funky chicken

a rooster with serious flare getting down at studio 54

loyal loot collective

loyal loot is a design collective featuring the clothing and industrial design of its four canadian women designers: doha chebib, carmen douville, dara humniski and anna thomas. per their website, "As a collective, Loyal Loot strives to create designs with a natural quality by staying true to materials. The inherent value of these designs is meant to last a lifetime ensuring that they retain a non-disposable presence and remain precious to their owner, becoming more and more meaningful as they age." I like this perspective on mere objects and i think their design is clean and clever with a definite emphasis on sustainability. (above, log bowls by doha chebib)


monsieur dress up, designed by anna thomas
coat hang, designed by dara humniski



hung table, designed by doha chebib


and last but not least, the designers themselves

introducing. . .the chandwich

i know this is a long awaited blog entry for some of you (ahem, david!). . .one of the fruits of our at-home vacation was the invention of a sandwich which we like to call the "chandwich" (patent pending) with the following ingredients (see rube perusing them):
chicken
chorizo
cheddar
cippolini onion chutney (homemade)
ciabbata or challah bread


grilling up all melty cheeselike


eh voila! the chandwich!

method bloq

i've been a big fan of method's household cleaning products for a while. they come in pretty (for hand soap) containers (all if not most are designed by karim rashid), are non-toxic and environmentally friendly. i just discovered the bloq body wash which is nice smelling liquid soap in an adorable and hand friendly block. so cute. and as david says, think of all the gas saved from shipping these unusually packable packaging. fits nice and compact on a shower shelf too. and the scents are quite nice like beach sage with mango and papaya extracts. yum yum. and affordable too. i heart target.

mettes potteri

a recent favorite blog of mine is mettes potteri, authored by mette, a danish ceramicist. love some of these shots of her (tiny) apartment, which i snagged via emma's design blog

jeu de paume

reading the yvestown blog over the weekend, i came across yvonne's design book club and a mention of jeu de paume books . jeu de paume is a japanese family-run publisher that puts out great european-inspired design books . the text is entirely in japanese but the images are really inspirational.
the books are only available through amazon japan, but with this handy tutorial from yvonne, it's really easy to order.

clockwise from top left: london children's rooms (2), stockholm children's rooms (2)paris children's rooms stockholm kitchens (2)

kitchen inspiration

one blog leading to another, i came to a great blog, yvestown by yvonne eijkenduijn of the netherlands.
i love the subtle simplification of her kitchen with oak countertops and black tile floors.


you can also check out smart pix of her wellkept home here what a lovely colored-out array of books. my lord!

eco-conscious fashion

i recently stumbled across people tree, a british company that specializes in fair trade and ecological fashion. they have everything from pretty-colored jersey tees, pretty (nacho crunchy variety) organic cotton undies and dresses to a japanese vogue designer collection with pieces by richard nicoll and thakoon (love this dress on the left!) produced in limited edition (100 pieces per design). they seem to be sold out of all styles but a cool site to bookmark for later investigation

donna wilson

donna wilson = british textile designer. i remember seeing her die-cut felt doily rug months ago in a design mag, but she has a bunch of other great stuff including a "little doily" (what a weird looking word) that is a placemat, a lamswool-tufted polka dot rug, a "grassed up" rug, and a "blah" pillow. her simply illustrated website is inspirational and i love how her 'creatures' stuffed animals are like sketches made into the 3rd dimension. couldn't you see them in some great music video?
check her stuff out here

uncle dude's birthday day

it's my brother pete's birthday today. he turns 35. woo hoo. ruby wanted me to photograph her carrying a transcribed sign of her well-wishing, since she can't get the words out so good. DOOOO.


for his thirty-fifth, i designed for him the second in a limited edition of "fatty and diamond d" tee shirts.
fatty and diamond d were pete's pet rocks when he was a little kiddo. he used to put out a bowl of water for them (because rocks are dry and thirsty). them being rocks, i thought it fitting to portray them in a (rock) band. to the left we have fatty on the upright bass (doom babba doom babba doom) and diamond d on the mandolin (plingy pling pling).

cheers, brother! i love you!

now i LIKE her like her

ever since my sister-in-law winn turned me onto neko case with the song deep red bells i've found her voice and her lyrics hauntingly beautiful and addictive. some peeps call her 'country noir'. anyways,earlier in the evening we watched a neko case live concert on HDTV we were entranced and speechless. i mean, some people are good on albums but rare is the musician who is better live than in the studio. she was heartbreaking. her voice does this thing i can only cheesily describe as if she takes you over the rainbow. such an amazing (thanks winn for turning us onto her to start with!) singer songwriter. makes you want to take big deep breaths, it's like tumbleweed through your heart. her website is full of all sorts of good stuff, including quirky illustrations. if you don't know her music and want to check it out, have a listen to 'star witness' here and then think, she only does it better live

later. . . with jools holland

this show is so good i shook david to wake him up at 3:30pm (unsuccessfully).
later. . .with jools holland is a brilliant late night concert tv program that's been on BBC since 1992 and is available through the RAVE-HD channel on optimum online (channel 785) and dish network. jools holland hosts this program where all-star musicians of varied genres perform on a rotating basis. the effect is not just an amazing concert, but a well-curated concert like an audiovisual mixtape gallery put together by your smartest most inspirational music-loving friend. an added plus of the rotating-performer thing is that you don't have to sit too long through a performer who might not be your favorite. tonight was session 28 including two of our all time favorites- thom yorke and the be good tanyas (pictured). another program has tony bennett and scissor sisters, amongst others. a third program features the strokes, the flaming lips and cat power (you get an idea of the variety). then there's the quality of the picture, which is really like being at a live concert. which, when you have a 20 month old, you don't get to do all that often. . if you don't know the be good tanyas, have a listen of their blue horse album (favorites: littlest birds, lakes of pontchartrain, or chinatown album (favorites: it's not happening, ship out on the sea, reuben)

jan eleni

jan eleni is an interior designer based in nyc who specializes in kids' rooms. i think she does such a great job of balancing modern and antique, sleek and artsy, room for mess and order (perfect for kids rooms). . .she even does an "archive" of your child's art with 112 miniatures framed ever so minimalistically. when so many kids rooms seem contrived and overdecorated, these are sooooo refreshing and lovely! peruse her website here

david's friday column

maybe this will be a regular column for my honey and his trippy pix i love

owl on an el camino

this is how he rolls. . .

murphy bed

living in a smallish house, we often find ourselves daydreaming about various space-maximization scenarios. so. . .how cool is this? the 'ulisse' wallbed from clei uk, available through bonbon trading




and this sweeeeet 'lollipop' bunkbed wall unit.

yeti!

check out this yeti shadow puppet i found on the owly shadow puppets etsy site

new fave design blogs

i recently added a bundle of new design blogs to the list on the left. here are some of my favorite inspirational pix from these blogs. clockwise from top left:
ceramic work by edmund de waal from lena corwin,
images from a great house&garden review of beds written by design*sponge
images from 3191 photoblog,
pieces by graphic designer matieu hubert from poppytalk,
image from port2port,
sharon coplan hurowitz' ny home from emma's design blog.

couchbed

i found this entry on my new favorite swedish design blog, mettes potteri: how to turn two twin mattresses into a couch that functions as. . .well, a bed! the back cushions even fold out to be foam mattresses for additional guests. check out the entry here

built by wendy

does anyone else remember this actress, i think her name is robin tunney? she played a young woman with tourette syndrome in a movie in the 90s. and i think she may have starred across from chris o'donnell in some crazy mountain action film in the past five years. . .i am resisting the urge to google, ala my billy jean entry. . .

i digress. these images of said actress are from the fall 2007 collection
from built by wendy. how adorable is that ruffle top? what's even COOLER for ambitious DIYers is that designer wendy mullin has linked up with pattern company simplicity to offer a "built by you" series of sewing patterns, ones that jenny gordy uses as a starting place for some of her designs (see previous post), as well as a how-to sewing book, sew u, and a tote bag sewing kit with the book and every pattern a hip DIY girl can handle.

so. . . this may just help me try to approximate the calypso pazzi dress i've been coveting that now seems to be out of stock.

jenny gordy

i came across a great blog, wiksten made, by jenny gordy, that features great little dresses she makes out of beautiful fabrics. which led me to. . .(see more recent post)

the cabin house

a very inspiring look at steady simple home improvements, in the cabin house blog, follow shayna and her boyfriend as they fix up their little house in oakland, ca. what a little love and coats of paint will do. . .

swedish and danish design blogs

ah, scandinaviaaaaaaaaa
clockwise from top left:
liiviantalossa
living in andyland
ferm living
emma's design blog
mettes potteri
red house design

down by the riverside

love where we live

vitamin d(esign)

here's a cool new online shop i found listed in several design blogs: vitamin d(esign). they have a fantastic section called d-ECO-rate which has cool sustainable furniture i haven't seen anywhere else (clockwise from top left: surfin magazine rack, hollow end table, tetrad flat shelving, rekindle occasional table) that is relatively affordable (compared to other sustainable design-cool furniture).

also quite covetable are their pouches of 5 reusable shopping totes, which you can reserve now but don't ship until later in august. i couldn't resist buying the monochromatic ones pictured above.
check out the vitamin d(esign) website for yourself.

chester a. arthur

this is chester allen arthur, the 21st president of the united states (and the subsequent vice president), who is quoted as saying "well. . .there doesn't seem to be anything else for an ex-president to do but go into the country and raise big pumpkins."

. . .and trim their presidential moustaches, no? like a zz top president.

david, this one's for you! (my man has an acute obsession with little-know presidents + presidential facial hair.)

poppytalk blog

per their own description: "poppy talk is a canadian design blog collecting inspiration and promoting emerging design talent." but. . .check it out for yourself. it rocks. one could spend hours looking around this blog for inspiration!