Shannon Maldonado’s Career Advice Could Change Your Life

The Philadelphia hotel owner reveals a party ice-breaker, colorful home decor, and the work tip she tells all her friends. (Plus, check out her gorgeous wedding dress!)

Hi! How’s your week going? I’m going to the North Fork with some friends, and we’re thinking about watching Thelma about a 93-year-old trying to track down a con artist who scammed her. Have you seen it? (As Jerry Seinfeld says, I love a good caper.)

Also, this week, our editor Kaitlyn Teer chatted with Shannon Maldonado, the creative genius behind Yowie, the Philadelphia boutique hotel and lifestyle shop known for colorful finds. “I’ve always been a very curious person,” she told us. “I Google the hell out of anything I find interesting.”

Here, Shannon shares 12 great things, including her Philly travel recs and what she’s packing for her Paris honeymoon…

1. Best way to end the day: Take an after-dinner ice cream walk. My husband, Dave, and I live on the border of Fishtown and Kensington, and there are seven ice cream shops within a 15-minute walk — Jeni’s, Van Leeuwen, Weckerly’s, and a bodega where we get water ice (a Philly thing). A few nights a week, we’ll take a walk to unwind and catch up.

2. Actually useful coffee table book: How to Live With Objects by the editors of Sight Unseen is a cool take on a design book. It features furniture and art, but not in a way that’s like, here are things to buy, but instead with stories of people’s spaces that help you become a intentional collector of objects that speak to you. Plus, it’s a beautiful shade of green.

3. First eBay home purchase: I’m a big eBay-er, and in high school, my first eBay purchases were original film posters. I have four or five on display in our place at any given time, like my Jean-Luc Godard retrospective poster (he’s one of my favorite directors).

4. T-shirt worth buying in multiples: Everybody World is an amazing women-owned brand based in L.A. Their trash tee is made with 100% post-industrial cotton waste, and the slightly longer sleeve and overall length are perfect. I have it in black and cream, and I size up or down, depending on my mood.

5. Shopping strategy: I created a secret Pinterest board called ‘Should I Buy This?’ My rule is that an item has to live there for at least two weeks before I make a purchase. I edit it every week, and if my reaction to something is like, do I even want this? then I delete it. It’s kept me from buying into so many trends or things that just happened to be on sale.

6. Drugstore beauty: I’ve used CoverGirl Lash Blast Fusion since I was a teenager. I’ve tried more expensive brands, but the CoverGirl one wins out. The brush is really easy to wrap around your eyelashes to get that curled look.