Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Summer Beach Wear

  I created a board of my summer essentials in cooperation with a campaign from Raise Raise is the first online marketplace to buy and sell gift cards.  You can buy discount gift cards to your favorite stores or sell your unwanted gift cards for cash.   The best thing about all the items on this board, it that they are all available from brands on raise.com's vast array of gift cards.  
 This site lets users purchase gift cards for less than their value, helping to save you some extra cash! I love to go shopping for end of summer sales, so when there’s a big purchase I want to make, I always check out this site first to see if I can score any deals on gift cards — I’ve seen up to 15% savings! Seriously, guys, check this site out!
Sources:

Philadelphia, PA: Haunted prisons, 80 lb tumors, and Benjamin Franklin

  As I may have mentioned, this year my husband and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary.  We planned a vacation together in Philadelphia around a Preservation conference my husband was scheduled to attend.  We flew in my wonderful mother-in-law, all the way from Florida, to stay with our 4 children for the week that we were away.  I spent a lot of time walking around the city, visiting museums, and seeing all the important Colonial sites while my husband attended board meetings, poor guy!  On one of the rare days that we were able to site see together, we visited Eastern State Penitentiary.  This prison was built in 1829, and was the first prison in the world to isolate prisoners in their own cells so that they would receive spiritual enlightenmentand truly be "penitent," hence the name penitentiary.  Prisoners were forbidden from leaving their cells or communicating with other inmates or guards.  Their cells had only a bed, a trunk, a chamber pot, and a bible.  No other reading materials were allowed at Eastern State in the beginning.  Also interesting, was the fact that Eastern State housed both men and women until 1923.  Eastern State is also well known as one of the most carefully studied buildings for paranormal investigations.  Unfortunately, I received no ghost flirting or harassment... total let down!
Also worth visiting
The Philadelphia Museum of Art.  On Wednesday evenings, visitors get to choose the price of their admission!  If you're feeling especially ridiculous, you can pose next to the Rocky statue located at the Museum's entrance.
The Penn Museum, especially if you have an interest in Egyptian mummies.
The Mütter Museum, which is a collection of medical oddities; including skeletal, mummified, pickled, and wax filled humans.  The bottom floor has some of the more creepy exhibits, including an 80 lb ovarian tumor, and a necklace made from genital warts.  Maybe eat lunch before you go, because the "ick" factor is pretty high.


I took a walking tour through Freeandfriendlytours.com of all the Ben Franklin related sites (Independence Hall, Liberty Bell, first post office, Ben Franklin's grave, etc).  The tour guides rely on tips so you essentially get to pick the price for the tour.
The Dream Garden @ Curtis Center, which is a Maxfield Parrish designed mosaic done in Tiffany glass: it's FREE
Macy's in the historic Wanamaker building: FREE
Walk through JFK Plaza and then check out City Hall, which is beyond gorgeous!
Reading Terminal Market is a huge indoor mall of restaurants, with limitless great food options.  Bring cash though, because a lot of places aren't equipped to take cards.
I personally think you can't go wrong with a Philly Cheese steak, but Jim's Steaks has the coolest 1939 Moderne building!

Philly has a lot to offer if you are looking for gorgeous architecture, great museums, and really good food.  I was however, totally disappointed with the vintage shopping.  I hit about six different vintage shops and found them to be really overpriced and depressing.  The only shop worth mentioning is Briar Vintage, which sadly for me, was only men's clothing.
We had a great vacation together.  What are some of your favorite things to do in Philly, PA?









Friday, July 25, 2014

Timeless Patterns, Not a Passing Trend

   If you follow me on Pinterest you'll know that I'm a bit of a designophile.  Most of my pinning involves home interiors.  Even before Pinterest I had a huge album where I cut out and saved room interiors from magazines, sort of an old school vintage Pinterest, if you will.  I came across an article recently claiming that the chevron trend is dead.  Chevron or zig zag patterns have totally saturated design blogs lately and while I'll be glad to see trends evolving into something new, I couldn't help scoffing at this claim.  First of all, calling something as timeless as chevron a trend, is a bit ridiculous.  You can find this pattern in Byzantine mosaics for crying out loud!  Classic patterns have been repeated all through the 20th century (and before) until now, so design snobs everywhere need to stop insisting they've created a trend and can quash it whenever they deem it no longer relevant.  For your viewing pleasure, I've gathered some examples of timeless patterns from the 20s-60s.  My point being, that if you love something, wear it, put it in your home, and never be deterred because someone else insists "it's dead."
  Chevron
Joesphine Baker 1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

1950s

1960s

Polka Dots
1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

1950s (dots AND chevron)

1960s

Plaid/ Gingham/ Tartan
1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

1950s

1960s

Houndstooth
Coco Chanel 1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

1960s 

1972

Stripes
1920s

1930s

1930s (stripes and chevron)

1940s

1950s

1960s

1960s

What are your favorite patterns?






















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