Following Rabbits Blog — buy it

I'm usually not one for investing too much money or effort in fashion, but now that I'm going to Paris in June, I'm feeling a need to upgrade from my jeans and tees. I spent my 15th birthday in France on a 2-week exchange, splitting my time between Paris and a small farmhouse in Blois. I remember the city of Paris in black and white, while my memories of the country have splashes of yellow and blue. In planning my trip, I'm feeling a Jackie O vibe on the fashion front. Crisp daytime frocks in colorful florals and soiree dresses in solid blacks and whites. I could fill three posts with accessories alone, but here are the dresses I'm eyeing:

These babies are all on modcloth.com. Clockwise from top left: Preservation Society Dress (by BB Dakota), Immaculate Confection Dress, Royal Parks Dress (by BB Dakota), and the Dance Floral Dress.

I've been invited to guest blog on a fab little Parisien blog while I'm there, which I'm super excited about! I'll hopefully be doing some networking and hanging out with bloggers... got to look my best! I'm also fawning over Dear Creatures... an indie clothing line that was brought to my attention by calivintage. There are a few pieces from the Spring 2010 and Autumn 2009 collections that I'm in love with... embodying the Jackie O class and vintage French charm I'm going for:

Dear Creatures Cherbourg dress, 9 to 5 dress, and Atrium dress (I can't find a retailer for this one! ::sadness::)

Now I'm feeling a strong urge to buy up all of these dresses and compose a video showing off the different looks with accessories and set it all to the Belleville Rendezvous. Just sayin'...

I'm constantly browsing Etsy for new treasures, bookmarking stores and items as favorites. Between looking for accessories and decor for my Alice in Wonderland bedroom and searching for baby gifts for a friend of mine, I've acquired quite a collection of rabbits in my Etsy favorites. With Easter right around the corner, now is probably the only time most people are in the market for bunnies. So here are a few of my favorites (pictured left to right, top to bottom):

1. White rabbit on black t-shirt dress - $28 - by NYHop. I want need this dress. No explanation needed. 
2. Sterling silver bunny necklace - $40 - by meltemsem. This is cute without being over-the-top sugary sweet. I would wear this to work in an executive office without feeling silly.
3. White rabbit nursery mobile - $60 - by lilliputloft. I've been giving a lot of thought to an Alice in Wonderland nursery theme, and this would be such a perfect focal point- for you and baby.
4. Boo boo bunny - $8 - by bunniesforbabies. We had one of these! For those of you who were deprived, they're terrycloth bunnies whose bodies are little pouches that hold an ice cube that little ones can put on their boo-boos... don't be jealous. Just get yourself one, I won't tell.
5. Set of 2 acrylic plexi bunny silhouettes - $16 - by Iwannabe. These can be hung as ornaments with some ribbon. I'm thinking of mounting them right to the bedroom wall with double-sided adhesive. 
6. Bunny surprise tea cup - $28 - by alinahayes. I'm pretty smitten with this tea cup. I'm sure I would switch to drinking tea only from this cup, and after a few days of owning it the rabbit would definitely have a name. Suggestions? 
7. White rabbit pillow cover - $22 - by Nuka. This would be a great addition to my subtly Alice bedroom decor I'm cooking up... I'm envisioning mostly white furniture and bedding, with lavender and yellow accents. A couple of these pillows will spruce up a bench I'm refinishing for the end of the bed.
8. Messenger print - $20 - by naokosstoop. This print is one of a collection of paintings of this girl and her rabbit. Absolutely adorable!
9. Knitted plush rabbit - $42 - by VeryCarey. What a darling addition to an Easter basket! Her scarf is fabulous. She'll surely be a cuddly friend for any little one on your shopping list.

This travel poster series by The Heads of State is so fun! The serigraphs have a vintage feel... like they're modeled after those old postcard stickers plastered onto the sides of worn leather suitcases. (Does anyone really have a suitcase like that? I so want one...) Each print is 14x24 and $30. They're limited edition, with New York and San Francisco already on their second run. Hurry up and rep your city before they run out! The Heads of State- Jason Kernevich and Dustin Summers- create stunning visuals in the form of music posters, magazine illustrations and book jackets. (Wow, I so want these guys to design my book cover when I ever finish it!) I browsed through their galleries and picked out a few of my favorite designs:

 
clockwise from top left: illustration for a feature article in Real Simple; art for a BYU magazine article about New Orleans after Katrina; Logo/Identity for Brokelyn.com, a blog about living it up in Brooklyn on the cheap; and an illustration for an article in Cookie magazine.

I was first introduced to Civil Twilight's music this past November at the Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom where they opened for label mates Evanescence. I had never heard of them prior, and was absolutely blown away. Live music takes such a hold of me... Ray thinks it's weird that I can always remember which songs bands play at shows, how they were moving on stage during that song, the lighting... it just gets embedded in me somehow. The dark ballroom fell silent while they starting playing the long, haunting intro of Perfect Stranger... and the lights would blaze on during the parts where the song goes from quiet to bursts of volume ("MY PERFECT stranger... don't sail away..."). It was such an amazing show! Other favorite songs of mine are Letters from the Sky and Human. Their entire album (which I downloaded from iTunes the next day) is awesome! I rocked it on my iPod for a good three weeks straight before finally letting other artists back onto my playlists, and created a Pandora station based on them.

I've been waiting (ever so impatiently) for them to do another show in NYC, and was super excited to see that they're playing this Monday at the Bowery Ballroom with Company of Thieves. I got my tickets ages ago, but you can still get them at Ticketmaster ($13 is a steal for what will be an amazing show!).

P.S. Rich takes some pretty great iPhone photos from the road and posts them here: lettersfromthesky.com.

I recently won a messenger bag from seabreezestudio that I'm totally in love with! It's got a London map print on the flap and tons of pockets. (I heart pockets!) I got it in the mail yesterday at my office, promptly stopped what I was doing and moved everything from the purse I carried to work into this new bag (making sure I found something to put into every single pocket, ha!). I absolutely love when bags have a zipper pocket on the outside that I can stash my metro card in- sometimes I hear that train pulling in to the station and gotta make a run for it! Can't be rummaging for my wallet or taking my bag off my shoulder to sift through all of the ridiculous things i find necessary to tote around with me at all times. This is absolutely my new fave accessory, and so well made. Seabreezestudio is run by Yukiko Kamioka who creates all of these fabulous bags in her studio in the UK (soon to be Japan!). You can find her creations on etsy and become a fan on facebook. Even Lily couldn't get over it: