Of Books and Bags

Sorry for the somewhat pretentious title. I couldn't help myself because this post is about books and bags. Actually, it's about the Decatur Book Festival and tote bags made out of old Book Festival street banners.

The 2009 Decatur Book Festival isn't until Labor Day weekend, but things are gearing up for it. You can check out the author line up and event details here: www.decaturbookfestival.com. If you like books and reading and/or funnel cake, this is the festival for you. So mark your calendars.

Back to the bags. Lauren and I not only love tote bags, we also love any accessory that has a little bit of a past (recycle, reuse, woohoo!) and helps others at the same time. This is why we love Toms Shoes and why we love these Decatur Book Festival totes. Not only are they recycled street banners for previous book festivals, they're made by a Colombian refugee who just recently moved to Atlanta.

So, what starts out as this:

Photo courtsey of Lenz Marketing

Turns into this:

Pretty cool, no?

Stay tuned to the Book Festival website for details about how to get your hands on these highly covetable totes. In the meantime, check out this article in the AJC today about the project. It'll make you feel more socially conscious just reading it!

CL

A Little Librarian-ish

It's been a very unusual May here in Atlanta weather-wise. It was cool enough last week to wear long sleeves without breaking a sweat - that's positively freezing by Atlanta standards! So I decided to take full advantage of the chill and attempt an Audrey Hepburn look with a classic white button up.

H&M shirt, F21 belt, AA skirt, Dolce Vita shoes from Eviva, secondhand bracelet.

I think this is my new favorite bracelet. I got it for $3 at the same jewelry sale Lar wrote about here.

And I'm sure all you Maira Kalman fans out there recognize the book I'm holding. You can probably tell by my writing that I bought the book just for the illustrations and not for a better understanding of writing composition and grammar - sorry, William Strunk Jr.

CL

Good Things*

Really the title of this post should be something like "Things that make us happy when our weekend has been crappy." But that seems too wordy and I don't like rhymes.

The short of it is my car broke down at an incredibly inopportune moment Saturday evening resulting in a number of mishaps (held up a wedding, got caught in the pouring rain waiting for AAA and missed June Shin's party at Drew Lewis). So we AsianCajuns had a not-too-pleasant weekend. To cheer Lauren and me up, I decided to blog about a few things we've been enjoying recently:

The Celebrity Perfumery: The Handy Craft Guide to Smelling Like the Stars
For anyone who's ever wanted to capture the essence of Robert Downey Jr.'s recent Iron Man success or the magical aura of J.K. Rowling, this is the blog for you! One of my favorite entries/perfumes is the Juno/Ellen Page inspired Who Cares: de parfum (see image below). Ingredients include dusty record stores, Cheez Whiz, Pop Rocks and stale linens.




Favorite books that inspire a favorite movie
Lauren and I were never big fans of The Catcher in the Rye, but we love Salinger's novels about the Glass family - especially Franny and Zooey. So even without the fantastic sets and soundtrack, The Royal Tenenbaums would still be one of our all time favorite movies (I know I just made film buffs everywhere cringe).

New Shoes
Kind of self-explanatory, but here are the basics: Biviel black sandals found on the sales rack at Eviva in downtown Decatur.



It's Always Sunny on Hulu.com
We might not have a TV, but Lauren and I make up for it by watching and re-watching all 32 episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia online. It's not quite as sophisticated as Arrested Development, but it's equally as brilliant and hilarious.



Sujean Rim Illustrations
We've been big fans of Daily Candy for years, but never stopped to think about the person behind all of its clever illustrations until recently.


The House of Eliott
A BBC TV series that we became hooked on when it aired on PBS in the early 1990s. Lauren just discovered that our local library has most of the show on DVD and we've spent the past few weekends drooling over the 1920s costumes.


Images from www.bn.com, www.fxnetworks.com, www.allposters.com, www.sujeanrim.com, www.thecelebrityperfumery.com.

*Not necessarily Martha approved.

CL

Jane Austen Style

I might be revealing too much of myself here, but I have to for the sake of the post: I'm a huge Jane Austen fan. I love everything that's related to her: her novels, the films, the Georgian/Regency eras, Bath, England, the unlimited amount of cheesy sequels written for Pride and Prejudice etc...

Background image from www.telegraph.co.uk

So I was pleasantly surprised to find some Jane-Austen-era-inspired clothing at Abercrombie.com - of all places. I've never shopped at A&F before (I first saw these blouses on www.stylenotes.com), but that might change after today. I love the femininity of the tops and I'm sure the square-neckline and ribbon embellishments would have made these a big hit in 1810.

Considering that my Jane Austen fanaticism is usually met with eye-rolls (especially from my guy friends) and an assumption that I read romance novels (I do not!), I won't mention it again on this blog...at least not for a while.

CL

Online Shoe Shopping

Now is a great time to buy shoes online. Stores are trying to get rid of their winter inventory and for most of us it's still cold enough outside to wear the boots and pumps that are on sale.

I've mentioned these yellow pumps from Payless before, but I couldn't find them when I went to the store. Luckily there's Payless.com where I purchased these yellow, patent pumps and had them in my possession in under five business days. They're a little more mustard-y than the website photo, but I've already thought up some great outfits to go with them.


I found these open-toed black pumps at Naturalizer.com. They were only $20 on sale, which is hard to beat considering that Naturalizers are usually more comfortable than your run-of-the-mill high-heeled shoes. The material is a kind of black satin and I love the scalloped edges.

CL

Tibet Style

A couple of months ago Domino did a feature on Tibet Style (above). It's a coffee table book filled with vibrant images of nomadic Tibetans. I didn't think much of the article - especially since I couldn't imagine realistically using hot pink paint on molding in a dark blue room - until I saw the book in person this past weekend at B&N.

I was blown away by the photographs, which mainly focused on individuals wearing huge winter coats, lined with fur and colorful piping. From a superficial, stylistic standpoint, the Tibetans in the photos look incredibly stylish even when the temperature is around five degrees. The unusually-cut outerwear would give Mr. Alexander McQueen a run for his money any day.

The book is a great source of design inspiration - I hope it makes it into my local public library soon!


CL