway, the point is I decided to stop being scared and to think outside my worried restraints, and now I'm feeling much more positively about the year.

But I'll still miss my mommy.

love, rudi

Vacation Photos

2011-07-20T20:06:00.000-07:00

Here are a [few] photos from my vacation to Connecticut and New York City from earlier this month! I'm proud that I actually managed to carry my heavy camera around with me everywhere, which was no small feat for my already whiney-achey body.

The NY part of the trip was paid for by my school, but thanks to Truchi's habit of annually visiting his family in CT I had a companion the whole time! I was so happy to have him with me- vacations are just so much more fun if you're not alone, and even more fun when you bring your best friend.

I miss it so bad!!

love, rudi

4th of July Party, sans Rudi

2011-07-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

Since I don't have photos of my own 4th of July holiday,

which consisted of poolside lounging, rib-eating, and dancing with the Ecuadorian family who lives behind Mario's house at their pig roast. Why do I not have pictures of these amazing adventures? Because Yes.

So look at this post from From Me To You instead! It seriously made my night (that and the cake batter ice cream I just had) and I can't even tell you how flustered I am to know that this event happened the weekend I arrived here in Connecticut, really close to where it happened in Manhattan. It just gets my giggly goat. Giggly. Goat.

I hope you enjoy the rest of the photos as much as I did,

because they reminded me how pretty life can be sometimes.

love, rudi

My Little Baby

2011-06-28T20:38:00.000-07:00

So the vet visit went well,

and the doc told me all my baby needed was a little dose here and there until she's up and running again.

So I give her a tiny syringe of yellow yucky,

and wake up every 2 hours to feed and cuddle with her.

She started drinking from the bottle again,

and fell asleep on a full, happy belly,

but my poor little Little didn't wake up again.

But I'm just happy I had her for what little time I did,

and based on her frequent purring and whining to be cuddled all the time,

I think she was happy about that, too.

love, rudi

Bing Bing Fing!

2011-06-27T11:18:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago I rescued a baby kitty kitty from the animal shelter, and we named her Bing Bing Fing.

I. Love. My kitty. She's the cuddliest little kitter cat ever and her little squeak-meow is the most adorable little sound.

She's been growing wonderfully and has started exploring her little world more and more,

but this morning she wasn't doing too well, and I'm taking her to the vet today. She's not eating, and her little eyes look so sleepy. Not to mention she's not crawling around exploring like usual...

Wish me luck, I really hope my little baby is going to be okay.

love, rudi

2011-06-25T09:18:00.000-07:00

I've been digging around a whole bunch on Etsy, and I've got some neat finds!

This print says "I am the fly on the wall" in Hebrew. It'd be the most awesome random art to have!

petekdesign

This little purse isn't usually my type of style, but I love it so much!

Aylla (who's having a sale right now!)

These towels are the best! Grrrr I wish I had a kitchen to put them in!

I'm seriously crushing on these rabbit napkins, and they're on some serious sale.

artgoodies

I love this dinosaur so much. This is probably my pick of the day!

crazy couture

love, rudi

You Smell of Apples Headbands!

2011-06-24T22:07:00.000-07:00

"Check out this out!", as baby Sadie would say. I finally started up my Etsy shop!

Here's the Link! Shop You Smell of Apples!

YAY! YAY! YAY!

Check me out!

love, rudi

(can I just mention how long it's been since I've used the 'accomplishment' tag? A while.)

2011-06-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

I found the cutest new shop! It's time like these, which occur oh-so-often, that I wish I had a kitchen and, likewise, a kitchen table to use all this stuff in.

Hope you enjoyed House 8810!
Oh, and just a little heads-up to The Boyfriend, mom says she totally wants that umbrella.

love, rudi

2011-06-11T20:21:00.000-07:00

After panicking over my math homework,

which basically reinforced my already stone-set belief that I will never be able to own anything nice in the 'real world' or live in anything other than near poverty,

I decided to gawk and whimper over beautiful things that I will never own but always want to.

All from my favorite, Anthropologie.

Online window shopping always depresses me.

love, rudi

Yard Sale Treasures!

2011-06-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

Why is this chicken salad on toast the best I've ever had?

Wow.

Anyway- check out what I found at that estate sale the other day!

And some of this delicious stuff will be turned into MORE delicious stuff to sell at my new Etsy shop!

Oh, and my online math class starts today. Ick.

love, rudi

Mini-Vacation: Columbus

2011-06-04T20:40:00.000-07:00

So many photos from our mini-vacation!! For the most part they're self explanatory, but here's a quick list of what we did while in Columbus.

1. Visited cousin Terry's house and beautiful garden for the first time.

2. Went to a family reunion, where there were a lot of babies. It was a side of the family I don't really know at all, so it was a big surprise toes so many young'uns!

3. Went to the zoo!

Hope you enjoyed! And here's an interesting fact: I've still got tons more to go!

love, rudi

Easy Breezy Treasure Sees-me

2011-06-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

Burnt Pizza, First-weekend-of-June Treasure hunting with mom, hammock, family photos, stretching, yawning cats, breeze.

Sadie and our cat Ducah jumped in the hammock with me!

What a nice day! And I can't WAIT to show you what I found in a yard sale this morning!

But for now, take a look at what I found on Etsy this morning:

Click the photo to visit ArmoursansAnguish

love, rudi

Buttons!

2011-06-02T15:17:00.000-07:00

I have two new buttons! I've been working hard to sort of re-do a lot of my blog stuff, as well as add on features, prime example being these buttons. I feel so out-of-the-know! This stuff is tricky-tricky to master.

But anyway! Feel free to put my buttons on your blog, and let me know if I can add yours to mine as well!

Just look how pretty they are on my sidebar- don't you want some of this eye candy for your blog too?

love, rudi

You Smell of Etsy

2011-06-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

This week I've got some major projects on my hands. I decided that instead of sitting around waiting for some business to hire me, I'm going to devote my time to starting up my own Etsy shop, which is something I've been wanting to do for a long time.

Isn't that exciting?? I'm looking so forward to starting up such a big project, and despite the fact that I'm scared to death of just wasting a bunch of my money and time, I'm excited about taking this risk. I want to make it work so badly.

So I began gathering some materials and doing some research online during my and mom's trip to Pittsburgh (photos on their way!), and first thing this morning I began pulling my little shop together and digging up a notebook to record myself. The more I research and dig around Etsy, the better I feel about jumping in. What can I really lose, right? Worse case scenario I'm stuck with awesome headbands and up-cycled cloth napkins for my future life of fun and pretty things, and a productively used summer. Sounds like a good deal to me!

Also I started reading my book that came in the mail yesterday. Truchi and I found the book cover on someone's photo blog and thought it was the funniest thing ever. So I bought it, and I've been creepily entertained ever since!

And these aprons are from Aprons by Vittoria. I love doing Etsy research. :)

love, rudi

Tenny-Sea

2011-05-25T22:03:00.000-07:00

Spent two days in Greeneville with the boyfriend,

and we were so proud after making a successful at-home dinner date of shish kabobs, local new potatoes, and cream corn.

Fancy eclairs and bear claws from Peggy Ann's Bakery for dessert. :)

And now, back at home, I have a new workspace for my blogging and art-ing!

Also, wish me a big hunk of good luck for tomorrow morning- I have a job interview at a Greek restaurant! I need a job really bad, so send me some good vibes!

love, rudi

Seraphine de Senlis

2011-05-22T08:44:00.000-07:00

I watched the movie Seraphine late last night, about the French cleaning lady who became a famous painter. It was just the type of thing I needed to see. The stills look like paintings themselves, and no matter how deep into the internet I search, I can't seem to find any prints of her work.

But my future apartments wants to be covered in Seraphine prints. It wants to.

love, rudi

2011-05-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

We have a good time. :)

I wish being unemployed and home for summer meant spending lots of time having adventures together,

but alas.

I also miss my dorm room, and having a place to put all my crap.

Cross your fingers that I figure out that job thing pretty soon. I've applied all over, and now it's up to them! All those bosses must just be oblivious to how totally adorable and personable I am.

love, rudi

2011-05-15T13:57:00.000-07:00

Asheville state of mind today...

Doesn't baba ganoush sounds great?

I"m finally unpacking my clothes and beginning to sort through the wants and don't wants I brought home from school. I'm in a deep need of closet slimming.

love, rudi