Inspired by Vintage Glass

Here is a glass that is part of a set my Grandmother gave me. I love them, they are so beautiful. I love the balance of the sturdy black stems and the delicate thin glass. I imagine dinner parties where ladies and gentlemen drank iced tea and cocktails from their rims while engaging in lively conversation. What stories they could tell. They are so delicate that I just use them to display found treasures like these chandelier crystals purchased at a favorite antique store.

The Egg Chair

Need I say more? I aspire to own an egg chair one day. Last year was the 50th anniversary of the egg chair, designed by Danish Architect Arne Jacobsen in 1958 and manufactured by Fritz Hansen. Go to the following link to see more great pics. http://www.notcot.com/archives/2008/01/50_years_of_the.php

Inspired by Renior

A print of Renior's Bouquet of Spring Flowers painted in 1866 hung in my childhood home. It wasn't until a college art history course that I discovered the identity of it's creator. I never had paid much attention to it, it was just something that had always hung in our dining room. So to all you moms out there, maybe it does matter what we choose to put on our walls. Who knows what type of artist we may be fostering. Thanks mom, for choosing wisely!

If you'd like to learn more about Renoir or just revisit some of his paintings you can view them at http://www.renoiruncovered.com

Eva

I am in true awe of Eva Zeisel. She is an inspiration to me. To still be designing at 102 at such a high level is amazing.



Eva Zeisel: Distinguished By Design from Jeremy Bales on Vimeo.

Love is Sticky

I must confess my love for sticky-notes! My husband and I are pretty much obsessed with office supplies. It's strange, I know, but there it is. I use these little guys all the time. They work great for brainstorming new ideas. I've heard you need to generate a lot of trash to get to the treasure. So you can easily jot down each idea on tiny sticky notes and toss individual ideas out and rearrange the rest. A large sheet of paper can be intimidating, so this takes care of that issue as well. 

Inspired by yellow

I'm am always inspired by nature. This shot in particular is so great in many ways. But most of all is that fact that it's yellow. Yellow is the new "it" color. Combined with a dark color for contrast. So of course dark brown works fabulously, as seen in this photo. Yellow can also be seen paired with dark shades of gray, navy, purple, green and black. A lot of people aren't fond of yellow, but I say take another look. There are a ton of great inexpensive textiles, accessories and paints available. 

My Exotic Plant?

This is a photo of what I thought surely must have been some type of tropical plant growing from one of our fir trees. It was so fragrant and wonderful. I set out to do a full search to find it's name. I found nothing. I went to take another photo to show some folks and I found this awesome caterpillar. I then abandoned my search for the plant and focused on the caterpillar. Well my search for the identification of the caterpillar led me to the i.d. of my wonderful plant. Much to my dismay it ended up being a milk weed plant. Yes, my exotic plant was a weed. But not just any weed, it is the only plant that the monarch butterflies eat and lay their eggs on. My caterpillar would soon become a lovely butterfly! Upon learning my plant was really a weed, my initial reaction would have been to pull it, even though I had originally thought it to be wonderful. Don't let other's prejudices change your way of looking at things. You can find inspiration in anything, even a common weed, if you just take the time to look.