Monthly Faves : January

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

• I love a classic, homey bakery as much as the next carb-addict, but these modern designer bakeries are pretty stunning.
• Traditional painted portraits, modernized: Artist Sandro Kopp makes portraits during Skype sessions {photo 1 above}.
• To combat girl-on-girl hate and competitiveness, let's spread this message: The "Support Her" Manifesto.
• This is literally The Cutest Ever: Big Brother's Guide to the World.
• E Tells Tales asked readers to leave their anonymous resolutions. It's like Post Secret meets New Year's resolutions-- heartfelt and heart-wrenching. 
• I would have never thought to take long-exposure photographs of fireflies. Wow.
• Alan Arkin believes that all life is improvisation {which is something I can get behind!}
• The amazing Shannon and Kristin of {r}evolution apparel wrote about why travelers make great entrepreneurs.
• A visual breakdown of Wes Anderson films.


• A fabulous daily video from hey_rabbit that is a unique and beautifully executed interpretation of a 365 project.
• A beautiful film about letterpress by Danny Cooke that makes me want my own press SO BAD.
• Books and stop-motion animation makes my heart pitter-patter. So gorgeous.
• A look at Lumi Inkodye, a paint that develops and intensifies in the sunlight and can be used with photographic negatives to make prints onto fabric.
• A simple but effective video demonstrating why creativity needs time.
• "I want to go to there" place #3891476: Patagonia


• Newest obsession: We're About To Be Friends, the interview podcast from the amazingsuperfantastic Joy the Baker. I want to be friends with HER, desperately (but that's already common knowledge after my repetitive gushing over the "Joy the Baker" podcast from its inception).
• Blogger Kate Miss put together an album of cover songs with her brother. Could she *be* any more multi-talented? {photo 2 above}.
• First, put on the best pair of headphones you have, and then give this 3D-audio tune a listen. Beware: it's a head trip.
• I love getting new podcast recommendations, especially from other creative, humor-loving types.


• Make: a pretty gold-dipped porcelain bowl or hand-dyed napkins.
• Hack: Here's a stupidly simple way of making a custom case for your iPhone-- I bought a clear case from Overstock.com last week to try this out myself!
• Purchase: Amazing textiles by Nancy Straughan {photo 3 above}.
• Learn: How to make animated GIFs.
• Envy: This super adorable wedding (make sure you click "next" to view all the photos).
• Participate: I'm currently obsessed with the concept of food swaps, which has been heralded as a hot food trend for 2012. They involve a group of participants who gather with the purpose of trading batches of their homemade food-- everything from homemade vanilla extract to loaves of foccacia bread to foraged mushrooms. This is definitely something I'd love to take part in someday!

Do you like my Monthly Faves posts? Then make sure you follow me on Twitter! I've found that I end up with more links than I can possibly share each month, so I'm going to be regularly Tweeting some of the extra finds that don't end up in my Monthly Faves posts.