Sneak Peak

After starting to clean my apartment in preparation for my upcoming move (more on that to come!) I spent a good portion of the night laying on my bed on the phone like in the movie Bye Bye Birdie staring out my window, kicking my legs in the air, and watching them set up for Urban Showcase!! (see previous post below for details)

Lucky me can see right into all levels of the house from my bedroom and I tried to creep and get some good pictures but they didn't turn out well except this little guy in the basement window....

...don't you think there should be a little sign hanging that says "Jonathan Adler was here!?"

Urban Showcase

I've seen this house rise from the ground up over the past year and it has honestly been nothing short of amazing. I live just behind it and I've got to say Bradford has become my favorite street in the South End, it's a perfect location without being too busy and I love all the houses on it. 44 Bradford Street is finally complete and now ready to be shown off.


...and not just shown off in an open house. Local Realtor, Ricardo Rodriguez, will be presenting the Urban Showcase - April 29-30, May 1-2, and May 6-9.
Each floor will be done by a different designer and put on show to benefit the Pine Street Inn ($10 Thursday/Friday, $20 Saturday/Sunday). Need even more reason to come? One of the floors will be done by Jonathan Adler! Other designers include Terrat Elms (known for designing The 1850, also in the South End), Dennis Duffy of Duffy Design Group (designed Rocca,) and Lisa Kreiling of LTK Interiors.


Here are a few previews of the designers, Jonathan Adler...a private residence on Shelter Island, via jonathanadler.com

Terrat Elms...a kitchen in the 1850 building, via terratelms.com

Duffy Design...great room in Concord, MA via duffydesigngroup.com.

LTK Interiors...living room in a Boston duplex via ltkinteriors.com.

Karen Walker (not that Karen Walker)

Although I do covet her collection of Hermes and tolerance for Gin I am not currently referring to the Karen Walker of Will & Grace but instead the eye wear designer. Fashion is fun and should be treated as such which is a huge reason I love Barney's and Fred Segal...they don't take themselves too seriously. I've noticed Karen Walker's stuff popping up in magazines and I've seen it on a few blogs but I just finally got around to checking out her website and now I'm totally sold!

I mean, her logo was enough to get me excited...


Then once you actually get into her site this amazing pattern scrolls through different styles of her newest line of sunglasses. This is from her 2010 collection...


She also keeps her past collections up on kind of an archive of sites for each year. Here is 2009...


See what I mean about keeping it fun? I've tried a pair on and they are definitely a good quality so I'm thinking I might have to buy myself a pair. They're all pretty much under $200, not to say that's cheap but all the sunglasses I've wanted recently have been north of $300 which is just getting silly. This rain (in Boston) is supposed to clear out tomorrow so some nice weather this weekend might call for a new pair of sunglasses!

Music for my Walls

Unfortunately I think when you mention concert posters a lot of people picture a velvet black light Pink Floyd poster or something equally offensive but one of my current obsessions is band and/or concert posters either vintage or orginial by some of the great print makers our there right now.

One of the best websites for them is Poster Cabaret where I actually picked up this Band of Horses poster as an engagement present for my sister and her husband because they went to see them for their first date.

It looks so good framed and I think it made a pretty good gift if I do say so myself.

The other one from Poster Cabaret I'm loving both because I love the band Stars and because I love the artwork is this one, which is by the artist The Small Stakes - definitely one of my favorites on the website.

One great find that I cannot take credit for is a Bob Dylan poster that came folded in his 1967 Greatest Hits LP that my sister bought for her husband Peter for Christmas one year. She got in eBay and then had it restored because it was worn from being folded up in a record sleeve for so long but it looks perfect now.

One of the great thing about concert posters is they tend to come in really standard sizes so its easy to find frames at Ikea or other big stores to fit them so you can save some money on custom matting and framing.