Turning Your Home Into a Beach Bodega
How a reimagined gas station inspired a week of vibrant, sun-soaked, summer cooking
Welcome to this week’s Whimsy Dispatch! My name is Jenna, and I am a designer and writer based in New York. Every week, for paid subscribers, I post a Whimsy Dispatch, which is a creative brief for your home. It’s some whimsical combination of my experiences gained as a stationery shop owner, and then later as a Mrs. Frizzle-esque teacher.
I investigate a beautiful physical place, design style, or aesthetic, and then break it down into practical steps to help you take the parts you like and implement them into your home. My goal is to create an ongoing encyclopedia of inspiration that empowers you to make your home feel more joyful and allows you to operate as the creative director of your own space. You would never run out of ideas for refreshing your space, hosting, and what food or drinks to make next!
I’ve always had big dreams, but for as long as I can remember, my biggest has been to be a writer. (I’d love to make books someday!) Substack is a perfect place for me because I can combine my love for design and writing into one digital space.
In an effort to make a more joyful space on an ever-doomful internet scape, I began Feeling! Magazine in 2023. My core tenets were to write about things that genuinely make me feel joyful (I am only allowed to have fun when working on Substack) and help people feel equipped to make their own lives more colorful and hopeful. It is the very magazine I wished I had when I walked through depression and grief. It is a return to a worldview that most of us had when we were kids — life is magical, there are things to look forward to, and there is endless potential ahead.
Feeling! is inspired heavily by the American Girl Doll Magazine, which was not just littered with things to buy or feel jealous about, but focused on helping you start a lemonade stand, talk openly to your friend, be imaginative, and make things with your hands. I figured grown-ups need something like that too.
Since 2023, I have not raised the price of my subscription beyond $5 with the hope that it could be as accessible to as many readers as possible. I work on this Substack for many hours weekly to produce joy-inspiring articles every week. I’m a one-girl team, working with brands, creating graphics, writing, photographing, and planning content!
This year, I asked myself, “What is a magazine would I genuinely love to read?” and now I’m trying to make it.
What astounds me is that you must like it too, because we just reached 25,000 readers. Thank you, sincerely, for making my dreams come true. I don’t have a category to even process this — but I am trying to allow the joy to hit my depths!
If this vision resonates with you, if you want that weekly dose of whimsy and practical magic in your inbox, I'd love for you to join as a paid subscriber.
For $5 a month, or $50 for the year, you'll get every Whimsy Dispatch, plus exclusive access to all my creative briefs, recipes, monthly printable art and zines, and design breakdowns that help you become the creative director of your own joyful space (also the coming-soon phone/desktop wallpaper archive, and art prints releasing soon).
Your support doesn't just provide you with weekly inspiration; it literally makes this dream sustainable! I could not spend the amount of time it takes to produce these articles without your subscriptions. Every subscription helps me keep creating and growing this vision of joy and hope. Thank you, thank you.
Turning Your Home Into a Beach Bodega
Coastal interior inspiration, homemade lime ceaser dressing, smashburgers & “Florida Slaw,” and a retro beachside playlist.
When you search "coastal design," images of white walls and white-washed floors with maybe a pop of blue show up. Not my coastal!
Growing up in Florida, coastal is synonymous with colorful. The little beach towns of the West Coast, like my favorite, Anna Maria Island, are coated in ever-fading-from-the-sun vibrant colors. The homes, the bicycles, the donut shops, golf carts, and little sandwich shops that line the beach are all kaleidoscopic. Old Florida design, like the University of Tampa, which was the Tampa Bay Hotel, is breathtaking. They were out there trying to tame the swamp with rattan and rocking chairs.