After my family and I hit up Marion, KS and Kansas City, MO our next stop was St. Louis, Missouri! We decided that we needed to go see the Gateway Arch. It was a quick trip not even lasting 24 hours, but I’m so glad we did it.

I have to say, the arch is really a site to see. It’s quite beautiful and since we happened to be there while the Fair St. Louis was going on, there was an air show. Nothing feels quite so “America” like an air show, fair food, and a July 4th celebration. It was a great experience.

Because of the fair, we waited in very long lines to make it up the arch. Also, one of the trams kept having mechanical issues and so that delayed the lines further. Not to mention, a thunderstorm decided to hit while we were in the top of the arch. The arch swaying mixed with long lines to get back down, meant that I was a wee bit scared. Now that I look back on the experience, I’m so glad we went up.

There’s absolutely no way that a blog like ours can talk about the Gateway Arch without mentioning the architect Eero Saarinen. I’d love to say that I’m design savvy enough and I knew beforehand that he designed the arch, but that’s not the case. It was pretty awesome to find out though.

Yep, he’s the genius behind these lovelies: the tulip chairs and table. Such an iconic mid-century design. Also, I’m pretty sure that if I were to ever describe a chair or table as sexy it would be these.

Oh and did I mention that it poured rain on our walk back to get the car. Yep, soaked. Head to toe.

I really enjoyed our quick trip to St. Louis! Stay tuned for my vintage shopping in Chicago coming very soon!

 Mary’s Picks

• Recently some renegade cyclists dumped water based paint all over an intersection in Berlin. It created such a cool piece of art! But, I can’t help but wonder if it made that huge intersection really dangerous. Nonetheless, the color choices were really pretty! (via Honestly WTF)

• I’m totally loving all the mason jar DIY lanterns I’ve seen floating around lately. I really want to make these firefly lanterns without catching the fireflies! Which I like seeing fireflies sparkle throughout my whole yard anyway. This one just takes a broken non-toxic glow stick and shake it up in the jar! So much fun! Love these ideas for summer! (via Pinterest)

• Carrying on with things that glow, Rachel over at Smile and Wave made an awesome sign out of glow sticks for her military husband. It’s so creative and makes me want to stock up on glow sticks!

Jess’s Picks

This week, I think a lot of blogs had high points, but I’m going to try to share mostly things from blogs that I don’t often post from because they’re more on the artsy/designy end of the spectrum.

• First up, Design*Sponge pointed me toward Pattern Pulp which pointed me toward Jenny Hart’s Twitter. I’ve been on the mailing list for Sublime Stitching for years now and I never knew embroidery could be so cool. I still don’t do much of it though, but I like the idea and maybe someday soon I’ll develop some skills.

• Over at The Fox Is Black, Kyle gave a great rundown of the DIY movement in its current state in the post “Making Our Own History By Doing Things Ourselves.” It’s definitely worth a read!

• HiLobrow shared these amazing  Wordless prints by Matt Siber. I’m impressed by the amount of work that goes into each image and I think the idea is really brilliant.

This new graphic design book by Steven Heller and Louise Fili makes me wish I had space for a coffee table books. I want it sooo bad. Honestly, most of my pictures from vintage/antique shopping involve vintage graphic design. I think this weekend I’ll be headed to the bookstore just to have a look-see.

via Brain Pickings

Buy it here at Amazon

Jess’s Picks

• I am currently in a phase of frustration about my hair. I like how it feels after I box dye it (Clairol Perfect 10 is my favorite) but I love how multi-tonal my color is right now. This week, I was really excited that The Beauty Department posted a DIY for Lauren Conrad’s multi-colored tips. They’re so cool.

• Totally excited to see designy temporary tattoos at Tattly feature on Design*Sponge. I might just have to get my own set. Tattlly is a project of swissmiss, who is responsible for TeuxDeux — the life-changing to-do list that is responsible for all of my success in the last ten months.

• In case you’re worried that I’m only interested in personal beauty things, I also fell in love with this palette reading-corner bed at Rusta Upp. I featured the blog a few weeks ago in a Friday Reader Roundup, but it’s so good that it’s worth it just for the pictures even if the text isn’t your native tongue.

• I have to give some love to this write-up about big dogs at Offbeat Home. I love all dogs big and small and I’ve ridden shotgun on a few twelve-hour drives to make sure a dog makes it to a good rescue. If a dog is part of your home, it’s important to understand the commitment and this is a great guide to sharing your home with a dog big enough to have (and lovable enough to deserve) it’s own bedroom.

Mary’s Picks

•  Have you browsed around much on Kickstarter? It’s fun. Recently a friend pointed me to the All Thrifty States project, and now that it’s been completely funded I’m really looking forward to seeing more about it.

• One of my favorite aspects of my sister’s 1950s bungalow in Houston, Texas is that it has the original hexagon white tiles accented with powder blue tiles in the bathroom. It’s lovely. Well, this week Pam Krueber over at Retro Renovation has been revealing her best find yet, World of Tile. It’s truly an amazing store and I really, really wish I lived near Springfield, NJ to go shop here.

• Do you watch Design Star? I really love that show and this year it’s even better with the changes they’ve made. I mean, they’ve produced my crush, Antonio Ballatore and the only designer whose every aspect of their work I LOVE, Emily Henderson. This past Monday was the premiere and here Emily wrote her reviews about the show. She cracks me up and I totally agree with her about the judges focusing way too much on execution. I mean, if you took on wallpaper, you would hire someone.