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Please Be Seated { angela angle's chairs }

I came upon Angela Angle's interior design work on Monday and found it really interesting. There is something very different about the way she uses space, color and furniture. Do you see what I mean from the photos above?

I was especially taken by some of the concepts involving chairs. After all, chairs are for sitting. But they also have personalities of their own. She uses scale, color, and placement to create not only a somewhere to sit, but a new personality that is waiting for you to come into the room, and a feeling of a dreamily separate space, colored by memory.

More to see here. Also worth noting are her bedrooms - so simple, kind of hotel or summer house esque. Underdesigned but fascinating. I really like the way they feel.

Something Blue

 

In bloom...

 

As a remnant of the past...

or from within...

Summer Lovin { flip flop bangles }

I have horrible feet and the idea of wearing flipflops gives me hives.

However, I suppose I would wear these. Yeah. I would.

And the price is nice too. Only 9.50 for 10

 

Weekender

Just a couple of quick sketches... I like the way they feel together Kind of fun and folksy yet modern in their color. These are grabs from my monitor. I think the top one would make great wrap or cotton fabric, and the bottom would make a really nice silkscreen for wallpaper - where the brown is kraft color/substrate, and the red and white are the inks on top.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone. 

Wood Works { parquet inspiration }

I am not really a decor hound. But there are a few things that I am absolutely firm on about where I live. Wood floors are one of them. Walking on a wood floor after being somewhere with a concrete or wall to wall floor, to me, feels almost as good as walking on the grass after spending too much time on the street. 

Add a great pair of artisan crafted boots to the equasion, and you have the satisfying, clunk, clunk, clunk sound that the cowboys made when they walked into the saloon in the old days. Now *that* is a treat to be savored!

While more appropriate for waltzing, rather than spurs a jangling, the pattern designer in me is totally in love with anything parquet at the moment. I just adore the contrast in the grain, and the lovely geometry in the motifs. It's such a great synthesis of the predictable and the natural.

More about the art of Parquetry Here

and it's sister: Marquetry, which involves curved wood Here

Enjoy!

****update**** forgot one! see below...this may be my fave!

Father's Day

 

Well, Father's Day is coming up this weekend, so I thought I would bookend my prior post on Mother's Day with a little post about my Dad. See Dad? I told you I would!

When I look back on my childhood and days growing up, I often think how different my Dad was from all the other dads. Many of my friends' dads were very predictable and taciturn-- no, let me rephrase that-- they were downright BORING. But my dad was always an early adopter. He was always doing, saying, and encouraging the unpredictable... offering an alternative vision... and taking the road less traveled. Often quite literally. 

There is always an alternative, and authority should always be questioned...if not, on occasion, disregarded entirely. Often, that is what our family chose, and we still do; and this stems directly from the Tao of Dad.  While being different is not always the easier way, it is more fulfilling, and richer, and more amusing.

So, before you go doing what everyone else is doing, or doing something just because everyone else is doing it, consider the alternative. Before you go getting something new, see if you can fix what you have. You might not be able to, but it will make a hysterical story if you can't. Before you discard something old, look for the history in it. Before you pass something off as different, ugly, uncool, or even downright weird, ask yourself if that's really true, or if it's just new to your eyes. And...and this is important...don't let anyone ever tell you what to think. Because you can think for yourself, and it's more fun.

Thanks Dad. I love you!

 

 

Come Away With Me

Image via Cuba Gallery

Greetings Earthlings...

Well I am back to my blog after a time away. You know...sometimes, the internet just overwhelms me, and I realize I am spending way too much time online, and not enough doing the things, and being with the people, that help sustain me. I start feeling kind of scattered and lost. And when that happens, I know it's time to hide for a while.

Lately, I find myself collecting lots of textures...an interesting thing for me to do since for so long, my design style has been about flattening everything out. Over the weekend, though I had a little cold, I assembled this grouping up here. The Scrummy surfer Baja look is trending pretty big right now...so I wanted to add some of my own picks. The trick with this look is to add the right notes that say one is AWARE of the trend, without looking like you've been sleeping in the same drug rug in a beach shack for 40 hazy nights. Although, actually... that could be fun, too.

Love this creatively rough way accent a structural accessory: here and here
The geometric accent on this bag gives an urban edge: here
A really versitile and wearable way to channel the iconic Drug Rug: here
And,I can't figure out if I like the bottom or the top of of this huarache wedge sandal better: here