How about a little more love for the Pacific Northwest today?! Makelike is a graphic design studio specializing in print, illustration, collateral, pattern and surface design. Oh, and a love for creating homewares! They are currently obsessed with cactus (and soon to turn their attention to a new collection focused on national forests) so they have created a collection of pillowcases, wallpaper, posters and tea towels to celebrate their spiky desert dwelling friends.
“The linen tea-towels are 100% European linen and the pillowcases are 100% cotton; both are hand-screened using water-based inks. The limited-edition posters (edition of 50 per colorway) are hand-screened with water-based ink on archival (pH neutral/acid-free) 100% cotton rag paper. There are ?ve colorways of wallpaper: two in Succulent and three in Pointy.”
A big thank you to Liz Calderón for writing in and sharing makelike with decor8!
(images: makelike)
Roddy & Ginger has some delightful new offerings to grab your interest today… I’ve long been a fan of Virginia’s design work which is why I love to write about her whenever she shares new patterns and colors showing her signature characters along with some new friends that she has created.
I love the folksy feel along with the mid century colorways and clean, modern aesthetic. From mermaids to pretty maids all in a row, Roddy & Ginger has designs to fit every room in your home from the kid’s play area to the kitchen. Love!
And of course… I have another reason for posting about Roddy & Ginger and this photo above is a bit of a sneak peek… But you have to read Virgina’s own words here to know my secret. :)
(images: roddy & ginger)
Okay, show of hands… How many of you used sheets to make indoor tents as a child? I did and I would use anything to secure them from shutting corners in dresser drawers to using my father’s shoes to hold them in place. But my tents never, ever looked this amazing…
That’s why when I saw these photos (above) from artist Timothy J. Karpinski in Portland, Oregon, I smiled big. He built this crochet technicolor dream tent for a milepost 5 show. I loved making tent houses and have fond memories of spending time beneath them, especially at night, with a flashlight reading Sweet Valley High books or those Choose Your Own Adventure titles – and to think that my adventure of reading started all because I wanted the kittens poster from those school book flyers that came out a few times a year. Do you remember those? If you ordered a certain number of books you could choose your free gift, which was almost always an animal poster? ha! What a flashback!
Timothy isn’t known only for his groovy lounge areas though, he is known for his art which is quite sweet and his recent work can even be described as childlike innocence in a pastel wonderland of characters and sweet emotion. You can purchase some of Timothy’s works here.
“From a young age I’ve always been making things. Building forts turned into building skate ramps which lead to building art installations. I love the art making process, from the initial spark of the ‘idea’, the creation to the finished product. Art for me is very personal and everything i make is a direct reflection on my feelings about this world and my struggle and fascination with trying to understand it and find my purpose within it.”
Psst: If you are in the Seattle area visit This Feels Right, a showing by GNU’s Art Director Timothy Karpinski – now until the end of June. “Timothy Karpinski features his signature themes of love, friendship and kindness rendered in compositions of cut paper, pastel colors and detailed graphite drawing. In his world the viewers sense of wonder and innocence are set free as friends share a pot of tea on a rainy day, hot air balloons elevate lovers to new heights and float upon clouds on a moonlit night.”
(images: timothy karpinski)
Remember how I was just telling you about all of the new things out there in the art + design world and how inspiring it all is? With all of the fairs and flea markets and indie fests going on right now, there is a lot to find and be inspired by. Not to mention what the big retailers are up to as they begin to roll out their Fall previews… Take West Elm for instance. They have some great things for Fall… would you like a mini taste of what is to come? Good, because that’s what this post is intended to do! And a big pssssst — I love their new bedding!
Now I’m hoping that I have time to hit a West Elm store when I’m in the states in July. I’ll be in New York and Los Angeles working with Debi Treloar on my book (we have a lot of spaces to style + photograph together) and I’m very excited because I’m leaving ahead of schedule so I have 4 vacation days in New York for the July 4th weekend and I’m staying an extra 4 days in California so that I can hang out with my husband as we’ll be celebrating our 9th anniversary and being in California is always special to us as we spent our honeymoon in San Francisco and Sonoma and we both just adore CA from top to bottom, it’s such an amazing state and we both love the diversity – people, places, landscape — bliss! If we ever relocated back to the states California is where we’d go!
But yes, anyway, I plan to hit a few shops while I’m stateside for nearly 3 weeks (Target here I come, ready or not!) and West Elm is one of ‘em. I wonder if the Tripod table in white is flat pack… Hmmmm… It’s NICE. Also loving their new collaboration with Mike Miller…
(images: west elm)
I love all of the new stuff I’m seeing lately… brilliant summer collections, glimpses of upcoming autumn lines, a few new products (like this great collaboration that I wrote about earlier between Heath Ceramics and Dwell)… it’s all so exciting! In many ways, it’s what I live for — if I didn’t constantly have gorgeous new products to see and write about, life would be so dull for me because art and design is such a big part of who I am — who you are — who WE are, don’t you think?
I can’t imagine not having new seasons and collections to look forward to. It’s not about being insatiable or even materialistic because I certainly do not purchase every new thing that I see. It’s more about seeing people all around the world dreaming, thinking, applying their skills, creating something special… this gives me such energy! You too?
Take Heather Moore from Skinny laMinx for example… she’s rad. Always thinking, always doing, consistently impressing her fans and finding newbies to convert. I’ve been watching her grow from the beginning and her line just gets better and better which gives me such a great feeling inside — observing the creative process of others is food to me and no doubt to you too or else you wouldn’t be reading a design blog like decor8!
Lovely new fabrics, cushions and things — loving these colorways and patterns — all available in her Etsy shop.
(images: skinny laminx)
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