books | Sleepy Coffee and Fables

Art Journal Monday- I Beheld Enchantment

Posted on January 19, 2015 by FablesandCoffee

I spent the weekend doing compliance training for work (please please PLEASE do not ever mention kickbacks or the Dod-Frank act to me again, ever, dear gods ), watching random movies and researching recipes to use white wine with. Why white wine? I have no idea, just that there’s a semi-decent bottle of it in my kitchen that I bought to cook with BUT I have no recipes to use it with, and the added bonus of the fact that I don’t even like to drink wine unless pressured to at fancy restaurants. I also dyed my hair various shades of purple, but I think the white wine is the more interesting part of this all, honestly.

Songs on repeat this past week:
Two Birds- Regina Spektor
GDFR- Flo Rida
Rise- Hans Zimmer
Wait- M83
Uma Thurman- Fall Out Boy
Pumpin Blood- NONONO
StarWaves- Anthony Gonzales
Younger (Kygo Remix)- Seinabo Sey

Full disclosure, these pages contain images from pages I took from Flow Magazine, a really fantastic magazine for anyone who loves papercrafts and the lifestyle therein. It’s unfortunate that I keep finding these lovely imported magazines to crave and lust after, because they’re almost always at least $20 a pop and while I’m not exactly hurting for money, dropping more than $60 on magazines feels utterly decadent in the worst way sometimes. Still, loveliness isn’t cheap is it?

Art Journal Monday- Wage Your War

Posted on January 12, 2015 by FablesandCoffee

When asked, what the greatest influence on my life has been (which is a rather telling question isn’t it?), I usually pause and try and gauge the person asking this. Do they mean who has been influential in my life, and if so, do expect to hear stories of families or idols cut from magazines? Or do they wonder about aesthetic pleasures and wish to carve my colors from me with palettes from J.W Waterhouse and the bone structures of Guadí? Maybe they mean world events, geo-political and regional… or to delve into recent poli-sci tensions with fervor. Music, perhaps? Film and cinema? Internet memes and obsessions?

So many routes to go, it’s almost as if that questions could be too broad to answer.

To make it simple though,(and if the answer really warrant’s an honest response ) I usually say, Lord of the Rings and Alice in Wonderland. Books or movies, you might ask? Both, why not both. It’s the foundations of these worlds that I love,the passion for escape and world building, a concise and yearning love for a good story told. I could spend hours, days, weeks analyzing and falling into either world and indeed, for most of my teenage years nothing came as close to ruining my grades as these obsessions of mine. Aragorn, Merry, Samwise, Elrond, The White Rabbit, the Red Queen, Knave of Hearts, Bill the Lizard not to mention the Cheshire cat and Gandalf, I would follow them day after day, adventure after adventure and to this day I still spend hours out of my day pouring over fantasy illustrations that bear remarkable resemblance to the world of Middle Earth in their fantastical scope or fashion spreads that pay silent homage to the Looking Glass realm in the colors of their gems and fabrics.

Aesthetically, philosophically, morally and ever always, my life will be influenced by Lord of the Rings and Alice in Wonderland and if that sounds utterly strange and slightly nutty, well, I mean, what can you say?

Songs on repeat this past week:

Earned it- The Weeknd
Radar Detector- Darwin Deez
Shut Up and Dance- Walk the Moon
Thunder Clatter- Wild Club
Azure- Paul Kalkbrenner
Yellow Flicker Beat- Lorde
Infinity- Marek Hemmann
Come With Me Now- KONGOS

So who else is planning the most epic of epic marathons when the final Hobbit movie comes out and you can watch all three PLUS the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings in one sitting? My butt will probably meld with the couch but it’ll be worth it i’m sure.

Art Journal Monday- Take Me Home

Posted on December 29, 2014 by FablesandCoffee

Man, I was not feeling the art this weekend. Don’t know why, inspiration was just not there, but I still wanted to push myself to get past it and here we are. It’s cool if you’re not feelin’ it because let me tell you, after doing these pages I just laid my head down on my desk for a good bit and thought about eating gelato. I tried to jump start my mind with music, but I kept going through weird moods and jumping from Beyoncé to “best of” lists on Spotify to study music mixes on 8-tracks. I finally settled on Daughter, which seems to be my default music soundscape….and i’m not actually sure what that says about me.

When I go into work and they ask me what I did over the weekend,my answer will be “Bought clothes and productivity apps while sporting my new Sloth Parachuting super extra large t-shirt. It’s huge but I love it, you know, so comfy…..er….how about you?” I think it’s obvious i’m the awkward co-worker who brings her own coffee so she doesn’t have to make smalltalk at the coffee bars.

Songs on repeat this past week
Born To Die- Lana Del Ray
Weekend- VÉRITÉ
XO- Beyonce
Drift- Galimatias
Youth- The Crookes
Samson- Regina Spector
Ne me quitte pas- Jacques Brel

Lets end this year with a bang. Or in my case, lets end it in a small sugar-induced coma.
~m

Art Journal Monday- Spirits In Your Head, Love

Posted on December 15, 2014 by FablesandCoffee

I’ve spent the past week trying to immerse myself in office life (who knew fancy trousers cost so much?How did I actually end up disliking hour lunches?Why are all the good looking people in the IT department?) and wrapping up the last of my holiday shopping so I don’t have to brave the shops the week RIGHT before and accidentally end up tripping over someone in my haste for that last box of perfect smelling tea.

The year itself is coming to an end, right around the corner. Soon enough we’ll start seeing those ” and in this New Year...” posts, all those lists of things to do and goals to accomplish and while I’m always the first to commend people on being motivated towards the things they want,i’ve started to realized that that time frame of Old Year—> New Year has faded dramatically for me. Last year this time, I was gearing up to head to California to spend time with my best friend Watson, and explore places familiar and strange. This year, i’ve got a new job, one that I wouldn’t have even considered applying to before, and no idea of my next adventure in sight. And I think… i’m ok with that.

I still think of myself as a human disaster, but as this year comes to a close, maybe i’ll see myself as closer to a balled up blanket on the bed than the epic triple car crash collision of before?

Music on repeat this week-
Animals- Maroon 5
Tomorrow– Daughter
Do you…(Cashmere Cat remix)– Miguel
The Hanging Tree– James Newton Howard
Border Crosser– Trails and Ways

Art Journal Monday- From Texas, With Love

Posted on December 8, 2014 by FablesandCoffee

I think i’ve mentioned this before, but did you know, i’m not actually a Texas native? I’ve lived here in Northern Texas for about 4 years now, which any true Texan will till you “ain’t nothing“, a sentiment i’ll agree with in a heartbeat. My roots lie in NYC, Brooklyn to be exact (though the Bronx was where I spent a good chunk of my screaming childhood years) and my real formative years were sown in NorCal. After all this time though, Texas isn’t something i’m going to be able to just shake off whenever I move on, “ ya’ll ” being stuck true and deep into my lexicon. I don’t mind though, as much as the idea of living in Texas would have seemed absurd to me 10 years ago, the idea of one day saying goodbye to these wide open spaces fills me with a pang of quiet worry. But i’ll cross that bridge when I come to it yeah?

Music on repeat this week:
Service Bell– Grizzly Bear
In This Shirt– The Irrepressibles
I’m Gonna Be(500 Miles)– Sleeping At Last (cover)
Make You Feel– Alina Baraz & Galimatias
Santa Fe– RENT
Is there a Ghost– Band of Horses

And where where might you be from, stranger?