rooms to inspire

I just bought this book for my mother in law- Rooms to Inspire: Decorating with America's Best Designers. It just came out last week and so I'm pretty confident that she either doesn't have it or hasn't perused through it already. My in-laws just bought a summer home on some island off of Georgia so I'm hoping she'll appreciate the interior design inspiration. :)

It looks like a really cool book. Maybe I can actually read it when I'm over for the holidays or something, hehe.

looking for pictures

i bought this frame several weeks ago from boom design and i'm having a hard time figuring out what kind of pictures to put in it. the window sizes are kind of awkward as the entire thing is only 11 x 14. the rectangles are also too narrow to put any standard vertical photos without looking chopped.

i think i'm going to just print out cute images i see and include them...esp for the tiny windows.

but i do love this frame. :) slowly yet surely, things are going up on our walls.

magazine overload

i just subscribed to domino magazine! it's about time i stop leeching off quick reads at the bookstore or supermarket lines. :) i notice they use a lot of cool/warm combos- i'm loving this orange and blue, of course.

i already subscribe to martha stewart living and the economist and i recently received gift subscriptions to dwell and gourmet. that's five magazines!!! i have a hard enough time keeping up with the economist's weekly reads.

what magazines do you guys subscribe to?

i made mini green tea cheesecakes topped with fresh raspberries with a gingerbread crust. i love making finger-friendly desserts for parties because there always seems to be a pie overload (or at least the parties i go to). i hate making pies. they are ugly to me and mine will always be inferior to the ones at apple pan. YUM, the best pies ever.

i'm so predictable...

long time no post, i've been on vacation. :)

orange is my favorite color...but only as an accent color- especially when paired with blue or green (and lots of white). i find that i always gravitate towards pictures that utilize these colors. some things that have caught my eye recently:


happiness! heidi giftwrap (via decor8)

i bought this pop ink plate from mr. french awhile ago. i didn't realize that it was made out of melamine so i have to figure out a way to hang it. we definitely have an orange/blue theme going on in our living room. :)



i LURVE this wall color. this was supposed to be the wall color of our apartment but it ended up turning out more sky blue-ish. bah. Eva Zeisel (via apartmenttherapy.com)

okay, there's another picture of an orange ottoman against a blue couch but i can't find it.

the motivation to blog is low...

when it feels like nobody is reading your blog. hehe. i have to keep reminding myself that i started up this thing for myself (as sort of a creative outlet and a place to archive art and design products) rather than to pander for attention. it's also nice b/c i can comment on peoples' blogs now, whereas before, my username directed folks to a super old 2002 travel blog. yes, i've had this sucker before the blog revolution.

anyway, i've noticed that so many design bloggers are really into cats. i'm a dog person all the way; cats kinda scare me, cat ladies scare me more. when one of my anti-dating friends told me that she's thinking of getting a cat or two, i sincerely worried about her. here's a picture of my doggie- precious (my sister named him when she was young). i lurve him. from a completely subjectively objective opinion, i will say that he has the cutest, most affable personality in the world (and a cute face to boot). kind of a messy eater, but that adds to the charm.

i just made the best salad

seriously, i think salads are the closest thing to food art. i love all the bright colors of the produce and how it all comes together organically to create something beautiful. i didn't take a picture but here's one i found off of flickr from disneymike.

ingredients:
- fresh organic greens
- sliced papaya
- sauteed red, orange, and yellow peppers
- grated pecorino cheese
- sliced avocado
- grilled chicken strips
- lemon and olive oil
- cracked pepper and coarse salt

oh my gosh, i found a goldmine!!!

ok, i am on the major search for prints and paintings for our new apartment. i've scoured etsy and a few other sites but haven't really found the "umph" i'm looking for...until tonight. i discovered thumbtackpress.com via we *heart* prints.com via who knows where via who knows where, etc etc.

thumbtackpress.com is AWESOME!!! i'm located just a "few" of my favorite prints. my blog is turning into a veritable art gallery. sorry, i didn't include the titles since i was copying over so many prints. oh, and by the way, i'm doing all of this while playing "settlers" with 3 men who are too engrossed in this board game and a basketball game to share in my art excitement. :)

alex noriega
title: pollution is nice
hmmm...as an angeleno who hates pollution, this may be something i may have to put up on my wall as a gesture of optimism. one of our good friends is getting his phd in atmospheric science, this is his bread and butter...i shall email him this picture. hehe.

gina triplett


josh sears
reminds me of my high school, college, grad school days.

josh sears
i like this print but people with super long hair really freak me out.

Joanne Lew-Vriethoff
the title of this is "perky nipples".

(i'm not going to include prints from jeremy forson, but he deserves an honorable mention on my blog because his art is SO NASTY AND SCARY!!! )

jared drew moody

jared drew moody

jared drew moody
(my husband might actually like this one)


jaime zollars

heiko


Gianluca Foli

Gianluca Folì
so silly! so preposterous! i love it!

Gianluca Folì
(i'll probably buy this one. hehe)

alex noriega


chris silas neal


chris silas neal




shino arihara

here's some other art i stumbled across tonight.

rachell sumpter from http://www.littlepaperplanes.com


kim cogan from http://www.theartprint.net


katy horan from http://www.kopilot.net

ca boom design show discount for bloggers

this seems really neat. ca boom is offering a special discounted package for bloggers and blog readers (ok basically anyone lucky enough to see this link)- http://www.caboomshow.com/blogger/. there's even a special reception just for design bloggers on thursday night. i'll be skiing in colorado during this time, which is a bit tragic since i live within a stone's throw distance to the conference. boooo. i would LOVE to see inside of the homes i pass by on a daily basis. yesterday, my husband and i went "running" in mar vista and i basically walked the entire time just to take in all the cool architecture of some of the homes. and also, because i am lazy and out of shape. (thank you cool houses for giving me an excuse)

aw, the more i think about this, the more i'm sad that i can't go. when else can i finally look into the cool homes in my community?

by the way, if anybody is going and wants great restaurant recs (big big foodie here), just let me know. :)

jonathan adler dispenser

in honor of apartment therapy's bathroom month, i'll post about our jonathan adler lotion/soap dispenser...that i have very mixed feelings about.

it's a gorgeous piece but little did i know that it was dispensing gunky dark soap! our other target dispenser works fine with the same soap so i'm not sure what the problem is. has anybody heard anything about this dispenser?

it's marked as a "lotion" dispenser but i can't imagine it unable to dispense soap. hmmmm. very very strange.

i bought a new table!

yayyy!! i found this end table off of craigslist (man, i adore that site) and purchased it tonight. most of my craigslist experiences have been so positive because of all the interesting people i meet. the lady i bought this table from lives in silverlake (little bohemia of los angeles) and her apartment was a treasure trove of cute mid century furniture and art. she told us that she buys most of her stuff at estate sales where she often has to compete with furniture store dealers who invariably mark up these pieces at exorbitant prices.

man, i adore mid century modern furniture. i had no idea it was so popular until i started reading apartment therapy. i thought i just intrinsically preferred the whole flea market look but i guess it's some kind of phenomenon spreading through the design world. but i prefer MCM pieces to accent rooms rather than dominating the room's style (then i start feeling i'm in a time warp). anyway, i'm sure it's only a matter of time before stores like ikea and target start manufacturing this style- urban outfitters has already caught on. get your vintage pieces at reasonable prices while you can!

anyway... since i had to trek over to silverlake, i made sure to justify my drive out there by eating at one of my favorite restaurants- alcove cafe. my friend and i had somehow scored a free molten lava cake due to a mixup. that's the second time that's happened to me! yum.

amanda blake

here is some eye candy, an artist i discovered on etsy (by the name thisisalliknow). i've seriously scoured etsy in hopes of finding a painting or two but i can't find anything i like in my budget. the following paintings are not on sale but are on amanda's personal site. i'm in search of some prints, as well, but paintings are my priority now. :)

amanda blake.

i <3 my sofa.

i feel like the design blog world has been talking a lot about sofas lately. designsponge and decor8, my two favorite blogs, have recently posted about sofas that look very similar to mine. yay, that makes me feel validated since i knew my dream sofa was kind of off-kilter compared to what most newlyweds buy.

before we moved into our new place, i had a very specific idea of what kind of sofa i wanted. i tend to have this bad habit of creating things in my head and hoping that i can find it somewhere. i wanted something similar to the bantam sofa from design within reach (brown) and the andre sofa from room and board (sage). i wanted one long cushion on the bottom but two cushions in the back. and guess where i ended up finding it? at a spa- i asked the manager where he bought it and he said that he's been meaning to sell it b/c he changed his mind and wanted individual chairs instead. his loss, my gain- and for only $350! zgallerie just discontinued them but the manufacturer richter designs, still sells them.

i recently ordered a new cover for the bottom cushion. maybe several years and stains later, i can justify reupholstering it like designsponge and lena corwin did. it's currently a medium brown microsuede and can sit 4-5 people! it's also one of the few couches my husband can lie comfortably on (since he's 6-2). note: this is not the sofa i wanted the zinnia pillow to sit in. too much horizontal action.

am i crazy to be obsessed with a pillow?

i've been on the search for le pillow, or more like les pillows for our 3 couches. man oh man, i've perused through so many websites and the zinnia pillow from room & board stole my breathe for a moment. i then lost another breathe and nearly went unconscious when i saw the price: $129. yikes! i've always said that cute pillows are totally worth splurging on, but i'm not sure i'm willing to spend so much on one tiny item that costs as much as the couch it would sit on (granted, a craigslist couch). to make the pain even deeper, i played this stupid game where i made several friends guess which pillow (out of all the pretty room & board pillows) they think i'd like best...and of course they say this one. "it's so you!" they say. maybe if this pillow sits on this blog for awhile, i'll get sick of it due to over-exposure. muhaha.

vietnamese artists

i discovered the joy that is contemporary vietnamese art while in hong kong's artist district several years ago. i also love indonesian contemporary art; i visited so many amazing galleries while i was there. sigh sigh, what i would do for one of these pieces in my home. (for now, i should at least look for a print)

i have all this random art saved all over my computer and i have to figure out a way to archive them without losing them in the labyrinth that is margaret's file organization. i guess i'm going to randomly post them on my blog...more for my sake, but i guess it's nice to share, as well.

nguyen thanh binh








dao hai phong




alessi trivets
ok this is really random, but isn't this trivet (made by alessi) so beautiful? yes, it's "just" a trivet, but i love love love it. a gift from a friend working at moma. alessi's probably a household name by now since pinkberry sells all their cutesy tschotkies but their main houseware line is ga-ga-gorgeouso. (and unaffordable-o).

my first blog post!

the inevitable has happened. i'm creating a "design" blog. aiyee! i didn't like how these images were taking up so much visual space on my other text-heavy blog so i'm creating a separate little depository for it.

to start off, here's some fun interior design that i dig. YUM!


http://www.pappasmiron.com









from australian vogue living- some woman's home.







mdesignla.com








jonathon adler. yum!!!





i'll update this randomly when i see pictures i like. :)