Colour + Design Archives - Page 26 of 60

Is This My Blog?

February 8, 2010 By Paola 9 Comments

Oh but I’ve had a fun morning. Our homework for Holly Decor8’s ‘Blogging Your Way’ course this week was to put together an inspiration board that summed up our blogs. We weren’t allowed to put it together on our computers but instead had to use things we had to hand.

As you’ve probably realised I fight continual battle between my childish love of bright colour and my desire to be more chic and sophisticated. On this occasion I just thought, f*ck it, and let my inner child take over.

Here are some individual elements.

Funnily enough the board began with this moody shot of Pixie Geldof from a recent British Vogue. I’ve always wanted to have very short platinum blonde hair (I have the short hair and have been blonde, but never done both at once). I think I’m too old for it now.

I cheated a bit and printed out some photos. I know this wasn’t supposed to be a digital board, but I thought it would be OK since photography is becoming an increasingly big part of the blog/my life.

I also wanted to include some mirrormirror products – the Interiors Colouring Book, Karin Eriksson small bowls and Abigail Percy earrings.

The Illy coffee cup and picture of spaghetti speaks to my Italian heritage and my love of Italy, Italian design and PASTA.

I included some favourite room shots, including some favourite chairs. I do love chairs. And the paint chip is supposed to encourage me in my home renovation endeavours.

The cookies cutters, dayglo cake candles and sprinkles reflect mine and the Minx’s love of tasteful baking.

And have you noticed how much I love graphic daisy shapes? I’d never really realised how much until now.

And if nothing else this exercise has made me realise that I need to hang the beautiful Mexican embroidery I brought back from our trip there two years ago, which is currently just folded up in a cupboard.

And here are more daisies, a cute Ossie Clark sketch on a postcard from the V&A which I absolutely adore, and a photo of houses in Portobello Road, because a little piece of my heart will always remain in Notting Hill. And a cute Marimekko tin.

And there’s yarn. Because at the moment there has to be yarn.

All pics also on Flickr. I’m reviving my commitment to getting stuff up on Flickr, so do come and be my friend. I’d love to see your pictures too.

Spread a Little Love

February 6, 2010 By Paola 2 Comments

This is so inspirational I just had to share. If I can be bothered to get the tape and the cutter (which is admittedly quite a big ‘if’), the Minx and I might just go out and do this round the nabe.

This is the sort of thing that Brooklyn-based street artist Katie Sokoler gets up to in her spare time.

{I’ve just discovered (via Whorange) her crazy wonderful blog Color Me Katie and it is FABULOUS}

Interior Styling – January Challenge

February 4, 2010 By Paola Leave a Comment

So here’s the photo I finally ended up with for Holly Decor8’s January challenge in her Interior Styling group on Flickr. The challenge was as follows

‘Put 3, 5, or 7 of your favorite things on a tabletop. Only 3, 5 or 7, no more, no less. Arrange them in a triangle style – highest in the middle and work your way down. Try using a framed picture leaning against the wall for the middle, or a tall vase, lamp, flower arrangement, or anything else that is tall and centered.’

I don’t think what I came up with is too great – it’s trying too hard and doesn’t have that effortless throwaway chic that the very best stylists achieve. But it was fun to do and it’s making me realise how difficult styling really is. I’d welcome all constructive criticism. I want to get better at this and you’re all so discerning.

For the record, this grouping features a little bird picture by Amy Ruppel, a vintage teacup and saucer from a beautiful harlequin teaset we were given as a wedding present, a wooden candlestick from Jean Pelle, a vintage glass soda bottle and my knitting (see below).

Adventures in Knitting – First Lace Wrap

February 4, 2010 By Paola 12 Comments

I’m so proud of my little self. I should probably retire from knitting now.

I also have NO CLUE where I will ever wear this.

Musings on Knitting and Life

February 3, 2010 By Paola Leave a Comment

Remember this? I started knitting this lace shawl/wrap thingy back in April last year after finding myself in Portland with nothing to knit and a fabulous yarn shop close at hand which sold lots of colours of Seasilk.

Well, here it is today, washed, pinned out and ‘blocking’. And utterly and completely and totally FINISHED. It just needs to block and dry and then you can see it in all its glory.

It’s the first bit of true lace I’ve ever knitted and I must admit that it’s been somewhat of a struggle. The actual knitting wasn’t that tricky, though I did have to learn how to cable without a cable needle, but keeping track of where I was in the pattern was hard (the cable edgings had a pattern repeat of 8 rows and the diamonds in the middle in rows of 12) and managing laceweight yarn is a nightmare, with stitches dropping all over the place. It didn’t help that the main times I knit are either when watching TV, knitting socially or keeping an eye on the Minx. This job required FOCUS and tons of it.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to rip back to a lifeline, undo several rows or spend ages dropping back through the pattern to fix some silly little mistake I hadn’t noticed at the time (and being a Virgo I’m afraid I just can’t leave mistakes). On several occasions I had to abandon the project for weeks or even months on end, so fed up was I by the slow progress and the repetitive pattern. On more than one occasion I wondered whether I would actually ever finish.

But I kept plodding on, picking it up after it had been abandoned, relearning the pattern, knitting a bit here and a bit there and forcing myself to tink back to fix mistakes. In December last year I vowed that I wouldn’t start anything new until I had finished all my works in progress. I’m not normally so persevering, and this could so easily have ended up as a tangled ball at the bottom of my knitting bag, but the silk yarn was beautiful and expensive and I really wanted to wear the finished article. And so I pressed on.

And it occurs to me that knitting is a bit like life – if you keep going; if you keep adding stitch after stitch after stitch; if you pick things up and start again however difficult things may seem; if you force yourself to go back and fix mistakes; if you keep doing the right thing however little progress you appear to be making, if you just take a deep breath and apply some focused concentration to the job in hand, then one day, instead of a tangled mess, you will find that you’ve created something special and beautiful, of which you can be very, very, very proud.

Proper pics soon. More details, as usual, on my Ravelry page.

Funnily enough when I was researching my family tree last year I discovered that I am descended from a long line of Spitalfields silk weavers. And here I am 200 years later, still ‘weaving’ silk.

Separated At Birth

February 1, 2010 By Paola 4 Comments

I’ve just caught up with Glee (I LOVE it – have become a total Gleek) and all I can say is.

Sue Sylvester Candice Olson

This will of course mean beans to anyone who is not a watcher of dreadful HGTV decorating shows.

Today I Am Mostly…

February 1, 2010 By Paola 3 Comments

…watching things unfurl

It is ridiculous how excited I am that last year’s orchid has taken it upon itself to bloom again. My orchids never ever ever rebloom despite a lot of cajoling. It has been overwintering in our bathroom and of course I have no idea what triggered it off this time.

If you’re not a green fingered orchid growing genius such as myself (ha ha!) then you may want to take a look at this comment thread on Shelterrific, which has loads of wonderful orchid advice.

For advice as to whether orchids have any place in interior decorating at all, I refer you to Decorno here.

And I can’t work out whether I like these Boskke sky planters available from Velocity – (I think I’m coming down on the side of ‘like’).

The images, from Sunset magazine, sure are pretty though.

Sandra’s Studio

January 31, 2010 By Paola Leave a Comment

08e

Remember the Wrist Worms?

Isn’t this just the perfect place to create them? It makes me want to dive for my crochet hook.

{Image of Sandra Juto’s studio from her blog www.sandrajuto.com }

Unhappy Hipsters

January 29, 2010 By Paola 1 Comment

‘It became their routine. And so the evenings stretched out before him: still, gray, and gravel-strewn’

From Unhappy Hipsters, the most fabulous new blog since Stuff White People Like. And yes, I know this has been three times round the design blogosphere already.

Go Fug Your Windows

January 29, 2010 By Paola 9 Comments

Well, I was very much liking the idea of a shop window decorating competition, until I actually saw the results.

Three designers, three windows in Bloomingdales NYC, three boring as hell rooms.

First up The Urbane Traveller by Eileen Joyce for Bloomingdales.

What is it about Americans and brown interiors? It’s something that has really struck me since I’ve been living here. In the UK brown went out with the Victorians – thank goodness as it really doesn’t work with British light – but here it still seems to be the safe colour of choice.

This so bland, so dull, and so generic that words fail me. Except to wonder why a ‘sophisticated travel magazine editor’ would want to have two highly impractical stone orbs on her highly impractical coffee table. Let me know if you see anything interesting in this snoozefest because it’s eluding me.

Next up The Writer’s Romantic Supper, by Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan for Apartment Therapy.

This is where I destroy all my (fortunately nonexistent) chances of winning a ‘Homie’ next year.

It is criminal, yes, criminal, what Maxwell G-R, whose taste I normally quite like, has done to that absolutely gorgeous Neisha Crosland paper (speaking of which, we used to stock Neisha Crosland accessories in the shop and we must get some more in).

He has totally ignored all the very wise advice on feature walls you give below – covering it up with two truly horrible portraits, overwhelming it with an astonishing amount of fuss and clutter and turning the whole into some dingy Victorian drawing room, complete with a quite spectacularly horrible repro armchair. I know M G-R said he was going for a ‘steampunk-y’ vibe but honestly it’s because of rooms like his that minimalism was ever invented. And if my beau turned out to have an apartment like that I would feel too agitated and uncomfortable for any ‘romance’.

And finally we have The Modern Woman by our old friend Eddie Ross.

And, much as it pains me to say it, I like this window by far the best of the three, though that’s not to say that I actually like it. But at least we can be grateful to him for avoiding brown.

It’s a more modern style than we’ve seen from him before and I really like what he’s done with the cushions, (except for the Miles Redd-ish faux leopard skin), colours and artwork, though the paint speckled walls and everything else leaves me pretty cold.

And of course he has to include his signature Kelly Wearstler–esque bust which seems to follow him around everywhere (see the link above for his house in Lonny magazine). Somewhat unnervingly the muse for this room is described as a ‘media mogul and mother of two’ and yes, every mother I know would just love to have half a hundredweight of statuary teetering on a precarious pedestal with kids around. It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. Do young gay interior decorators actually ever meet kids?

Anyway, I was too bored/disappointed to bother voting, but if you’re inspired, full details of all three rooms are here. Do you like them?