RIP Atlas

My fish died for real today.
Farewell Atlas the lovely Beta fish.

Design Sponge

Hey look I'm famous.

New Posters

I found these old blue prints in my aunt's attic and thought that they were too amazing to be stuck up there. I ended up screen printing over them to make some sweet posters. You can buy them on my etsy store. Each one is original, and it turns out they were plans to my great uncles house.

Check out the store.

Letters

I got a letter from Abbey Smith today. It made my day infinitely more glorious.
Thanks Abizzle Smizzle.

Obama

Amen

New Shoes

I've been looking for shoes that I can wear socks with for the winter that aren't sneakers and aren't boots. With a little help from Lana I found them from this cool cruelty free company called Keep.

I love the sweet Navajo print.

Punkin' Chunkin

This weekend me and my Philly friends got to experience Sussex county Delaware at its finest at the annual Punkin' Chunkin' competition. We squinted our eyes to try and catch a glimpse of pumpkins being shot out of giant air compressed canons.

Here are some photos from the day.

Creative Thursday

My friend Jenna and I go to our studio every Thursday for a practice of creative discipline. It doesn't matter what you make as long as you go and make something. Usually we end up screen printing random stuff. Last night I drew some little polaroid sketches for a project I'm rolling around in my head.

I love Thursdays.

Philllliiiieeeeesss!!!!

I love this city.

Want to see something crazy?

Haley Smith circa 2003

We were having this talk about senior portraits on the way to work the other day, so I figured I'd post mine. This one's for Bryana.

I wish my hair still looked like that.

Philly

I love Philadelphia.

Missing Bike Wheel

Today someone at the grocery store stole my bike wheel. There was a security guard no more than 10 feet away.

Luckily some fishtown residence gave me and my bike a ride home.

Sad day.

Boots

I found the coolest boots in the whole entire world last night at the thrift store while looking for a PeeWee Herman costume for my friend Bryana.

Just look at them in all their $5.95 fur lined gloriousness. Plus they remind me a little of what I liked about these.

I don't know what "Steel Shank" means, but I like it.

This blog has been a great influence for me lately.

Deb Talan

Have I mentioned my love for cheesey empowering songs.
I really love them.
Really, a lot.

Peru T-shirts

I have decided what to do with the now infamous Howies shirts. My church is running a short term service missions trip to Peru in January, and I really want to go and work at an orphanage. Time will be spent doing whatever they need from us, from crafting with the kids to doing odd jobs for the facility. So for a donation of atleast $25 you get a little love from Philadelphia in the form of a t-shirt and get to help send me to Peru. The shirts are organic cotton and if you think $25 is expensive they sell for 20 pounds which is almost $40 on the howies website.

Any extra money I make will be donated directly to the orphanage.

Contact Me if you want to donate.


Sizes are limited and there aren't any small left, they've been donated to the kids.

You have the choice between brown and blue.

Just thinking

Do you ever think that it's a bad thing that our generation has been told that we can do whatever we set our mind to?

Cupcake Town

Last night I made some Boston Cream cupcakes for my AMAZZZING roomate Lana who's birthday is tomorrow. We celebrated at work today with an indian cupcake party.

I thought the packets of pudding looked super tiny so I decided to make 3 packets resulting in a half gallon of pudding. I have a ton of leftovers if anyone's hungry.

HOWIES!

My favorite English organic clothing company Howies was holding a conference called the Do lectures. If you wrote them a hand written letter about what you wanted to do there was a chance that you would get to attend the do lectures, so I wrote them a letter. I wrote about how people in the city are so disconnected and what I wanted to do was build community. I told them about the project I've been working on, taking pictures of strangers and sent them a polaroid of a woman who has lived in Fishtown for 87 years. I didn't make it to the do lectures, but a couple months after my submission I came home this weekend to a giant box in my living room. In that box was 100 t-shirts with a print of a little sketch I had drawn on the outside of their envelope. AMAZZZIIIINNNG!

I wonder what kind of community movement you can start with 100 t-shirts. Any suggestions?

Here's me and some shirts taken on Joel's iphone.
They say "a little love from philadelphia".

Banksy Pet Shop

I went to NYC on Friday and spent the day wandering and exploring the city by myself, which was super empowering to navigate everything and figure stuff out on my own. While there I checked out the Banksy Pet Shop exhibit that's going on in Soho. It was animatronic gloriousness with hot dogs in cages and chicken nuggets dining on sweet and sour sauce. So quirky and fun and a great commentary on how we look at food.

My favorite was the swimming fish sticks.

Photo from the Wooster Collective
Read more here.
(look at the post from October 9th)

Old Digital Cameras

A few of my favorite friends are moving to Peru for varying amounts of time to work at an orphanage. My one friend Seth wants to teach the kids photography. He wants to give them a chance to show us their world.

He needs help though,
he's on a mission to find:

Point and Shoot Cameras
- At least 5 mega pixels with all the cords and chargers
-Media cards for cameras

2 Digital SLR Cameras
-Cables, battery chargers, and batteries

2 Laptops
-Dell or Apple
-Media reader
-2 External USB Hard drives for Storage / 160GB or more

Camera bags and Laptop cases for Protection

So if you just got a new digital camera or computer and don't know what to do with your old one chances are Seth could use it. Or if you want to give some orphans in Peru a chance to take photos, express their viewpoit, and capture the world they live in you could donate some new stuff too. Reply to this post if you're interested in helping.

Here's Seth in Action

Nigel Peake

I bought this little book of sheds by Nigel Peake this weekend while on an adventure with Sarah.



I am in love with the ink drawings with intricate patterns and watercolor type. It makes me happy.

Jenny Lewis

I saw Jenny Lewis perform on Friday at the Opera House in Wilmington. It was glorious.

Here's a video of her on Pancake Mountain, the Sesame Street for kids of hipsters.

Tastespotting

Tastespotting makes me so happy.

My So Called Life

I am a nerd and have been watching "My So Called Life" obsessively while editing photos. I have a total crush on the geeky neighbor Brian Krakow.

I Hate Perfume

I want to smell like the library.

Coffee Exhibit

My friend Jess let me put up some photos in her coffee shop this weekend. It makes me so happy to show off my pictures.

Here's one I put up from New Orleans


You can see them in person at:
Brew HaHa
5329 Limestone Road
Wilmington, DE 19808

This Sigur Ros song was the anthem to my weekend:

This is Munich

I found this book while perusing an antique store near the art museum on Sunday with some friends. The illustrations are wonderful, and it made me want to do a "This is Philly" book of my own just for fun. It turns out there's a whole series and the author does an amazing job of giving you these tiny little glimpses of what life is like in that city.

He's a Czech illustrator named Miroslav Sasek.

Fruit Hooks

New fruit hooks made by you know who.

Sail Boat

On days like today I wish I had a sailboat.


Image from this etsy store.

Seeing Stars

I saw the band Stars on Friday with Claire. It was lovely.

Thinking

These are words that should be banned from creative job listings:
fast paced
highly competetive
background in flash
well organized

talented friends

Everyone and their mom should listen to my new friend Katie Becker's music.
Check it here.

Sooooo good!

Gee's Bend Quilts

There's a new exhibit on the quilts of Gee's Bend in Alabama. The quilt's are crafted by the early decendents of slaves and were made not only for practical reasons, but also as a form of expression.

They are amazing.




The exhibit runs through December 14th.
All images from the Auburn Website

Atlas

My fish died today.

****Update****
He's alive, he was just molting.

Banksy

Digging Banksy in New Orleans.


Via Swindle

Artists are Sensitive

I've mentioned the Creative Thursday podcasts before, but today I really just needed to hear the podcast on the sensitivity of artists.

Check it out if you need a little encouragement.

City Life

Sarah and I went kite flying in Penn Treaty Park.


More Strangers in the City

Boots

I'm pretty sure I could pull these boots off. I want them terribly.



From Urban Outfitters.

Blurry Croissants

I made croissants yesterday. They took more than a day to make rolling, and refrigerating, and more rolling and refrigerating and rising and baking and turning and baking some more. I didn't know they would be this time consuming. They required more patience than I can usually muster. I don't know if I'll ever make them again, but I will most certainly appreciate every croissant I ever eat from here on out a heck of a lot more. They also made my house smell of delicious yeast and buttery bread.

FYI they turned out delicious.
Here's the recipe.

Learning by Heart

I just got this book in the mail about the teachings of Sister Corita Kent. She's my favorite graphic designing nun from the sixties.



"Not all of us are painters, but we are all artists"

It's been super hard having a job where you have to be creative 8 hours a day. Sometimes I fill my creative downtime with searching blogs and magazines for new ideas when in reality I need to shut off, walk around, be by myself and sketch. Sometimes I wish I could be alone while experimenting.

Fishtown

I'm enjoying this guy's photos of my neighborhood. Fishtown Philadelphia, lovely.


It's been interesting living in the city, and I think it finally felt like home this weekend when I was out walking my roomate's dog and one of my friends from chruch rode by on his bike and we ended up walking and talking for over an hour all around the neighborhood, or the fact that I can walk 4 minutes to the houses of 7 different friends, and I love having people over to eat food on our back patio. I love riding my bike to get places, you kind of feel like you own the city. I like Philadelphia.