Have a great weekend!

It’s true, we probably won’t dance on any tables, and champagne is only a maybe, but there is almost certainly (always) a bubbly of some sort in our future. Cheers! (image credit: Hello Love Boutique, available in poster form on Etsy)

Still, by departing tonight, we’re missing out on some pretty snazzy events in Boston. If you’re in the area, maybe these will strike your fancy on a dreary evening.

 Newly-launched Loom Decor offers customizeable home decor online – think Zoora, for your curtains. Tonight, they’re hosting a shindig in the South End to kick things off. Local liquors from Bully Boy, bites from Union Bar and Grille and a chance to win a design consultation for your space? Not too shabby for a Wednesday. (image credit: Loom Decor)

Jack’s not the world’s biggest clothing swap fan, but I’ve been following Boston’s Swapaholics team from the very beginning. There are some great things to be had at these smaller, more civil (read: non-Fashion Week) events! I’m a bit disappointed to miss this month’s, but so it goes. Tickets are still available! (image credit: The Swapaholics)

Smiling Stiletto is having an event with Boston Magazine on Newbury (with gift bags and cocktails, no less), and it’s opening night at the Boston Pops to boot. Dreary weeknights needn’t be dull after all.

This space, built on a smaller scale and populated with pedal-powered cars, serves as a testing ground for kids learning the rules of the road as drivers, cyclists and pedestrians before they can even get behind the wheel. (It looks pretty fun to boot.)

Read more about America’s war between four wheels and two, and why the Netherlands doesn’t have one, over at the Atlantic Cities blog. Need to brush up to do battle on Boston’s streets this summer? Revisit our tips for better biking, too!

We’ve spent the week knee-deep in custom monogram designs, which (would you believe) go hand in hand with cocktails; Jack was particularly excited to have tracked down a bottle of the brand new Wire Works gin for his martini. We’ve been following GrandTen’s progress since they began their permitting process to distill in Boston, and it’s fun to finally have their (rather excellent) product in our hands. A vodka and a rum are in the works, and GrandTen hopes to have their space in Southie ready to go for tours, tastings and sales this summer. Follow their progress on facebook and twitter, or head to their site to learn more and find your own bottle. (image credit: Union Jack Creative)

We have a trip to the left coast in our future, and with transit planning comes my penchant for pining after new bags. This morning, this gorgeous tote arrived in my inbox (email, sadly, not in person). Handmade by Beka Forney of Louise Goods for Of a Kind, the Landscape Tote is realistically not capacious enough for my life – which is for the best, since this beauty sold out within hours. For more lovely leather from Beka, check out Louise Goods; for an interview with her and a peek behind the scenes, click through to Of a Kind. (image credit: Of a Kind)

It’s not quite beach weather yet in these parts, but this augmented reality sandbox seems like it would brighten even the dreariest of afternoons. A Kinect 3D camera and a projector allow for real time adjustments in topography to be portrayed on the sandbox itself; water flow can also be simulated and projected in real time. A team from the UC Davis W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences built the box as part of an NSF-funded project on informal science education. How cool is that? (video credit: okreylos)

Have a wonderful weekend!

You can find more of Silvia’s work on Facebook, deviantART and bigcartel; for more timelapse painting, head to her YouTube channel.

video credit: Silvia Pelissero (agnescecile)

We also finally got around to photographing invitations that were designed for Danielle (and Nick’s) shower and bachelorette weekend.

The client wanted to use the same fonts that Nick and Danielle had chosen for their Save the Dates, and to incorporate the dark plum color from the bridal party as well. We stuck with flat cards, and created two coordinating invites. Shower invitees received a card reading, “Join Us”. Those also invited for the bachelorette getaway immediately following the shower received a second card: “…For the Weekend”.

The invitations were printed on a white stock as flat cards, slightly lighter than the Save the Dates since some envelopes contained two cards. We also used a floral motif in dark plum that will likely feature in Nick and Danielle’s thank you cards as well.

One of my very favorite discoveries of this week was Colossal, an art and design blog headed by Christopher Jobson. How I’ve missed Colossal thus far is beyond me, but every post is a delight – go on, check it out, but don’t say I didn’t warn you when you get lost in the archives. (image credit: Colossal)

Thanks to Colossal, I was also introduced this week to the Trashcam Project. In cooperation with Christoph Blaschke, Mirko Derpmann, Scholz & Friends Berlin and the Hamburg sanitation department, standard trash containers were transformed into enormous pinhole cameras, and used by Hamburg’s garbagemen to capture their city on film. The results are both surprising and stunning – see more on the Trashcam Flickr feed. (image credit: Trashcam Project)

Today marks what would have been the 54th birthday of artist Keith Haring, and Google honored his memory with a doodle. I’m a bit partial to Keith, both as a graffiti artist and a hero in the hometown that we shared; when our paths last crossed, I was far too young to understand his impact on the art world, AIDS or that I really shouldn’t glue the pages of the coloring book he gave me together. Today’s Google doodle made me smile. (image credit: Google)

Cross your fingers for sunshine, and have a lovely weekend!

I had tucked the photo-sculptural work of Scott Hazard away in a Pinterest board ages ago, but this particular piece – Exhaust Escaping - was the first thing that came to mind when I happened across Tobias Tovera’s watercolors at Anthology.

Be it the jagged edges, the layers of blue or the incredible depth that each artist’s disparate technique lends to their work, these two pieces will forever be linked in my mind.

Head to the portfolios of Scott Hazard and Tobias Tovera for more of their fascinating work!

image credits: 1-Scott Hazard; 2-Tobias Tovera

We caught wind of Boston-based OoOTie (rhymes with bow tie) through 9tailors – and oh, what fun. OoOTie offers up a selection of limited-run bow ties, some of which are the work of local designers, and includes shipping and tax in the cost of the tie. There’s a tie-of-the-month club (Triple-O), an app to assist in “trying on” OoOTies, tips on how (and how not) to wear each tie, and a portion of the proceeds goes to support charities chosen by the designer. (image credit: OoOTie)

Also in the realm of new-to-us products, STACKED Wines has thrown their hat into the ring of wines that travel well. Though we can split a bottle of red with dinner without batting an eye, full bottles of wine and solo cups are not the most ideal travel companions, and I found the STACKED concept – 750ml of wine split between four bulbous, sealed and self-contained glasses – intriguing. What do you think? Is wine in its own glass wonderful or wasteful? (image credit: STACKED Wines)

Also this week, New York Magazine released an itinerary that is basically our dream life, as part of a series on How to Make It in the Art World. The New Art World Rulebook, as cheekily espoused by NYMag, includes 18 rules thus far, each accompanied with an article exploring the trends, people, places and status of art right now. Rules aside, they’re fun reads for anyone interested in contemporary art. Now, to keep dreaming about that itinerary – Rule #16. (image credit: New York Magazine)

What struck your fancy this week?

Our first real fight was over a Scrabble game, too. (Here’s the thing – Jack is next to impossible to beat. In a fatigue-fueled act of desperation I may have tried to, um, bend the rules in my favor.)

Between us, we own at least two Scrabble sets, and of course the official game dictionary. We haven’t had much time for hours of linguistic gaming lately, and Words With Friends is a sad replacement for the late, great Scrabulous – but we were smitten with this minimal, typographic take on the classic nonetheless.

Andrew Clifford Capener worked on this updated Scrabble design, featuring a magnetized walnut board and walnut tiles in a selection of fonts. The design is minimal, the storage system is elegant and we have weaknesses for walnut, word games and typography. Perfect!

Sadly, the limited run has already been sold out, but sign-ups are still open for the waiting list, just in case.

You can find a full interview about the project over at The FontFeed, or head to Andrew Clifford Capener’s site to see more of his work.

image credits: 1-Union Jack Creative; 2,3,4-Andrew Clifford Capener