Silly Sally Draper

Actress Kiernan Shipka tackles some pretty heavy stuff each season in her role as Sally Draper on AMC's Mad Men. Turns out she has some comedic talents as well....you can check them out in Funny or Die's Child Star Psychologist with Kiernan Shipka.

Video: Funny or Die

The Last Picture Show

I am working my way through, in no particular order, The American Film Institute's 100 years, 100 movies- The Definitive List of Classic American Films. Number 95 on that list is 1971's The Last Picture Show.
The film's 40th anniversary was last year and it was re-released in the UK and Ireland (to rather glowing reviews). It was actually this review in The Independent that piqued my curiosity about this movie....

Set in the early 1950s, it takes on significant themes – frustration and longing, youth and age, memory and mortality – but in a quiet, modest way, and its humility becomes extraordinarily affecting. Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Bridges play the central friends, two undistinguished high-school athletes who loaf about their windblown, one-horse town and wonder about their future: the only fun to be had is in the decrepit pool hall and the old cinema, both run by the benign, mysterious Sam (Ben Johnson) whose haunting presence is the film's beating heart. Cybill Shepherd, as the girl both boys fall for, is at her most beautiful and spoilt – a heartless Texan temptress – though it's the older women who really come through: Ellen Burstyn as Shepherd's mother, Eileen Brennan as the wise waitress, and, heart-breakingly, Cloris Leachman as the older woman desperate for love (she and Johnson both deservedly won Best Supporting Oscars). Bogdanovich directs them all beautifully (in black and white), gives everything its proper weight, and speaks profoundly of loss, leave-taking, last things. - Anthony Quinn, The Independent

Images: Mubi, The Criterion Collection

Dream House, anyone?

Did you know the HGTV Green Home Giveaway is going on right now? A completely "eco-fabulous" house in Georgia will be awarded to a lucky individual - you can enter twice daily
until 5:00pm EST on June 1, 2012.
Check out the Green Home site for a full tour and videos about design and construction. I am posting just some of the amazing photos they have on the site.....

All images courtesy of hgtv

food photography

I have a friend who dabbles in food photography. I always say it is her true calling (her facebook friends would agree, I bet, since her status updates frequently involve dining table pictorials). The whole idea of food styling and photography is very cool to me. I have been a long time fan of food blogs, such as Smitten Kitchen, in great part because of the beauty of the images and the deliciousness each photo conveys.
If you are curious about food photography , there is an interesting blog on nytimes.com called Diner's Journal. It often has tidbits on culinary photography- this one about capturing the holiday table on film has very useful pointers.

Images: smittenkitchen, lisahoma, Jim Scherer Photography, Photography by Linda Lee, Catrine Kelty Food Stylist, foodportfolio.com, Catrine Kelty Food Stylist, Vegan Yum Yum

Have a lovely weekend!

Whether you celebrate Easter or not - we hope your weekend is full of family and food (or maybe just some rest!).

via beauty unspoken

photo find

The Etsy shop magalerie has this cool, oversize photograph of a carousel in the north of France. It is 24"X36" and I wish I had a wall space in my girls' room where it would make sense. The typical wall art out there for girl's rooms can be a bit much ( much = too pink, too many fairies, too many flowers), so I love to find something just a little different.

Image: malagerie

S'MEEEPS

I am the caboose on the S'meeps train, because I'm told they have been around for awhile, but I had never seen them before yesterday. I am on board now though and spreading the word. We have lots of little cousins joining us this week for a holiday visit and I think we will be making these for dessert one night!

S'meeps via serious eats
Ingredients

4 Peeps (1 package)
4 graham crackers, separated into 8 halves
Four 1-ounce squares semisweet or dark chocolate (depending on preference)

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven or toaster oven to 350°F.

2. Place a 1-ounce square of chocolate on 4 of the graham cracker halves. Top each chocolate with a Peep. Say your goodbyes.

3. Put your Peep sacrifice laden graham crackers on an aluminum foil covered tray and pop them in the oven for 2 to 3 minutes. Watch them carefully as toasting Peeps can turn into burn victims beyond repair in the blink of an eye. Vigilance!

4. Once the Peeps are toasted to your liking, take them out of the oven and squish them with a graham cracker half. Feast.

Image: Poppytalk

that painting from "Modern Family"

Dunphy house on fanpop

The show "Modern Family" makes me laugh- I know I am not alone there. But, have you ever stopped giggling long enough to check out the three family homes? They are each so lovely (of course not 100% realistic given that nobody ever has anything out of place and they are super duper accessorized, but I digress....) and during the recent string of reruns, I have taken to checking out the family's surroundings.

Jay and Gloria's

Dunphy home

Cam and Mitchell's

One thing I was really curious about was this painting below from the foyer of Jay and Gloria's house....

It caught my eye every time it was on the screen. Thanks to the site Chasing Props, a very cool spot that lists where you can find certain decorative items from some of your favorite television shows, I found out the artist Nathan Rohlander is responsible for the work called "Junk Food", 2002.
Sometimes it seems like the Internet can answer even the most random question, doesn't it?

2 Easter Projects

I have two simple projects planned for the Easter holiday season to help decorate the house. The first is a paper craft that adds a little character to those dyed eggs. All you need to do is print out these stencils onto craft paper and snip yourself a few of the little critters featured in the above shot. They will be part of our holiday centerpiece.
For a hands on activity that even toddlers can do, the lifestyle blog four flights of fancy provides step by step instructions on how to create snazzy Easter eggs decorations with whatever art materials you might have on hand and some clear contact paper. The perfect thing to display on your windows or make into a garland and the design is completely up to the kids!

Images: Good Housekeeping and fourflightsoffancy

descriptive writing

I am in awe of the writers who can move you through time and space, ultimately putting you where and when their stories take place. Being pulled so far into a story that you lose track of the hours and your own world is one of the greatest pleasures of reading.
In a novel I read recently, I was completely impressed with the author's various descriptions of Boston in late autumn. But, it was not because he was transporting me to a time and place I had never been, it was because he perfectly summed up a season in a city where I had lived in a simple paragraph. In so many words, he got it.... just how I saw it and felt it. When that happens, it is almost more impressive than being transported to another place and time.....it is at least equally amazing.

By early November in Boston the trees have lost most of their leaves. On wet days the branches and trunks are black and slick looking. In the afternoons a damp hard wind blows off the harbor, and then darkness swells up out of the tar streets, and the traffic lights shine like jewels. It is not winter but no longer truly fall, and the tourists are gone, and the city is stripped down to a tight rhythm of moneymaking: the mouths of subways suck in clots of workers and breathe them out again across town; the streets are full of taxis and delivery trucks and touched with a kind of coldness and sadness I have always secretly liked. - A Little Love Story, Roland Merullo

Image: perspectivezine.webnode.sk