Leonid Afremov:

I’ve spent some free time this past week working on some of my art pieces. I’m going to put these on my etsy page in the next day or two. The first set are of my retablos and then there are three vintage dolls I’m selling.

All my art is made with a combination of thrift store items and vintage jewelry.

Oops, I have no idea why, but the right half of all my photos is cut off!

Frida Pink & Purple

Frida Red & Gold

Frida Silver & Gold

Frida Blue Parrots

Frida Monkeys

Frida Tropical Colors

Aztec Princess -1

Aztec Princess -1 (Back)

Art Deco Darling - 1

Art Deco Darling -1 (Back)

Azteca Warrior

Azteca Warrior (back)

I love, love, love this scarf. A lot.

I'm wearing this out to dinner on a date tonight; navy velvet jacket (jcrew); navy top (jcrew); levis; etienne aigner boots; silver chain necklace

I'm contemplating wearing this outfit to a casual christmas party with kids invited tomorrow night: black dkny blazer; black jcrew top; levis; red sofft heels

I found this navy blue wool pullover from New Zealand at the thrift store today for $2.95. It remimnds me of Sofia Coppola.

Good news. For some reason my art pieces have been selling like hotcakes on ebay. I have sold all my Frida Kahlo pieces but one. I think lowering my prices a bit helped.

To celebrate, I bought this navy scarf I have tried on a jillion times and coveted forever. I am super, super happy with it. In this climate (it was 4 degrees when I dropped off the kids at school this a.m.) I will get more use out of a scarf like this than practically anything else! I was inspired to buy a giant scarf after seeing how chic Everything and Nothingness and Garance Dore looked in them.

Also, I have been a little unhappy with my wardrobe lately and then I realized that the problem isn’t with my clothes — they haven’t changed. It’s my weight that has changed and many items I don’t like right now would look better when I lose a few pounds.

The gallery featuring some of my art work had a Dia de los muertos celebration last night that I briefly attended with a girlfriend. It was really dead there — forgive the pun — so we left after a brief appearance and went to a fabulous, cozy, packed new coffee shop (new for me) with fireplaces, chandeliers, dim lighting and big stuffed chairs for a glass of wine.

I wore:

Black deep vee cashmere blend sweater (banana republic)

Black DKNY wool blazer (thrifted)

Levis

Black Etienne Aigner boots*

Leopard print dangly earrings (garage sale)

* My dear husband who thinks it is fun to weigh in on my outfits now that I blog about them, called my everyday boots “dogs” and suggested I go change into these. I hate to say it, but he was right.

 I spent Saturday morning in my pajamas posting some of my art on etsy. It is something I have been meaning to do forever and it is hopefully a way to raise some money. I sold a lot of my art at my art opening last January and so it was sort of difficult for me to bring my pieces down to a price that would sell on Etsy.

As soon as I finished listing my items I checked my email and was shocked to see a payment from someone into my paypal account. It wasn’t until I actually read the entire email that I figured out I had sold something on Etsy. I was very pleasantly surprised, but then realized I had sold possibly my best art piece for $20. Probably not very smart of me. Well, it was just sitting around here anyway. But it did make me feel a little weird. I probably underpriced a few items and overpriced others. It’s a hard judgment call. And then shipping is a whole ‘nother matter. I always blow it on shipping and lose money on the sale. Hopefully I didn’t overprice or underprice shipping on Etsy. We’ll see.

If you would like to check out my shop you can find it at:  mammaitaliana23.etsy.com

 If you look under sold, you’ll see the piece I’m talking about. It was my favorite one, but I know it will go to a good home!

 Saturday:
This NEVER happens. At least not when I am not sick! I spent the day in my pajamas. I actually took a shower and put them back on and never left the house! As I mentioned above, I spent the day in productive indoor ways.

Menu:

Breakfast: banana; cafe au lait

Lunch: leftover roast slice with gravy

Dinner: Papa Murphy’s pizza; wine

Finances:

$ 0  free pizza after buying 12!!!!

Sunday:

Outfit:

Black Dress (H&M) thrifted

Navy cashmere sweater

black tights

black boots

red beaded bracelet (garage sale)

wore red pashmina with trench coat out

Menu:

Breakfast: one slice leftover pizza; cafe au lait

Lunch: usual snacky Sunday lunch at MIL — hunk of pepper jack cheese; hunk of summer sausage; 5 double stuff oreo cookies

Dinner: grilled salmon and asparagus at SIL’s house; bread I baked; romaine and avocado salad

Finances:

$0

 FRENCH WOMEN SHOPPING

Also, check out this blog posting that I found via Foggy on French Chic. Thanks Foggy.

http://passagedesperles.blogspot.com/2009/09/when-french-women-shop.html

It was a very inspirational read. Thanks passagedeperles!