If Ever You Feel Your Apt is Small…

Be reminded of our friends Stephanie and Mark, who live together—with a baby on the way—in a 400 sq ft loft on West 21st Street.

Their apartment is featured in today’s Home & Garden section of the New York Times.

I’ve hung out in these digs and surprisingly, it doesn’t even feel that small. I was never quite sure how they did it, but thanks to the NY Times, now I know and I am thoroughly impressed.

My favorite quote comes from the Times asking Mark what will happen when the baby is born in December, “We’re actively looking for square footage for this apartment.” Ha, love it.

Final Word: We can’t all be this thrifty, creative or handy (do NOT forget handy). But at least it gives us something to aspire.

Add This to Your Wrist

We love nothing more right now than stacking bunches of bangles all over our wrists. We’re happy to announce that we can now create our favorite look while supporting a worthy cause with CAROLEE 35th Anniversary "Words to Live By" celebrity bangle collection to benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Seven celebrity women including Beyonce Knowles, Julianna Marguiles and Mena Suvari worked with CAROLEE to design a “Words to Live By” bangle that includes an inspirational quote significant to each woman.

Beyonce encourages women to “Be Inspired! Love Can Conquer All,” while Olympian Amanda Beard tells us to “Laugh till you cry, cry till you laugh.”

The sterling silver bangles are $100 each and 100% of the profits go toward the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Final Word: Charitable and stackable. We love that. Available at Bloomingdale’s and carolee.com through December.

Something to Talk About: Gossip Girl

Yes, I may be 25-years-old. And yes, I do live in Manhattan and maintain a somewhat active social life. But that doesn’t mean I can’t long to live vicariously through scandalous Upper East Side prep school kids, does it?

I’m talking about Gossip Girl, the saucy new teenage drama that debuted last night on the CW. Brought to us by the people behind The O.C., creator Josh Schwartz has found another group of dreadfully good-looking, privileged, screwed-up teenagers to tap.

In the first episode alone we’ve already watched the main character getting busy with her best friend’s boyfriend, two 16-year-olds slamming martinis like a true addict at the Palace Hotel bar, pre-gaming with joints and champagne in the back of a limo, and as a cornerstone to televised teenage drama, a date-rape scene.

We especially love Blake Lively as main character Serena van der Woodsen, who has just returned from boarding school to reclaim her title as social queen bee and curb her hard partying ways (so far, not much luck with either). The actress achieves a perfect balance between the bitch you want to hate and the girl you want to be (well, if you were seventeen).

But we truly love the show because it’s real. Teenagers in this city are certainly like this, if not worse.

So now being in my mid (ouch!) twenties, we can posthumously thank Aaron Spelling for our addiction to all this adolescent angst-ridden glory. We’ve been hooked on this shit since we were ten, do you honest believe we’re going to give it up now? I would call it a guilty pleasure, but I don’t even feel guilty about it.

Final Word: Gossip Girl, every Wednesday at 9pm on the CW11.

Probably the worst job move....ever.

"Holly Doran is leaving the special events department at Vogue. She will be joining aSmallWorld, where she will be global director of special events."
-Fashionweekdaily.com

Final Word: Smallworld? Really? Smallworld?

It-Boy of The Week: Kanye West

We’ve been enormous Kanye West fans since basically the moment “College Dropout” dropped. It served as the soundtrack to our last semester of college and it will forever be synonymous with being complete f-ups and having a great time. We can easily recite every word of that album and pull it off without a hitch.

While we’ve personally approached his later albums with less devotional zeal, he continues to out-do himself and we continue to love it.

Now that his third album “Graduation” has debuted not only at #1, but is also the top selling album of the year thus far (take that, Fiddy), Kanye is riding high. Not to mention his debut single, “Stronger” just topped the singles charts for a double whammy. Bawler.

While we don’t necessarily agree with his September 11th marketing ploy (while promoting the album in New York), we still support our boy. And since we’re never officially endorsed him, now seems like a better time than ever.

Final Word: You may have been robbed at the VMAs, but look on the brightside. You’re a Blackberrie “It-Boy of The Week,” you can brag about that.

We're Baaaack......And Better

Ok, so it’s been a while. Probably the longest hiatus we’ve taken since the inception of the B-Berrie. August we can blame on our European work ethic, we usually take the month off (we were guilty of this last year as well).

But September does not have as obvious a scapegoat. We even missed Fashion Week, shame on us. Perhaps our personal lives have thrown us a couple curve balls lately, or perhaps we’ve just been lazy.

We could also say that our philanthropic efforts have been taking up so much of our time we just have not had a moment to write. I like that excuse.

Having said that, all of our readers must attend Art Rocks! The first event organized by the young friends committee of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University Hospital.

The event—which will be held aboard the SeaFair, the world’s first fine arts yacht, and hosted by Elliot Yamin from American Idol—is fully created, organized and endorsed by The Blackberrie and friends. So you’d be silly to miss it!

Final Word: Art Rocks! October 10, 2007. Space is limited so buy your tickets today! Visit www.nbdiabetes.org