GIFT GUIDE: for the home

GIFT GUIDE: for the home

With the holiday season fast upon us, I decided to start a  series to help you with all your gifting, whatever holidays you'll be celebrating!!

Find links to all of these items HERE

This one's full of gifts for the home, so make sure to click the photo and you'll be directed to my Polyvore, which contains direct links for all the items here. My favorite item in this set is definitely the "No. '22 Karat Climax' Cup by Romy Northover. Each cup is wheel thrown using the Japanese method 'Rokuro', individually decorated using slips, and glazed. These cups go through an additional firing for the premium lustre. The lustre is 22 Karat gold."*

*quoted text taken directly from  Mohawk General Store's site

THE APARTMENT BY THE LINE 2.0

This past March, I visited New York for Spring Break (who wants to go to Cabo, anyway...). During my trip, I discovered - and fell

madly

 in love with -

The Apartment by the Line

in SoHo. Its beauty brought me to tears. No lie.

So, naturally, I was ecstatic to find out that they had created a West Coast counterpart located right on Melrose Place. If anyone ever feels the desire to buy me anything for my future apartment, just visit this glorious little setup and grab anything you see (did I mention that anything you see in the mock apartment is available for purchase). Cheers!

I would kill for the marble tables I saw there...

Wrap me in that vintage rug and bury me in that bathtub (along with all the

Le Labo

fragrances scattered throughout the different rooms of the apartment) when I die...

Ughh so much love for this place. If you're in either New York or Los Angeles you should check out "The Apartment" in your area! Make sure to leave your wallet at home (and possibly your iPhone, if you ever use Apple Pay) or else you'll end up buying a ton of home furnishings you really can't afford...

Bonus...how sick is this photo my friend

Nick

took of me there?? 

SOHO DREAMS

I know that, on my Instagram, I promised I was done posting pictures from New York...but I never said I wouldn't continue posting about my trip on here!

See what I did there?

I don't know if any of you are Pinterest-lovers, but if you are, grab a box of tissues now. Because you aren't ready for this.

One of the first boards I created when I started my Pinterest account maybe five years ago was my "Dream House" board (

take a look if you dare

). It's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that such perfect living quarters exist. Like...you're seriously telling me that, somewhere out there, there's a beautiful loft space overlooking Central Park, with floor-to-ceiling windows and to-die-for hardwood floors? I refused to believe these places actually existed.

And then, I visited

The Apartment by THE LINE

, and my Pinterest dreams became a reality.

The Apartment is a fully-furnished living space that really gives customers a taste of the SoHo lifestyle. Everything you see is available for purchase -- from the dainty cosmetics lining a sunny windowsill, to the clothes hanging in the walk-in closet, to the marble cheeseboards in the dining area.

I have honestly never been so in love with a living space my entire life. From the moment I walked in, all I wanted to do was spend hours walking around and seeing every single item in every single room. I contemplated just staying there, perhaps hiding in the bathtub and hoping no one would notice I was still there when it came time to close.

I mean, really though. See this clothing rack, filled with beautiful yet simple pieces, stationed right next to a pillowy bed atop a bohemian rug, the sun filtering through the large windows and tinting everything gold?

And who wouldn't want a walk-in closet with the aesthetic of a Hollywood star's wardrobe?!!

I'm not even exaggerating when I say there were tears in my eyes. Yes. A living space -- specifically, this one -- brought me to tears.

This is the dream. This is where I want to be one day.

I have no idea where I'll be in 5, 10 or 15 years. I have no way of knowing where I'll be, what I'll be doing, or how I'll be doing. It can be hard when you want something so badly -- when you know where you want to be but you don't exactly know how to get there. Nothing is for certain, but I'd like to think that with hard work and a bit of soul-searching, I'll one day live in a space like this one, with good company and a job I love. These are my SoHo dreams.

**I realize that that was a really dramatic (maybe even pretentious) ending to a blog post, so I'm just going to top this off with some food pics, because...well...food.

You know who does healthy food best? The Australians. I absolutely adore

Two Hands

in SoHo, with their sunny vibe and authentic (very Australian) employees and delicious bites.

And last thing -- there's really nothing better than a gourmet ice cream cone. Call me a food snob, but I LOVE gourmet ice cream. Sure, I'll occasionally dig into my personal pint of Ben&Jerry's Cherry Garcia, but give me some weird, pretentious-sounding flavors (like Earl Grey, or Lavender-Honey), and I'm 100% on-board.

Morgenstern's

is an adorable ice cream shop with a plethora of unique flavors. After much indecision, I settled for one scoop each of the Cardamom-Lemon Jam (is that food-snobby enough?) and Burnt Honey, all nicely tucked into a sugar cone. I even added some dark chocolate chunks in to make things even

more

interesting than they already were.

Moral of the story is: if you love ice cream, go to Morgenstern's for a unique experience (and the cutest little interior you've ever seen in your life).

And just to conclude and highlight my major points here:

  1. The Apartment by THE LINE is the most beautiful apartment I've ever seen, and I will do everything within my ability to one-day live somewhere like it.
  2. Australians make great food. Like, really, really great food.
  3. Morgenstern's does gourmet ice cream best.