Eva Black asked me to share my studio space on her blog, and it took me a while to get it to a place where I felt comfortable sharing photos. I just see all of these beautiful photos of spaces people work in (usually in their homes) and feel my usual reaction of comparing myself and feeling inadequate. We’ve been in the studio for almost a year now, and I was feeling a little down there lately, uninspired and trying to figure out how to love being there. So I did a huge overhaul, painting things and replacing furniture, making it more reflective of my style at home and less dirty basement dungeon office. Another helpful new development in the studio is that my dear friend Katie now has a desk that she inhabits twice a week for both of our freelancer life sanity. It’s been immensely helpful for me to be around another human being besides my boyfriend on a regular basis, and we work well in the same space. And sometimes Peggy Day comes too, so, win win.

You can see all of the photos and a little interview on Eva’s blog here.

A grab bag of songs I’ve loved lately.

Katie and Allison Crutchfield cover Grimes’s “Oblivion” for Rookie

Ducktails “Letter of Intent” (and the entire Flower Lane album, for that matter, it’s so great.)

Iron and Wine “Low Light Buddy of Mine”. I’m still learning to love the new Iron and Wine album, Ghost On Ghost. I think the first quarter of the album is a struggle for me to truly enjoy because it’s a bit too sweet, but the rest is great and a few songs are really wonderful.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. “Dark Water”

This week was certainly a serious learning lesson. I have to admit I thought I’d be a natural at arranging flowers, that it would be really effortless and no big deal, but it doesn’t come that natural to me, and this week I re-did my arrangement three times over two days. I learned that practice makes perfect, and making an “effortless wild arrangement” (this week’s assignment) is more effort than more formulaic bouquets. I learned a lot about how certain flowers and greens act and don’t play well together, which I think is huge – you have to get to know different plants to know how they’ll work for you. Here’s my second arrangement (the first didn’t even get to a stopping point), which looks like a sad wig or something awful? I didn’t have the best container to start in, and even with a flower frog and flower tape everything kept flopping over. So by the third try I downsized to a big mug and it worked beautifully. I got giddy finishing this one, even though I lost a lot of flowers along the way and there are things I wish I could have changed had I not. But in the end I was really happy with this.

See week one here.

The new Kisses album, Kids in LA, was released this week and I do believe they have your summer album covered! It’s hard to pick a favorite but “Adjusts Glasses” is pretty great, but maybe because I just like hearing my girl Zinzi so front and center on it.

Have a great weekend, friends!

I’m taking an online flower arranging class, taught by the lovely Chelsea Fuss, and I thought I’d post my assignments each week as an exercise in A. Taking photos with my real camera rather than Instagram them and B. Posting blog posts? Ha. I’m taking the class so that I can do my own wedding flowers, even though I’m not planning on having much use for traditional arrangements- but I mainly wanted to gain general flower skills to apply to anything.

Week 1 was a hand-tied bouquet. You arrange the bouquet in a fist in one hand, which is something I’ve never done before, I just pictured all things being arranged in a vase or something? I realized I know nothing about real arranging and struggled more than I thought I would. I had really limited options for flowers and not a whole lot of time to devot to this, so I’m not 100% jazzed about the outcome but it was still really fun! I made a mini version with the leftovers and brought it to Katie because flowers make everyone super happy. She tells me the peonies opened up and were gigantic.

I’m going to the downtown flower mart this week for the next assignment, I have a feeling I will be overwhelmed and implode, thank god Bianca will be with me for guidance!

There are two new pieces added to the jewelry collection – a new simple cast bronze necklace in a hexagon shape, and a smaller version of the half moon bronze necklace. I’ve also restocked the other cast necklaces, like the crescent that has been out of stock for a while! The smaller half moon comes in either rust or navy colored leather and is perfect for those of you who don’t feel quite bold enough for the larger ones. It’s a bit more elegant.

The half moon is made to order and the cast necklaces will ship out within a few days.

Did you go to camp as a kid? I went twice: once was a mandatory excursion all the sixth graders at my school were required to go to at Camp Casey, where hormones raged and awkwardness was rampant. The second time was a much more magical and nerdy experience when I was a bit older at choir camp when I was in the Seattle Girls Choir (some photos above). It’s probably one of my fondest memories. Which is probably why I am so jazzed about Unique’s upcoming Camp for adults here in California in Big Bear in June. Four days of the unplugged outdoors going to workshops, investing time in growing yourself and your business, meeting awesome people, and having some serious fun.

And guess what? Laure and I are going to lead a workshop together on photography! The fine details are still being hammered out, but it will essentially be a workshop with photo basics for business owners. So maybe you own an online shop or you’re some type of maker/doer and you can’t always hire a photographer every single time you need one – we’ll give you some tips on elevating the quality of your photos.

So I hope to see some of you there June 6-9th. I’m admittedly a little bit nervous as I’m still that shy 12-year-old somewhere inside of me, terrified of making new friends, but mostly I’m really excited to step away from my computer (and phone!) and do something different and nostalgic. I mean, I am the girl getting married at a summer camp, so obviously I’m excited about this.

Read about all the details here, and let me know if you’re coming so we can meet up there! I’m told there are not a ton of spots left. I know it’s an investment, but I think a lot of us small business owners don’t properly invest in bettering ourselves sometimes as we are so focused on tangible supplies and write offs. Or, if you work in an office, talk your boss into sending you!

I am very late on sharing these, but two things involving yours truly on the internets:

First, Meighan interviewed me for her new series Social Workhorse. I answer a lot of questions that I get emailed frequently about business advice and how social media helps my business. It was really fun to answer questions on a subject that I feel fairly passionate about, despite being a little quieter online lately. Meighan and I have been friends online for ages, and I love seeing where she’s headed lately in her career.

Next up, Emma has a sneak peek of the very exciting project she’s been working really hard on for almost a year now, which I was lucky enough to take part in. She’s releasing a book on knitting through Chronicle this October, and yours truly got to model for some of the pieces, shot by the talented Max Wanger. It was such an amazing day of playing dress up and inspiring people. I can’t wait to get my paws on this book! This photo Marissa took of Ali and I on set makes me very happy.

Also, if you are in LA, I will have a few pieces of jewelry for sale at the Echo Park Craft Fair! Jennifer of Ermie was so kind as to ask myself and some other makers to contribute some things to her own creations to sell.

Have a lovely weekend, friends. I’m overwhelmed by the kindess on my wedding post in ways I cannot explain. :)

Balmorhea – Pyrakantha [official] from Colin Kennedy on Vimeo.

The new Balmorhea video for the lovely “Pyrakantha” gives me warm fuzzy feelings for my dear city.

I thought a new Tycho video meant a new song from them, but alas it’s just a new video for a song from the last album. But a beautiful video for a great song it is.

Over the weekend we saw an amazing movie, Upstream Color, and I cannot stop thinking about it. It’s by the same writer/director as Primer, another really remarkable movie that blew me away a few years ago. It’s hard to describe Upstream Color as I think it’s best to approach the film not knowing much about it, as the story makes connections that are best made with a fresh mind. In fact I think it’s best to watch the teaser trailer rather than the full trailer for that reason (though it makes it looks like a horror movie, which it is not). It’s screening in very select theaters and starting today you can rent it on iTunes, and I highly recommend you go see it.