I can’t believe I haven’t come across these incredible necklaces from dejarnette new orleans before. I love the idea of filling big glass bulbs with intricate beads or tinsel. They’d make such a statement!
Spotted (and beautiful photos from) here!
My Valentine’s Day plans are less than exciting and involve barely seeing my husband except for a few minutes to scarf down leftovers before running out the door again! But even though we’re lame, I thought Valentine’s Day might be a good reminder to us that we could put a little more thought and effort into a romantic date one of these days.
Michael and I don’t have too many free evenings during the school year because he plays and coaches so much basketball in the evenings. When we do find ourselves with a free evening, I often get stumped. Going out for dinner and a movie just seems so predictable (and often expensive!). But in Dublin, it often seems that’s all there is to do. So I’ve been brainstorming sweet little date ideas this week.
Here are a few ideas, but I’d really love to hear yours too!
Build a fire and make s’mores. In college, there was a dorm up the hill that had a fire place that anyone could use. I can’t remember the details, perhaps there was some kind of safety requirement, but I think you just had to order the wood! Anyway, one evening, I surprised Michael and got a fire going to make s’mores, just the two of us. Well, I’m pretty sure he had to build the fire, but I definitely brought the s’mores ingredients!
Make a fort. I know it sounds wacky, but doesn’t it also sound awesome? It doesn’t have to be a traditional fort, perhaps something more casual like this or this? And bring wine, I think a fort with a glass of wine might be a little heavenly.
Take a hike and plan a picnic. For our anniversary last year, we packed dinner, drinks and a blanket and hiked up Howth to watch the sunset. Or if it’s too cold, you could drive to a nice look-out spot with a thermos of hot chocolate and enjoy the view.
Plan a surprise. Sometimes half the battle with planning a date is deciding what it will be. When Michael decides for me, it’s such a relief! Although I do have to be careful – a few months ago Michael tried to take me to Bingo in a tough neighborhood near us as a surprise cultural experience date. Good thing I weasled it out of him! I think we went to dinner and a movie instead. Go figure.
And here’s a little bonus idea – Amanda from Wit & Whistle planned a fun date night with her husband and they painted together. What a sweet idea!
Do you have any creative date ideas? Hope you have a happy Valentine’s Day!
Good morning! Happy Monday everyone. Did you have a good weekend? I spent the weekend working, but still managed to squeeze in some baking, a beach walk and a few evenings visiting with friends.
I’m back in work unexpectedly today, so I’m going to get back to press releases and radio interviews. In the meantime, you can pop over to Anne’s lovely blog, Pret a Voyager, where she kindly asked me to participate in her Boarding Pass series.
Anne lives in Paris and her blog has some of the best tips about visiting the city. We swore by her guide that breaks down Paris by arrondissement when we visited last time. And for a little insight into Parisian swimming pools, check out her observations here. You’ll be surprised!
And don’t forget – you have until Friday to enter the giveaway for an Irish cutting board from Little Hill Designs!
See you all tomorrow!
Happy Friday, everyone! I’m so relieved it’s Friday. And I’m so excited to share with you today’s Truly Irish post.
Little Hill Designs is a Waterford based company that uses sustainable and reclaimed wood to make these great cutting boards.
I exchanged a few emails last week with Ronan O’Brien, who started Little Hill Designs in 2009, and he explained he wants his boards to be durable, intentionally designed, and be a lasting addition to your kitchen, not something that’ll wear out in just a few years. Finally, he wants the boards not to be too hard on the environment. In fact, Little Hill Designs even plants trees to even out the wood they use making the boards. They’re in the planting season right now!
But beyond durable and sustainable, Little Hill boards are just really lovely. Ronan graciously sent me one of the small boards last week so I could try it out. Of course, I had to pick up some Irish cheese to try out my Irish board!
Now here’s the really fun part. While I’m having a really hard time parting with this beautiful board, I thought I’d share the love and do a giveaway! I can’t send you the cheese, but I’ll send you the board. To enter, here’s what you do.
First, make sure you like From China Village on Facebook.
Second, leave a comment here and say something nice. Like “Oh, those boards are so lovely!”
I’ll pick a winner next Friday, February 17th. Make sure to check back here to see if you’re the winner. Entries aren’t restricted to Irish residents, I’ll send the board to wherever you live – after all, the point of this series is to spread the Irish love!
But if you don’t happen to win, you can pick up your own board (they come in lots of different sizes and in nine different types of wood!) at a bunch of places around the country or in the Irish Design Shop in Dublin. Or you can even email Little Hill Designs directly to order a custom designed board.
Thanks to Little Hill Designs for sharing their beautiful work!
In an effort to change the world’s perception of Ireland, I’ll be posting weekly about fabulous Irish artists, designers, makers, crafters and creatives in a series called Truly Irish. I’m taking tips and suggestions – send an email to emily (at) fromchinavillage (dot) com if you know of someone I should feature!
Turns out this city isn’t quite as grinch-y as I am when it comes to Valentine’s Day. Check out these fun ideas for celebrating love around Dublin!
Woo at the Zoo. Points for the hilarious name of the Zoo’s celebration of Valentine’s Day. They’re holding talks by zoo experts on courtship, mating and how scaly animals manage to do the deed. Not sure how suitable for your kiddos, but way to turn a holiday into a learning experience!
A Date with Dublin. The Temple Bar Cultural Trust is running twelve hours of events on Valentine’s Day, from noon to midnight. They’ve come up with lots of interesting ideas, from a tour of the National Gallery of Art to look at the most romantic paintings, to musical performances at the Shrine of St. Valentine.
Book Speed Dating. Stop by the Gutter Bookshop and their literary experts will try to match you with your ideal read. Clever!
Vintage Valentine’s Day Dress Dance at the Workman’s Club. I don’t know too much about the Workman’s Club, but this sounds fun! Wear your best vintage outfit and dance all night!
Yesterday was a trying day. If you visited yesterday, you may have noticed a saw and tool site that was living on my pages. After 24 hours and three internet-savvy friends assistance, it seems it was caused by a typo. One single number was wrong somewhere in the interwebs and it screwed everything up. Luckily, it’s back. I’m back. Phew.
And just in time to show you From China Village’s makeover! I’m so pleased with it!
I’ve changed a few things and hopefully made it a little easier to navigate around my little online home. I’m still working out a few kinks, so if you see something funky please let me know!
Now, a tour.
You’ll see the categories in the top menu are a little different – and they allow you to see all my Dublin and project posts in one place. You can also find a few more categories in the column to the right, along with the archives. And I’m trying a new thing with the Lovely Links in that column on the right, they’re links to blogs I look to for inspiration or a little comic relief. They’ll change every six or eight weeks so keep an eye out!
The biggest change is that you should be able to comment more! I know the last comment form was a little temperamental, so this one will hopefully be a breeze. So comment away!
I worked with Rob Dobson of Northern Comfort and he was beyond great. He was patient and willing to try to interpret what I thought I wanted, and then willing to change it a million times when I realized that’s not what I wanted at all. I might have been a complete monster to work with, but Rob made me feel like it was all part of the process. He was also fast, which suited my impatience perfectly!
Thanks, Rob, for getting From China Village spruced!
I’ll be back tomorrow with a great Truly Irish post and a giveaway!
Because we live in a land of potatoes, potato stamp hearts on newsprint. Used as….
Wrapping paper!
I thought this little project was especially appropriate since we live in the land of potatoes. I can never get over how many different kinds of potatoes there are to choose from! I’m not sure if rooster potatoes are the most suitable for potato prints, but that’s what I had and he was starting to grow shoots and looking pretty sad. So voilà, a happy use for him!
Here’s what you do (in case you can’t remember back to kindergarten!).
Chop a potato in half.
Use a pen to draw the shape your stamp will have.
Using a paring knife, cut around your shape.
Dip in paint or use a brush to cover the stamp with paint.
Stamp on newsprint, newspaper, or any other kind of paper and use it as pretty wrapping paper!
And that is officially the end of my Valentines inspiration for this year. I think, at least. Don’t quote me on that. There’s still a week to go!
Happy Monday! Have you all recovered from the Patriots’ devastating loss? I slept through it, but I heard all about it this morning. We’re blaming Gisele and her email.
Anyway, back to business. Since I didn’t have to stay up until 3am watching football, I had a very productive Monday. Our front door has been rather festive since Christmas, so it was high time to find something a little more seasonally appropriate. I wasn’t quite ready for spring, so I went with something a tiny bit Valentines-y.
And in honor of the only football I really enjoy watching, the Friday Night Lights kind, here’s what I came up with.
It’s two pieces of fabric, one white and one pink, attached to a dowel. Then part of Coach T’s fave saying cut into the white piece: Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.
So in a very minimal way, we can celebrate Valentine’s Day Coach Taylor style.
And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, please, please go watch the entire show. All five series. You’ll cry, and then you’ll want to move to Texas and be Miss Tammy Taylor. Or maybe that was just me. Well, at least watch a few episodes!
Happy Friday, everyone! I’m ending the week in much better spirits than I started – and I’m giving all the credit to the cupcakes I baked for a birthday celebration tonight. There’s something about baking chocolate that just cheers me up.
This weekend, I have plans to do a little crafting and a lot of relaxing. Michael has big plans to watch the Super Bowl in the middle of the night. I’ll be sending good vibes to the Patriots in my sleep! And next week I have a fun surprise and a lovely giveaway!
Now, for fun Friday links. Enjoy!
I think this would make the neatest memo board – made from an old tin ceiling tile with sweet swirly magnets.
Check out this super-young mayor from the Brown University class of 2011! He’s working on turning his hometown around. So inspiring!
Did you know Manhattan is trying to plant a million trees? And lowering the city’s asthma rate.
Yesterday I mentioned that wedding blogs are a great source of party inspiration. Well, here with citrus fruit is proof. Decorating with lemons and limes would be great for a party!
Happy weekend!
{These adorable hedgehogs are saying With Thanks and Thinking of You, respectively.}While trolling through Etsy a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon these adorable hedgehogs speaking Irish and quickly found myself loving every card and print in Yvonne Kennedy’s shop. Yvonne was nice enough to answer a few of my questions and share a bunch of her new work with me. I thought it would be fun to introduce you to Yvonne – interview style!
FCV: Is there a particular medium you prefer over others?
Yvonne: I love working in Indian ink with a dip pen. I also love combining indian ink illustrations with vector illustration and using Photoshop to create layers and textures, usually from ink renderings or abstract elements from shots I’ve taken or even scanned lino prints. I experiment with textures a lot for my greeting cards.
FCV: What are you currently working on?
Yvonne: I am always working on new ideas and designs.
I love pigs and have just created a new pig card design ‘Pig with allium flowers’. I love Allium flowers…they’re very Alice in Wonderland, so the idea of a little quirky pig smelling these flowers came to me. I like to put them in untypical situations. I am also working on developing more limited edition prints. These are more time consuming and complex than the cards. Watch this space! Oh and I have started working on portraits, I plan to do a series, but I need the right faces.
FCV: Where do you get your inspiration?
Yvonne: I’ve always been inspired by animals and nature and by people. I think my ideas represent my personality and sense of humour. I like the finely detailed almost forensic renderings in pen and ink, but equally I love splashes of vibrant colour, I guess it’s a balance of shadow and light. Also the response to my cards inspires me – it’s great to get feedback from people who are delighted to share the reaction they’ve had from the person they sent my card to. That always makes me smile.
FCV: Do you have any new projects coming up?
Yvonne: Well I have neglected my T-shirt work for a while now, so I will be spending some time on those again. Also I will be doing some collaborative work, but its too early to say anything. I have recently completed a project for the National Museum of Ireland. I illustrated 4 artifacts from the Treasury collection. I created special limited edition boxed sets, individual cards and a collection of archival pigment prints. This was a special job and every detail was considered. The collection is on sale in the Museum shop on Kildare street. I started working on ideas for an illustrated book last year, but shelved that as I am also in college and very busy in my final year!
FCV: Where do you work?
Yvonne: I am currently working from my living room, I have a sea view which is wonderful, but I long for my own studio!
Thanks, Yvonne! I love having an insight into an artist’s world.
Readers, you can check out Yvonne’s website, Etsy shop and keep an eye on her blog for upcoming work.
In an effort to change the world’s perception of Ireland, I’ll be posting weekly about fabulous Irish artists, designers, makers, crafters and creatives in a series called Truly Irish. I’m taking tips and suggestions – send an email to emily (at) fromchinavillage (dot) com if you know of someone I should feature!