Toast Meets Karen

It's Monday and I hereby declare we all need a little "aww" moment in our lives to get the week going (especially because if you're in the Midwest or on the East Coast you've been dealing with round 5 billion of snowstorms this winter), so without further ado, my newest favorite campaign from Karen Walker.

If you're not familiar with the impossibly adorable mug above & below, that's Toast, she of instagram fame, rescued from a puppy mill and brought to live out a pretty awesome life in NYC (her dad is The Fat Jewish, just sayin'). I have to be honest, I don't know much about how this campaign came to be, but I kind of don't care because it's just plain awesome. Karen Walker has always made some pretty great shades (she also does RTW—I'll be checking out her show at NYFW in a few weeks and can't wait to get a peek at FW 2015.

In the sunnies business, Karen Walker is definitely queen of tortoise and funky, retro-inspired shapes. Looking for a good cat-eye? She has you (and those bags under your eyes) covered. This collection is available here; scroll down for some more of my favorites or hop over to either her website or Shopbop to check out currently available specs! 

Shop Karen Walker

*all images via Karen Walker

Gift Giving: Pet Illustrations

Some of you may remember (and by some of you, I mean those of you who have been with me since near the beginning) this post from last fall about the real love of my life-my dog, Mollie. While scouring the web for inspiration one day, I stumbled across the blog Momathon, authored by illustrator Chris Olson, and a doodle she'd done of a dog (you can view it here). 

Having grown up in a house full of animals with lots of canine companions over the years, I immediately contacted her to see if she accepted custom/commissioned requests and we got to work! There are currently four dogs at my mom's house in Iowa, two of which are hers-Zeus and Tigger, my dog, Mollie and my sister's dog, Zoe. Short of going into a sappy story about pets, I'll tell you they're incredibly special to us. There was a lot of back and forth between Chris and I over a few months and I received the finalized artwork from her just before I headed home at Christmas. The holidays were a bit crazy and my mom and I have been working recently to get them printed, framed and on display.

Now, I'm sharing them with you!

Zeus & Tigger

Mollie

Zoe

Zoe was the hardest to capture in a sketch, mostly because she never sits still and I didn't have many great pictures of her to send short of asking my sister for one and ruining the surprise! I'm amazed at Chris' ability to capture their expressions and personalities in a simple pen & ink sketch. For comparison I pulled the images that inspired the top two drawings, along with one of Zoe.

If you're interested in commissioning Chris, I cannot recommend her highly enough! To view some more of her sketches, click here. You can also visit her other sites for her design work here and here.

Have a great weekend!

xx

My dog is my best friend

When I moved to NYC, the thing I left behind in Des Moines that I miss the most is my dog, Mollie.

Mollie & I at the dog park last year

She's a rescue dog from the Animal Rescue League of Iowa, an Australian Shepherd mix & was my 18th birthday present when I got back from my freshman year of college. It sucks something terrible to be away from her for such long periods of time-but she's at home, with our three other dogs, and a huge, one-acre backyard to run around in!

Checking for squirrels in the backyard

I couldn't resist...that's my sister passed out on the couch at home, with all four dogs-(L to R) Zeus, Zoe (in the blue chair), my sister Ana, Mollie and Tigger (in the kennel to the far right)

Yesterday, while browsing one of my favorite blogs, Apartment 34, I came across a guest post by Chris Olson of Momathon Blog, clicked over to her blog, she'd just posted the sketch below!

Dogs Are My Fave original post

 An idea immediately started brewing in my mind, and I reached out to her to see if she could do a sketch of all four of our dogs for me. We're now discussing details, and I can't wait to share the outcome with everyone! You can check out more of her portfolio here.

Mollie, Zeus and Zoe working on new chewbones

Mollie, Zoe and Tigger