Craft Fair Find: Ash

This past weekend I spent a gorgeous Saturday afternoon trolling the aisles of the Rock & Shop Market in downtown Durham, NC with my friend Nicole. While I usually get super stoked about craft fairs and love seeing what people have been working on in their studios, I'm often struck by how it all sort of starts to look the same, show after show. Especially in the jewelry department. But this time I noticed one table that stood out among the hand-crafted crowd.

Ash is a jewelry line created by Ashlee Meadows and based in Raleigh, NC. Her work is mostly matte porcelain pendants and earrings, dipped in different pale glazes then dunked again into a gold overglaze. The results are pretty, delicate geometric pieces that have a nice weight and feel to them. You can see the full range of what she does on her website, www.jewelrybyash.com and purchase work through her Etsy shop.

Hexagon Porcelain Earrings, $58 

by ashjewelrystudio via Etsy

Porcelain Bar Necklace, $65

by ashjewelrystudio via Etsy

Circle Porcelain Earrings, $58

by ashjewelrystudio via Etsy

Tiny Porcelain Hexagon Necklace, $54

by ashjewelrystudio via Etsy

- Cathleen

Floored

We landed in Durham exactly one week ago today and have been unpacking and settling into our new home every waking moment since. I can't wait to share photos of the place once we have painted the walls and battled the massive heap of empty cardboard boxes that has taken over the back porch. Even though we filled a 16-foot moving truck to the brim with all of our worldly possessions (ok, mostly MY worldly possessions), now that we have a bit more room to spread out, I'm noticing some holes around the place. Specifically in the living room. I have spent every relaxing-post-unpacking minute searching online for something to soften up these hardwood floors. Especially with Graham on the verge of crawling any day now(!!!), we need something to protect those little knees STAT.

I've torn through West Elm, Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Crate & Barrel, CB2, The Land of Nod, Pottery Barn, Target, Home Depot, Macy's, Sears, Amazon, Craigslist, Ebay, and something called RugStudio.com, all to no avail. Everything is beige or floral or Persian, and we are having none of that. Oh! We also don't want to spend more than 150 bucks since Graham will probably be staining it up like WHAT, so that too has narrowed the carpeted field significantly.

And then IKEA rugged up and totally blew everybody else off the floor:

It's colorful! It's geometric! It's got a high pile! And selling for $129!??! You really cannot beat it. Only problem is the nearest Swedish purveyor of particleboard furniture is over 2 hours away! Long gone are the days of hopping on a quick bus to Red Hook for cheap home goods in Brooklyn, I suppose. Sigh.


- Cathleen

Artwork of the Week: In the Middle of the Night

Illustration by Adrienne Adams

from In the Middle of the Night by Aileen Fisher

It's official: we are moving to Durham, NC THIS Friday! So while my guys and I are busy packing up and heading down south this week, I thought I'd post some art that really resonates with one of the reasons why we chose to move out of the great big (New York) city: a yard! 

I cannot wait to finally have a yard of our very own. Where we can plant rosemary and tomatoes and blueberries. Where we can go hunting for fireflies at dusk. Where we can tromp barefoot through the grass without any fears of stepping on broken bottles or possibly human turds. 

It's going to be awesome! 

- Cathleen