Today I’m frantically trying to tie up some loose ends before I take off for Munich and Cairo (this little LAMA is in serious need of a vacation)! I have so many great sites lined up on my vacation agenda with the first one taking place right in the San Francisco airport. Since 1980, SFO has been treating it’s traveling patrons to a bit of art throughout it’s terminals. Through October, the San Francisco Airport Museum is exhibiting the work of the iconic American designer Russel Wright entitled, Wright at Home: Modern Lifestyle Design 1930–1965

RUSSEL WRIGHT IMAGE FOUR Residential line of plastic ware, shown in salmon.
Winner of the Museum of Modern Art?s Good Design Award in 1953, it was the
best selling dinnerware in the US in 1957.
Photo by Masca, courtesy Manitoga, Inc./Russel Wright Design Center.

Paving the way for future personality-driven lifestyle empires like Martha Stewart, Wright was considered to be the first brand name celebrity in home furnishings. Selling 250 million pieces of his American Modern dinnerware between 1939 and 1959, Russel Wright was hugely successful at bringing modern design to the general public.

photo via Apartment Therapy

I am so excited to have the fortune to catch this awesome exhibit on my way through SFO. Russel Wright is one of my favorite modern American designers of all time, right up there with Charles and Ray Eames. I’ll have to be sure to get to SFO with enough time to take in this can’t miss exhibit. *fingers crossed everything goes smoothly tomorrow morning.*

I’ll be sure to post some great travel photos while I’m away. I can’t wait to get back to LAMA! There are so many great new things coming to the shop when I return. Hasta luego!

Congratulations to Emi Elias (owner of the adorable Buenos Aires based shop CouCou, artist, maker of beautiful objects and all around wonderful person) on her recent wedding. I hope you enjoy her gorgeous photos of this sweet and tender day. What a beautiful bride!

Estimado Emi:

Felicitaciones por tu matrimonio. Deseo que Santiago y tu disfruten de toda la felicidad del mundo.

Es tan hermoso cuando dos personas amables y buenas se encuentran una a la otra. Mi ferviente deseo es que ustedes tengan una vida larga y feliz juntos y que siempre sea con paz y regocijo.

Un fuerte abrazo para los dos.
Christine

Now is the perfect time to pick up some of the LAMA favorites you’ve been eyeing all year long! Christmas gifts for my coolest friends and family members? Check!

Stock is limited so be sure and hurry! Happy shopping!

One of my favorite things about owning LAMA is receiving sweet emails from people who are fans of the site. Who doesn’t love a great compliment? Over the weekend, I received a great email from Stephanie who hosts a weekly inspiration challenge on Splitcoaststampers. Splitcoaststampers is an online community for paper crafters who love rubber stamping, card making and scrap-booking. This week’s inspiration challenge hosted by Stephanie was based on favorite LAMA products. Challenge participants were asked to create a greeting card based on either Stephanie’s product picks or on their own. What a fun weekend challenge! Below are images of some of the great entries. Can you tell which LAMA products inspired these cards?

Ann’s entry

LacyQuliter’s entry

Barbarar20’s entry

MaryR917’s entry

Kim Scotti’s entry

flmom’s entry

Stephanie’s entry

Thank you Stephanie for drawing your inspiration from LAMA! It was so much fun to check out all of these beautiful cards. To view all of the great entries, click here.

Be sure to join the mailing list in order to get first dibs on all the great LAMA products going on clearance. Trust us, you’re going to want to be the first to know!

In all of my busyness lately, I almost forgot this month is Hispanic Heritage month! (shame on me) Better late than never I suppose. In honor of this month, I thought I would share a few of my favorite fellow Hispanics (in no particular order):

Carolina Herrera

Hailing from Caracas, Venezuela, classy and chic Carolina Herrera is one of my all time favorite fashion designers. Starting her fashion empire in 1980, Carolina has been named one of the best dressed women in the world (what a title to hold!) and was responsible for many of Jacqueline Kennedy’s most fabulous looks.

Cesar Milan

Who loves dogs more than I do? The answer just might be Cesar Millan. Born in Culiacán, Mexico, Cesar is best known around the world as “the dog whisperer.” I can’t get enough of his television show. Miles and I once watched eight episodes in a row on board a Jet Blue flight. One day I hope to get my parents’ three evil chihuahuas on an episode. (¡Ayúdeme Cesar!) Until then, they’re getting his book for Christmas. Favorite Cesar Millan t.v. moment? His appearance on South Park!

Guillermo del Toro

Director, producer, screenwriter, designer and genius makeup artist, Guillermo del Toro’s brilliance is never ending. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Guillermo is best known for his incredible film Pan’s Labyrinth. Personally, my favorite film of his is El Orfanato (he was the producer of this project.) If you haven’t seen it, SEE IT! It’s both terrifying and touching. I can’t wait to watch it again come Halloween. On second thought, maybe I won’t. The basement of my apartment is, as a friend of mine would say, “El Orfanato-like” and it’s taken me nearly a year not to think about it every time I’m down there. Scary!

Dora The Explorer

I was so excited when I first learned about little cartoon Latina Dora Maquez, aka, Dora the Explorer. It would have been nice to have Hispanic cartoon characters to look up to as a little girl but, as I said at the beginning of this post, better late than never. What I love about Dora, aside from her adventurous spirit, her love of travel and her adorable friend Boots the monkey, is that she takes time out of her busy travels to teach her tiny viewers words in Spanish. What I’m jealous of? The fact that every time she and boots successfully accomplish a task, she has her own personal fiesta trio that appears to congratulate her with their music medleys. Where’s my personal fiesta trio?!

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Maybe things have been rough in this country for the past eight years or so but, on the flip side, what a great time we are living in when a Hispanic female is appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court! Born and raised in The Bronx of Puerto Rican descent, Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic (male or female) to ever serve on the Supreme Court. What I admire about Sonia is her resilience. From my own personal experience, it’s not easy being a Hispanic woman in this country. To see what Sonia Sotomayor has managed to accomplish thus far in her life fills me with inspiration and hope. No matter your political affiliation, you have to admire the glass ceiling Sonya has managed to shatter.

Last Thursday I had the privilege of attending the Crave SF book release party. Crave is an awesome book that showcases some of the best women owned business throughout cities like Chicago, Austin, Seattle, Vancouver, etc. I was SO excited to have been invited to participate in the Crave San Francisco Bay Area edition.

I grabbed this great Crave description off the Crave website: “Crave is the most unique and stylish guidebook for Bay Area living. It is a celebration of women entreprenesses that showcases some of the most creative, interesting, and gutsy proprietors throughout our city.” Don’t you kind of love the word “entrepreness?” Someone once referred to me as a “shop proprietress” which I also love. So many great new job titles for my next business card!

Name tag and Champaign in hand. Ready to mingle.

I’m still pinching myself for having the opportunity to be a part of this amazing book. It was so cool to see so many of my favorite business around town in the same book and meet some of the very cool women behind them. Thank you Crave for inviting LAMA and myself to participate! It’s such an honor. If you happen to catch this blog post today, be sure and become a LAMA fan on Facebook for your chance to win a free copy. I’ll be opening up a contest to Facebook Fans only this week!

LAMA’s Crave SF page. That’s me smiling. :)

Check out some of the Crave SF party pics below. I was so busy gabbing, drinking champaign and attacking the hors d’oeuvres all night that I forgot I had a camera with me. Thank goodness I was able to grab some photos from the Crave Facebook page. Thanks Crave!

Big stacks of Crave books. Glossy. Yellow. Pretty

Featured entrepreness name tags. Recognize any names or cool businesses?

Crave-ing cupcakes? I was!

A room full of awesome women. It was a great night!

To purchase a copy of the Crave SF book, you can find it available on Amazon. To find out if Crave features your city, click here.

Check out my fun interview on The Daily Etsian today! Hannah, blogger extraordinaire, was kind enough to interview me on her awesome blog which is all about sharing handmade finds from around the world. Thanks Hannah!

To read the full post, click here.

I don’t know how everyone else is feeling today, but I’m having a really difficult time getting back to work. It’s probably because I had such a great holiday weekend filled with bbq’s, friends, magazine flipping in the yard, and movies. Sorry LAMA, but it was good to get away for a few days. Now that I’m back, I couldn’t help but share my excitement over the movie my boyfriend took me to see yesterday, 500 Days of Summer.

It was a great flick but what I really went crazy for in this film was actress Zoey Deschanel’s wardrobe. Hello dream closet! How jealous am I? I absolutely adored how gorgeously girly everything she wore was. I couldn’t wait for each new scene just to see what she would be wearing. Head to toe, I thought it was perfection and just my style. (or just my aspiring style)

Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt also had a great look going but what really caught my eye was his amazing Los Angeles apartment in the film. I loved the enormous chalk board wall behind his bed that he used to draw a headboard on along with the rest of his architectural doodles. I wish I could find an image of it! You’ll check have to check out this movie to see what I’m talking about.

Thanks 500 Days of Summer for all the great inspiration! I hope everyone had an awesome Labor Day weekend!

Enjoy your holiday weekend. I know I’ll be enjoying mine.

*photo by Jonathan Canlas spotted on Ruby Press blog.