Words of Wisdom

When I was in college, way before one could buy adhesive stick-on words for your walls (why didn't I think of that?), I pasted a 6-inch deep roll of brown butcher paper around the top of my dorm room. In black paint I scripted the words: "Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes." — Henry David Thoreau. Today, what with how far graphic design has come, we have so many new choices. But I'm still not above the rudimentary. 

Like this. This photo was taken by my good friend in New York City, the inimitable Frank Weldon, on the Williamsburg Bridge. It's so New York; these are a people who have always got to be saying something. I just love simple bon mots scrawled in chalk or paint. When I lived in New York City for 12 years, I would often glance up at a phone pole, or down at the sidewalk, and see Shepard Fairey's Andre the Giant. 

This one, for $18 from Color Bee on Etsy.com, is perfect for a "woman of a certain age," if you know what I'm saying. There's also a "She blinded me with science" version. 

I simply must have this one, being Southern, I mean, darling. But here's the rub: While it's been all over Pinterest and Polyvore, I cannot find the origin of it. Please advise; I must possess. 

This lightbox installation is by Brooklyn artist Heidi Cody and is in the home of hipster NYC interior designers Robert and Cortney Novogratz. I love that the "m" is from M&Ms packaging.

Studio Mela, which sells on Etsy.com under Dazey Chic, has so many fabulous prints it's hard to choose just one. But if you've ever seen a bird with a french fry, you get how genius this truly is. 

Have a FAB weekend, darlings, and eat some french fries and pancakes for me ... 

The Lovelies of Laundry

My husband recently installed a contraption called an "outdoor clothes dryer." This is just a fancy, 2011 way of saying "old-timer's drying rack." He's into this urban "homesteading" lifestyle, as we now not only have 30 tomato plants, we also have four heirloom chickens pecking away inanely at the ground. So this is what this dryer thing looks like ... 

Jealous much? It makes the sheets feel deliciously crisp, plus they smell like fresh air. Yum. I never believed Martha Stewart all of those years when she waxed rhapsodic about such things. Then again, I lived in New York City and I doubt the air there would have imparted the same "je ne sais quoi" as that of Tennessee. 

Speaking of laundry, how glamorous are these ads for ... Dreft? Yes, only in Poland, evidentally, could beautiful illustrations be used to sell laundry detergent.

 The Leo Burnett agency in Poland was responsible. I'm not sure why they're written in English.

 Love these. The Dreft bottle looks a little incongruous, though. Right? Anyway, I'm glad that the Advertising is Good For You blog brought this to my attention. Otherwise I would have needed to, at some point in my lifetime, Google "Dreft" and "Poland." Hmmm.