I'm happy to share this fun illustration inspired by Lauren Miller and Ari Graynor in the movie For A Good Time Call.... I drew this sketch of Lauren and Ari months ago, shortly after their film premiered but it wasnt until just a few weeks ago while visiting Lauren (who also happens to be my cousin) in LA that I finally framed it and gave it to her as a birthday present. Here it is sitting in her home along with the actual prop phone from the film and a copy of the dvd. This fabulous independent film is a must see for every girls-girl who's ever had a best friend, and experienced the roller coaster of emotion that is a female friendship. (Its also now on demand so you should check it out!)
I simply love this movie. Not that I'm bias or anything but my talented cousin not only stars in For A Good Time Call... but she also co-wrote the script, my other cousin Dan produced it, and last but not least I happen to make my big screen debut! Well, my coral J.Crew scarf did really, as I was an extra in one tiny scene but unless I'm sitting beside you to elbow you for the split second my coral scarf appears in the distance, sadly theres no chance of you spotting me.
If you'd like your own fashion illustration of print of the fabulous girls of For A Good Time Call... you can click on over to my Etsy shop because I've just added Lauren and Ari as a 8"x10" print. (The aqua and gold frame in the top photo, since people always tend to ask, is from Z Gallerie.)
How insanely adorable are these little girl fashion illustrations inspired by the lovely Sadie, daughter of Editor in Chief of Hamptons Magazine and Editor at Large of Gotham Magazine Samantha Yanks!? I met Samantha about a year and a half ago at New York Fashion Week. We had great chat about her love of fashion illustration, discussed possible custom sketches, and soon after started following one another on Instagram.
Aside from the recent book I illustrated (which I just posted about this weekend) and the occasional bat-mitzvah girl, I haven't actually drawn many children. Well, cut to this summer and Samantha posting all these amazing photo's of Sadie and her adorable Hampton's-chic looks that I continually "like" on Instagram, and the conversation of custom sketching her fabulous little daughter started up again.
I chose my three favorite looks from Sadie, which turned out to be Samantha's favorites as well! I tried to capture not only her style but also attitude and personality, which certainly shine through in her photos. I have to admit, I'm sort of obsessed with how these sketches came out! Samantha loves them too and we're making them into large prints to frame and hang in Sadie's room. I can't wait to see how they look blown up and in her space.
To commission a custom illustration of the little one in your life simply click over to my Etsy shop where you can see more examples of my custom work, read about the process and purchase a custom listing of your own. Also be sure and follow Samantha through her site, twitter and instagram for all her chic and "#spyLUXE" finds.
(Instagram photos by Samantha Yanks and illustrations by Brooke Hagel)
As if I wasn't excited enough for Baz Luhrmann's take on The Great Gatsby, after seeing these costume design sketches, friday can't come soon enough. For the women of Gatsby, Luhrmann and costume designer Catherine Martin collaborated with Miuccia Prada to reinterpret looks from past Miu Miu and Prada collections in 40 stunning cocktail and evening dress designs. (Some may even be memorable, like this Miu Miu beaded sheath I sketched of Kerry Washington at the Golden Globes, shown below in slate blue.) I love how the illustrator chose to only render the costumes in color and leave the figures white, similar to my Sociologie wine sketches. These beautiful dresses combined with other wardrobe collaborations including Tiffany jewels and Brooks Brothers suiting will surely make for a stunning film.
On a personal note, I've always had a love of Gatsby. Actually, I grew up in the town on the north shore of Long Island where F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, which in the book is referred to as "East Egg." It was always an exciting element of my hometown's history. In high school we were even offered extra credit for giving the address of the "the Gatsby House" in English class. (Thank you Mrs. Aufses!) Walking around the city these past few weeks and seeing all the Gatsby themed windows, tv promos, and now these wonderful costume design sketches, has gotten me so excited for the new Gatsby! What are you most looking forward to you in the new Gatsby?
Exciting new product news today, I've just launched in my Brooklit Etsy shop fashion illustration iPhone covers! The iPhone covers feature a collection of my most popular sketches (and a new favorite posted on Fabulous Doodles a few ago.) The covers are all white plastic, hard cases which easily snap onto any iPhone 4/4s with the illustrations clearly printed on the back. Shown above is "Lively Leopard," a sketch I drew for a Fabulous Doodles tutorial post about illustrating leopard. I have her on some of my business cards, she's a constant favorite, and was must have in this collection.
The next print in the iPhone cover collection is Miriam (shown above,) one of my personal favorites as well as a best seller in the shop. In all white with a big floppy black sun hat, she's uber minimal and effortlessly chic.
The next cover features the new illustration I shared a few weeks ago and am a little obsessed with! (Inspired by this photo of Olivia Palermo from my She's A Sketch Pin board.) The original drawing was illustrated on brown craft paper so it has a great tan linen-looking background. Her shinny hair, bold striped top and rosy cheeks really pop and compliment the background color.
And last but not least is Brooklyn Ballerina, a constant best seller in the shop and another personal favorite. I've had this one on my phone ever since receiving the first samples about two weeks ago. She's been a huge hit in person, on Instagram, and even caused a little stir at the Vogue Magazine offices when I stopped by last week!
All four new iPhone cover designs are available in limited quantities in my Brooklit Etsy shop.
(Olivia Palermo inspired Fashion Illustration by Brooke Hagel)
I'm so excited about these new sketches, especially this first one shown above. Lately I've felt stuck in a creative rut. I've been digging out some old tools and trying new things but nothing was doing the trick or "clicking." I revisited illustrating in charcoal and conte crayon, and playing around with fine point pens but that just didn't do it. A few weeks ago I dug out my watercolors in hopes that some paint would invigorate me and freshen up my illustrations, and although I had some fun and came up with a few [Golden Globe inspired] fashion illustrations, it just isn't for me at this time. After accidentally shattering the glass I used to clean brushes all over my glass desk, which then splintered into a million little shards and cut me up to the point where for two weeks it looked like I had been attacked by a cat, I decided to put the paints away. The accident also destroyed a client project I had to then redo, but luckily it just missed my new Macbook! So major crisis averted there.
A week or two ago I finally had a wave of creativity by delving into a new medium, black craft papers with white. I'm not sure if it was brought on by a stack of colored card stock paper that happened to be sitting beside me (waiting to be organized in the revolving mess that is my home office) or that I happened to be on Anthologys website that morning looking at the art of chalkboard artist Dana Tanamachi, but I decided to grab a sheet of black paper, pull up my "She's a Sketch" Pinterest board and try out a sketch in all white. Well one sketch quickly turned into three (shown above taped to my wall) and was hooked! They'd be too costly in printer ink with the full black background to make and sell prints of for my Etsy bridal shop but I'm just thrilled to be excited by drawing again and these high contrast brides were the first step in a developing my new illustrations and new style that I'm so loving now.
After black I decided to try out some of the silver, gray and tan papers as well. I also added more tools to the illustrations to try out different effects. I started with only white pencil and white charcoal but have now added black sharpies, Copics, opaque white markers and colored Prismacolor pencils. I'm so excited and invigorated by these new sketches. I happen to be traveling but I'm eager to try printing these once I'm back in my studio and seeing if I can easily reproduce them and make prints for Brooklit. I especially like the illustrations on the tan craft paper, both in the final resulting look of them and the process of creating them. It feels great to be excited about sketching again.
Honestly its a challenge to stay creative and passionate when your passion becomes a business, and clients want a specific style or look and it can feel really stale and uninspiring. Even though I'm a person who tends to resist change I'm learning that its important to change it up from time to time and try new things, especially in my artwork. In this case it was finding a new medium that's exciting me and livened up my work but it could be any change. A change of scenery, or maybe enrolling in a class and trying new techniques or sketching from models instead of images on paper, a screen or your imagination.
Thank you for all the encouragement. Working solo without a team around you is sometimes tough but every time I tweeted, Instagramed (@Brooklit) or texted something I was working on, I received such wonderful feedback and encouragement. I can't wait to continue playing with these new tools and techiniques and see where it takes me.
(June 1935 by Jean Pages, Dec. 1945 by Carl "Eric" Erickson)
Today I'm spotlighting some of my favorite vintage Vogue covers featuring fashion illustrations in anticipation of a party I'll be live-illustrating at tonight hosted by Vogue Magazine! I'm so thrilled to be working with Vogue, a magazine with such a long history of supporting fashion illustration.
(Clockwise from top left: Feb. 1935 by Eric, Nov. 1939 by Eric, June 1931 by artist unknown, and Oct. 1948 by Eric)
The majority of the covers shown here are by fashion illustrator Carl Erickson, who was known as and signed his drawings and paintings as Eric. Other notable fashion illustrators who were commissioned by Vogue include Rene Bouche, Cecil Beaton, Andy Warhol (whom I featured here before with his work for Harpers Bazaar), Jean Pages, Erte and Antonio Lopez.
(Clockwise from top left: Sept. 1953 by Rene Bouche, July 1935 by Cecil Beaton, and Aug. 1912 artist unknown)
I know models and in more recent years celebrities have become the norm to adorn the covers of Vogue but I have to say that although I may a little bias, I absolutely adore these vintage fashion illustration covers and wish they'd make a comeback.
Wish me luck and stay tuned for my sketches from tonight's Vogue event!
Today marks the 3 year anniversary of Fabulous Doodles, this little fashion illustration blog I started to share my projects, sketches and fashion illustrations that inspire me. Its been an exciting 3rd year of career highs so for this "blogiversary" I thought I'd take a look back and spotlight some of the 3rd years best moments:
Being commissioned by Barbie to create sketches for New York Fashion Week was certainly a dream project! Attending a slew of Fashion Week shows and events for the Fall 2012 collections was pretty great as well.
In April my sketches appeared as giant wall decals on VH1's latest fashion focused reality show, House of Consignment. The illustrations continued to make cameo's on every single episode of the season.
Months after sketching Kate Middleton wedding dress predictions for the Nate Berkus Show, I added a Kate Middleton bridal illustration to my bridal print shop, Brooklit Bride and she quickly became the most popular print in the shop.
This year I met lots of VIPS and added them to my photo album. It was a thrill to see which illustration(s) of mine they chose to snap a pic with. (VIP post 1 & VIP post 2)
Working on custom bridal illustrations is something I really enjoy, especially when I get to sketch gowns as stunning as this and ladies as pretty as these beautiful brides.
Attending a "Talk with Tom Ford" was something I will not soon forget.
And last but not least, this year I brought back two of Fabulous Doodles most popular series, Secret Weapons and Tuesday Tips.
I drew the sketch shown above especially for this 3 year blogiversary post and since I like how she turned I think I'll print up some birthday cards featuring her and add them to my Brooklit Shop. Thank you Fabulous Doodles readers for following me, commenting and encouraging me and my work.
How stunning are these David Downton illustrations inspired by Mad Men characters? I'm so in love with them that even though they're not my own I had to share them and their fabulousness here on Fabulous Doodles. Mad Men has been one of my favorite television shows since its premiere episode. In addition to the allure of the main characters, such as Don Draper, Joan Harris and Roger Sterling, the costumes are always a sight to see and in my opinion costume designer Janie Bryant is a genius. (Who also happens to have one of my dream jobs!)
It always amazes me when an artist, like Downton who works in a very stylized way can really a capture a person, feeling or mood without being overly literal. His illustration of Roger Sterling played by John Slattery (whom I actually spent a day working with when I was a wardrobe intern for Sex and the City!) in particular is so dead on in looks and attitude, it truly amazes me.
In the not so distant future I'm hoping to feature some more Mad Men illustrations, both by costume designer Janie Bryant (fingers crossed) and myself. (I'm thinking a "Women of Mad Men" series could be a fabulous addition to my print shop. What do you think?) In the mean time I'll certainly enjoy these three fabulous Downton Mad Men sketches.
This week I have another animal print illustration tutorial, zebra print. Similar to leopard print, which I wrote about here last tuesday, its organic, fluid and always different, therefore pretty difficult to mess up.
The key to a successful zebra print rendering is having a brush tip marker for the stripes. A brush tip is essential because you have to really "work" the marker tip. By pressing down hard for the thick areas then releasing up to the thin tip, you can achieve sharp points that create those fluid zebra stripes. Something else to keep in mind is the zebra stripe needs to be darker that the base color you choose. Here I chose black and white, but even in the examples below, with the more contrasting combinations, I rendered the stripes always darker than the background. It is possible to reverse them and render the stripes light with a charcoal pencil or gauche, but its not something I practice or recommend.
1- Color the base coat color and fabric shadows. For my example here since I went with a classic black and white print, I skipped putting in a base coat and only drew in shadows, which you can see in faint gray on the left side of the bathing suit, beneath the bust, and into the shoulder gathers.
2- The zebra stripes are next. As I said, a brush tip marker is vital for these to be really successful. You can start your stripes from the top of the garment in simple horizontal stripes then alternate from side to side. (See example below.) First a thick stripe coming out from the left side of the garment into a thin center line. Then from the right, pressing my marker down on the right side and releasing the marker tip up into the center just below the previous stripe from the left. And so on, covering the whole garment.
You can also start with or put somewhere in your print a "V" formation. This will mimic the center of a real zebra hide. (As I did towards the lower half on my bathing suit illustration.) If you'd like to opt for something more stylized or just do not want that center V shape, then you can stick to stripes, as I did with some of the illustrations below.
3- Highlights. With a white pencil or white charcoal add highlights. This will give the print depth and dimension. I added highlights along both front sides (or princess panel area's for those of you design students) as well as into the gathers at the shoulder.
Similar again to leopard, zebra can be rendered in any combination of colors to achieve different looks. Shown here (above) are two illustrations I drew with browns and natural tones for a more natural/safari look. While below are two where I went a little nuts with color. The first one on the left is a very 80's vibe with the saturated fuchsia and black combo and the one on the right is something a little sweeter, a pale pink background with coral stripes.
Zebra is truly one of my favorite prints to illustrate, paint, and have in little bursts around me, like on my umbrella, a clutch or scarf. In college I even had an entire accent wall of my bedroom that I painted in black and white floor-to-ceiling zebra stripes! Its classic and chic and in my book a fashion staple.
Let me know in the comments section how your zebra stripes turn out and what Tuesday Tip tutorials you'd like to see in the future.
(For this post I used pencil, white charcoal and Copic Sketch double-ended markers, offering both medium broad and super brush tips.)
This past tuesday night I had the pleasure of attending a "Talk with Tom Ford" at the upper east side's renowned 92nd Street Y. As a self proclaimed fashion nerd, it was surreal to sit and watch the Tom Ford talk about everything from being bullied as a child for carrying a briefcase in lieu of a messy backpack, to his unprecedented reign at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, meeting Richard Buckley the love of his life 25 years ago, to his stint at retirement before diving back into womenswear to start his own collection inspired by the 30 most inspiring women in his life. (Including the likes of Julianne Moore, Beyonce, Lauren Hutton and Marisa Berenson.)
Tom talked a lot about the mentors in his life and the advice given to him that he's always valued, such as "only hire people you want to have dinner with" which he learned form Dawn Mello and "you have one decision to make in life, you can either be happy or not be happy" which was his grandma "Duckie's" motto.
Even talking about being an anal Virgo, Tom oozed charisma and charm. He was entertaining, funny, and seductive in the way he answered questions and played off the audience. Fern Mallis even said how we were quite the lucky crowd because her inbox had been filled for days and her phone ringing off the hook with friends asking for tickets for the event which sold out instantly over four months ago. A second room had to be opened for people to watch a live-stream of the talk on screens. (The only other luminary the Y has ever offered that for was for Woody Allen!)
Ford shared so many wonderful insights into his life and career which I took many notes on but couldn't possibly write about it all. I manage to sneek these two photos, but for a more detailed recap of the event you can check out this Womens Wear Daily article and watch the video montage of highlights (above) that Fern Mallis shared a few days ago. A few of my highlights were:
-The influence of Halston on his designs (especially his early work), and Madame Vionnet on Halstons. Because "the art of creativity is concealing your source." -Coco Chanel
-He talked about the fact that people don't realize how hard people work in fashion, and with such passion. Its not appreciated or understood by those outside of the industry.
-Being at the helm of the Gucci Group and deciding what designers he admired and had potential but didn't conflict with his designs, eventually picking Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and Nicolas Ghesquiere.
-Gwyneth Paltrow at this years Oscars was one of his favorite fashion moments. He loved that she was brave enough to wear it and it was a proud moment.
It was a fabulous night and one that I will not soon forget. (Right up there with attending the Vogue fashion show and being commissioned to sketch for Barbie at NYFW.) How often you walk into a Y filled with air kissing fashion folk and sit in audience among such notable industry people as Glenda Bailey, Valerie Steele, Dawn Mello, Cathy Hardwick, Renaldo Barnette (whom I brought as my dapper date), Aaron Potts (another talented friend) and designer Brandon Sun, to name a just few, and get to listen to a fashion design genius talk for nearly 2 hours. I'm still on a fashion high, and it was three nights ago!
As my friends can attest to I'm a bit of a picture taking fanatic, therefore my favorite iPhone app has quickly become Instagram. In the past few months I've become a little obsessed and have been sharing everything from sneak peaks at projects I'm working on and quick sketchbook doodles, to my diy's, glimpses into my apartment and the occasional shot while out and about in the city. Shown here are a bunch of my recent favorites, but you can check out more of my pictures by following me, Brooklit. (I often share my photo's from Instragram through twitter too, which I also go by Brooklit.)
Instagram has many wonderful aspects to it but a favorite of mine is the ease of editing your images with color effects, brightness and adding a blur which you can easily adjust the size and focus of. Its so much quicker and easier than importing to photoshop. Its also fun to see what your friends are up to and "like" and/or comment on images that they post. (Here's a peak of my latest Instagram pic of a new Tuesday Tip I'm working on.)
You can now turn your Instagram photo's into something more; prints, books, magnets, even iphone cases. My friend Holly Becker of Decor8 recently did a wonderful round up of printing options for your Instagram shots, which you can check out here. I'll certainly be placing orders from a site or two from her list soon.
As you probably know from reading Fabulous Doodles I love my Copic Markers, so needless to say I was thrilled when they contacted me and asked me to write a guest post of a bridal illustration tutorial for their blog. Instead of featuring one of my custom bridal illustration client projects I decided to create a new, and more stylized, bridal print. If you'd like to read about my process from start to finish you can check out the guest post I wrote on the Copic Marker site.
I like this new sketch so much that I decided to add her to Brooklit Bride, my Etsy bride shop. I rarely alter my sketches once they're completed but I did tweak this print in photoshop so its slightly different than the one Copic featured. I elongating the black sash to just beyond the gown's train. Proportionally it just seems to work better. Hope you like the newest Brooklit Bride print, sultry, sophisticated and sexy Victoria.
Meet my newest bridal fashion illustration, Kate Middleton Dutchess of Cambridge. I have to admit I was a little obsessed and was one of those people who was up at 4AM tuning into the historic royal wedding.
Weeks before the royal wedding I was contacted by The Nate Berkus Show to collaborate with stylist Louise Roe on a illustration predicting Kate's gown design. Kate's dress was so top secret leading up to the big day, it was kept in a vault and even the designer was kept a mystery. Louise and I had a long conversation about the dress, even referenced a post I wrote with designer predictions, and we were on the same page as to what we thought her dress would look like. I sketched away and two days later I was sitting in the audience watching Nate and Louise discuss my sketches!
Needless to say I had put a lot of time and thought into her dress so I was thrilled when the wedding day came and I saw her step out and into that car. I couldn't believe how dead-on we were! There were some slight differences though to my design and the one Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen did, so I sketched out a new illustration here based the wedding pictures. Here's the listing of the Kate print and if you'd like a sketch of yourself or to give as a gift, here is a link with my custom work.
(I'm also obsessed with this wallpaper shown above; Graham & Brown's "Crowns and Coronets")
I'm so excited to share with you that Brooke Hagel Illustrations will be discussed on national television on the Nate Berkus Show's "Live Like Royalty" episode!
I was asked by the lovely producers to collaborate with uber-fabulous fashion journalist and stylist extraordinaire Louise Roe to illustrate her predictions for Kate Middleton's wedding gown. I was thrilled to be asked to work on a segment for Nate to begin with, but when I found out all the details and that I'd be working with Louise, and on a bridal illustration of the soon-to-be princess, it was just to good to be true.
("Crowns & Coronets" wallpaper by Graham & Brown, designed in honor of Kate and William's upcoming nuptials.)
So set those dvr's, tune in to the Nate Berkus show, and let me know what you think of my sketches! The show airs wednesday, April 27th on NBC. (Party planner to the stars Colin Cowie will be on as well! I'm also hiding in the audience with my mom, who happened to be in town the week the show taped, and my friend Renaldo.)
Living in Manhattan its hard to miss all the beautiful girls abound. Within the group, there are a select few that can only be described, at least to this fashion illustrator, as "A Sketch." Its girls who have that je ne sais quoi. A combination of the modelesque physique paired with a flawlessly chic fashion sense. Charlotte here, who I spotted in the Meatpacking District, is surely one of them!
Frequently I'm asked what inspires me. New York and more importantly, New Yorkers, always come to mind. (Here's a old post with some more.) So I've decided to share some of the girls here on Fabulous Doodles in a new feature called "She's a Sketch." I can't really take the credit for this one though. It was my good friend Renaldo whom I've featured here a few times before whom first coined the phrase. Years ago while strolling down the street with Ren, he elbowed me and pointed to a passerby saying "she's a sketch!" Ever since, we're constantly spotting "sketches." (Now I just need the confidence to approach em and ask to snap a pic!)
A chill has officially hit the New York air and its given me the itch to find the perfect fall cape. I was hopping around online, searching my go-to online stores for the right one for me. After an hour or so I decided to give it a rest and catch up on some of my favorite blogs. . .So what do I see on the very first blog I click on, Garance Dore, but this uber charming and chic capped sketch! I've gushed over Garance in the past (here), but I felt like I had to share this story with you and repost her capped sketch along with one of mine. I love it when things like this happen!
Nearly two years ago after a trip to Iceland, inspired by all the caped Icelandic girls I spotted, I drew Dylan here. She's been up in my Etsy shop for a while, and is one of my personal favorites. (She was also the illustration I chose for my very first Fabulous Doodles post.)
I absolutely love my new business cards, as does everyone I hand them to. I recently designed my first set of Moo cards and I can say with 100% certainly that once you go Moo there's no going back. The cards are heavy weight, have a smooth satin finish and show off every intricate detail of my fashion illustrations. With Moo your able to upload as many as 100 different images to each card order. This means that whenever I'm describing what I do to someone new I can now show them all my cards, a sort of mini portfolio, and let them chose the fashion illustration they like best to keep, with my shop website, blog, and contact info.
I uploaded 8 of my favorite sketches, but I'm thinking I may just place another soon to throw a few more illustrations into the mix. Perhaps a few more of my brides or red carpet looks. It also may be nice to use Moo to create my next round of gift tags for the holidays, since the cards are printing are such high quality. . .What can I say, I guess I'm addicted to Moo.
Eight years ago I, along with the rest of America, developed a serious crush on Nate Berkus. Within five minutes of stepping on Oprah's stage he began wowing us with his impressive makeovers and charm. The talented interior designer creates beautifully functional spaces that truly reflect the needs, lifestyles, and personalities of his clients.
There are many signatures to Nate's sophisticated, masculine, and modern design style, but one in particular especially resonates with me. Nate creates lovely walls of art displaying photo's, collections, mementoes and sometimes even personal "doodles" to be enjoyed by his clients on a daily basis.
These are some of the beautiful rooms from Nate's portfolio featuring his eclectic wall displays. I would love to take inspiration from one of these rooms for my small NYC studio apartment, add some fashion illustrations (of course!) and maybe swap the brass tables and frames with chrome and silver for a polished, fashionable and feminine space.
The room shots shown here are from Nate Berkus Interiors and the snapshots are mine, taken at Nate's first ever book signing, five years ago. My girlfriends and I all snuck out of work a few hours early and headed out to Long Island to be there and sit front row! I actually remember it like it was yesterday, Nate was a fantastic speaker, and we had a blast meeting him. The event was filmed by a camera crew so we were certain we'd have a little cameo on Oprah, but it never happened.
Recently Nate bid farewell to Oprah to star in his own show that will be filming here in New York! The only thing that would make the news any more exciting would be if I was working on it. (Hint, hint, Nate, if you need a design assistant with a talent for illustrating and shopping I'm available!) The show launches September 13th, so set your dvrs!
I wrote this post in honor of Nate Day on Twitter! Nate Day is the brainchild of the Moggit Girls. They've gotten just over 100 bloggers to participate by writing about Nate today and spreading the word about his new show. The shows producers are going to have one show filled with an entire audience of design bloggers so fingers crossed I'll be seeing Nate again soon! You can check out all the Nate Day blog posts here.
Do you ever get completely consumed by searching for something that it starts to become the only thing you see? Every store I go into, every website I'm on, I'm searching for a yellow bridesmaid dress for a wedding I'm in this coming August. Its like my eyes glaze over into the green x-ray "scanner vision" that you see in thriller/spy movies zeroing in on their targets.
I've decided that maybe like in the movie Field of Dreams, "if I build it, it will come." I've drawn a few sketches of yellow dresses that I would love to find for this wedding. Something simple, loose, short, and yellow (being the brides color of choice). It's in August, so it would be great if it was strapless and a light weight material, and something that would look cute with flats or espadrilles, because its outdoors and I'll be walking in grass, so heels are out.
Clearly I have a serious case of "yellow bridesmaid dress" on the brain. But I've drawn it, and now written about it, so fingers crossed this does the trick and my dress "will come!" It's now officially out there in the universe! :)
A great new website has launched that is all about my favorite boots, Uggs. As my friends can attest to, I love my Uggs! They are without a doubt the warmest and coziest option in a my closet. I have the "classic" in both chestnut and black so I can wear them with any outfit. They're also super light weight which makes them great to travel with. (I couldn't have lived without them during my vacation in Iceland last year.)
I not only outfit myself in Uggs, but "my girls" as well. Here you can see some of my notebook doodles sporting them. (Back in my school days every page of class notes was framed in little doodles like these girls.) I even drew Uggs in my recent holiday card designs here.
(Clockwise from top left: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kate Moss, Rachel Bilson, Jennifer Aniston, Hayden Pantettier, Avril Lavigne, and Gisele Bundchen.)
Magazines keep claiming "they're out" and they may not be the sexiest shoe choice, but when a chill hits the air girls grab their Uggs. Most of my favorite Hollywood stars regularly sport Australia's best export.
For the next month my readers can receive $30 off Uggs by entering the coupon code "221FAB" on BuyItRightHere. Through the site you can also learn about everything Ugg; care and maintenance, history of the brand, styling suggestions, and buy them of corse! Have I sparked your interest in getting yourself a pair? Happy shopping!
Eight years ago I, along with the rest of America, developed a serious crush on Nate Berkus. Within five minutes of stepping on Oprah's stage he began wowing us with his impressive makeovers and charm. The talented interior designer creates beautifully functional spaces that truly reflect the needs, lifestyles, and personalities of his clients. 
