Amy Ruppel's monthly art sale is going on now, so hurry on over before everything is sold out! I snatched up this guy, above, called "So Blue" - he'll be quite happy in my office, I think! Unfortunately the other first choice I had was sold out within the minute it took me (literally!) to type up an email for it, which I guess in a way is good - I tend to want to blow too much money when it comes to Amy!
I highly recommend you visit Elephantine for some of the most adorably illustrated note cards I've ever seen! If I could pinch these little guys' cheeks, I would. There's also some equally "awwwww" inspiring plushies you've got to get your hands on!
Okay, so they are by far the most expensive measuring spoons I've ever even considered buying, but how adorable are these two sets from Beehive Kitchenware? With motifs of birds and florals all over their designs, they're positively delightful additions to the kitchen where, if you're like me, you'll be spending most of your winter months, trying to make as much comfort food as possible. It would be great to get a little bit of spring into there with any of their kitchen tools or decor! The Flower Measuring Spoons (top) are available for $46, and the Bird Measuring Spoons (bottom), with mounting hardware, are available for $88.
So I've got a new favorite fine artist, and it's Jenn Ski. I love her graphic prints and original artwork, which exhibit a great sense of color and composition, but above all else is just interesting. I love how she incorporates textures and patterns from paper, too. It doesn't hurt that she's a graphic designer and is clearly attracted to similar things that I'm drawn to.
What's also wonderful about these pieces are that the original artwork and the prints are extremely affordable, which, considering the time of year (and the upcoming anticipated wallet damage), makes her work even more attractive. The first piece, a print, is sold for $59 at her Etsy shop; the one above is an original painting available for $60 on her main website.
It took me a few days, but I finally got around to planning the second installment of my Holiday shopping list, and I'd love to share my selects with you. Since I'm now buying for two families and our friends, this might end up being longer than the two-parter I was originally figuring it would be!
For a family friend who is like a little sister to me, a simple but sophisticated necklace from Tryst by Kerry that reflects the maturity she has for someone who's only in their early teens. The gold and warm pearl will look excellent with her olive skin tone!
We've got friends of the family that collect really unique and vintage ornaments, and I think a couple hand-blown glass ornaments from Teagues Beads on Etsy would fit right in with their collection. I love that this one is non-traditional all around - the shape is incredibly interesting and the color is unexpected!
For my best friend who is a very talented writer and was probably a pirate in a past life, there's no question that she needs If'N Books' Jen Corace Pirate Journal. I don't think anything has possibly suited her better.
It's inevitable, right? At some point, condensation - or worse, spillage - is going to happen around a glass while you're entertaining this holiday season. Thanks to the Martha Era, the population generally knows to avoid those tacky rubber coasters that double as an advertisement for [insert beer or other alcoholic beverage company here], so what's a host or hostess to do?
Fortunately for us all, many letterpress inks (which are generally made of oil or rubber) are waterproof and more and more indie paper goods companies are designing coasters, so it's easy to accent your decor with a little bit of your favorite designer this year. Here are my picks!
Greer VH1 Limited Edition Coasters: beautiful graphic designs with an aqua blue to bring out the season, but are also good for any time! If you thought it can't get any better, you're in for a surprise: twenty percent of the proceeds from each sale goes to support VH1's Save the Music program, putting music education back into public schools. $8.50 for a set of 8.
Femme Fatale Coaster by Magic Jelly: perfect for your holiday party with the girls, and, with the opportunity to mix and match these coasters with a variety of other designs, they can make for a fun and unique way to add some quirkiness to your festivities. Consider using these coasters in the place of wine charms or Sharpie-written names to help guests distinguish which cup is theirs.$6.00 each, or 4 for $20.
Snowflake Coasters by Green Chair Press: between the letterpress "hit" and the silver ink, this coaster was easily on its way to add elegance and classic flair to any party. The design adds festivity into the mix, making it the perfect compliment to any tabletop with a silver theme. Consider using aqua and red accents into the mix to add pop and let these guys become a subtle, sophisticated part of your table. $10 for a set of 8.
Two Red Deer Coasters by Papered Together: I love these adorable coasters, and I love the fact that it appears like they're two male deer kissing. Between the cocktails and the champagne, I'd put out a prize for the first one to notice at the party! $10 for a set of 8.
I stumbled across Garnish the other day and fell in love. Modern graphic prints on, well, anything? I'm in. I adore the Splash Lampshade ($95 for an 8x7) and their suggestion to pair it with a vintage/garage sale lamp base is a great way to put together lighting that is uniquely yours! The Splash Lampshade comes in multiple color options, so pick up one for every room!
I'm trying not to geek out too terribly over the fact that Annie Liebovitz is shooting in the studio next to me and I just saw her in the hall (!!!). Clearly, I'm a huge fan of hers, have been for a while, and think her work is absolutely phenomenal - but I absolutely have no nerve and could never even dream of approaching her.
It got me thinking, though, that I don't recall featuring any photography on this blog, and if I have it must have been a while - and then I remembered I've had Suzanne Clements' work on bookmark for a while now, so it's as good of a time as any to actually post it! "Through the Viewfinder" photography is always a lot of fun to do, though not many people can use the technique to their full advantage. I think Suzanne does, though, making her floral photography highly romanticized in their colors and sentimental by strategically using dusk specks. The combination of high contrast and the tactile in the two shots above give a very vintage feel to them while also appealing to a graphic, modern sensibility. Hope you love the work like I do!
I like a little bit of quirky. I mean, the Little Mermaid had a shell bra, so why can't I have a sea urchin-style votive holder?!
In all seriousness, I love these urchin ceramic bowls by Heather Knight of Element Clay Studio. You can really use them for anything, I'm sure, but I love the idea of using them as a votive holder. When you think about it, how lovely would it look when lit at dusk? The texture of the points coming out, softly lit while the bottom parts turn into shadow? It would look gorgeous! I like the graphic quality of the white, as well, which still lets you easily see its texture and dimensionality. They're $25 a pop, so go grab one!
I'm pleased as punch to say that IndiePublic has yielded yet another great artist find. Through some series of links (don't bother asking me how!) I came across Bec's artwork which she sells through her Etsy store, mycharliegirl. A dreamy mix of painting, drawing, collage, and digital, all of Bec's art prints are absolutely beautiful and show a great sense of composition, style, and texture.
When I first saw some of Bec's work, several pieces reminded me greatly of a softer, more painterly and feminine cousin of Tiphanie Brooke's collage pieces, which I loved since Tiphanie was a huge inspiration to me while I was in art school. I love that Bec's work is more tactile than Tiph's though, and Bec knows when to incorporate a more handmade quality and when digital would work to her best advantage. The two prints I chose were the ones that I thought were really great illustrations of that. Particularly in the print on the right, I love that the black in the woman's hair is not a true black, but a mass of dark textures - it adds a lot of depth to an otherwise flat silhouette and makes it so intriguing!...
...but enough blabbering from me! Go check out her Etsy shop immediately, and I'm sure you'll get as excited over the prints as I am!
So, by my own admission, I've been slowing up on the posts - but I'm very excited to tell you about what I've been dedicating my weekends and weeknights to in a little more detail. I am happy to officially announce that Warehouse District, my baby project, is beginning to take concrete shape. I am estimating the official opening of the Etsy shop to be in approximately two weeks, opening with a smaller line that will be gradually added to. We'll be featuring products in home and body fragrance, but I don't want to give too much away.
Keep checking back to see when it launches - Try This at Home readers will get a special surprise with their purchase for the opening week!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, Devon and I are trying to get our apartment to look a little more lived in and "homey". We've come to a consensus that we need more stuff on the walls, so it was convenient that I came across Modern Art Everyday today. I'm not sure exactly how I got there, but that's just the nature of Etsy, isn't it?
I purchased the wall art above and I think it will be awesome in our apartment - we've both got pretty modern design sensibilities (when it comes to furniture, at least), so it will be right at home. If I had more expendible income, I would have also picked up (and therefore highly suggest you check out):
In keeping with my late trend of posts relevant to what's going on with me right now... let's start at the beginning. As you may know, I graduated from Rhode Island School of Design then came out to Minneapolis to work for a company out here. Well, the new crop of RISD grads coming to work here had their first day yesterday, and two of them, Jesse (who I met first) and his friend Adam, are complete sweethearts. They also both live in our building right now, and let me say, I have complete apartment envy when it comes to Jesse's living quarters. Even with barely any furniture in his apartment (he only moved in two weeks ago) it's far better put together and more homey than ours. I'm sure part of it is me being overcritical of our place, but his was awesome, and I find myself scouring Etsy and yes, Ikea (I went on Sunday).
I've known about Kim Westad's work for a while - in fact I came across it while searching for a present for Devon's parents in this post - but I've never bought anything. It was more like looking longingly, but our apartment wasn't ever at the point where I felt like I could decorate it - we didn't have much furniture, and some still needed to be put together. While we still admittedly have some Ikea stuff that hasn't been installed (mainly wall shelves, though, and that's because we keep forgetting to buy power tools for it), most of it is out now and needs some decoration to balance out the function. I'm toying with the idea of seeing if she can color match a couple of pieces to my accent wall paint (it's a blue that's of a similar saturation to most of the colors she uses. I've seen some of her pieces using a very close blue to the color of my paint, but not in the pieces she currently has available). That would be pretty sweet.
What I love about her collection is how modern they are in shape and color scheme (I love the white against the popping colors!), but at the same time, they're unique and precious because of the little dimensional dotted slip designs she adds on. Back in high school, I was required to do slip designs in my ceramics class but they were nowhere near as well executed as hers are, so I've got a lot of respect for her in that sense - it's not a terribly easy thing to do (at least, not for me...). Go check the work out!
Three dimensional design was never really my strongest subject, but my college roommate was an amazing furniture designer whose work I always found to be really inspiring. You may or may not be interested in doing design work in this field, but it's always great to look outside of your own category to push your work forward- after all, I wouldn't have designed my favorite poster to date if it wasn't for Christina!
Flowering Pillow by Julianna Holowka: while definitely out of my price range, I still love this pillow. It comes in different colors, and the selection is beautiful. As a designer, I'm also in love with the composition of where the flowers fall on the area of the pillow.
Pretty Much Anything at Beccalights: the Blush candle, above, is by far my favorite so far, but all of Beccalight's candles are well made. The packaging is really cute - an especially amazing job was done on the Holiday collection. When it comes to photographic and packaging presentation, Beccalights definitely raises the bar in the indie community.
Josephine Lamp by Julianna Holowka: another really great piece from the designer of the Flowering Pillows. I love the lampshade - it reminds me of many different organic things, from layered feathers to layered leaves, but its also so slick and clean.
Dishtowels by Sweetpea Handcrafts: the dishtowels at Sweetpea are great! I love that it's mostly white - it really gives the pattern and the trim the ability to pop out without being too busy. My favorite by far is the one above.
Okay, so pretty much everyone in the indie world knows about Art School Dropout - as evidenced by the sea of "SOLD OUT" messages next to all the necklaces in the store - but I absolutely had to feature this when I saw it. How gorgeous is this? The color is so beautiful and so spring that I nearly clicked the Buy button - but then I realized I have an Ikea trip to pay off before I start buying any more craft supplies or crafters' works.
If I can't have it, someone please give it a good home! I'll envy you for, well, until I find the next shadowbox that's posted on Art School Dropout. Juxtapose Collage 009 is available for $90.
I've been bad. Fortunately, work's getting a lot less hectic, so I'm hoping to get a lot more updates to you much more frequently. I'll also be looking for some guest writers - email me at trythisathome @ gmail.com (remove spaces) for more info about the positions open.
Anyway - back on track. Spring is in the air (finally!) and I've been looking for some planters - I'm going to be raising herbs from Seeds of Change this year so I can mix my own teas (more on that later). I figured it wouldn't hurt to look on Etsy to see if there was anything cool that might work, and I came across these red clay (not terra cotta) pots from Peter Cunicelli. I really like the shape of them. It's classic, but with a twist. I love the arched bottoms - hands down my favorite aspect of the design. They range in size (as shown) and price ($45 - $65). Definitely a great present for your friendly neighborhood greenthumb.
Happy Valentine's Day, all! After spending the past two days sick in bed with the stomach flu (it's been going around the office!) I felt like my best pick for today would be a cozy pillow - it just seemed appropriate.
What I love about the 16" square silkscreen pillows from MyPerennial is the aspect of customization, which is really huge in trend forecasting right now (plus, it's just a lot of fun). You can choose from several different designs - my favorite is featured above - then you can pick the color of the fabric (shown: aqua; also available in ice blue, grey, mocha, lemon and white) and the ink (shown: light grey; also available in black, sky, and white). Regardless of what design you choose and what inks and fabrics you select, the pillow is always $68.
I admit it. I'm a loser when it comes to Damask. I used to put it on my LiveJournal and I tried to make it fit in with a few of my school projects. I even bought these Damask dinner plates from Target. Yeah, I know. I can't help it.
It's clear, then, to understand why I was predisposed to absolutely adore this pillow from Etsy user decorativeinstincts. At thirteen square inches, it's a two-toned danger to my wallet (it may be only $30, but Maddy needs to curb her spending. Woops...). The pillow features a zipper closure and has a down filled insert. Plus, it's just so gosh darned cute. Drool.
Okay, so it's a while off before it starts to get warmer here in Minnesota, but the Olive Cardinal on Agapanthus Rectangle Pillow from Joom has certainly got me antsy for the warmer weather. I love the color too, and it gets me excited to see green again! Pillow comes in several colors, $23 each.
I bought my first item off of Etsy yesterday. I've spent countless hours browsing, and I've been coordinating some of my own crafts and refining them so I can start selling, but I've never actually used it yet - well, not until last night.
I was originally going to get my boyfriend's parents a large Starbucks gift box (they're wonderful people and are almost family, so I felt open to splurging). I know it seems really generic, but if you knew them, you'd know the blood that runs through their veins is about 90% coffee. I was still on the fence about it, because I wanted to get them something a little more unique and special, so I started browsing Etsy.
I was lucky enough to come across Michelle Swafford Pottery, where I found the amazing serving bowl I have featured above. I absolutely loved it, and was torn between that bowl ($27) and a set of two matching cups and saucers ($45 for the four pieces) that were part of the same family as the serving bowl. I decided that if I gave them the cup and saucer sets I'd prefer to give them a set of four (two sets of two), rather than the one set of two available, so the serving bowl won out. I love the choice of that particular shade of blue that is combined with the flat white. The craftsmanship is impeccable and looks as though it should have been bought from a retail store like Crate and Barrel, but I love knowing that it's unique and made by an independent crafter!
I'm really excited about this purchase, and I know his parents will love it. It's gorgeous, so I don't know how they wouldn't! I'm looking forward to seeing more pieces from Michelle Swafford, though, because I'd love to buy some nice dishes from her - the perfect gift for a girl who worries just as much about a food's presentation as how it tastes!
What's in the Try This at Home Reading Room this month? Here are our May recommendations, powered by Amazon.com!
