Do you love fabric as much as I do? I’m really liking Rashida Coleman-Hale’s latest designs for Cloud9 Fabrics which share her vision of Japanese Koi ponds that are floral, festive, geometric and fun! They would look gorgeous paired with patterns from the collections of other designers for a little mix and match fun. I love her modern interpretation of traditional Japanese motifs and the colorways are gorgeous and feel very current. Here are some of my favorites below.
I really like Ebb & Flow, Pennants Waving (in white) and Smile & Wave (in all colors). I’d love to use them for my sewing and gift wrapping projects but imagine using them for children’s clothing, quilt-making and even stool covers or seat cushions too.
What do you think?
(photos: cloud9 fabrics)
Can we talk about glass cabinets for a moment because I found some online that I have to share with you. I have two glass “Vitrines” but I’m thinking to sell one because the glass goes only halfway up with the bottom being solid wood. I’m thinking to swap it out for one with only glass like these from Lindebjerg Design in Denmark. My favorites are below shown in gray and the other is a shorter version in black for mounting to a wall. I would love to have a mountable glass vitrine like that in black (or white) for my kitchen wall, wouldn’t you? It would be gorgeous to display tea cups, tea tins, and spices inside, wouldn’t it?
These would be equally stunning in a bathroom with a clawfoot tub and a black and white tile floor or old wooden floors aged beautifully OR maybe even white or black penny tiles. Isn’t it fun to dream about the perfect bathroom? I could get lost in bathroom design. I want to ultimately own a home so I can make my interior dreams see the light of day but for now, I have to work with what I have in my rental apartment and that usually means buying what can be removed easily upon moving. So, back to cabinets!
Want to talk about color for a minute? Good because wouldn’t you know it, so do I! :) Designer Patty Murphy pulled together this nice print which gave me the whole inspiration to write this post. I thought the palette was great and could ultimately result in a gorgeous room scheme or even a nice outfit. What do you think?
I added little dots below showing the key colors and also listed what they are in Photoshop terms if you are looking to use them in a project… I really adore these colors together though, it’s a very glamorous and feminine mix. Add-in a little metallic copper or gold and you’d have something extra special. If you think the darkest tone you see is black (I think it depends on your screen), you may want to look again. It’s really a truly deep, dark eggplant. Violet with orange, fuchsia and mint is trending for Spring fashion, have you noticed? If you haven’t noticed, here is some inspiration from Breakfast at Yurmans below. I LOVE the pop of RED in this mix too. Wow.
I am thinking that it may be time now to replace neon pink, which is being used everywhere, with accents of fuchsia and red instead. Seeing this photo above convinces me that mixing violet tones, red, mint green, peach, orange, beige, fuchsia and metallic copper could be an amazinggggg palette not only to wear but in the home – Oh yeah. You can even replace red with yellow – like a sunny yellow or mustard as shown below by fargerike.
Makes me dream of the possibilities, wow. What do you think of these colors together?
I’m in heaven!
(images: linked to their sources above.)
I was recently picked as one of the 20 Best Interior Blogs by the Telegraph (UK), which is pretty big deal and I’m happy to be included in their round up. This was announced over a month ago yet I held back from talking about it because I thought, “What about those beautiful blogs that were not on this list? How would they feel?”, but then I thought that perhaps they are on other lists in other articles so maybe it doesn’t matter so much.
I don’t often like to talk about press mentions, not because I don’t value them immensely (I really do) but I don’t like to stir up a feeling of competition because blogging about our success stories can seem a bit egotistic if not balanced, don’t you agree?
I want to thank the Telegraph, particularly columnist + interiors editor Gareth Wyn Davies, for listing me there alongside the design greats like Ben Pentreath (I LOVE his blog and cling to every word), Jonathan Adler, Apartment Therapy and The Selby. What an honor to be counted amongst them! The list also includes my cherished blog friends like Bodie & Fou, SFGirlByBay, Habitually Chic, Katy Elliott, Lonny Blog, Print & Pattern and Emmas Designblogg. I can’t believe the thousands of clicks this press mention brought over to my blog – the traffic has been enormous for a single press mention so that was a most pleasant surprise.
(image: illustration by Emily Robertson)
Let’s talk about telling stories with photos for your blog posts and how to approach it. I shared the Le Dans La blog with you in 2011 (here), but today I thought we could again visit French stylist, Aurélie Lecuyer, who is the lady behind Le Dans La. It is so fascinating to look into her life mostly because her photography is so captivating — her images draw me in. I like how she leaves her home “as is” and shoots scenes that feel very natural and soothing. I’m sure she styles these photos to look imperfectly perfect, she is a stylist with over 8 years of freelance experience after all, but the overall impression is that she is not looking to portray her life as perfect. She is truly comfortable in her own skin and doesn’t need to be anything more than herself and she does this through the art of visual storytelling which really is that – an ART.
I think we will start to see more and more blogs perfecting this art of what I call portraying imperfection in an elegant, artistic way. This could be a new blogging trend – maybe even for books? Wouldn’t that be nice? I think too many blogs are trying to mimic magazine photography and create flawless magazine-perfect blog posts (and stress themselves out if they are not as good) but I think we should chill out a little. It’s best to find your own style and then work to make it the best that you can. Really become skilled in your craft. You don’t need to be Martha Stewart, Sweet Paul or that blogger who takes photographs for a living and who makes her life seem perfect – you can be YOU and do YOUR personal best. You just may find a really lovely response to your body of work by being natural because honestly, our individuality is the only thing we’ve got when it comes to separating us from the pack. Only you can be the best YOU. No one else. Who can copy you then? Look at the world’s top trend setters and even the trend setters in the blogging world. Aren’t they really just being themselves in the end and that is drawing in their crowds of fans? Being yourself after you have worked diligently to make yourself a really good person with talents others admire, is a very HARD thing to rip off or repackage. Trust me.
Okay so let’s talk more about photo stories. I love Aurélie’s blog because she doesn’t worry about perfectly placing objects but concentrates more on showing naturalness in her home life. She focuses on her angles and capturing light to lend a more storytelling quality to her photos. Light is a really good story teller because shadows and streams of sunlight and even the fading of light to dark can evoke emotions that stimulate the imagination. Think about this for a moment. Angles, in addition to light, are important too. Try taking photos on your stomach, at eye level, overhead, slightly above eye level, slightly below, laying on your back looking up… There are so many angles that can make a photo come alive. Try this: You are in a grassy field on a sunny day with huge puffy clouds floating above in a deep blue sky. Pull out your imaginary camera. Tell me how you would compose this shot? The first reaction for most people is to stand straight, bring their camera up to their eye, look through the viewfinder and compose the shot in landscape with the line of horizon separating sky from field. But how about kneeling down or lay down and shoot diagonally towards the sky? It is easy to forget how to tell stories when our focus is just on being magazine-perfect. I’ve been on professional photo shoots – a magazine can spend an entire afternoon and walk away with 5 good photos for publication. How many of us who are blogging have time for that? Why not work more on telling stories with photos?
Think of what you want to say in a blog post and then challenge yourself to say it visually instead. Maybe you want to talk about typography and old-fashioned signage. Challenge yourself to go out for a day either on foot or in your car and stop to photograph ONLY store signs that have a retro vibe that you love. Such photos require little text to support their “story”, they are doing all of the talking for you and require no styling or super amazing photography skills. Just shoot them in ways that are interesting, consider your angles, and then when you are pulling together your blog post, you will see your story coming together very simply and casually thanks to your photos. Little text to support your story is really needed.
I’m learning more and more about storytelling through imagery in my film making classes and through all of the reading I’ve been doing about moving pictures. I’ve been applying this knowledge to other things in my life, such as my photography and I find it a great challenge. I really encourage you to find your photo style and give yourself a good push to try new things and to be a storyteller, too. MAKE A LITTLE MAGIC.
Let Aurélie inspire you through her blog, Le Dans La and her gorgeous website where you can find her portfolio. It’s all such an inspiration to me, I hope it fills you with good feelings today, too.
(photography: Aurélie Lecuyer)
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