Christmas Decorating Proj Number One

So, it is the first of December, which means that there are only 24 more days until Christmas! Time to decorate, buy gifts, write cards, bake treats etc. Over the weekend while I was home in the country, I went to one of my fave antiques stores (will talk about that later) and I found these three fun vintage Christmas post cards (below)! They even had writing on the back which made them even more special. You can find some on ebay too!
I really wanted to do something interesting with them rather than just have them. I didn't want to cut them to make cards either. I decided to display them in a really fun and festive way! I attached each one them them to a red grosgrain ribbon with about an inch in between and a few inches extra at the bottom. You can get lots of great ribbon at Kate's Paperie. Then I took another red ribbon and tied a floppy blow and safety pinned it to the top, attached it to my door and voila!
Now I have the start of some fun and inexpensive Christmas decorations! YAY! (I might need to calm down.)

Alicia B.

Hear the Silence

We have all suffered the clattering cacophony of a crowded canteen or the stringent battering that a child can dish out to the dining table. Swedish freelance furniture designer Sigrid Stromgren decided to do something about it and created the Silent Whisper. The table is made from a patent pending high density laminate with a clatter-absorbing core. This surface reduces noise by 10dB (or half in real speak!).
We all struggle to find that inner voice that is constantly calling to us but drowned out by life. Silent Whisper goes a little way towards letting us hear ourselves. Produced in Sweden by Materia.

Urban professional's edible balcony shade garden, Melbourne

The brief here is to design a productive, lush shade-gardens for the 8th story home-office of a philosopher/I.T. professional. He cooks, he entertains, and spends a heap of time here. A captive audience. I have a feeling he will invest the time and care into making something extraordinary.

Starting with a design for the second story, here is what I would do:

Install awnings, to shade the garden below so its fun to start work in.
Get the biggest oblong self-watering planters I can find, to go behind the window-railings. String some twine or wire across the rest of the sun-drenched walls and window, and plant some climbers to shade the whole area.
My choice of climber, for now, is bouginvillia flowers, mail ordered for soft, unique colors, and intertwined with vanilla.

photo from elementaryteacher in the Middle East

My bouganvillia 'flowered' for almost half the year, right into winter, on my north-facing Melbourne balcony. They like fertility, sun, and hate being over watered. They loose their leaves in winter if its cold. Not here.

Vanilla orchid photo from Spicelines

I've never seen vanilla growing in Melbourne. Now might be the chance.
It needs a trellis-friend to climb on, good sun, some shade. Vanilla plants can be ordered by mail, or grown from cuttings - they are costly, which is discouraging, if you expect it to die anyway, or encouraging, if you expect to propagate and sell them on again.

This vanilla bean mural from Spicelines gives away the theme I have in mind for downstairs...
(Tabacco plant, soft colored chillies and tomatoes, coffee bush, cocoa plant, and maybe a toothy fish for the pond...). More of this in the next installment.
Thanksgiving day is tomorrow. We have lots of delicious things to thank a certain continent for.

These are the shade vines I thought of and dismissed:
Passionfruit: it needs deeper soil than a window box
Clematis: it needs its roots kept cool. Too much direct sun on the pots. Wisteria: too heavy to grow on the lateral strings. Structures like wooden lattice would't be allowed by body corporate, and rightly so - it looks a mess from a distance, unless all neighbours have the same structure.

Here are plants that could be good, but don't fit into a theme I have in mind (its secret, for now)
Honeysuckle or Jasmine: lovely fragrant yellow or white flowers
Hardenbergia: native, delicate purple flowers, not very bushy though.
Ornamental or fruiting grape: light, and there is JUST enough acces for someone to harvest and trim once a year.

So, why does a combination of two complementary flowers intertwined look so much better than one?

Bouganvillia Photo from Daves travel corner

Is it our romantic nature noticing the harmony between two well-matched flowers? Sympathetic gladness that they are not alone in the world?
This bougenvillia is glorious, but could almost be made of polymers. Kind of 'dehumanizing' (the plant version). From a distance, the blaze of color would visually disturb the balance of the house, and thats no good.
Maybe we need each other to be beautiful. Maybe its all about context.

My hope is, that once the bouganvillia is tried and successful, the other neighbors will do the same. The office workers on the other side of the urban canyon will look up, see what we have created, and their souls will be soothed.

Kitchen Dilemma

Kitchen featured in the 1950s in House Beautiful. WOW.

Yesterday afternoon as I was looking out the window in my parents' kitchen to watch the neighbors walk by (it's what we do in the country to pass the time apparently), I was blinded by the sunlight streaming in and had to look away. It made me start to think about the idea of curtains in the kitchen. My mother says she doesn't want them because they will get cooking debris (oil etc) on them and get dirty. She also really likes the light and openness in the kitchen and doesn't want to feel closed in by curtains. I wanted to see what other designers have done in kitchens, as the 3M filters on the windows my parents have just isn't cutting it. See below.

T. Keller Donovan uses a pretty blue toile valance in this otherwise white Nantucket kitchen.

Wooden roman shades would def solve the problem of cooking oils/dirt and since these are pretty thin, they still let the light in. By Noel Jeffrey.

In this uber colorful french style kitchen the designer, Michele Allman uses a red toile fabric and a traditional pinched pleat drapery style in the windows.

One of my now favorite designers John Peixinho who works mainly in Newport, RI also used a roman shade style in this kitchen, but I think it's a thin parchment colored fabric. Low maintenance, light blocking and good looking.

James Michael Howard designed this sleek clean kitchen and used an ivory linen shade in the large window. I like how he continued the strong dark horizontal line on the mouldings into the curtain.

Though the stove is right in between the two windows with long drapery, the designer used floor length drapery and a valance. This may seem like a lot, but it starts to become an architectural element as it echos the door off to the right. From Domino.

Another simple roman shade style but with a little kick with a small vertical stripe running down it. By Caroline DeCesare for the movie Something's Gotta Give. (Good movie but uncomfortable to see with your grandmother.)

One of my many design heroes, Victoria Hagan solves the entire problem of the light by creating these beautiful clerestory windows which provide great but indirect light.

If you're feeling DIY-ish, Martha provides this how-to on making your own curtains in my old fave magazine Blueprint. I like this one because it lets in light but it has very pretty and subtle polka dot texture. So cute!

Well, I helped my parents with their ivory shades from Kravet in our den, so maybe I can help them solve the dilemma of being blinded by too much light and feeling too closed in inside a big kitchen.


Alicia B.

home grown carrots exchanged for art

Tonight I attended the opening of a unique exhibition.
Plant Matter Neo-Eden Melbourne, by the Taiwanese artist Hsu Su-chen
Here she is, getting 'paid' for her work, in carrots.
Tomorrow (saturday) will be even better, as community growing groups get a trading day with her, and her collaborator, eco-architecht lu Chien-ming. You grow food, swap, she draws, swaps.
Now you are intimately connected.
I'm really crazy about the Taiwanese, and love being around them, living with them. They have all the politeness and powers of observation of the Japanese, are intensely educated and creative, but also an innocent, childlike fearlessness, and graceful way of saying what they really think, which makes life unpredictable and good. I haven't met an exception yet.(but maybe the reason I find out they are Taiwanese in the first place is because I'm so taken with them, and ask).

Its a lovely project, having us re-view the scraps of plants that decide to co-exist with us in our city lives.

The exhibition is on until the 13th December, 11-5pm Wednesday to Saturday.
Its at Domain House, just opposite the National Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne.

Thankful for...

Turkey Craft from Martha.

Since Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks, I wanted to share a few things that I'm thankful for; in the design world and otherwise. Here goes!

My friends, family, and loves (only one) who are all super supportive of me.

My health. I'm strong as an ox, people!



My blog and all the support I've gotten from people and people in the "blog world." Who knew a silly girl like me would get mentioned in the Washington Post! Yay!
Photo available in my Etsy Store!

The amazing food I'll be eating tomorrow. What is your favorite part of the meal? Mine is the stuffing...oh god CARBS. YUM.

The entire design world, including amazing designers like Katie Ridder and her classic yet fun designs.

Crown mouldings, wainscoting and the color pink. Is this list getting too frivolous? This was designed by Madeline Stuart. Perfection.

Oh yeah. PIE!! This delish recipe is from Martha!

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving all! Eat lots of turkey (if you eat meat), stuffing, cranberries, and mashed potatoes. Btw, TWENTY NINE DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS!


Alicia B.

Branca's New Store!

This morning I got an email from Branca announcing their new store! It is a collection of home objects from one of my favorite designers, Alessandra Branca. I'd love to show you some of my favorite things from the store but I loved them all! The blue hand blown glass vases, the regency faux bamboo cane armchair upholstered in a red wool tartan, the owl (even though I hate owls) measuring tape...to name a few. I highly recommend visiting the store in person if you live in Chicago (my lucky sister!) or visit it online HERE.


I love when designers start their own store or their own furniture/fabric line. It's like they are selling their favorite things to you! A gift to the design world!

Coming up: Things I'm thankful for !


Alicia B.

Mommo's Traegard

At the bottom of Mommo's garden was the little, red, wooden house. That was our house. A house that breathed. A magical house. We would cycle down the path on our little red trikey-bikes and then the adventured would begin!
Trolls, Pirates, Princesses, Fairies and Tomte all lived in the woods behind the little red house, and they played with us in the dazzling winter sun and the heavy summer storms.
Mommo would rescue us with kanel bullar and lemonade.
We always managed to escape.

ISAK Geisha and Kimono dresses available February 2009.

Flora

Rita Konig's bedroom in her fun eclectic apartment in NYC. She uses a floral pattern in the bedspread, the wallpaper and even the light fixture!

So over the summer I was seeing lots of geometric patterns, lattice work etc in fabrics and wallpapers. WELL, summer is over, and so is geometry. Sort of. Anyway, I've been noticing a lot of flower patterns in wallpaper, bedspreads and fabrics in general. I find it quite calming in a world full of dropping numbers and people panicking about the economy etc. (clearly I need to get out of NYC for a few days). Flowers are pretty, sweet, and simple. Take a look at some of these sweet rooms.

I think this wide floral patterned dining room makes the space look bigger than it already is by adding a depth and openness to the walls. By Michael Taylor.

I know, I know. It's very traditional, but SO pretty! Look at the effect of the large beams on the ceiling leading down to the simple but beautiful curtains and into the room. By Markham Roberts.

Again, Markham Roberts (genius) uses the flowers to frame out a room/area, and it continues around the room (tablecloth, flowers on table and on mantle).

Even with traditional flowers, you can make the space look modern. Living etc.

Mix many different floral patterns for an eclectic look like this one by Fawn Galli.

Does this wall paper look familiar? (See above.) Found it in Domino.

It could be fun to use big bold flowers, like this one in Greenwich, for a glam/modern/but also classic look.

There is a lot of floral fabric in this bedroom designed by Barry Dixon (love!), but it is a pretty wide pattern so it appears more subtle and not too over-flowered. In the huge glass vase, the theme continues! So cute!

It's interesting how even though we are seeing lots of flowers, they can still maintain a modern look or some of the geometric quality. I think that when people think flowers, they think old lady designs or a stuffy chintz, but they can be light, feminine, modern, or glam depending on how you place it. Thoughts?


Alicia B.