How is it almost February? January has flown by as I’m teaching a class on the influence of Japan on 19th Century American Decorative Arts at the Cooper-Hewitt this semester and classes started last week.  If things have been too quiet around here for your taste, check out my Pinterest which is much more lively these days.  (Image via Pennyweight)

Pamukkale, Turkey found via Cate’s Pinterest.

Green plates have been catching my eye lately….

1. Photo by Caroline Earber and 2. found via Nothing is New

Photograph by Michael Graydon. Found at delicious Seven Spoons.

A little note: This post has stirred the pot of my personal peanut gallery.  I got no less than three phone calls from friends and family wanting to register their distaste for these shoes (a little known fact about my peanut gallery .. they are loth to leave comments…). One went so far as to say “I can’t stand any shoe that laces up!” which I must admit, shocked me … I mean, lace up shoes!!!  LOL.

Loving these neon soled oxfords from Jil Sander ($745).  However, isn’t this screaming for a DIY application?  Shoes found via Pennyweight.

Spray paint or leather paint?  I wonder.

These oxfords are on sale at Urban Outfitters for $30 ….

Tim recently found In The Town All Year Round at the library and it’s been a major hit in our house.  Alex (and I) love children’s books that are really densely illustrated. This book has no storyline, or at least not a written one.  Which is a relief since as readers who are parents will know that reading and rereading favorite books to toddlers can get old.  This way we can all just look at the illustrations together.  The book follows the life of town through the seasons, which is very soothing and teaches a lot in a very gentle way.

We’re also huge fans of Richard Scary’s Busy Town, Where’s Waldo, and The Book of Cities.  Any others to suggest in this “genre”?

SCHELTENS AND ABBENES. BOUQUET. 2008. 48 X 40 INCH ENDURAFLEX PRINT.

Still life, like this one, fascinate me  – I also  love the work of Beth Lipman who interprets still life painting in glass. This amazing image by the photography duo Scheltens and Abbenes is part of a show currently up at the Danzinger Projects. I can’t wait to check it out.

via The Tiny House Blog.

For every New Year’s Eve for the last 8 years, Tim and I have done the same thing: stayed home and cooked pepper-crusted filet mignon and indulged in a nice bottle of wine and a chocolate pear tart.  This year we invited our friends Dan, Nancy and Oskar over and it was more than double the fun (after filet mignon, two toddlers and a marathon dance party, we’re all full and happy).

Happy New Year!!  May your 2012 be full of prosperity and love.

PS We spent the day at the Bronx Zoo — I’d never been and had such a good day looking at so many majestic animals.

Tim and I took a little staycation this week. Thursday it was an early breakfast at Peels (with Sam, Dave and cutie Henry), dropped Alex off at home with our sitter, caught the new Sherlock Holmes — which was really funny and watchable — (we snuck in with sandwiches from Grand Daisy), dinner was Japanese takeout (it was so nice not to have to do dishes!). Friday we did breakfast at the bar at Balthazar, got back to back acupuncture treatments with Nancy and then had a post shopping late lunch at Lucky Strike in SoHo. At night we’ve been matching the British TV show Rosemary & Thyme, which is basically a show staring my mother and my godmother as gardening detectives. Delicious.  I especially love the amazing English houses and gardens that are the real stars of the show.  Then, last night we watched Soul Kitchen, which I really enjoyed (again, funny and watchable!).  Both are available on Netflix streaming, if you do that.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all my wonderful and patient readers.  We made our own cards this year; some with prints of Alex’s hand and foot and some just doddled with Martha Stewart Glitter Pens by me.  I love that everyone is getting a different card.

I just got lost in the virtual house tour of the gallery/museum Kettle’s Yard.

This was my favorite detail:

One of the founding principles of Kettle’s Yard is the significance of natural objects as tokens of the Divine perceptible in everyday life. In 1958 Jim arranged these near-spherical pebbles in a spiral resembling a mandala, the Buddhist ritual figure that serves as an object of contemplation and representation of the universe.
Throughout his life Jim collected shells, pebbles, bones and other natural objects. This was no casual activity. As he wrote, ‘we find a perfect pebble once in a generation and once in a continent … Perfection in nature varies for each person – it is something created between the thing experienced and the person experiencing. Yet I know when I meet perfection immediately. I will discard 10,000 pebbles in my search for one whose outward shape exactly balances my idea of what a pebble is, and I do not believe that this discarding is arbitrary – we all know by some unwritten law what is a well-shaped egg.’

The Wall Street Journal “Off Duty” section is one of my favorite parts of the weekend — they’ve hired a incredibly talented group (at least a few ex-Domino folk). Sarah Karnasiewicz has an amazing article this weekend on springerle cookies, complete with recipes.  I’ve picked up a couple of these cookie molds over the years, but have never actually made the cookies … until now!  I bought the mold below from House On The Hill ($44) and can’t wait to get baking.  I’ve heard these cookies can be hard to make, but, that just means lots of extras for us to eat here in the Design Scouting test kitchen.