Hello! I’m back from New York and I had such an amazing time. The best part was getting to hang out with some amazing ladies who I’ve become good friends with over the past year online. Thanks so much to my phenomenal guest bloggers who mused about love. I am always awestruck by their creative perspectives and I feel truly honored to have them here on my little blog. I encourage you to visit them regularly–they’re wonderful folks!

I have a lot to say about New York, but I have a pretty terrible post–NYC cold keeping me down. For now–isn’t this photo I took of Vivian’s espresso at The Met amazing? I think sugar should always be served in crystal wand form!! See you next week when I get back to regular posting–have a fun weekend!

HERE ARE SOME FUN THINGS HAPPENING IN PORTLAND…

♡ Don’t forget to enter my Lille Boutique giveaway! Lingerie, swimwear, shoes… there’s also a sweet promo code in time for Valentine’s Day.

♡ Wild at Heart! My friends, Trish Grantham & Lisa Congdon’s, art opening at Land Gallery on Mississippi Ave tonight. Friday, Feb 3. 6pm.

♡ Curves & Lines Papercraft Show at Tilde. Friday, Feb 3. 6–9pm.

♡ Pendleton’s The Portland Collection closeout sale (up to 70% off!) Sat, Feb 4. 9am–4pm at 224 NW Broadway.

♡ A Novel Romance (see my post)–the amazing annual bridal fashion show. At The Cleaners @ Ace Hotel. Sunday, Feb 5. Noon.

♡ Bargain Hunting! A bunch of rad shops and designers selling awesomeness (yes, that description could be WAY better, but I have a cold!!). Sun, Feb 5. 12–5pm.

♡ Radish Underground is having their big annual sale this Sunday, Feb 5 from 12–5pm. Pop by on your way to Bargain Hunting!

Photo by me, Jen McCabe.

YAY! This Sunday is the 2012 Portland bridal fashion show, A Novel Romance, put on by Elizabeth Dye and her wonderful crew from The English Dept.! The ladies are brewing up bewitching surprises and will reveal Elizabeth’s showstopping original gowns. This year, stunners from Nicole Miller, Jenny Yoo, Ivy & Aster, Twigs & Honey, Ink & Peat, Lille Trousseau and others will be featured in the show as well. This is such an amazing event! Find tickets and more event info HERE.

Sunday, Feb 5 at Noon ● The Cleaners @ Ace Hotel 403 SW 10th Avenue
Call The English Dept 503-224-0724 for more info! ● GET TICKETS

Images courtesy of Elizabeth Dye. Photography by Lisa Warninger.

My sweet friends, Trish Grantham and Lisa Congdon, have an amazing joint art show, Wild at Heart, opening tonight at Land Gallery here in Portland. The opening goes from 6–9pm tonight, February 3 and the show runs through March 3–stop by! If you aren’t in Portland–make sure to check out their beautiful artwork online. ♥

{top image by Trish Grantham. bottom images by Lisa Congdon}

TO ENTER:

♡ 1. Visit the Lille Boutique shop and figure out which styles you like most.

♡ 2. Leave a comment below letting us know a few of your favorites.

HOW TO GET MORE ENTRIES + A SWEET BONUS:

♡ 3. To earn an extra entry–after following both steps above–post a link on Twitter to this giveaway http://www.honeykennedy.com/2012/02/lille-boutique-lingerie-giveaway/ and include the hashtag: #hkgiveaway

♡ 4. You can earn an additional entry if you repost a link to this giveaway page http://www.honeykennedy.com/2012/02/lille-boutique-lingerie-giveaway/ on your own blog, then just leave the link to your post here in the comments section below!

BONUS: Get 15% OFF pretty lingerie, shoes and accessories at Lille Boutique when you buy something now thru Feb 9, 20121. Just use promo code: HEARTHONEYLILLE

I’ll update this post with the name of the winner on Weds, Feb 8. BEST OF LUCK!!

*U.S. domestic shipping is included for orders of $150 or more. International entries are welcome, but the winner will be responsible for all shipping fees.

Images courtesy of Lille Boutique.

La tenue de Francis from Et Pourquoi Pas Coline?

Red plaid coat from J.Crew

Antler Girl by Trevor Nicholls

Mermaid, Sirens & Monster Fish c. 1450-70 via Tony Harrison

Skulls by Parker Fitzgerald

Thanks, Jessica! Find Jessica on The Shiny Squirrel blog and Twitter!

I live in Portland, OR, where I work at local curiosity shops Flutter and Eden, spend time in my studio making jewelry (some of which you can see here) and keep the blog Ay Marieke. The process of coming up with a list of what I love (via Jen’s prompt) left me feeling wonderfully floaty for days, buoyed by a reminder of how many really lovely, lovable things there are in the world. While the topic here is love, if I had to name a more specific common thread, I suppose it would be, “that which makes my heart swell”.

Unearthing unexpected family heirlooms.
I felt so lucky to come across a collection of several hundred family photos while home for the holidays – a treasury of Grandma Emerson’s relatives starting with her childhood and going back over six generations. These are a few of my favorite images. Although looking through these photos makes my heart swell, it’s simultaneously disheartening to know that I’ll never get to meet any of the subjects. I see in certain expressions, dress or manner qualities that I think I would enjoy a lot, were we to all be able to get together. (All photos by me, Marika Emerson.)

Paintings by Thomas Cole
Childhood trips to the Denver Art Museum (I’m from Colorado) always included a visit to the European Art Gallery. Once we got to the sixth floor, I would make a beeline towards my favorite piece at the museum, “Dream of Arcadia” by Thomas Cole. I guess I can attribute some of my tastes to my inner Victorian, but I find classical paintings like these are among my favorite pieces of art. Here are a few that I especially love. Titles clockwise from top left: “The Picnic,” “The Voyage of Life: Youth,” “Distant View of Niagara Falls, 1930,“ ”Dream of Arcadia,” ”The Present,” ”Autumn Landscape: Mount Chocorua.”

Missed Connections
I met my boyfriend through a Missed Connection (it happens!) so I have a soft spot for these ads, which can range from the weird to the sad, but often fall under the category of disarmingly sweet. I recommend checking out I Saw You…, an anthology of comics all about missed connections. Especially dear to me are Sophie Blackall’s illustrations of NYC missed connections. Blackall’s book of missed connections illustrations was released last fall and these (from here) are my favorites. Side note: I also really love the way she decorated her apartment.

Surreal, breathtaking European films
I wish I could say I was better educated about foreign films! If I had to condense a short list from the few I’ve seen which made deep and long-lasting impressions on me, (and which I like to re-watch whenever I’m in the mood for something fluid, strange and beautiful) it would be comprised of Wings of Desire, La Nuit Fantasitque, and Last Year At Marienbad. They all require some level of patience but are incredibly rewarding to watch and a must if you’ve never seen before!

Like Wings
The title of this post is also the title of one of my favorite poems–from the book Like Wings by Philip Schultz. In college, I studied English, and my degree is heavy on the poetry side. This poem, while not perfect, has always been quite special to me. It’s a long poem (too long to print here,) but I’ll include a little excerpt and if you like it, I encourage you to check out the book!

I cannot leave myself like a house frozen in the background.
I am this body & the weather all year round.
I think of the light that opened over you our first morning,
how the glass in my lungs turned to sound
& I saw you woman & child & couldn’t breathe, for love.
Fear is the edge of the risk that is loving.
It stinks of blood, draws sharks.
The nights you waltzed naked round our bed,
myself holding the chair I’d painted blue again,
the cats flowing in the wings of your good yellow hair.
There is much men don’t know about women,
how your hands work the air to water, the seed to life,
why the salt at the tips of your breasts glows
& tastes of mollusk.
There are hours when the future gives up all hope
& stops in the middle of busy streets
& doesn’t care. But think of the distance we have come,
the hands which have wound us.
There will be others.

{above image credit: Love by Martin Creed.}

Thanks, Marika! Find Marika on her blog, in her shop and on Twitter.

When Jen asked me to post about something related to love a very clear image appeared in my mind. A dazzling and timeless heart. Love is such a wide, universal and fascinating subject that is difficult to focus for a moment on just one of its different angles, but as an imagemaker I thought it would be fun to pay an homage to its official symbol: THE HEART.

Ancient Egyptians left the heart inside the mummies as it was regarded as “the centre indispensable to the body in the eternity” and for alchemists the heart was the image of the sun within the human body, just as gold was the image of the sun on earth.

Over the last couple of years I must have drawn hundreds of hearts… All kind of colours, techniques and sizes. The excuse for it was that I was working on some commissions for Nina Ricci. One of the brand’s key symbols is the heart, in fact the the first perfume they launched in 1946 was “Coeur Joie” and it’s definitely heart-shaped!

The illustration in the beginning of this post is one of the illustrations I made for Nina. The rest of the imagery is a heart-shaped personal selection, hope you like it :)

Also, as a bonus related to the subject here you are three wonderful movies and three amazing songs with the word “heart” on their titles that came to my mind. Love them all.

MOVIES:
♡ I Heart Huckabees
♡ Le Souffle au Coeur
♡ Wild at Heart

SONGS:
♡ Heart of Chambers by Beach House
♡ Groove Is In The Heart by Deee-Lite
♡ Heart of Glass by Blondie

With Love,

Ana

PS: Thanks for having me Jen! ♥

{image credits: 1. Nina Ricci Crystal Collection Heart by Ana Montiel 2. LOVE by Jenny van Sommers 3. Hanging Heart by Jeff Koons 4. Bubbles and Hearts by INeedChemicalX 5. Mappemonde Cordiforme d’Oronce Fine (NLA) via Peacay 6. Heart-Shaped Leaf via Vintage Printable 7. Romantic Heart by Carol Belanger Grafton}

Thanks, Ana! Find Ana on her blog, her portfolio and Twitter!

♡ Moscow poster by ILoveDust

♡ Dream Big–Flying Mouse 365

♡ Ship by Andrew Bannecker

♡ The Love Fox by Inaluxe

♡ Mind Control by Zara Picken

♡ Hot Air Heart by Timothy Karpinski

♡ Friendly Bear by Sarajea

♡ Smoking Rabbit by Dan Bob Thompson

♡ The Art of Science by JooHee Yoon

♡ Beautiful Feeling by Vladimir Stankovic

Thanks, Nicolle! Find this lovely PDX lady at Sacred Lotus and on Twitter.

If experience in love has taught me anything (me and my dude are coming up on our 20th anniversary this May, so I hope I’ve learned something), it’s that you have to let your loved one take over at least one entire room with their Stuff. You just never know when all that “junk” is going to come in handy! And yes, it is quite possible that the trolls controlled my mind in order to make me do this.

Valentine’s Day Love Magic!

You want to get a little closer. You want to give it a chance. To be considered as more than just a friend. Just one more hour. Just one light left on. Just one little kiss. You want LOVE POTION NUMBER 9!

Hawthorne Berries to make the heart beat more strongly. To open someone up to love. To allow love to express itself more courageously.

Damiana to inspire the sharing of secrets. To light a fire where one is needed.

Pomegranate Seeds for multiple possibilities. For fecundity. For fertility.

Strawberries for gentleness, sweetness, and the YUM factor.

Rose Petals for TRUE LOVE.

All of these ingredients have been used by humans as “aphrodisiacs” for thousands of years. The jury is out on whether there are any true aphrodisiacs in nature, except for the chemicals that we produce in our own brains; meanwhile, rest assured that anything that lowers inhibitions and opens the heart to intimacy increases the chances that the libido will be fired up. * Please note that Hawthorne is not advised for anyone taking heart medication.*

Directions:
Use a pint-sized glass mason jar (or quart size for a very swinging party). Use approximately equal parts of each ingredient, dried or fresh, to fill the jar loosely, and then cover it all with a good quality brandy (you can use a plain or flavored vodka if you don’t like brandy). Make sure that everything stays below the surface of the liquid, so that it won’t touch the air and spoil (you can use a rock or crystal to hold it down). You might have to top off the jar as the dried ingredients soak up liquid. Let the jar sit for two weeks, somewhere that you can see it and touch it and give it the energy of your romantic intentions. Give it a good stir every few days for the first week. After two weeks, strain the liquid into another jar, making sure to press out the herbs and berries as you do so, to get every last drop of good stuff. Serve as-is, or make a cocktail with one part potion, one part fruit juice. Sparkling water or ice can also be a nice addition–the idea is to make it tasty.

Then take a deep breath, relax, and see what happens… ♥

Images ©Sasha Soukup of Astral Boutique.

Thank you, Sasha dear! Find Sasha on her blog, shop & Twitter!

This second set is a series of photos I took of a vintage card I found at an estate sale. It’s one among many in a growing collection, but the unique details on each card makes them stand alone!

Photos © Erin Hagstrom.

Thanks, Erin! Find Erin on her blog, Calivintage, and Twitter!