Initial Here

No more complaining about work, I promise. This weekend we caught up on sleep and explored Long Island City, which is about 15 blocks south of us (we're in Astoria). What a weird place with it's crammed in luxury highrises full of nobody and empty streets teeming with hip restaurants. I assume they will be soon be marketing the town as the "new Manhattan" or some such ridiculousness, but until then, it'll feel like a really hip ghost town full of soulless shiny buildings and great boutiques.

Today we ventured to the mall, a rare treat when you move out of suburbia. This first necklace looked lovely on a mannequin in Urban Outfitters and it inspired a whole post. It's good to be back.




Urban Outiftters Monogram Necklace, $18









Scrabble Charm by HeistJewelry, $45

Sterling Initial Necklace by Jennifer Zeuner, $220

Art Nouveau Inspired Initial Necklace by IstanbulDesign, $65

Custom Initial Copper Charm by Amy Cornwell, $20









Copper Initial Necklace by Wiyomu, $15

Gold Block Initials (vintage deadstock), $20 at day-lab [only limited letters, but day-lab always has a ton of deadstock initial necklaces, so it's worth a look around the site]

Boleyn Necklace by Wendy Brandes, $300 for sterling silver (also available here in gold)

Sign Language Initial Charms, $5.50 each (pewter) by Talking Hands


And if you have hours to kill, please feel free to click here for the etsy search of "initial necklaces" which I left at page 40, though there were still about 100 pages left to peruse. I had to tear myself away so we could catch up on Project Runway.

Astoria Update

Finally! My camera is finally relinquishing my pictures to the computer! Here's what's been happening... (not much)

1. I still take a lot of pictures of the little muffins:




2. Sometimes I go outside. The water is half a block from our apartment and here's the view:



(Manhattan, Upper East Side)



(Triboro Bridge, Randall's Island, that second bridge is the Hell's Gate Bridge, which Amtrak uses)



(Shore where the water on the stones and debris makes the prettiest--and most unusual--tinkling sound. Also, look at the sad bike!)

Sweets

Food jewelry both fascinates me and creeps me out a little bit. Part of me thinks it's cute because who doesn't think cupcakes are adorable? But then there's that whole Mariah Carey "I'm a woman who refuses to act like a grown up and expresses that through very expensive yet juvenile jewelry" aspect to it. Know what I mean?
Anyhow, my ma (hi mom!) called the other day with a website she had read about in the paper that had itty bitty, reasonably priced foodstuffs for jewelry. Very wearable and cute. So wearable, in fact, that they get today's blog space. Without further ado, all from Pnut Jewelry...

Sterling Silver Cupcake Ring with Yellow Sapphire Sprinkles by Pnut Jewelry, $285



Me and You Popsicle Charm by Pnut Jewelry, $98 (I love this one.)




Cone Swirl with Wings Bangle, $199





Sterling Silver Ice Cream Scoop with multi gemstone sprinkles, $230


I usually don't post all from one site, but this place totally won me over for two reasons:
1. My best job ever was in an ice cream shop. The Dairy Queen in town had closed, so this guy, Mark, bought the shop and changed nothing about it. He opened it up as a pretend Dairy Queen (it might have been called Dairy Barn, but I can't quite recall) and really, if Dairy Queen had been a little more prtective of their brand image, they would have sued. First, my best friend got a job there and Mark ended up hiring a whole group of us, so we were always on shift with our friends. He was also never there. The dude was shady like you wouldn't believe, showing up drunk and taking handfuls of money from the register, but it was his place so who were we to say anything? I remember creating these amazing ice cream concoctions and having whipped cream fights and all of my meals coming from that store. Ah, the metabolism of a 17 year old.




Weezer Necklace, $30
2. For a very long time, I was a diehard Weezer fan and often wished to be of the Asian persuasion (good band name?) so I could have a chance with lead singer Rivers Cuomo, who had a well reported attraction to/ fetish for the Asian ladies (scroll down to "Personal Life"). That never happened. Then he got married and their records weren't as interesting anymore. But I still love them and get a little electric thrill when I see that W.


Speaking of cupcakes, the BF and I finally found an apartment! I often think of cupcakes when I think of our new place because we are right down the street from Martha's Bakery, which makes very Magnolia-like (but a little bit better, in my opinion), ones. I'm actually embarrassed that such a big draw for us (me) to the area was all the great food. We met with about five realtors, saw 20 apartments and after much deliberation, we went with the one that offers this view when you walk out of the front door (excuse the crappy camera phone picture):
(Upper East Side of Manhattan, across the river, and the Triboro bridge all lit up. Taken from the edge of Astoria Park.)