Gift wrapping in review...............softly filtered

Just experimenting with a soft and feminine palette in gift wrapping today. I have in mind a petite collection of beautiful gifts. It always means hunting for interesting papers, combining colours and patterns, finding the right ribbon, closet hunting for embellishments, the right background and the correct camera settings. Sometimes my review shots tell me to leave one idea behind and to start over, some say keep going. This one says keep going...............but it still has a ways to go, just a start in the direction I am heading. Thought you might enjoy seeing the process as it evolves. And yes, that is the silk bud that Daisy had stolen in my last post here. Which got me going in this direction in the first place. 

Thank you to readers who left such great comments last week and a warm and wonderful welcome to new followers.

Photos by Sande Chase

Daisy......................trouble in pink

On the wrap table last Sunday afternoon.

 Looking for trouble in all the wrong places...............again.

Photos by Sande Chase

Something really funny..........and some girls really do have all the fun

Some girls have all the fun. 

 This girl is having fun with the most shoes ever, go see here.
To say nothing about the nail polish collection.

And this creative lady with the most fun bracelet and bangle collection ever.....

Now back to those killer shoes that are "possibly orgasmic". We were just talking about Killer Shoes in this post here. Who would have thought? Click here for the most far-fetched laugh-out-loud claim of the day actually said out loud by Mr. Louboutin himself (sent to me by a friend). I do like to bring you a little chuckle now and again.

Photos from here

Buttoned-Up in Style........... gift wrapping

As you know by now, I am a big believer in hunting around in your own closet for stylish gift embellishments. In my last post seen here, that sparkly bauble was a button if you can believe it! Spare bits of sparkle (single earrings), brooches, bracelets, even pearly and colourful strands which I am working on right now. Next up was the box of random buttons that we all store away so I was delighted when I saw this most lovely of buttoned-up gift packages on this beautiful blog right here. They certainly close a gift parcel up beautifully, don't you think? So special on a gift envelope too. Now go see what buttoned beauties you already have on hand.








Photos from here

Gift Wrap Inspiration...........on a Sunday evening

Gift Wrap inspiration........started in the morning with these colours and mood.

By evening I was happy with this. 

Where do you find inspiration?

Photo 1/Photo 2 and 3 by Sande Chase/Background image from the book Woman In The Mirror/Richard Avedon

Killer Heels..................and my simple blog template is back

I feel like I am forced to say goodbye to a really good friend...........forever. Last you heard from me I was playing dress up for a wedding which was lovely, lovely, and putting on a pair of sky-high booties and layering a neck party. But back to the brand-new sky-high booties. I just don't think I can wear a sexy high shoe or boot ever again and that strikes me as downright sad. By 8:30 I thought it was quite possible I had a foot fracture, by 9:30 I hobbled out to the parking lot and put on a pair of flat boots which made me feel really silly and old.............like my 57 yr-old body just couldn't suck it up for the sake of looking taller and leaner. But then I noticed a few younger girls were also heading to their cars or changing to the flip-flops that the hosts thoughtfully provided. Then it hit me, none of us can but we do it anyways. We love our higher heels, how they make us feel and how they make us look. 

This is a gorgeous pair of heels. I love high heels, everything about them. Trouble is this Louis Vuitton model was wearing high heels all day long during a grueling fashion month and I can't imagine the pain she must still be feeling. Models help sell fashion but I bet you are as surprised as I was to see what they must do to earn those big modeling bucks. You can read about this disturbing part of fashion here. I am not quite wiling to say goodbye to higher heels quite yet, it would mean disregarding most of the pairs I have and the outfits that go with them. I just need to be smarter about it. Perhaps I just need more practise? I admit to becoming overly-dependant on the comfort of stylish flats in the past year so let's be fair to my feet. I was asking too much of them and my leg muscles that night. So here is the big question..........how do you keep wearing high heels? Or have you given them up completely? 

But if all practise attempts fail.................I can always wear them to stylishly ride my bike. I just can't say goodbye to my lovely heels.

Whew...........thought I was on another planet while trying out the new Dynamic Blogger template for the past few weeks. As you can see I am back on a simple template and changes to my other pages will be ongoing. Let me know if any of the changes are affecting your reading or viewing pleasure as this new template is wider. Thank you for staying with me while I experimented. I did enjoy visiting Mars but it was a bit lonely out there so I am back for now, or at least until blogger adds some more features. 

 Object of Desire here

Photo 1/photo 2 and 3 

Neck Party underway............for tonight

What I like in this Coveteur feature on stylist/designer/blogger Kelly Framel is how she displays her belts. And she has the most fabulous hair style. This whole jewelry display looks like a party ready to happen and is there anything more fun than layering and mixing up necklaces when you have a party happening tonight? 

I thought I was going too far, too many...........until I saw this on Kelly's blog The Glamourai. I would consider this a Neck Party for sure and I have one of my own underway for a wedding tonight. Have a fun, fun weekend. 










Photos via The Coveteur/The Glamourai

Healey & Grisham............dog lovers extraordinaire

~ Poncho Jesse ~

By now you know how I love dogs. Everything about them. How they curl up in your lap while you blog. How they burst with excitement when you take them for a walk. How they quietly wait for you to wake up even if you are sleeping in and they are wide awake. How they sit patiently while you straighten their pink bow each morning even if they find it kind of annoying and silly. What is not to love about a dog? What is not to love about a talented duo that photographs animals so beautifully? I fell in love with the website Healey & Grisham and their animal photography, but I fell really fell in love with Janet Healey and Joe Grisham when I read their story and found they are much more than that.  

~ Priscilla With Blue Feather ~ 

Along with running a boutique commercial photography/styling business in Dallas with high-profile clients such as Neiman Marcus, JC Penney, and Pet Smart, the stylist/photographer couple created a e-commerce site named Hooray For The Underdog where you can purchase their stunning images of rescued dogs. Their work has been featured on Oprah and this just serves as a gift source reminder, the exceptional Healey & Grisham animal photography is available for purchase on prints,  notecards, journals, folders, and other stationery products which is a wonderful gift for any pet lover on your list. Regally posed Priscilla above is available on a thank you card titled Merci. If you are in the Dallas area, you can visit their boutique where they display more of their work or you can arrange your own pet photo sitting. But I do have to say, I just love this concept of talented photographers styling shelter pets so that abandoned animals find a loving home. Because the sad truth is..........not every pet has someone to put pink bows in their hair.










Photos by Healey & Grisham

A few favorite posts this week.............on the graceful age

~ Beatrix Ost via Advanced Style ~

Every time I see this photo of this gorgeous woman I want to get up and cheer. And I want to direct you to two blogs, A Femme d'Un Certain Age  and Cashon & Co., that both focused their posting on aging this week, as in graceful aging, stylish aging, vibrant aging, the best kind. I prefer to gracefully side step the subject of plastic surgery, every woman to her own but if you do indulge and people start looking at you with a bit of puzzlement, obvious face scanning, and asking you to repeat your conversation, consider you may be over-indulging. Enough said. But fashion? That is a whole other story............I have nothing but admiration for inspiring women over 50 who knock-it-out-of-the-park when it comes to exploring tasteful, creative, and personable fashion. Now for some that might be a more conservative, classic approach, others a creative re-invention, both require a decision from any woman over 50. How am I going to fashionably enter this next era of my life? I know what it means for me.............and I know I wish I could wear a turban. Maybe I can?






My most sincere thank you to readers who offered input and support in the past week as I explored our new blogger template options. We are working hard to see how I can make this dynamic format work without giving up a blog header and my list of lovely bloggers. Today I have set the default view to Classic but remember you can click on the title and view this blog in any of the other views such as Magazine, Flipcard, Mosaic, etc. If you do experiment on your own blog, please make sure you back-up your original template. Enough said. 








photo from Advanced Style

I miss my Blog Header

I love it. I hate it. I am going to leave it for a few more days. And I am going to stop thinking about it, it being the new Dynamic blogger template, and talk about gift wrapping because it is way more fun than trying to figure out an advanced template. I miss my header, my sidebar, and feel like I am the only blogger who gets their head turned so easily. Yes, I can go back to my original template with one click and I will this weekend, but in the meantime I will leave it in it's dynamic version so the rest of you can see how it works for a few more days. I will say this, the dynamic views do give you a way to see your own blog and material with a fresh perspective and that can be good thing after a few years of blogging. But I won't say that I will stay with it............for now. I have more questions than answers. Like why is this dynamic viewing not compatible with an ipad? What's with the inability to add a blog header? Why give us something visually exciting, then limit it's use to bloggers that really only want to go to Tumblr? Though truthfully, perhaps that is the point. So let's just lower my blood pressure a few hundred points and talk about gift wrapping because I ran across this photo with a missing source and thought it made a good presentation point. If you have a gift of multiple boxes, buy the same gift wrap in the varying colours instead of the same one. Just makes it more visually attractive doesn't it? Turns your head a bit more doesn't it? 












Photo - unknown source.

I'll try it............the new blogger template

When a little pop up message showed up last night from blogger "Try new template", I was game for sure. In the last month I have been playing on Polyvore, Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, all in the quest to learn new things and understand what bit of social media I like. Polyvore was like playing with dolls when I was young and I certainly had the most expensive outfits ever seen ever on that site. Twitter and I are still feeling each other out, but I not sure I am that interesting. Tumblr kind of appealed to me in a multitude of ways even though I am convinced I am the oldest person by decades ever to re-blog. All this playing was a good exercise in convincing me I like traditional blogging the best as a means of communicating. Everywhere else I am too expensive or too old. But it did tell me I was looking to spiff things up a bit actually alot and after a two-hour meeting yesterday to introduce and design a new look, up came "Try new template" which is exactly what we were aiming for, only so much better and the timing was really weird. I was a bit over-eager when I saw this new Dynamic format and the 8 viewing options, I am such a sucker for visuals.......................but without the blog header, the blog list, the anything other than the post, all which will be added back in as soon as I figure this all out. I could revert back to the old format with one click but I thought I would see what you think. When you visit today, you will see a title in the top left corner that says Magazine, hit that and a scroll-down menu will list 7 other viewing options, this is where the fun begins (Classic is the traditional viewing method) in my opinion. I expect some problems, I expect a new learning curve, I expect not everyone will like it........but I also expect that you might find it very, very interesting and maybe a bit overdue. Tell me what you think. 








Photo via Tumblr

the details.................Burberry Prorsum

Late night fashion browsing..............these Burberry Prorsum Spring 2012 details caught my eye. Aren't these bags divine? Especially the top one. And that jaunty hat style........what do you think of it? 

All photos from here.

Missing Paris...........and blog friends

~ Photos by Lala of My Castle in Spain ~

In sharing these most divine Tumblr photos taken by one of my favorite  bloggers this week, I got to thinking about my Paris trip a year ago September. We were supposed to meet up with lovely Lala of My Castle in Spain during the second week and my sister-in-law and I got caught in a torrential downpour while Zara shopping on the Champs Elysées. Not a terrible place to get soaking wet. We couldn't get a cab, waited hours holding our wet shopping bags like the pair of pathetic drowned tourists that we were at that point, no phone, no way to get back to our hotel, no way to contact Lala. Someday I hope to meet up with lovely Lala if our paths cross in Paris again. Maybe by then I can learn to speak a bit of French? 

~ Photo by Haleigh of Making Magique ~ 

All of this got me to thinking about how much I missed going to Paris this year. How incredible and wonderful it was to spend time with Vicki, the talented Carla, meet up with sweet Haleigh her Paris photos above and below and Claudia who is brocante hopping right now, and how I would have cried if my Paris photos weren't retrieved when my laptop hard drive went off this week. I wonder if they think the same.............how improbable it was that we all met up that week in Paris and how we made it happen. 

~ Photo by Haleigh of Making Magique ~

It is difficult to maintain such unique friendships long-distance but bloggers tend to do it well. We make it happen by email, telephone, Skype, plane, or train and once the connection is made, especially once you have met them in person, it  becomes important to maintain the bond that most will say is impossible to keep. My brother called me the other day "Louise wants to know when you two can go to Paris again?" My reply was quick and decisive. "September 2012 for the Maison d' Objet and I know exactly who to call to meet us there". I miss Paris but mostly I miss my blogger friends. 

Apple Green Velvet Ribbon.............and powder puffs

I happen to like this new ribbon stock. Velvet in 1/2" width.

Apple Green. Black. Mink Taupe. Red. Vintage Gold. Royal Purple. Rich Brown.

This pastel green gift wrap base was used for a post a few weeks back. See here, it looks totally different. Sometimes I take these working samples apart and when I do, I usually like to see if I can quickly re-purpose the look. Use it to illustrate another gift wrap look and in this case show you how easily you can change the look by combining one solid paper with a strip of leftover paper of another style or pattern, just to give it some added impact. You do keep all those end strips don't you?  It isn't so much what patterns you combine as much as how you tie the two together. In this case, the black velvet ribbon does the trick.

Of course, I can't seem to leave well enough alone especially when it comes to gift presentation. I added this furry hair scrunchie and I liked the effect because it looked like a powder puff. This photo doesn't do the powder puff look justice and I will try another combination for a future post that will highlight the frou frou appearance. These elasticized hair scrunchies (I am sure there is a better name) are a great gift embellishment tool. You might want to stock up when you run across them at the dollar store. 

Another bow of Apple Green Velvet ribbon for added volume...............it's like this, somedays you tease your hair up big and dramatic, somedays it looks better flat and smooth. Weird fashion analogy but hopefully makes my point. Gift wrapping can be done to suit the occasion. 

I am off to play with a pink powder puff. 

All photos by Sande Chase ~ A Gift Wrapped Life

Supercalifragilipstick.................pucker up red

I went hunting for all my red lipsticks today. I have always kept a nice supply of red lipstick ready for those evenings when I am feeling daring and in the need of one dramatic stroke. But if there is one thing I noticed this week, we are going to be reaching for the red lipstick this winter. It seems to be the Pucker Up colour of choice this season. I couldn't be happier, I love wearing red lipstick, it makes me feel quite daring, yet polished in a one-stroke way. This fabulous illustration from here.

While I was writing this post, up came an email from Kate Spade well not her directly or anything and there it was............red lipstick. Supercalifragilipstick in red, as in Kate Spade New York now sells lipstick. Even though I have deliberately downplayed my make-up recently into a more age-appropriate palette of more neutral shades and lighter application, all bets are off when it comes to red lipstick. While I was looking at this ad the top right corner to be specific,  it reminded me of two entertainment/Fashion critics talking about the pink-and-red Monique Lhuillier gown that Zooey Deschanel wore to the Emmy's this past week.

The two male critics were really dissing the red-pink colour (it's actually a coral ribbon) combination which stuck me as kind of odd especially these days when every conceivable colour, pattern and style goes together and considering she is what 20? I admit it isn't a conventional combination but then Zooey isn't know for being conventional and that seems to have worked out pretty good for her. I thought it suited her youthful personality, and isn't that the point? Everyone well women anyways know red and pink go together and not just in fashion.........gift wrapping too.

Wouldn't the Kate Spade lipsticks make for a wonderful stocking stuffer?
The perfect gift wrapping palette for a fashion gift. Really, the holiday season is not that far away. 

Tell me.........are you going to wear red lipstick this season?

Image 1, 2, 3 via In Style, 4 and 5 via Martha Stewart

Random things I loved this past week......but mostly fashion

Such a sweet presentation. Lovely moulds used for petite gifts, just adore this idea. One of my favorite ribbons too. I go through this ribbon stock quite fast.

Speaking of details, this shimmery dress from the Marchesa RTW Spring 2012 Collection took my breath away..........however it is attached to that finest of fabric look closely at the neckline.Wouldn't you like to watch how this was done?

Speaking of watching how it is done, I watched Annie Leibovitz-Life Through the Lens back-to-back with Bill Cunningham ~ New York and marveled at the differences in their iconic talents. One snaps away quickly, the other sets up for hours, even days but both have a quiet, unassuming nature that is remarkable in it's contrast to the fashionable subject matter they both photograph. Both the DVD and digital versions were released last week. I meant to tell you on Friday so you could watch these documentaries on the weekend but all my computers went down............technology and I have had our differences this past week. Really big differences.

Photo of Bill Cunningham snapping away at NY Fashion Week 2012 by Jamie Beck. 

A stunning portrait of Michelle Williams inspired by Marilyn Monroe taken by Annie Leibovitz for the October issue of Vogue available on new stands September 20th. Talk about a bucket list.............a portrait by Annie Leibovitz for sure. 

Speaking of glamour. You didn't think I would not show you the whole dress did you? 

You know how I just adore the photos by Jamie Beck. This one especially and the one below. She had me looking at fashion last week in a whole new way and I just don't know when that girl sleeps. That fashion world is fast and furious even to watch exhausting in a good way when you are young and talented. I know I am repeating myself on this, but I do think she is the it girl right now. 

Oscar de la Renta wowed everyone, especially for me because he used Chartreuse so beautifully and social media I might add.  Another one for the bucket list..........one of these gowns. Any of them. Actually I would be happy just to touch one. 

Bows at Tory Burch. On Shoes!

~ Photo by Jamie Beck ~

On to stylish footwear. I couldn't help but notice the ribbon detail on the shoes shown at Tory Burch's first runway show last week.  You know how I love side bows. She just gave me permission to play with all my ribbon in a most fashionable way. She also has the boots I want here.

Though I am just about fashioned-out after watching the activity from New York last week just for fun, 

this just in from Coveteur at the London Fashion Week. Though you can't see them, these gorgeous shoes were designed by footwear designer Nicholas Kirkwood for the runway show of Peter Pilotto shoes have a coloured lucite fluro Perspex heel . Wouldn't these just make the outfit? Any outfit? 

Have a most stylish week.