Oh my dear friends, what a year we’ve had together, apart, online and off — it’s been a wild and crazy ride and I’m so happy to know and welcome you here each day. This year was a biggie for me and so now I simply must take a break from the internet, my lovely blog, and my normal schedule and just chill out. Rest and relaxation can do much to plant new seeds of creativity and so I’ll be offline collecting and planting for just a bit… I encourage you to do the same, you’ll be happier for it!
Thank you for reading decor8, for being my friends and for all of your comments and support this year. You are each beautiful, kind and very special to me and I hope you know how much you have touched my life.
I will sign off until Wednesday, January 5th but after that, I’ll be back to the normal schedule. Enjoy the season and all the beautiful things that it brings. Be safe, warm, have joy and most of all — spread love and watch it grow for you in 2011!
xo,
Holly
(image: holly becker for decor8)
Australian website Homelife has lots of sweet inspiration, starting with their gift wrapping gallery on their site. I like their layouts because they remind me a lot of Leslie Shewring’s beautiful work here on decor8 with her Color Me Pretty column that she’s been writing since 2009. Like you, I love looking at fun crafty projects and plan to experiment a bit and get my hands dirty next week since I’ll be taking time out to chill, be a domestic diva and do all the stuff that I don’t always find (or make) the time to do otherwise.
Do you plan to do any crafting at all between now and new year’s? If so, what? I will make curtains out of some Liberty fabric that I picked up a few days ago… and then I plan to decorate and move around my furniture until things look and feel “right”. I also want to do some paper crafting and in addition, frame a bunch of prints and maybe paint a shelf I’ve had my eye on sprucing up…
(images: homelife)
The darling and sweet Melissa from the Melissa Loves blog finds some of the best things — like German artist Anne Siems, who I’d not heard of before. Melissa is always spotlighting the rare and beautiful out there in blogland, her site is such a delight.
Anne Siems moved from Berlin to Seattle in 1991 after finishing her MFA at the Hochschule der Kunste in Berlin. About her work Anne says, “I continue with my interest in the human figure and the attributes that surround it. These attributes reflect something about the being without giving a specific narrative. Ideas about life and death, sensuality, sexuality, nature, experiences in the realm of dreams, psyche and spirit are my ongoing topic. A lot of inspiration for these pieces stem from my ongoing love for the art of the European Masters, Early American Folk Art, as well as vintage and modern photography.”
So nice to know of Anne and her work.
(images: anne siems)
I recently heard about Swedish fashion photographer Anna Malmberg who currently lives in Paris… and I must share some lovely work from her portfolio with you on this snowy day. Poetic, flirty, dreamy, feminine… a little edgy.
What do you think? You can see more of Anna’s work here.
Thank you Katja for the tip!
(images: anna malmberg)
I wrote about London locations company 1st Option today over at Real Simple, though as I scoured their website I started to think about why some of my favorite rooms in their portfolio worked and so I thought I’d share a few quick decorating tips along with their gorgeous locations… One thing I have learned over the years is to dissect everything and really ask yourself WHY? a lot when it comes to what you naturally are drawn towards.
Why does this work? What do you like?
If this appeals to you, what exactly lures you in? The mirror? The many tones of white? Do you simply like the no-frills feel? Maybe it is old books that you love? Is it the white walls and floors?
I try to avoid rushing through magazines and blogs but instead, I take time to really look at the images that attract me. I think about what exactly is pulling me in, and I ask, Why does this or that work? I made little notes above on these images to illustrate my point. After looking at them I was able to pinpoint why these arrangements appealed to me. I also ask when viewing images that I like, What do I like about it? Why is the room appealing? And if I cannot seem to figure it out I won’t let myself walk away until I’ve identified exactly what drew me to it in the first place. This type of thinking if very active and “in touch” — I don’t do it every single time I pull out my favorite magazine (I often zone out and relax without thinking much as I look at images, too), but spending extra time to really pick apart what you love is so rewarding in the end because you train your eye, figure out your taste and style, and learn a lot about yourself in general but also about interior decorating and what themes or objects that you see repeated in some of the best rooms that designers are using today — and then you can try doing something like it in your own home.
We learn through observation and also through imitating what we see — it starts when we are infants and we watch our parents, often copying their behavior — but after some time, we mature and desire to no longer copy but to try to make something we saw personal to us or to improve it somehow. That is always the goal when we find inspiration — to either figure out how we can do something similar but with our own personality in the mix or how we can change it up a bit (or completely) and make what we saw even better in our own eyes.
Do you like to pick rooms apart and figure out what works, too?
(images: 1st option)
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