Illustration: Beach Ball Girl

Come onnnnnnnnnnn weekend.

Just saying

Scary true, right? Happy Wednesday!

naytcha

I love birds, and flowers. Flowers are significantly easier to take pictures of, however, so the ratio of birds to flowers should impress you at least a tiny bit. 

Bottle & Bottega

My birthday was last Friday and while I like to think I'm not one of those girls -- you know the type, birthday crazed, celebrations for a month? -- I do tend to seize the opportunity to do something a little different and drag friends along for the ride. Oh and day drinking. That's a theme too.

I've had some doozies -- rooftop BBQ's, beach parties at Castaways, a trip to Arlington Race track, etc. etc. So when another girlfriend who happens to be a fellow Gemini suggested one of Bottle & Bottega's BYOB painting classes to celebrate our respective birthdays, I knew it was just the ticket. Painting? Perfect. That's classy. I'm 29 now, you know.

We grabbed a few more girlfriends for manis and then stopped by Angelina's legendary champagne brunch, which solidified itself in my mind as hands-down the best service in Chicago. They brought over cotton candy for our birthdays, new bellinis and mimosas showed up before ours were even halfway gone, and are truly just the sweetest, most welcoming staff.

Fortified by champagne and cotton candy, we were ready to get our Monet on and headed over to Bottle & Bottega's Lakeview studio. It was cuter than we even could have imagined and they made us right at home with four easels by the window. We set up our spread of cheese and crackers and popped open our wine, chatting and patiently awaiting our impending masterpieces' beginnings.

In all seriousness though, while we're all creative in our own way, no one was expecting all of the paintings (ahem... any of the paintings?) to turn out so, so well. The instructor was really talented at helping everyone feel comfortable and breaking the painting down into very manageable steps... but somehow, it all felt more like a fun time with girlfriends instead of an art class in high school. I'd guess there were between 30-40 people there altogether, mostly groups of women, and I'd wager that every single person left happy, buzzed, and feeling creative.

Two (painted) thumbs way up -- I can't wait to go back and their classes will definitely be making their way into many future girls' outings! I also saw an advertisement that they do "Bump Parties"... private painting showers for mamas to be where everyone hand paints bibs as gifts. I need a pregnant friend pronto, because I'm pretty sure nothing could be cuter.

A very happy birthday to me.

+ iPhone-only pictures ahead! 

  

Backyard BBQ

I finally got a lot of posts transferred over from DeuxChicago, where my sister and I blogged for the last few years. If you've clicked over from DC, thanks for coming by :)

It finally, finally turned into the beautiful Chicago we all live for and I spent a great weekend afternoon at a BBQ, drinking sangria, playing bags and using my friends as my personal photography subjects. They photograph well, what can I say? I really need a dog pronto, that guy was born to be a star.

 

Seastar

Day 5 of the Blog Every Day In May Challenge asks us to publicly profess our love for a friend -- in my case, this could be no one else but my sister. I've referred to her before as my younger-older sister, my best friend for 27 years, my other half.
She is only 18 months behind me but has somehow navigated life at least 19 months ahead of me at all times. When we were five and seven, my mother would send us on "missions" to find things in the grocery store to cure me of my crippling shyness. Ali, barely more than a toddler, would hold my hand and then, when our mom was just out of sight, she'd race to the nearest clerk, belting out "WHERE'STHEKETCHUP?" then march behind them, blazing a trail to the condiment aisle and then shoving the bottle into my hands to deliver to our mom.
When we were 11 and 9, our mom gave us the master bedroom to share. (And if you're wondering, yes, she should be sainted any day now.) In between coordinating dance/gymnastics routines to the Spice Girls that involved careening wildly off our beds into cartwheels and somersaults and exhaustive "floor" routines in our master suite, Ali patiently curled my hair for me and applied nail polish, skills I found impossible to master. While she draws the line at toes, she will do both of these things for me to this day and will forever be infinitely better than I am at either. "Curl AWAY from your face, Toots. No, that's not away. The other way is away from your face."
Yesterday, she came over for dinner, a date we try to maintain once a week. Like sisters will, she gave me advice I didn't even know I needed and certainly didn't want to hear. I remember staring at her, my alien-beautiful sister, my little protector, the knower of all of my secrets, wondering how she ever ended up so poised and so wise. But then it occurred to me that maybe I just take her wisdom and always knowing what to do for granted; that she always has been exactly this poised, this wise, and I've always known it and have never had to question it.
I will happily spend the rest of my life wondering how she does it; so proud to call her my sister and my best friend.

-ll

Unique Script + Handwriting Fonts by Måns Grebäck

When I updated my computer recently, I lost a lot of my carefully collected font collection from over the years.

In rebuilding and looking to update my blog, I was searching for well-curated lists of script or handwriting fonts available for download and found myself less than enthused with the results. If I see Jenna Sue one more time...

I was digging through FontSpace and immediately started noticing a trend in the fonts that I loved: they were all by one font creator, Måns Grebäck. His handwriting fonts are stunning, unique and available for free for personal use and average around $60 for purchase.

He has over 200 fonts available for free here - all perfect for a updating your blog graphics, creating invitations, etc. Enjoy!