One bad painting, one beautiful gift, & 13 links
Also in here: How Lucy was nearly eaten at the aquarium
Hi my dears! Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. Merci to each of you who shopped the Handpicked gift guides! I’d love to hear what you bought and for whom, pls share with the class.
If you haven’t seen them yet, this year’s guides centered on meaningful gifts for the guys we love, our sweet kids, and, ahem, ourselves.
painting
Tried something weird! Acrylic paint on Instax film. It’s so far from where I envisioned it and really it’s quite bad. I feel rather sheepish sharing it. But when I show my work, sometimes magical things happen. So here’s a bad little painting!
“There is too much bad news to justify complacency. There is too much good news to justify despair.”
—Donella Meadows
today’s bouquet
Oh what fun: I was featured between two women I majorly fangirl for, Joanna Goddard and Julia Turshen, in an article on six fun holiday traditions. Amelia writes one of my favorite newsletters!
Y’all, guess what. The lovely folks at Coral & Tusk kindly sent my family a Christmas gift, an embroidered sleigh from their Christmas collection. It makes me think of my Scandinavian and American pioneer heritage :) Charlie has been lining up our family of reindeer with it, and I keep finding the kids relocating it to their favorite shelves. Wouldn’t it be so cute to tuck a mini Steele family inside?
Thank you to Coral & Tusk for giving Handpicked readers 25% off with the code HANDPICKED25.
Two goodies that didn’t make it into the gift guides: an octopus straw and a speckled cashmere sweater.
Actually gasped at these cowboy + flower photographs. The center of my Venn diagram!! (via Audrey H.)
Beautiful artworks made from pieces of broken pottery.
Can a lamp be romantic? If so, this one definitely is.
Got this for my mom for Christmas and it’s perfect. (Mother, no peeking.)
Aja Frost shared the coolest pearl gumball ring — I can’t stop thinking about it!
How to make art look more expensive, from interior designer Cristina Cleveland. Her quiz is super helpful.
“A chief of a Latin American indigenous tribe said to me, ‘You know, Jane, we consider our tribe as like an eagle. And on this eagle, one wing is male and the other is female. And only when the two wings are equal will our tribe fly true.’ ”
— Jane Goodall
First AI artwork I actually like!
Making fancy roasted carrots for dinner this week. Serving with crowd favorite coconut rice, pineapple, and chicken thighs for the boys. (via A Thing or Two)
Destroying my nemesis with these.
Crazy story: Last week we met up with our cousins and grandmothers at the Discovery Cube in Santa Ana. We played in the laser room, explored the dinosaur exhibit, and everyone took turns laying on a bed of nails (even Mickey and my 86-year-old grandma!). SO FUN. Our final activity was the touch tank aquarium. Lucy was petting the top of a starfish’s arm and noticed after a minute or two that a few of its suckers had crept up onto her fingertip. I tried loosening her finger — no luck. It felt like the starfish was super-glued to her. We asked a museum volunteer for help, but this creature would. not. budge. It even scooted more of its arm up onto her finger(!) within a couple minutes, as you can see in the photos. Finally after about 20 minutes, a museum employee came to the rescue and set Lucy free, no worse for the wear except a small bite out of her fingertip. Truth be told, I was freaking out way more than Lucy — my kids have touched live sea creatures hundreds of times and nothing like this has ever happened! Later that night, my grandma surprised Lu with a little toy starfish to commemorate her bravery. This ordeal has officially taken the title of Craziest Steele Family Museum Moment (previously awarded to 2-year-old Lucy for trying to high-five an original Monet painting which earned me a verbal and written warning from the Nelson-Atkins Museum).
last thing
Most popular link from last week: the most meaningful gift
Readers today: 1,820
Grateful for you.
That starfish story! 😰😰😰 I’m glad Lucy was okay! I also love your little painting! It’s beautiful and the texture looks so cool!
It’s a lovely painting!!! I love the texture, especially. Pls don’t throw it away!