I heard from Bianca Hall earlier this week who shared her line of screen prints under the name Kiss Her (cute, huh?) and found her work to be pretty sweet, especially her modern use of the doily motif. Some of you may know I’m into the often feared doily but I can’t help it — they resemble snowflakes, they are kind of folkish, and they seem so delicate and feminine. Bianca’s inspiration comes from ell ooh vee ee, love.

A romantic at heart, she designs bold graphic prints with lots of color that work in a variety of settings from the kitchen to the kid’s room. She also uses diamond dust on some of them. Here’s the scoop on that, “Bianca uses diamond dust in some of her work, adding a third dimension that really catches the eye. Originally used by the late great Andy Warhol (most famously in his Diamond Dust Shoes piece), it has recently been resurrected by the likes of Damien Hirst, Peter Blake and Gavin Turk to name a few. As we know, works by such artists are out of most peoples reach, but now everyone can afford to have a bit of sparkle on their walls. Slightly misleading by name, it’s actually fine sheet glass that’s been shattered and made into tiny shards that sparkle like…..well, like diamonds!”

A note about her prints, those without diamond dust can be inserted into standard frames (from IKEA for instance) but those with the dust require a pro to frame them.

Seeing these doilies leads me to reveal a dream I had last night. This is really goofy but I think I’ll share anyway because it’s every color of crazy. I ran into Gwen Stefani at a music store and shyly said hello and introduced myself and embarrassed, I blushed and ran up to the second floor to browse magazines. I wanted to tweet everyone about the sighting and recall being really angry that I didn’t have my iPod Touch on me. Anyway, she came to find me and said, “Well hello Holly, why did you run away so soon?” and then the next thing I knew I was in this funky room/harajuku girl lair with her new collection of jewelry and homewares. I could sit here right now and draw everything I saw, I mean really great pieces that I don’t recall ever seeing in ‘real’ life. One was this amazing jacket with a doily pattern, very understated, very cool, very Jean Paul Gaultier. I saw these amazing necklaces that looked like doilies with an edge, like they were knitted by a really mean grandmother going through her teen emo/angst period a little late life. Another was different, no doily involved at all, just a smooth gorgeous ceramic ring, in white, that was designed to resemble a diamond engagement ring. In the center of the huge white ceramic “diamond” there was a tiny diamond in the shape of a heart, which was very small and sweet. Inside of the ring, you know in the band part that no one can see, it said “I’ve made a promise, to me” and another one said, “I thee wed myself”, and the third one said, “Love thyself, the greatest love”. She (Gwen) wanted me to rep her line and talk about it on my blog (LOL) but I refused as I explained that I don’t rep other people and have no interest in doing so. In the end, she gave me a handbag, the doily patterned jacket (sassy!) and one of the ceramic rings. After that, she started texting me like every few days, “On my yacht”, “Bling bling, hello are you there” and other crazy stuff. I mean, hello Holly? I can’t believe how teenage my dream was last night! And that doilies were involved. And design. And my blog. I guess what you do for a living is with you all the time, huh? I have these design-themed dreams a lot though, but most are pretty boring. I’m still thinking of the ring I saw, I wish it existed — it was amazingness squared.

Okay your turn. Any wild and crazy dreams lately?

(images: kiss her)