Monthly Faves : September

Can I just say, HOLY COW, how is it the end of September? Cannot believe it. Right now is about the point each year when I desperately want make sure I'm enjoying each day and working towards the intentions I set in January, in hopes of ensuring I'm making the most of these final few months of the year.


• A useful bit of inspiration -- Why artists keep visual journals.
• Everybody and their sister has been recommending this site/magazine, but I gotta plug it too because Tavi is my neighbor. {Not really. But we do live in the same town!} And I would have loved to have had something smart and inspired like this when I was a teen.
• Pretty cool project combining the faces of celebrities from different eras.
• This post on time management by Doniree is perfect timing given my recent thoughts.
• This is the kind of war I can get behind. Love it.
• Do you use Google Reader but miss seeing blog posts in the context of the actual blog, design and all? Enter the Next button.
• A sweet looking new craft magazine called Mollie Makes that I can't wait to get my hands on.
• New blogs I discovered recently: Spoon Fork Bacon, One Sheepish Girl, Krameymartin


• Olivia filmed a dinner at the French chateau where she is living. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that this is not a scene from movie, and that she (and the others) are actually living that life. It spurs a mix of envy and longing within me, honestly.
• It looks like video recipes are going to become a regular monthly item! This month it's a plum jam recipe -- I love the vintage, Anthropologie feel of it.
• A beautiful film series called Paper Scraps that looks at how different creative people come up with and store their ideas.
• Coming soon from Wacom, maker of the popular computer tablets, is the Inkling, a real pen that will take sketches directly from paper to the computer. So cool.
• Newest obsession is vlogger and comedian Grace Helbig from DailyGrace {she's probably Old News to some, but she's new to me}. Some videos are admittedly obnoxious in that "she must have spent a lot of time staring at herself in the mirror when she was young" kind of way, but most of the time she's pretty hilarious. Some favorites: 200 Things I Learned from the Internet; her how-to cooking segments; love/hate relationship with bad reality TV; and Q&As.


• Despite my feelings about Zooey's new TV show (my review, in short: UGH), I am admittedly excited about She & Him's Christmas album, out October 25.
• Good thinking: Pandora has launched workout stations.
• And for those who work out to hip-hop/rap music, a perfect new tune for your playlist is Can't Hold Us by Macklemore, a Seattle hip hop artist that I discovered through KEXP.
• Joseph Gordon Levitt covering Nirvana's "Lithium." Love that boy.


• Don't Feel Sorry for Yourself. There's something kind of meta about recommending this site. It's a collection of links-- updated monthly-- to inspire you to dance, think, play, create, etc. They clearly stole the concept from me ;)
• Homemade Lara bars that don't cost $2 apiece. I'M IN.
• Galaxy nails are pretty stellar (ha!) but I don't think I have the patience to wait for those layers to dry.
• Photos of books and the bodies that love them. I used to pose with this book to make my husband laugh -- clearly, I need to submit a photo.
• Get some pilates-inspired workout inspiration from the new-to-me blog Blogilates. Check out her printable workouts and videos.
• As an always self-conscious/often quiet/sometimes socially-awkward chica, I'm loving this Blogging For Confidence series from One Sheepish Girl. This might have to be a project in the future. On my list: vlogging (*shudder*), bold lipstick, taking photos in public (still not comfortable with this), self-portrait photos posted on the blog, eating dinner at a real sit-down restaurant alone, making small talk with strangers, coming out as a blogger to real-life friends and family. I could go on and on.

Monthly Faves is a series featuring my favorite links and bits around the interwebs.