Marilyn

I've Seen Days Where There's Always Sunshine

Shirt: UO * Sweater * H&M * Cargo pants: Old Navy * Socks: AA * Snowboots: thrifted

Happy Monday! Oh, wait, it's Friday. It's Friday??!? Happy Friday!!! Honestly, with all the snow, and two consecutive days off of work, I could not be more disoriented about what day it is. It totally feels like a Monday, and I begrudgingly got out of bed and showered, only to remember that it's Friday, which means I get what will feel like a one day work week (of course, that didn't change the whole getting out of bed and showering thing...). Snowpocalypse, you just know how to get on my good side. Thanks, snowy friend. Sniend.

I think we should start calling this sweater the Snowpocalypse sweater. The sneater...snoweater...okay, there's no cool way to combine those. The "Snowpocalypse sweater" it is. Seriously, there is nothing more perfect for a snow day than a big, cozy, comfy, warm, fair isle sweater. I wore it on Tuesday to work, and couldn't help but pull it out again yesterday. I love how its cropped length worked with the long under-shirt and thigh-high socks. If any outfit were to segment my body, this would be it, but somehow I feel like it works.

Emily and I didn't go far for our outfit pictures yesterday, but we both knew we wanted to take advantage of the extremely photogenic piles of snow and play around with some outdoor lighting, especially after being inside for 48 hours (minus the epic snowball fight, of course). Our little courtyard is all filled up with drifts, though some kind soul did shovel out a pathway. It's like they knew that there were bloggers in the building who would want somewhere dry to stand! Nice neighbor, huh? Always thinking of the bloggers. Also, we found a snow hole! Observe:

Anyway, have a glorious, snowball-fight filling weekend, folks. A snoweekend. I'll be bundled up inside again, as I'm not planning on venturing out to visit Joe (this is 10% due to the fact that my car is buried under two feet of snow and blocked in from the road with a three-foot tall snow wall, and 90% due to the fact that I'm lazy). I'll be watching movies, getting work done, and hopefully baking some tasty bread. What are your plans?

Title song: Caravan, "Stuck in a Hole"

Save Yourself, Serve Yourself

Standing ON Lake Michigan after the blizzard subsided

Snowpocalypse has hit Chicago, and it is good. This morning, although it's sunny, the roads are still impassable, cars are covered with snow, and schools, universities, and places of business are canceled or closed for a second day. The windchill, overnight and today, is supposed to be between -25 and -40 degrees. Needless to say, I'm staying in.

Emily and I, watching the storm roll in on Tuesday night

Yesterday was the first snow day that I'd had in years. Growing up and going to school in a snowy climate meant that school was canceled only for the harshest of storms. So when we found out that everything was canceled, the roommates and I made swift plans for a snowball fight/snowscursion in the nearest park. It was positively amazing. Since the whole city was essentially shut down, people were everywhere, wandering through the streets, playing in the snow, and taking pictures of the crazy world we had all woken up to.

We followed up the snowball fight with a walk out to the lake, just to see what was going on out there. It was nothing short of surreal. Lake Shore Drive has been closed since Tuesday evening, and what is usually an incredibly busy freeway-like thoroughfare was abandoned, except for all the people out walking. And Lake Michigan was a positively unbelievable wasteland of fog and snow. It was so calm, and dark, and never-ending. I've never seen the lake look remotely like this before. Remote was the perfect word for it, actually. The whole world seemed far away from itself, and nothing like the Chicago I've known for three and a half years. It was incredible, and beautiful, and striking in its starkness. And knowing that it was fleeting, and that in a matter of days the city would be running at its usual pace again, made it that much more stunning.

In our insatiable snow-day giddiness, we also started combining every possible word with the prefix "snow-" or "sn-". We had a snancake breakfast, and after returning from our hours out in the madness, trudging through drifts that went easily up to my hip and diving into piles of fluffy white happiness, we realized that we had a bit of a snangover. Snow day hangover.

Sweater: H&M * Pant: Old Navy * Boots: Target * Socks: Target * Belt: thrifted

I actually did get dressed for work before the storm hit. I'm glad that some of my 30 for 30 picks are so winter appropriate, since I walked home from work in an almost complete white-out while wearing this. So I am on track for my 30 for 30 challenge, though I'm really quite glad that I allowed long  underwear, snowboots, and outerwear to be an exception (a snowception?) to the rule. Though the pants I wore for our snowball fight were one of my 30 pieces, everything else I had on was a combination of long underwear, breathable wool, and outerwear.

How did you all survive the snurricane/snownado/snowpocalypse/snizzard of Groundhog Day 2011? And whaddaya think? Six more weeks of winter? Seems likely.

Walking down a deserted Lake Shore Drive

Title song: R.E.M., "(It's the) End of the World (as we know it)"

and the next day, I was the string and you were the kite.

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My Bent Objects exhibition is still up until February 11, at the University of Indianapolis. It got a good review here.

Our New Home..

My Godchild Alice covering the shelving unit in Vintage Papers!

We tried to add a touch of Bonzie Romance into the Contemporary Space...

The Henrietta St Side of the Facade with a lady checking out our Window Display. :)

Note the lovely Gallweys Handmade Irish Chocolate Café next door! (And yes, we can confirm that the chocolate is yum!)

The Retail Space at the Front of the Facade, the workshops/studio spaces are behind this area. :)

Gals,

It's been a tricky task to actually come up with the content for this post as it's so very personal to us both. A blog post couldn't quite capture how excited we are about the news that we are about to move into a brand new studio, which will we open soon for the very first time to the public. We are joining the Kite Design Collective in the new Viking Quarters in Waterford City which houses 5 different Craft/Design entities including their workshop spaces and a retail frontage. The Collective has an incredible array of talent and Irish products to share, Irish Handmade Glass, Sean Egan Art Glass, Anne McDonnell Print, Stradbally Jewellery and ourselves, Bonzie Designs. :)

The new Viking Quarter in Waterford includes attractions such as Reginalds Tower, Waterford Crystal, The Theatre Royal, The Museum, Greyfriars Art Gallery and not forgetting the gorgeous wee Gallweys Irish Handmade Chocolate Cafe right next door!!! The whole are is being reinvigorated as a Tourism Attraction and we are absolutely blessed to be a part of the new plans for the City.

It's always been a dream of ours to have a public space to share with our customers and after a long time plugging away the opportunity as arisen. We are going to keep you all updated on the developments but for now, it's a blog entry of gratitude. Thanks to those who supported us and our dream to date, to all of our clients for keeping us in silk and lace, to the Waterford City Enterprise Board for supporting the new venture and Waterford City Council for having the vision to redevelop our lovely City for the coming years. We hope that some of our International customers will stop by our studios the next time they are in Ireland it would be incredible to meet you in person!!!

New Store Address

Bonzie Designs

Kite Design Studio

11 Henrietta St

Viking Quarter

Waterford City

Ireland

Shop opening very soon!

more pics on the way as the venture comes to completion. :)

SHOWCASE PICS....

Our View from the Balcony..

We were so chuffed to find out that we had been included in the Top New Products in Ireland for 2011. Our product entry and packaging took pride of place down in the main arena in the New Products Gallery.

The Corner of our stand at SHOWCASE 2011.

I paid a visit to my pal, Elaine Sarah at her stunning Button & Co stand in the main arena. A Waterford based craft brand blazing a trail on the new Irish handcrafted products stage! I must add it took me quite a few visits before I could catch a chat with Elaine Sarah, each of the previous times I paid her a visit her stand was surrounded by very official looking buyers in official looking suits! To say that Button & Co are doing well would be quite the understatement. Also worth adding that this gal is one of the most hardworking, passionate and talented girls I know, very determined and deserves all of the success and support that is coming her way! Ger was also at SHOWCASE but she managed to get through without getting her picture taken so if anybody captured a vintage looking gal tiptoeing around in red tights and matching red shoes please do send them onto me.x

Our New Vintage Inspired Bridal Fascinators at SHOWCASE.

Gals,

We returned from SHOWCASE ( Ireland's biggest Creative Expo showcasing the best of Irish Handmade Products and Brands) at the RDS Dublin, last Weds Night and it's taken us days to come round from the exhaustion of the week away. We had a long week in the run up to the fair, prepping products, packaging, designing leaflets at 2 in the morning etc, ya know that kind of thing! Once the fair kicked off it was 4 days of networking, meeting potential clients and showcasing our wares to 1000's of buyers from all over the world. It was our very first time exhibiting at any trade fair so it was a really eye-opening experience. We were showcasing in the Balcony area under the Local City Enterprise Board. We joined forces with 4 other local craft/designers as part of the new Waterford Design Collective, Kite Design Studios ( more about this in the next post) . We are already looking forward to next year's SHOWCASE and hope to be exhibiting in the main arena, fingers crossed. :) In a nutshell, we made new contacts, made new clients and we were included in the Top New Products List for Ireland 2011, a great way to step into the New Year. We also had a chance to bond with our new friends in Kite Design Studios (our new home!). There was lots of chatting, a couple of bevvies all round a great opportunity to get to know one another over the 4 days away. ( Tell you all about these guys in the next post)

( A special Thank You to Waterford City Enterprise Board for the opportunity to participate in SHOWCASE this year. Thanks also to the Crafts Council of Ireland for running such a terrific event)

The Sum of All the Parts

Blouse: Target * Cardigan: UO * Pants: Old Navy * Socks: Target * Lace-up boots: Solestruck * Belt: thrifted * Headband: Goode

Today is the first day of the rest of ... well, February, and the 30 for 30 challenge. As Chicago and the greater Midwest area manically prepares for the snowpocalypse/snornado/thundersnow extravaganza that will start this afternoon, I'm manically preparing for 30 days of remixing the same 30 items. Okay, that's not true about the manic preparation (well, for Chicago it is. I'm pretty sure people are stocking up on fruit and bread and milk so that they don't get scurvy in the one day that the city might shut down). My preparation for the 30 for 30 wasn't manic at all. It was reasonable, and organized. I let my type A personality take over, and I calmly and carefully planned each of my 30 outfits. It wasn't until I finished my sketches that I had realized that I'd only used 28 pieces. I can't decide if I should make it a February thing and do 28 for 28, or have two freebie pieces, to be picked at will (and probably manically) later in the challenge.

I'm really happy with the pieces I picked, actually. I tried to go with things I hadn't worn much as well as much-adored wardrobe workhorses. And I tried my damnedest to pick cold-weather pieces, especially favorite winter sweaters. Who knows what the weather will look like in March, so this might be my last chance to bundle up with my coziest knits. So here are my picks: 2 dresses, 4 pairs of pants (one casual, three for work), 3 cardigans, 3 sweaters, 5 shirts, 5 skirts, 4 pairs of boots, one pair of heels, and one pair of flats. Oh, and a note on outerwear and ... well, innerwear, for lack of a better term: coats, snowboots, and layering pieces don't count for me. Seeing as it's February, and cold as can be, I have days when I wear upwards of 10 pieces on a single day, just to stay warm. Trying to do that with remix pieces would be downright ridiculous. So long underwear, layering shirts and tanks, and leggings (worn as a warm layer) won't count in my thirty.

A lot of you had expressed interest in the outfit sketches that I mentioned yesterday, so I thought I'd share. I mean, in all honesty, I did think about pulling out all thirty pieces and photographing them to show which things I'd selected. But let's be real, that would have meant pulling every piece out of my impossible-to-manage closet, photographing them, and putting them back. This was not going to happen. So sketches are the next best thing. It's a great visual for me, and I love looking over them trying to figure out what to wear. I probably won't follow them religiously, but they'll be great jumping-off points for days when I need a little push. Very few of them incorporate accessories, so I'll be able to flex my creative muscles a bit that way.

Alright, I better go stock up on batteries and bottled water. Groundhog Day Blizzard, here I come!

Title song: 311, "Mix it up" (Ah, remember 311? They were so badass in high school!)