Twas The Night Before Christmas

From Chris Van Allsburg's The Polar Express

"But I heard him exclaim, 'ere he drove out of sight,
'Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!'"

I hope your holidays are golden and glowing and glorious--I'll be back to Folkloric at the start of 2010!

Winter Jewels

My 2009 Christmas card, sent off in cheery red envelopes to friends and family.

If you're not feeling ready for Christmas...

Taken on this day one year ago--December 22, 2008.

Some Tuesday suggestions:
To make: Paper wreath ornaments
To eat: Vanilla Roasted Pears
To drink: Hot Mulled Cider with Dark Rum
To hear: Vince Guarldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas
To read: The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
To watch: Gillian Armstrong's Little Women

Weekend Pairing - Happy Holidays

-Went to ACT Theatre's A Christmas Carol--fantastic, just like last year.
-Danced at a lovely wedding--congrats to the the bride and groom!
-Had a lovely pre-Christmas Christmas feast and exchanged presents with the boy--so lucky to have him in my life! ♥
-Watched The Muppet Christmas Carol because Michael Cain + The Muppets = greatness.
-Super corny, but it's got to be said: this time of year always makes me feel like I'm living on a cloud of happiness and love.

Ochre, Raw Sienna. Burnt Umber

Gorgeous photos by Ultrathew of the Summer 20008 Sonia Rykiel runway show. With the rich golden figures emerging out of the shadowy black background, these images actually remind me, of all things, of some of Rembrandt's paintings!
Regardless of any bizarre connections I make, doesn't Karlie look amazing?

Frozen Plains

Dramatic photographs by Shawn Sheu.
The holiday season is making me wish for snow like no other. C'mon Seattle--you can do it! Or perhaps I should be rooting on the weather gods, doing some sort of naked snow dance outside my apartment building? Who knows--but a white Christmas sure would be nice.

Walton Wallets

I love Betsy Walton's paintings, and she's now selling wallets with her designs on them in her shop!

Tales of Light

I can't decide which of these delicate botanical photographic prints from Heidi Romano's Garden of Knowledge series to get--I love them all. The rest of the work on her website, Tales of Light, is equally beautiful.

The Holly Bears the Berry

Ultra . Nenyaki . Katy Elliot . Tom Gill
Some recent red Flickr faves, since this holiday season I am noticing and enjoying this color more than ever before.
The top right photo is of some young women dressed up for St. Lucia Day--I'd never heard of it before, but from Camilla's stories, it sounds like a lovely holiday (not to mention that Lessekatter sounds delicious!).

Stunning

Dramatic product photos from Ban.do's Black Label. Does the classy lip color and gorgeous red hair come with the headbands when you order? I wish.

Cold Outside, Warm Inside

-More clear blue skies and cold, cold days--took a walk and my ears just about froze!
-Had eggnog french toast here on Sunday--it helped to fortify us for some Christmas shopping.
-A friend brought over some apples which I turned into a cranberry apple crisp for us all.
-Wrapped some presents so they could steep in holiday spirit under the Christmas tree.
-Saw this movie--made me wish for the classic Disney movies of my childhood.
So many things to look forward to in the coming weeks!

Perfect in Every Way

Oh my gawd. It's like Margaret Howell said, "I think I'll design a clothing line that epitomizes Maggie's idea of the perfect everyday style," and then did it.
It probably wasn't necessary to include 8 of the 12 total images from the collection, and I tried to cull, really I did, but it was just no use--I am too in love.

Let It Snow

My favorite Winter Landscape from the Rijksmuseum, St. Petersburg via WeHeartIt, and New York Snow Scene via WeHeartIt as well.

It doesn't snow too much in Seattle, so people here go crazy when it does. Schools are closed, everything non-essential is canceled, and nobody drives anywhere--basically the whole city shuts down. It's kind of ridiculous, really, but since we don't get enough snow to become a problem or to last long enough to get gross or annoying, it means that most people in Seattle love the snow, myself included.
It's been super cold the last week or so (20 degrees out!), so it's got me dreaming...I hope it snows sometime soon like in the two top images so that I can look like the happy girl in the bottom photo.

Bare & Beautiful

I'm loving this Winter Walk Print on sale over at Small Stump+Studio Choo's shop. It's so simple, yet it perfectly captures the Winter season for me.

Wild and Mysterious

Ever since I read The Wild Christmas Reindeer as a child (written and illustrated by the always amazing Jan Brett) I've thought that the reindeer was one of the most beautiful and amazing animals on the planet. For a while my 8 year old brain confused some of the Christmas myths about them, so at some point I even thought that they were imaginary animals--you know, like unicorns or something?
Regardless, I love this tundra set on Flickr.

Ann Wood

As an artist myself, I often struggle with incorporating the art I love to make with the practicalities of "real life": maintaining my home, paying the bills, etc. Therefore, I have the utmost admiration for artists who appear to me to beautifully and seamlessly entwine their art and artmaking with the potentially mundane elements of day-to-day life.
Ann Wood seems like one of these artists. Her work is amazing, and the glimpses into her studio/apartment, strewn with vintage fabric scraps and hung with paper mache ships, give it the feel of some sort of Victorian fairyland. Looking through her Flickr page at in-progress photos of mysterious creatures, snippets of her workspace, and finished creations is a huge inspiration--the thread of creativity that runs through all of it is almost palpable!

Ann Wood, you're my hero.

Cold & Clear

First December weekend:
-Blue sky, pink clouds, and bitter cold
-Lazy, napping, crocheting days
-Fantastic Mr. Fox
-Good friends, family and food
-Holiday cookie baking
-Embarrassing amounts of Pushing Daisies (how am I just now finding out about it?!)
-Picking out and putting up our Christmas tree!

Forgotten Film

This time exactly two years ago I was living and studying in Italy. When I was preparing for my 3 month stay in Europe, I packed about 20 rolls of film which I planned on shooting with my manual Nikon. Once I got there, I found my trusty film camera to be too clunky and heavy to lug around all day (not to mention conspicuously loud inside cavernous Italian churches!), so after shooting just half a roll, I switched over to my smaller and lighter digital camera for the rest of the trip.
Apparently (and this was a shock to me, I couldn't believe it had been so long) I hadn't used my Nikon since that time in Italy. When I pulled the old camera out again on a whim a couple of days ago and finished up the partial roll I found in it on an Autumn walk, it was such a surprise gift to discover once I received the prints back that the first photos dated back to my time in Italy.
While I have literally thousands of digital photos of my Italian adventure, these few film images are so special to me.

Faces with Character

Gorgeous portraits by Anna Kharina.

Art Diet

I try not to make Folkloric too Seattle-centric, but I can't help it with this post--I'm super excited for this month's First Thursday, Seattle's monthly city-wide art walk. Eirik Johnson has some amazing looking photographs from his Sawdust Mountain series up at the Henry Art Gallery, James Harris Gallery is showing new work by Akio Takamori (sculpture doesn't always interest me, but I just can't get the images I've seen of his statues out of my head), and I've also been meaning to swing by MOHAI to geek out over their exhibit The Arts & Crafts Movement in the Pacific Northwest.
Anyone else planning on seeing something exciting this First Thursday?

Moth House

Moth House's new Autumn/Winter items are up in their Etsy shop, and everything looks just gorgeous. Also of note is their lookbook--with all the muted greens and greys, it's right up my alley. Can I add the whole collection to my wish list?

The Biz in Bizness

Like I need to be spending money on expensive shoes right now (especially since I'm still completely in love with my awesome Autumn shoe splurge of awesomeness), but when I saw these Biz boots my jaw just about dropped, so I had to pass them on. The buckles, the flat heel, the pointy toe, the smokey grey color! Could Jeffrey Campbell be more awesome?

Because we need more holiday treats?

Did you know you can order macarons off of Etsy? I was a little suspicious about the whole deal (freshness, etc.) but the numerous reviews for the shop and the cookies are all super complimentary, so maybe I'll give it a try. The batch with Caramel Apple, Maple, and Pumpkin Spice in it sounds mighty yummy.