the frosting on the cake
many thanks to everyone for coming by to celebrate with mrs. jones at market central yesterday!
and big love to kat, anna and the 4am squadron at muddy’s bake shop for absolutely spot-on color-matching the icing. (pratt & lambert # 24.26, boucle.) each one of the 14 dozen was perfect.
la nina tocha
please help educate mrs. jones! at a little folk art market in santa fe, this piece caught my eye….i loved the broken gilding on the top and edges, and was intrigued by the images on the panels. despite a language barrier, they were happy to accept mr. jones’s amex card, and so the impulse purchase was made. now, i must know: who are the figures in the pictures? what is this small shrine kind of thing called? (it’s 4 inches tall.) on the back of the tag, it said “la nina tocha”, which loosely translates – i think! – into “the girl handmade”. does that refer to the artisan who created it, or to one of the images? anybody?
travelogue: santa fe
it was a huge treat to spend spring break in such a unique, beautiful, fascinating spot. during our stay, the mountain areas recieved 18+ inches of new snow, thrilling my skiiers and boarders.
luckily, the wonderful shops (santa fe dry goods, street feet, acc, passementerie, seret & sons, simply santa fe), restaurants (cafe pasqual’s, gabriel’s, the coffee shop at the la fonda), canyon road galleries, beautiful churches, and museums (georgia o’keeffe, international folk art, new mexico history) did not take snow days, thrilling me.
there is more to show you in coming posts. efforts at brevity will be made. promise.
boxwood fans, unite!
many thanks to deborah at boxwood terrace for her recent kind words and comments…mrs. jones is feeling the love! if you’ve found your way here via her lovely blog, welcome.
spring break!
please check back in next week…santa fe is just as fabulous as advertised! (don’t worry, i have my baedeker.)
32 sq ft, con’t.
for those of you playing the home game, here is the before, during & after of the little vignette, and all the particulars:
paint colors, from benjamin moore: ivory white, #925 (base coat – wall and floor), brushed aluminum, #1485 (used for stenciling), deep indigo, #1442 (dark checks on floor) and bali, #702 (lighter frames). from pratt & lambert: boucle, #24.26 (darker frames) and on the trim, woodwitch, #32.22, an excellent, slightly moody color recommended by my exceedingly chic friend jenny.
the stencil is a tried & true fave from royal design studio, fabric damask. there is a little raw-umber-tinted glaze at work as well.
it’s a little shocking that so tiny an endeavor required so much planning. please indulge me as i once more express enormous gratitude to family & friends (in no particular order) who helped me get things this far: margaret, for the nudge (and choosing the stencil), sarah, sally, allison, anna, mk, selena, meg, perre, dru, cheryl, catherine, karen & katherine for encouragement and counsel, lauren (below), for arranging & hanging the frames, julia for the opening day tulips, my other lauren for the poochie treats, epps for patience, sound advice, and for channeling his inner trim carpenter, and honey & bug for the coffee, love, and cupcakes.
a grandview kind of day
proving once and for all that they are not afraid to get their hands dirty, the super-lovely ladies of the grandview garden club invited mrs. jones to teach a workshop today at the memphis botanic garden. after a short tutorial, each of them got full-on hands-on and put fun finishes of their choice (painted & vintage-y, stained & glossy, crusty & mossy, or tarted-up chalkboard) on to pots. they were all stellar students (and served a fab lunch, of course!)
5th grade hearts for haiti
mrs. jones took a short break today to help decorate for a party meg’s grade gave celebrating the olympics and benefitting haiti. minimizing the expenses to maximize the donation, we got global with some beach balls, created torches for the games & awards, and stenciled olympic rings on to butcher paper for the tables. with a great dj (how many times did he play “party in the u.s.a.”? was anyone counting?) and the ben & jerry’s truck there, it couldn’t not be a blast. the girls went home with happy feet and a t-shirt party favor. the upshot: a nice donation to eathquake relief efforts.
veiled remarks
reminder: if you’re in the memphis area, tonight at 6pm is the big veiled remarks event at davis-kidd booksellers. my gorgeous and uber-talented friend melissa anderson sweazy will be reading from her new book, and signing copies, too. see you there.
21
just shaking the glitter off my clothes after a great getaway to celebrate the fact that, as mr. jones says, our marriage could now (legally) go to a casino and have a drink. while in las vegas you’re always subject to gratuitous amounts of gilding and the over-use of over-the-top finishes, but there was beautiful restraint in spots, too…in addition to the food, i especially loved the combination of polished plaster, distressed metals and warm woods at bobby flay’s mesa grill, and the sky ceilings above wolfgang puck’s postrio at the venetian. the beatles love was inspiring in a completely incredible, mind-bending kind of way… excellent meals at olives, piero’s, and (of course!) an evening with donny rounded out a fab weekend. and now, i believe i’ll just take to the sofa and hang out with the little joneses for a while, until the post-vegas visions of sequins and bright lights fade. otherwise, anything i touch might be accidentally gilded and dusted with sparkly pearl-x.
in other late-breaking travel-related news, sunday’s new york times highlighted some of the more entertaining things that happen in mrs. jones’s neighborhood after her bedtime. i so appreciate that they commented favorably on our hospitality here in memphis.
gigi’s earbobs
a slightly sheepish mr. jones came home last night bearing a tiny envelope. he had (so thoughtfully) tried to surprise me at christmas by having these kooky paste-opal & -amethyst earrings of my grandmother’s modified from painful, janky clip-ons to comfy french wires, but they couldn’t be done in time. not knowing the full depth of my recently developed and extremely serious case of “the young victoria” earring envy, he has scored major points for this, well, early valentine. (for those of you here in memphis, las savell converted these…total tab: just $12.)
snow day
our friends back home in chicago are probably having a good giggle over this, but with a dusting of snow and chilly temperatures, the little joneses are officially out of school today. meg, though, could not pass up the oppportunity to practice her cursive writing. good girl.
cups of kindness & good will
with it being the last day of robert burns’s 250th birthday year, an appropriate new year’s eve celebration seemed in order. antlers, moss, turkey feathers and other treasures gathered from the farm (along with our shrine to the auld lang syne poet) set the “scottish muirs” mood for dinner and a cup of kindness to ring in 2010 with a few friends.
thank you, lovely readers, for another wonderful year, and a right gude-willy waught to you all.
champagne with mr. jayne
just when it seemed this christmas day couldn’t be more perfect, who should appear at my door – sartorially splendid as always, accessorized with his signature perfect bow tie and poinsettia-red socks, and bearing generous gifts – but thomas jayne. to say more about our afternoon would be to kiss-and-tell (though we were of course well-chaperoned by three lovely gentlemen: rick ellis, tim adams, and my mr. jones)…suffice it to say that all the taittinger is gone, and all i am living for now is the publication of his forthcoming tome, finest rooms. (he did promise that we could throw a book-release party, didn’t he, tim?)
(p.s….12.30.09: the february issue of house beautiful – just arrived today – has a “tablescapes” feature on thomas & rick’s fab mardi gras breakfast party. run to your mailbox and get it! go!)
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