Lip Spa $16

If you’ve every mut­tered these words beneath a frus­trated sigh dur­ing a long bout of a fruit­less search for the per­fect gift…then you know. You knew it already. No. It isn’t the thought that counts.

But you ignore that lit­tle voice and move onto the fourth stage of gift giv­ing. The first; real­iza­tion that you actu­ally have to buy a gift. The sec­ond; real­iza­tion that you have no clever idea of what to give the per­son. The third; The fruit­less search.

So the fourth must be the sud­den dis­cov­ery of The Holy Grail of per­fect gifts? Sadly, no. The fourth; pick­ing up the near­est accept­able item within the com­mon bounds of good taste and price point and pro­ceed­ing to the register.

Just when you think the pres­sure is off…the fifth stage sets in.…dread. Dread of actu­ally being there when the per­son opens the gift and real­izes that A) You really don’t know them at all. B) You haven’t been lis­ten­ing to every lit­tle hint they’ve been drop­ping. Or C) You have no clue of what a great gift is whether you know them or not.

Hey, we’ve ALL been there. Whether it’s your best friend, your sis­ter, office mate or ran­dom host­ess giv­ing event. Gif­tanx­i­ety is one of the many things we women share and can bond over.

What are things that most peo­ple of the female per­sua­sion like? Things that are pretty. Things that smell good. Things that are pam­per­ing. Things that they don’t need but can’t sur­vive with­out. Sound familiar?

That’s where La Dolce Diva comes in. We are the DIVAS of the per­fect gift for any occa­sion. Uniquely chic pack­ag­ing, fab­u­lous fra­grances and per­fectly pampering..we surely have some­thing within your budget.

Check out our new packaging..let us know what you think!

I had the plea­sure yes­ter­day of spend­ing the after­noon with Tim Gunn.

For those of you that don’t know him, Tim Gunn appears on Project Run­way as men­tor to the design­ers and basi­cally the glue that holds the show together. If you don’t know what Project Run­way is.…well, this post will mean noth­ing to you.

Yes, Tim Gunn is a cel­e­brated and loved TV per­son­al­ity, but to me he is so much more. As many of you know, I grad­u­ated from F.I.T. with a degree in Fash­ion Design. Tim Gunn was an Asso­ciate Dean and Depart­ment Chair at our rival fash­ion school, Parson’s.

Hav­ing lived in New York City  and worked in the fash­ion indus­try for 13 years, I can tell you that Tim Gunn rep­re­sents all the best of the rag trade (gar­ment indus­try); Class, sophis­ti­ca­tion, knowl­edge, elo­quence, grace and, most impor­tantly, he can dish the dirt with­out get­ting his hands dirty.

I wish I could tell you it was a long con­ver­sa­tion over tea or cock­tails, but, alas, I had to share his com­pany with a few hun­dred oth­ers at the Geor­gia State Uni­ver­sity Audi­to­rium. How­ever, Tim is so engag­ing, I did feel that it was a much more per­sonal encounter.

In fact, I was the first one to pop out of my chair to ask a ques­tion at the end of his talk. You may have seen me on CNN. Not really, but it was that mon­u­men­tal to me.

I asked a sim­ple tech­ni­cal ques­tion about whether the design­ers were allowed to use slop­ers (a very basic pat­tern or tem­plate for the shape of a sleeve or pant) or if they had to rely solely on their drap­ing skills to pro­vide pat­terns. His answer was no that the design­ers had to rely on their drap­ing and innate pattern-making skills to con­struct their gar­ment. He then elab­o­rated on the process.

I don’t expect you to under­stand the rel­e­vance of this ques­tion or the answer. What I will tell you is that right after I asked my ques­tion, the mere fact that TIM GUNN was lis­ten­ing to me, said it was an excel­lent ques­tion and addressed me directly when answering..well what can I say, it was a rush. Yes, I’m a nerd. This fact has been pre­vi­ously established.

Since I left New York, there are times I feel a lit­tle lost and dis­con­nected from the heart of my pas­sion which is design. Design in and of itself. The cre­ative process and being around those who are in the same world who can appre­ci­ate and share the headache, heartache and reward it brings. I thor­oughly wal­low in the rare moments  when it all comes rush­ing all back. Thanks Tim.

Although Tim was there to speak about his book, Tim Gunn’s Guide to Qual­ity, Taste and Style, we also learned he has a new book com­ing out this fall called Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life’s Lit­tle Lessons for Mak­ing It Work.

.….a thank-you note from your niece?

There’s a lot to be said for Old-Fashioned manners.

Love you, Dinky Diva!

I was look­ing for a spe­cial gift to give my sis­ters and mother this past Christ­mas. I decided to have some spe­cial water­col­ors com­mis­sioned by a famous cup­cake artist. Okay– I know that’s a seman­tic stretch, but tech­ni­cally it’s true.

Jessie from Cake­Spy will paint cus­tom “cup­pie” art for you. You have read about Cake­Spy and Jessie ear­lier on this blog. She is a joy to deal with. I highly rec­om­mend com­mis­sion­ing your own art. Check out her Cake­Spy Flickr page for more exam­ples and ideas.

I gave this to my sis­ter, Lau­rie. She and her fam­ily go to a fab­u­lous local bak­ery every week­end for break­fast. Mommy and Dinky Diva are the “cup­pies.” Daddy and the Dinky Dude are the “bacons.”

For my sis­ter, Chris­tine, I wanted some­thing to com­mem­o­rate our trip to Paris with my niece– the other Dinky Diva. This is a pic­ture of her favorite place we vis­ited ~ Monét’s house in Giverny.

And last, but not least, one for my Mom.  About 8 years ago we went to Italy. This is us in Firenze (Florence.)

At first, you may think it’s strange to com­mem­o­rate a spe­cial moment with a cupcake…but I say, what bet­ter way is there? Noth­ing says love like a pink cupcake!

My sis­ter, Chris­tine, recently started a hand­crafted jew­elry line called Hearti­san ~ Unique Bijoux Creations.

She is dip­ping her toes into the retail world by exhibit­ing at spe­cialty craft fairs.

Being the proud older sis­ter, I had to tell you about it. Unfor­tu­nately, “proud” does not trans­late into bril­liant cinematographer…so please bear with me in the below video. I’m sure our daz­zling per­son­al­i­ties will over­shadow my less that stel­lar cam­era oper­at­ing skills.

To get a closer look at her beau­ti­ful pendants.…

Each hand­crafted arti­san heart pen­dant is cre­ated with a thought­fully selected assort­ment of crys­tals, beads, and gems.

All pen­dants include Swarovski crys­tals, Czech glass, and fresh­wa­ter pearls.

Other trea­sures that you may notice on your heart are abalone and other shell beads, lapis lazuli, gar­net, onyx, amethyst, moon­stone, hematite, peri­dot, rose quartz, and turquoise.

Your sparkling one-of-a-kind bauble is sus­pended from a Greek leather cord, and fas­tened with an effort­less cop­per hook-and-eye.

I will be sure to let you know when her online bou­tique is up! She has already enjoyed fab­u­lous feed­back and ini­tial suc­cess with her prod­uct launch!

I know you join me in wish­ing her Good Luck!

I have always been drawn to iconic items; Her­mes scarf, Cartier watch, Chanel No. 5.…some would say it’s because of the sta­tus. They’d be wrong. I  love time­less beauty.

I am lucky enough to have been gifted with a few items on my Bucket List already. My sis­ters, have given me Elsa Peretti’s Bone Cuff for my 40th birth­day and an Her­mes scarf for a Christ­mas present. I cher­ish both.

Yes, they are just “things” but I admire them each time a I wear them.

Today’s Bucket List entry: Dia­monds By The Yard. Have you ever heard a more fab­u­lous sentence?

Dia­monds — By — The — Yard!! *sigh*

Designed by Elsa Peretti for Tiffany’s, it comes in sev­eral lengths, dia­mond incre­ments and 3 pre­cious met­als; sil­ver, gold and platinum.

I’m not greedy. I like the 16″ ver­sion in either sil­ver or gold. One day.….

What’s on your Bucket List?