Talk about sparkle...

So, the husband and I got back a few days ago from a little jaunt to Paris, Florence, and Rome.  What an experience!  Friends of ours got married in Paris, thus the main reason for our trip.  Neither of us had ever been to France or Italy, and man, did every place blow our minds!

I thought I wouldn't really enjoy Paris, but I was completely wrong.  Completely.  I LOVED Paris!  What a city.  Completely magical - from the Eiffel Tower, to the amazing museums, to the food, or rather the pastries and crepes.  YUM!  There was a little street crepe vendor down the street from our hotel that we visited a few times for ham, egg, and cheese crepes, and banana and nutella crepes.  Heavenly.  We picked up some pain au chocolat at the Saturday flea market, and ate it on the rooftop terrace at the Musee d'Orsay.  It was so good!  The hot chocolate was pretty spectacular there too.

We went on an adventure to get macarons.  One of the husband's friends told us about his two favorite places in Paris for macarons.  One - Ladurée, created in 1862.  Unbeknownst to us, we actually ate dinner there (at the Champs Elysées) the night before we found one of their other outposts for macarons (at 21 Rue Bonaparte in the 7th).  Our dinner was pretty good.  Their macaroons were AMAZING!  We got chocolate, vanilla, lemon, strawberry mint, salted caramel, and pistachio.  

The other place that was recommended was Pierre Herme at 72 Rue Bonaparte in Paris.  Also in the 7th, this place definitely had a different vibe than Ladurée.

Where Ladurée seemed more "ladies who lunch" and antique, Pierre Herme was more modern and streamlined.  They had many other desserts and pastries in addition to their macarons.

We got chocolate, vanilla, and pistachio macarons, and we got one of their specialty desserts: Ispahan - a rose cookie with lychee filling.  It sounded slightly strange, but the person who helped us at Pierre Herme, said it was one of their most popular desserts.  He wasn't wrong.  It was delicious.  We ate it about 2 days after we bought it.  It was our last day in Paris, and we planned to visit the Louvre.  We toted the cookie, in its lovely square box, with us to the Louvre, and shoved it inside my purse while we walked around the museum.  It was with us when we saw the smirk of the Mona Lisa, and when we saw the lovely Venus de Milo.  Then when we were finished looking at amazingly beautiful art, we dug the cookie box out of my purse, and opened it to find a delightfully smooshed and sad looking cookie.  But it tasted amazing!

Aside from the spectacularly delicious pastries and desserts, one of my favorite things in Paris was the Eiffel Tower.  We have all seen pictures of the tower in movies, magazines, etc.  But nothing really prepares you for seeing it for the first time in person.  It is magnificent.  It is absolutely gigantic.  I loved it!  The top of the tower was one of the first things we saw after ascending from the Metro on our way to the hotel from the airport.  We turned around and saw the top peeking out from amongst other buildings.  Love at first sight!  We dumped our bags off at the hotel, got some food, and walked toward the tower.  When we turned the corner in the Champ de Mars park, and saw the Eiffel just standing there - I couldn't help but smile and stare in awe at the magnificence in front of me.  We stood there for a time just pondering the tower.

A few days later we took a guided tour of the Tower (with Viator tours).  Our guide, Victor, told us all sorts of interesting things about the Tower.  Apparently, it was constructed in such a way that it is extremely light for its size.  If you put a canister around the tower, and sealed it off, the air inside the canister would weigh more than the tower itself.  It was constructed for the World's Fair in 1889.  The French government held a contest for the building of a monument to anchor the World's Fair.  It was open to everyone, and the 2 caveats were that it had to be 320 meters high (double the size of the Washington Monument) and the winner of the contest had to pay 80% of the construction cost.  One of the entries that wasn't picked was a 320 meter guillotine.  Another was a 320 meter tall sprinkler.  Obviously they made the right choice when they picked Gustave Eiffel's design.  Gustave was smart enough to negotiate that his tower would need to stand for 20 years, and that he would get all of the profits from entrance fees for the tower for that time.  He paid himself back for his initial investment in only 6 months, the remaining 19 years and 6 months were pure profit.  Victor also told us that the tower sparkles every hour on the hour for 5 minutes starting at 10pm and ending at 1am.  He told us that the 1am sparkling is the best because they shut off all of the other tower lights and just let the sparkles sparkle.

So, a few days later, we found ourselves at 1am at the Eiffel Tower reveling in the sparkle.

Boy does it sparkle!

I now know why Paris is considered the City of Love!  I can't wait to go back!

Eating with animals!

It really is no surprise that I fall in love with cute animal stuff.  For some reason, I'm just attracted to it - I can't really explain why, but I've always loved cute animal stuff.  When I was a kid, I had a gigantic collection of stuffed animals.  My mom devised a way to store them - we hung a hammock from the ceiling in my room over my bed and put my animals in it.  If we hadn't devised this storage solution, there would have been no place for me to sleep on my bed.  I distinctly remember when we had to clean out my stuffed animal collection to get rid of some old ones to make room for new ones.  I remember one time that I agreed to get rid of a few animals, I woke up in the middle of the night and was crying because I didn't want to get rid of any.  I snuck into the closet and took back the ones I thought I could part with.

I saw these plates at West Elm some time ago, and absolutely wanted to buy them, but my Husband, the voice of reason, asked, "Do we really need them?"  Of course we didn't really need them, but they are so cute!  I really wanted them, but refrained from buying them.  Until... they went on sale for $6 each.  And.... we have four of them now to mix in with our regular plates.  Husband actually really likes them too.  There is something so whimsical and cute about these.

When I pulled them up to include here, I see that there are four new versions of them now...  Love the bunny and badger and rooster and blue jay!   Uh oh, I may need a set of these too.

These cute owl mugs, also from West Elm would make a happy addition to the animal collection.  I love the metallic gold one - super cute!

If ceramic plates aren't your thing, West Elm has these darling melamine plates (and serving trays too)!

Anthropologie also has some absolutely adorable animal stuff too!

Love these animal plates - there 10 designs to pick from, including a parrot, butterflies, a monkey, a lion, a cheetah, a little girl, an owl, lady bugs, a bunny (my fave), and a humming bird.

These little dessert plates are absolutely adorable.  There are several designs to pick from too - giraffe (my fave), lady bugs, red birds, owl, bee, chameleon, humming birds,  and a praying mantis.  I love the slightly different shapes of each of these plates, and the varying borders for each.  Imagine getting one of each of these - love love love!

And, these canape plates are super cute!  Not every one of these is an animal, but there are several in the collection - dog, horse, love birds, narwhal (one of my faves), octopus, bee, unicorn (one of my faves), and zebra.

I can't possibly use all of these plates, but, hey, a girl can dream, right?

Finally, I saw these foxy juice glasses the other day in the Paper Source catalog.  I love getting this catalog and looking at all of the cute little things they have.  But, these glasses really stood out.  They have tea towels, aprons, and a variety of other adorable fox things to go along with these glasses.

If you are in need of any little animal tchotchkes, Kikkerland, has a TON of amazingly fun, cute, and inexpensive things.  I picked up this little hedgehog toothbrush cover over the weekend.  I could spend lots of time and money ordering from this site.

And, hey - eating with animals is way more fun than eating with a boring white plate.

Pretty Pretty Polish

So, I've been experimenting with some new pedicure options lately, and am LOVING it!

It started right before Christmas.  I was thinking about that I wanted to get.  I generally bring one or two of my own polishes with me when I get pedicures in case I am not inspired by any of the options at the salon.  I thought it would be interesting to have my toes look like sparkly Christmas tree ornaments.  So, I gathered a bunch of different glitter polishes I have.  I thought about doing a selection of different glitters on my toes, and somehow that evolved into painting each toe with a different glitter.

I used my polishes, coupled with several that the salon had, to find 10 different glitter colors/variations that somehow "go" together.  One glitter for each toe.  It was surprisingly difficult to come up with the "right" order to use them in.  The base coat of all toes was OPI Glitter Land.  Then each toe got its own glitter top-coat.

The nail technician was quite confused when she asked what color I wanted and I handed her 11 bottles.  She laughed, but then ended up loving the result, as did I.

Right foot starting with big toe:  OPI - My Favorite Ornament, OPI Nicole - Wear Something Spar-Kyle, Deborah Lippmann - Fake it Til You Make it, Essie - Beyond Cozy, OPI - Mad as a Hatter.  Left foot starting with big toe:  Essie - Hors d'Oeurves, OPI - Fresh Frog of Bel Air, Essie - On a Silver Platter, OPI - Save Me, Essie - Ignite the Night.

My next three pedicures were variations on this theme.  I thought - why pick just one color when there are so many pretty colors out there to pick from!  Voilá - the Ombre Pedicure!

This was my first one - an experiment with pink.

My next one was an experiment with green.

And, my most recent version is back to pink.  I think the color on my big toe in this version is the same as the first pink version (OPI - Miami Beet).

Not sure what color combination I will pick for my next one - maybe blue, or teal, or purple, dark reds, metallics...  the possibilities are endless!

Until next time!

Black and White and Green All Over

So, I'm slightly obsessed with black & white & green.  For some reason, I have always been attracted to black & white prints - stripes, patterns, chevrons, anything - there is something so classic and simple and interesting about black & white prints.  And, I've always loved green - especially richer greens rather than pastel greens, but they are all gorgeous.  And, I love seeing black & white & green paired together.

I have a black & white striped vintage cotton t-shirt from J.Crew that I picked up a few years ago.  For a while I loved wearing it with a pink cardigan (also love black & white & pink together - see my previous post here).  Several months ago, I paired it with a slouchy hunter green-ish merino wool cardigan (also from J.Crew a few years ago) and my favorite jeans.  I have also paired that same green cardigan with a super cute black & white hedgehog printed shirt I picked up at Anthropologie several months ago.  There is just something about adding a pop of color to black & white - love it.

Here is a little graphical ode to black and white and green all over.

Tops (from left to right):

Button-back mixed stripe top - Banana Republic / ZigZag Sequin tank - Banana Republic / Overland Buttondown - Anthropologie / Play Comme des Garçons Stripe Sweater - J.Crew / Shirred Sleeveless Top - Banana Republic

Bottoms (from left to right):

Perfect Form Kelly Pencil Skirt - White House Black Market / Perfect Form Slim Ankle Pant - White House Black Market / Sloan Pencil Skirt - Banana Republic / Brighton Linen Wide Legs - Anthropologie / Stripeswing Skirt - Anthropologie / Beaded Bands Skirt - Anthropologie

Shoes:

High Hopes Wedges - Anthropologie / Krime Peep Toe Pump - Payless (I know - super cute for a GREAT price) / Chelsea flat - Payless / Striped Capri Sandals - Old Navy

Handbags:

Carla Striped Crossbody - Banana Republic / Small Jet Scarf Tote - Michael Kors / Medium Cynthia Staffiano Satchel - Michael Kors / Jess Striped Tote - Banana Repulbic

who doesn't love a Giraffe?

So, who doesn't love a giraffe?  Show me someone who doesn't smile a little when they see a lanky-legged little baby giraffe.  Or even a gigantic stable-footed giraffe.  I mean, they are adorable, right?

I seem to be having a newly-ish rekindled love affair with giraffes!

And, it seems that everywhere I look, I am finding a ton of giraffe stuff that I am obsessing over.

Over Christmas, my sister sent me a link to this super cute sweater from LRG, and of course I just had to have it.  It's oversized, comfy, and thankfully not too itchy.  I was concerned with the itch factor because of the mohair content, but it hasn't been an issue.


My sister also gave me this darling little giraffe trinket tray from Anthropologie.  I have it on my night stand, and it is the perfect place for earrings and rings to live.

Something about coming home to this little cutie and putting my hoop earrings around its neck and some of my rings into the tray just makes me happy.


Anthropologie always has a ton of cute stuff, and they have a few other adorable giraffe items right now.

How about this fun little giraffe bust made from layers of cement bags covered with vintage French book pages.  If giraffes aren't your favorite, there are other animal busts to pick from.

This adorable Paul & Joe dress is on sale right now.  Definitely not something you can wear every day, but it is totally cute.  If too short for you as a dress, put on over skinny jeans or leggings and voila! enough coverage, and still super cute!

This cardigan from Anthropologie is also so cute!  You can have a giraffe give you a hug all day long!

Need some giraffe for the guy in your life (or for you, as I wear men's t-shirts frequently, especially for the gym) check this little gem out (from Urban Outfitters).

Need a little giraffe jewelry to adorn yourself with?  

These 2 necklaces might foot the bill.  

I have this one from J.Crew Factory.  I wear it all the time, and love it.  It is pretty small, and is on a long-ish chain.  At only $12.50, it is a steal!

And, this one, from Urban Outfitters, is equally as adorable.  And, is only $16.  This one is on a shorter chain - 16".

Giraffes even made an appearance (along with some other animals) at my wedding.  I wish it was in the form of a petting zoo, but the husband wouldn't let me go that far.  And, on second thought, having a petting zoo at a wedding might be a little messy.

For our escort cards and table numbers, we used a variety of animal ink stamps (we purchased from The Paper Source).  Each table had an animal label and the escort cards had the matching animal.

The animal stamps were small, so we stamped them on paper, cut them out, then scanned them and enlarged them so they would be suitable for table numbers.  We printed them out on card stock, then glued them together so the animal was visible on each side.  Then we glued them to straws (as stakes) to be put into the centerpieces.  The stamps fit onto the escort cards as-is, so no extra  scanning & printing was needed. 

We had multiple mini-desserts in addition to a cake.  We needed some way to label everything, and I thought it would be cute to use animals.  We found these gigantic animals on Amazon, and then made and printed the labels ourselves and tied them to the animals with the same baker's twine that we used on the favors.  There were several animals that didn't have labels on them but that were scattered about the table for added decor and cuteness.  

The cake toppers are Jonathan Adler ceramic giraffes that I bought years ago.  We made a green tie out of felt for the "boy/groom" giraffe, and a little veil out of elastic and tulle for the "girl/bride" giraffe.

And, the animal masks we found at Diddam's party supply store for the photobooth were a HUGE hit!

Animals aren't for everyone, but I LOVE them.  They can be cute, funny, fuzzy, furry, warm, cuddly, and slightly absurd (but in a good way, especially when used in moderation).


Wedding pictures taken by the amazing Ginny (and her husband Mike) of Retrospect Images in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Desserts made by Sweet Tooth Confections in San Jose, CA.  Photobooth by Photo3lements.


UPDATE:
This is just plain wrong.  Prevent inbreeding by sending your excess giraffes to another zoo, not killing them.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/Zoo-staff-get-death-threats-after-giraffe-killing-5220920.php

Most decidedly not sparkly, but very important nonetheless

So, it has been quite a while since I've posted on this blog.  Lots of new things to mention, but I will save those for another day.  Today I am writing about something that is most decidedly very much not sparkly but it is important and could be life saving.

You probably don't know what month May is.  I didn't.  May is skin cancer awareness month.  Not generally a thing that I would really even think about let alone write about on a blog about my love for all things Sparkly.  But, clearly I am writing about it on a blog about my love for all things sparkly.  Why, you might wonder?

A while ago, I noticed a small blemish on my forehead near my hairline.  I thought it looked kind of strange, but didn't really think much more of it.  In time the little dark spot went away, and I continued on with my day to day life.  I can't even really remember how long ago that was - my best guess is that it was sometime about a year ago.

A lot has changed for me since last year.  I moved, I changed jobs, I changed medical insurance, and much much more (you can read about this in my next blogs).  If any of you have ever changed medical insurance, you know that it is challenging to find new doctors, get prescriptions re-written, and figure out your way with the new providers and insurance.  While I was getting up to speed with everything, I thought it might be a good idea to make an appointment with a dermatologist first to get a new prescription for something I use, and second to have him check me over for any suspicious moles.  A few years ago, I had a "skin check" with my old doctor and she found a suspicious mole on my back that wasn't quite cancer, but also wasn't normal, so she cut it out of my back.  Not fun, but not a big deal either.  Better to get "not normal" out of me before it became something bad.

So, sitting in the room with the new dermatologist, he asked if there was anything that was bothering me or concerning me.  I pointed to the spot on my forehead and said my over-exaggerated fear was that it was skin cancer that was invading my brain and that I was fearful I would die of brain cancer.  I don't really think I am going to die of brain cancer, but I honestly was concerned that it was something bad.  I don't know why I thought that or had that feeling, but I did.  The doctor pulled out this little lighted-up magnifying tool and looked at my forehead and after about two seconds, he said, "well, yes, that looks like basal cell carcinoma."  Say what?  Yes, basal cell carcinoma - skin cancer.  Yes, SKIN CANCER.  On me.  Skin cancer on my head.

Apparently basal cell carcinoma is the "good" kind of skin cancer to have because it doesn't really spread (thankfully, no brain cancer for me), and it really won't kill you.  But it is still skin cancer.  CANCER.  Oh boy, no bueno.

The doctor finished his check of the rest of me and said that he'd like me to come back in for a biopsy of the spot on my head to definitively diagnose what it is and then figure out how to take care of it.  So, two days later I marched back into his office (along with guy by my side) to have my head sliced open.  He numbed my head with a local anesthetic and then took a little chunk, slapped on a band-aid and sent us on our merry way.  About a week later he emailed me to tell me that his suspicion was correct, I had a basal cell carcinoma and that I needed to go for a consultation with a surgeon to devise a plan to take care of it.

So, the next day I called and had an appointment for a group consultation the following week.

So, according to skincancer.org, basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is, "usually caused by a combination of cumulative UV exposure and intense, occasional UV exposure, BCC can be highly disfiguring if allowed to grow, but almost never spreads (metastasizes) beyond the original tumor site. Only in exceedingly rare cases can BCC spread to other parts of the body and become life-threatening."

The surgeon I was going to see performs a surgery called Mohs.  Mohs surgery is less invasive than regular excision of skin cancer in that the surgeon takes only a small slice of skin to begin with and then tests it to see if there is any cancer remaining.  If there is, they go back in and take another small slice and test that slice.  If there is any cancer remaining, they go back in again.  This is repeated until all of the cancer is removed.  It is more precise and used often in places where you can't just excise the bad area plus a little extra - like places on the face or ears.

After my consultation on Wednesday, I was able to get in for surgery the following day.  So, Thursday morning my guy & I march into the office to get this show on the road.  I wasn't (and still am not) happy about having skin cancer, having to have my head sliced open, and dealing with a scar on my face.  The surgery started by getting me numbed up and cleaned up.  She took a slice, taped up my head and sent me to the waiting room.  We waited for about 2 hours and found out that I had to go back in for at least one other slice.  So, I go back in for round 2, get numbed and she took another slice, taped up my head and sent me back to the waiting room.

About 30 minutes later the nurse told me I was clear and don't need another slice.  She took us back into the procedure room and got me ready for the repair of my head.  The doctor came in, and showed me the hole in my head.  Literally there was a HOLE IN MY HEAD!  It was much larger than I thought it would be, and actually not quite as gross as I thought it would be.  She thought the best repair would be to turn the hole into a line which would eventually blend in with the other lines on my forehead.  So, that's what she did.

I got numbed back up (3rd time) and she started stitching up the hole with a ton of internal stitches and then a good number of external stitches.  She taped up my head and sent me home.

The next 48 hours weren't the greatest.  Pain, throbbing, swelling.  Drugs and ice helped some with that, but not with the tightness in my forehead.  It has been 3 days now since the surgery and things aren't quite as painful, but my head is still throbbing, it is still swollen, and it still feels extremely tight.  She had to close a big hole and pull the skin together, so of course it is tight.  There is a spot right at my hair line that I can't feel - it is so strange.  It is uncomfortable to make pretty much any facial expression because they all pull on my forehead.

But, hey, the skin cancer is gone.  That's the good news.  Hopefully it won't come back.

Basal cell carcinoma is one of the most frequently occurring form of all cancers.  According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, there are an "estimated 2.8 million cases of BCC diagnosed in the US each year."  That is a lot of skin cancer.

I grew up in southern California and used to lay out using baby oil to get tan.  I loved being tan and being in the sun.  Sunscreen was not something I used regularly.  It is awesome to be tan.  I love it.  But it comes at a price.  Since moving to northern California, I'm much more careful about sun exposure.  I wear sunscreen when I am outside for longer periods.  I wear hats.  I try to be in the shade.  I wear sunglasses with UVA/UVB protection.

The moral(s) of this story:

• wear sunscreen - sun protection is very important
• if you notice something strange on your body, don't delay, have it checked out NOW!
• get regular (yearly, at least) skin checks with your dermatologist

Skin cancer is not a joke.  It can affect EVERYONE, even people with darker skin.

Very not sparkly.  Very important.   Check yourself before you wreck yourself!

A little orange obsession

So, I have a new obsession.  Well, it isn't really a "new" obsession, but rather a newly obsessed about obsession that I already liked, but maybe didn't really consciously know I liked...  ORANGE!

I love orange.

Now, I've always loved orange.

Oranges, orange juice, Tang, tangerines, tangelos, blood oranges, orange-flavored popsicles, lollipops, Starbursts, Skittles, tic-tacs, etc.

I love the taste of orange.

When I reached the age where I could legally consume alcohol, one of my favorite drinks became the Mimosa.  I mean, there can't be anything better than bubbles and oranges!  Seriously - so yum.

Aside from my food-based obsession with oranges, I always kind of somewhat liked the color orange, but for some reason never brought orange into my life with clothing, shoes, or decorating.  Now, however, I seem to be drawn to all things orange.

I recently went shopping with an amazing stylist at Nordstrom, and she talked me into getting a pretty bright orange cardigan.  I was a little skeptical of it to begin with, but very quickly fell in love with it.  And, I find that it is surprisingly versatile too!

Everywhere I look, I see orange!

Love these adorable orange birdie tea-light holders.  $7.95 at CB2

These orange metal stacking paper trays are just the right pop of color for an office.  $12.99 each at Container Store.

Love these orange trays.  16"x16" square.  $39.95 at CB2

These little laquered boxes are so cute to store any number of things (large or small) in.  Prices range from $6.99 to $17.99 each at the Container Store.

This zig zag rug is adorable.  Available in several colors.  Prices range from $49 to $199 at Urban Outfitters.

I love animal things.  And, now I love orange animal things.  Like this goldfish pillow.  So cute.  West Elm.  On sale right now for $24.99

This rug is also super cute.  The pattern is a little more subtle than the zig zags, but still a fun addition to any room.  Love layering textures and patterns!  West Elm.  $49 to $699 depending on size.

If you are into stripes, check this little orange cutie out.  West Elm also, $19 to $299 depending on size.

Need a little side table or spare seating? How about this little orange stunner?  West Elm.  $129. 

Want some orange that you can wear?  I know I do.

Alice+Olivia flats.
On sale now at Nordstrom
$96.90

 A super cute embroidered dress.

Anthropologie

$198

Love this sequin tank top.
J.Crew
$325

  I have this tank in Aqua, and am about to order in Orange.

Nordstrom

$48

The possibilities with orange are endless - there are so many shades and textures, there is something orange for everyone!

What orange tickles your fancy?

Until next time, bask in the loveliness of orange.

Mazatlan, Mexico November 2006