The photo above is from the Pottery Barn "work Spaces" book, from the section on planning a garden workroom. The whole spread is beautiful. I loved the contrast of the worn wooden and metal surfaces against the sleek white enamel pails and containers they used for storage.
Whatever you put outside, has to endure the elements and will most likely look worn out faster than you can blink an eyelash. So I was happy to see that they had embraced the beauty of how things get weathered in the garden.
They had some really clever ideas about taking objects and re-purposing them for storage throughout the book. Which is something I think everyone does, since it's just not always practical to go out and buy everything.
It made me think of this old 7-up crate, that I'd recently used to organize all of my seed packets.
Maybe some of you have some re-purposing ideas that you'd like to share too?!
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Random bits:
There are some amazing fashion history quips written under the comments section of my last post. They were all so much fun to read, I highly recommend you taking a look at them. The one about John Hancock being proud of baring his nice legs, cracked me up a bit!
Laura Kim jewelry and I collaborated recently, she's made some really beautiful Par Avion necklaces with the pendants I made for her.
My good friend Wende's 10 year old son, completely amazes me. He's started his own little business, by making & selling "bag bags" (a handsewn bag to store your plastic bags). $1 of every purchase goes to Heifer International.
I still can't get over how magical the film stills for Marie Antoinette are. Third post about this movie, I know... I've been waiting so many months to see it. One of the disadvantages of small town life. Thursday, it will be mine though... a late Valentine!
I couldn't agree more with Stylebubble's perception on this film when she says, "I think all the pre-US release data reviews should have forewarned people enough to see this film, not as a historical period drama that wants to re-tell facts but as a stylised piece on 18th century decadence, that views Marie Antoinette as a young, bewildered girl thrown into a heady fast-paced lifestyle. "
"Beauty for beauties sake", this film is definitely right up my alley.
But in truth when I look at period costumes, I'm taken back in time to my highschool fashion merchandising class. A speaker came to visit us from FIDM (The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising) to give us a presentation about the history of fashion. I loved all of the quirky information that we learned, things that you're never told about in stylized period films.
For instance:
Men were the first ones to wear silk and lace. A show of wealth, and status.
In Elizabethan times, the ruffle collars were filled with herbs so as to distract the wearer from their own scent (bathing wasn't a big thing back then).
Light skin was once so highly sought after that aristocrats went as far as taking small quantities of arsenic to get that pale look.
Heart and star shapes used to be applied right on top of blemishes to hide imperfections of the skin. Dirty but glamorous!
And the bustle, it just kept growing in size until it so much hit the point of exaggeration that the style went away completely.
I bet someone out there reading this has some more quirky fashion history facts they can add?!
1. I stumbed on Grady McFerrin's illustrations over on Chronicle books website last night and became instantly smitten. His work is so wonderfully playful, with such a subdued pallete.
2. I can't believe it myself, but suddenly I crave wallpaper. After removing all of those layers of old paper off the walls this summer, you'd think I'd be knocked to my senses. After some searching for artistic papers I stubled on Emily Watson's stylehive. It's chock full of great links to stylish papers.
{The butterfly print above comes from Osborne & Little.}
3. Ulla recently posted about Lyndie Dourthe's incredible paper flowers. I love the subtle washed out colors and delicate nature of the crepe paper, a fantastic muse for the flowers I've been making here in my studio today.
