Seeing in Color: Fall

The leaves are turn, turn, turning here, and it looks very beautiful outside lately. Lois and I collected leaves for her first homework assignment. How cute is that? Her first homework assignment! I received an email from her art teacher titled "homework" and thought, what could it be?!! Leaves. Easy homework. Beats calculus. I always like to look at fall leaves closely. They are soooo pretty. The photo above is with my iPhone, using Instagram. And the chill in the air makes me want to cozy up. The two photos below are from here and here on Pinterest. I've seen this bath photo on blogs before, but I couldn't resist--it's such a great bath. And that chair with blankets... where are my PJs?!! 

In Bloom: Saipua

Homemaking is made better with flowers, don't you think? On the weekends Andrew often brings home flowers from the farmer's market, and they usually always last a week, sometimes up to two weeks (if I'm good about changing the water, etc.). I love having flowers in the house. Wether we have flowers in bloom in our house or not, I also love the Saipua blog, where I can see beautiful photos of flowers every day. Saiupa is a handmade soap and flower arrangement business based in Brooklyn, and I always love seeing what's new. I especially like the darker, moody lighting in some of the photos. The top image here is from a found scrapbook from Sara Kate studios. I found it on pinterest. And all the flower images below are from the Saiupa blog. Beautiful.

Seeing in Color: Purple

Purple has never been my favorite color, although I've always liked deep, dark purple, like eggplant purple. But purple is a color that's grown on me, especially lavender. Andrew bought these flowers above at the farmer's market last weekend, and they've opened my eyes to more purple around me, like these pretty images below on pinterest. 

Images found here: shutters, bedroom, ribbons, doorknob. 

Hatching Ideas

It looks like we'll be moving soon! I haven't said a peep because it's not totally official yet, but it looks like it will be next week. We're just moving across town, north of the river, but I'm soooo excited. The neighborhood is great, and I'm excited to fool around with decorating a new place. We've been in our current place for a year, but I still haven't quite figured out what to do in certain places, so I just haven't. Instead of seeing it as a challenge, I've though of it as a drag, blah. It hasn't been too fun. One issue is choppy walls--walls divided by a lot of doorways and windows, which is the complete opposite of our last place. I just don't think I have the right stuff to work in the right places, if that makes sense, and I haven't taken the time to hunt for the right stuff. Ah, well, I don't have to worry about it anymore. Our new place is sort of boxy like our apartment in San Francisco, with two big, long walls in the living room. I felt sort of over that by the time we left San Francisco, but I'm looking forward to it again. I understand how to arrange my things better on walls like that. I'm also thinking of color. Our last place had neutral, beige walls, but I'm thinking of a very pale robin's egg blue. I love the way deeper colors look against that shade of blue--rusty orange, reds, navy, green, golden yellows, etc. Deeper, darker colors look really good with that color to me. Lisa has blue walls and I love the way all of her things stand out against it. Here are a few pictures I've come across for inspiration. These shades vary, but I think my favorite is the second one, just below. I like that it is a touch grey compared to the others. I've put them all in my pinterest, where you can see links to the sources. 

Color Me Happy

Lately I've been thinking in color. It has been so dreary here these last few months that daydreaming of bright things has been the best way to chase my grey day blues away. Today though it's actually sunny, finally, and so nice outside! I went out for a stroll earlier to see the blue sky and get some much needed vitamin D. I'm also thinking of random colorful things to keep my spirits up. To start with, tulip fields in the Netherlands, and...

Color it wallpaper. 

A door in Mexico. 

Balloons.

Norway.

Dresses.

Gee's Bend quilt.

The Bahamas.

Patchwork sweater throw (it is still winter after all). 

But I'll think of ice cream instead. 

Think happy. Be Happy.

Sources are in the links. 

I like Pinterest

My new favorite thing (fairly new to me anyway) is Pinterest, an online inspiration board of sorts where you "pin" favorite images. I'm not totally sure of all the ins and outs of Pinterest since I just recently joined, but if you love online image eye candy and are like me and have messy folders on your desktop of random saved inspiration images, you will LOVE Pinterest. When you pin, it credits the source of where you found it (though often that's not the original source of the actual image, and I imagine this could be an issue for pinterest at some point, hmm). I hope source issues don't cause too much trouble because I really like the service. Here's the link to my boards. Right now I've just focused on pinning images of interiors, but other folks have boards of so many other things. Below are a few things I've pinned to my board this week. All the sources are linked to the pins on my boards. (The image above, "things I like" is by John Derian--possibly my favorite designer, one of the few whose name's I can even remember!)

Before and After: Entry Inspiration

Our little entry has been cluttered and dark since we moved in. It's a narrow, short hallway. The landlord left a bookshelf there, but I didn't like the natural wood color so I asked him if I could paint it white. He didn't have a problem with that, so I painted it a creamy white. Above the bookshelf is an ugly, half-moon sort of lighting fixture (see below). It's quite the fixture as it's apparently part of the wall. I couldn't figure out what to do with that lighting fixture, so I thought I just try to disguise it. I thought about putting a plant in it, but a real plant in there would be a pain, and I don't like synthetic plants, so I scrapped that idea.

I've had this picture (top picture) of a shelf with branches in a vase for a while now in my inspiration folder. I love everything about it. I love the painting--how it's off center, the vases (including the paper cone-vase), and especially the the branches in the vase and the notes and pictures in the branches. I used it for my entry inspiration. Our entry looks much better than before, I think, though it still needs some tweaking. For now though I'm happy with it being the first thing you see when you walk in. It includes some of my favorite things--a pretty lamp I bought for $10 in San Francisco at the Alemany flea market, a seashell box my neighbor left when he moved out, some books I love, a bulbous wood vase Andrew gave to me, and some pictures and notes that mean a lot to me. I like the idea of changing out what goes into the branchy-tree. During the holidays, some ornaments and Christmas cards will look very festive there. Welcome home!

I Love Pictory

I recently read about Pictory on my friend Doug's facebook page. He edited the most recent feature called The One Who Got Away--short stories about you guessed it, lost loves who got away, accompanied by great photographs. I love that feature, but there's also a great one about home, specifically people's childhood homes, which you can read here. Just thought I'd share it with you since I'm so crazy about Pictory lately. They also have features on food and growing older in the archives.
Image from Pictory's site. 

A Garden

I think we've found a place! I should probably wait to mention it when it's official, but it's almost official, so I thought I could at least mention part of it, and that is . . . it has a garden! The little place we might be getting has a back patio garden.  It's more patio than garden, but it's a beautiful outdoor space. Any outdoor space would make me happy after living without one for the last 4 years. Of course I'll post pictures of the little back garden if it becomes ours, but in the meantime, flickr images, like the one above, are making me feel inspired and giving me lots of fun ideas.

Inspiration From My Desktop

I keep an eye candy folder on my desktop of random pictures of things that I like. Some decorating things, some craft things, some fun kid things--all pretty pictures. I've saved them from blogs and other web sites here and there, but unfortunately I don't remember where they all came from. Sorry about that! But I can remember where I saw a few of them. The one above I saw on Brown Button and is from Family Lifestyle Home. The image just below is from SFgirlbybay. I remember that one because I have a crush on Rico and because Victoria named my lady Stella. I was thinking about the paintings I brought home from Switzerland and how much I'm always drawn to floral paintings and lady portraits--they get me every time. I'm always drawn to interiors that have oil paintings of flowers or ladies. Why that is, I have no idea. Guess there's no reason to question it though. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from my inspiration folder.