Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Greek miscellany

So, to cheer myself up on a slightly crummy day, I've spent some time collecting just a few scattered images of luxury hotels in Greece. For many years, I've had a secret fantasy about running away to live on one of the Greek islands - wearing sandals and necklaces of sea shells, pouring out water from a pitcher to wash my face in the morning, and cool white linen - and, to be honest, these pictures are far more up-scale than my little rustic fantasy! But, really, some of these are so gorgeous it hurts.

























(Sadly, I don't have links/photo credits/hotel names to provide at this time. I suggest a good, old fashioned Google search for Greek luxury hotels!)

fontastic!

Still on the ceiling kick, I had actually made a mental note to talk a bit about mobiles - like this gorgeous butterfly mobile I recently saw at Pottery Barn Kids:






Instead, I got completely sidetracked obsessing over these amazing wall stickers from Harmonie Interieure, which are so incredibly "me" it's like they were made-to-order!











I've had a serious crush on fonts since my college years, and I certainly haven't become the least bit immune to their charms since that time. I am (almost!) unashamed to say that I think fonts are flat-out sexy. So it's no wonder I think these wall decorations are the bee's knees!

The best part is? They are all available in a huge variety of colours (58?!) to match your home decor!

Monday, July 28, 2008

ceiling inspiration

This weekend while I was trying out ideas for the blog banner, I stumbled upon a long-beloved favourite of mine: the parasol.





I remembered that, when I was maybe seven or eight, I used to have a parasol hanging from a corner of my bedroom ceiling. In fact, since the glass globe of my cheap apartment living room ceiling light broke, I've used a "clip-on" parasol shade from Urban Outfitters.

Anyway, the inspiration got me immediately searching the internet for inspiration images of parasol-covered ceilings!

Girlhula's photostream on Flicker turned up some truly gorgeous photography work, including these two of parasol-clad celings:










And another from UncaMickey:







And I just loved this shot from domio magazine's design contest of readers' bedrooms:








On the 6th blog featured a really unique use of parasols, I thought - placed on the wall above a headboard!






These pictures are really getting the gears in my head turning! For years I've disliked the ugly suspended ceiling in my bedroom, but have never really known what to do with it. This might just be the design fix I need!

Friday, July 25, 2008

Friday I'm in love...

Over the past couple of days, I've stumbled upon some fun, eye-catching things which I wanted to share.

1. My "dream bag." The Market Bag at moop.





Really, it's all about the pleats. I love how tidy the bag looks while retaining a bit of flair. Ok, so maybe it's not all about the pleats - it's also about the size of the bag. I just love a big bag anyway, and now that I've joined a gym and am carting bulky things too and fro, it'd be nice to have a really smart bag to carry everything in. Provincial blue is kind of alluring, but I think I'd go with gunmetal gray (it goes with everything!). I think this may well become my birthday present to myself.


2. LAMA designs (that's "Latin America in the Modern Age" to you!). This site has everything from Evita Peron storage boxes to the almost painfully charming Teapot with a Cold to some extremely attractive laptop cases :





3. I have also fallen in love with the French totes at Shinzi Katoh Design.







4. I'm also loving the creepy innocence of this print ("Honeysuckle Sisters") from pepperminte's etsy shop:




And also this ("Bliss") from Lily Moon:


Thursday, July 24, 2008

pretty ugly

There are few things in life more elegant than clean white table linens.


Unless, of course, they's clean white table linens that have been especially designed to look as though they've had coffee and hot cigarette ash spilled on them!



I realize it's quite a bit odd to inaugurate a blog about "pretty things" with a post about something "ugly," but Julie Krakowski's textile series Coffee and Cigarettes (nothing to do with the Jim Jarmusch film!) is so provocative and, yes, amazing that I think it is worthy of launching the site. At first glance through the images, I was honestly horrified - there's just something troubling about them on a bone-deep level. But the more I thought about it, the more I was amazed at both the conception and execution of this idea. The work is, in fact, so ugly and so absolutely perfect I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since!