Red Lips. Green Nails.

Color is back for Spring.

Just got back from Versailles

I just traveled to Versailles via the Google Art Project. The project aims to bring art museums the same exposure that the street you grew up on has gotten through Google Earth. Like most things (but not all) that Google does, I think it's a genius idea. I am privileged enough to have had the opportunity to travel and see art in Europe and all over the US, but there are many places I have not seen and will therefore be spending the next few hours on the site. I can't help but be amazed that other content providers aren't doing more things like this instead of making yet another column on how to get stains out of your laundry (I'm looking at you Yahoo!).

Before I come back...

I am due to write a post for quite some time now. But before I do, I just have to share this beauty. How insanely gorgeous is this bag?

Holiday Cheer.

I really love this. Really really love this. And I love SS&K, so there's all sorts of holiday love going on right now.

(ps if you are reading this and don't work in agency land, the holiday card is a big deal for agencies. every year they try and out do each other and past years by creating the most inventive holiday card. years of late it's been mainly through digital shorts or games).

SS+K Holiday 2010 from SS+K on Vimeo.

Holiday Goodness

My days now are consumed with food (pregnancy....but the holidays really). I spend my evenings trolling Chowhound wondering what everyone else is making this year. I love how the US really bands together when it comes to holiday cooking. There are a few standbys that everyone in the whole country will be eating and I take comfort in that.

For our family cookies and quiche steal the show come Christmas...but this year I might have to try out some of these as well.

Snowmen Cookies - no seriously the most adorable thing I've ever seen and reminds me of my cousins' decapitated snowman from a few years back

This entire thread on cookie baking - yup I read the whole thing.

This grilled cheese that looks like the perfect dinner while wrapping presents and watching Here Comes Santa Claus. Followed by this hot cocoa, naturally.

My uncle Frank used to bring us these cookies every Christmas. I never liked them much as a kid...but might have to give this recipe a go now.

Happy Holidays!!

Timely.

I love this new campaign for Sir Richards Condom Co. Perhaps it's because this is the very mindset I'm in right now that it hits home for me and I find it pretty humorous. I don't think the audience for this message is probably right (unplanned pregnancy tends to be in undeveloped or poor neighborhoods who are definitely not thinking Dalton for their child), but I think it's clever none the less.

Campaign via Boulder-based TDA Advertising & Design.

Unexpected Surprises.

Sometimes living in NYC is really tough. Sometimes your whole day can be ruined by something out of your control. I am currently working on a project in Rock Center. This is all fine, but today just happened to be the Christmas Tree Lighting at Rock Center. When you are trying to get home at night and there are thousands of people in your way and all your usual pathways are blocked off, it can make for a lousy end of a day.

This was my night tonight.

And after all that, after catching a subway that dropped me only marginally near my apartment, something really wonderful happened. I was in a pissed off mood to say the least, and trying to get through the crowds at the 63rd and Lexington Street station and then hustling up the escalator to get out of the station I was greeted with the sound of a very familiar voice.

And then, I saw this.Right there in front of me was one of my very favorite singers, Donavon Frankenreiter. I was stunned and looking around like it had to be a dream. I exclaimed 'OH MY GOD' before I realized he was being taped and then kept my mouth shut while he was playing the rest of his song.

Turns out, Donavon was there playing with a company called Subway Sessions who takes musicians out of the studio and has them perform a few songs in subway stations across the city. What an amazing concept. It feels like someone should have done something like this before, and yet I can't think of anyone that has really pulled it off with such authenticity. The problem is that when brands try and do something like this they hype it and promote it far too much for it to ever feel authentic. I would love to recommend that one of my clients do something along these very lines, keeping it quiet for a while, maintaining the grass-roots nature of it all, and build an amazing vault of content to use and promote. But it's not something many marketers would do. And in a way I hope they don't. Because I would love subway sessions to remain just as it is now, a complete and utter surprise for innocent passer-bys such as myself.

I'm still smiling.