happy halloween stripes...

so i don't know about y'all but i have a hoard of magazines that i live by, reference to, stock pile, trip over, drool over, etc. this week my hubbie had a breakdown about my beloved magazines. they are taking over the house (literally). when they do this, i go through them and put them in piles: "keep" for decorating, "keep" for hoping to make me skinny, "keep" to see what fashion is in style, "keep" for current catalog shopping, "keep" b/c its our town's lovely magazine, "keep" so i can cook that one day... than there is the "give to the neighbor" pile (she doesn't get mags, can you imagine life w/out such pleasures??), "give to my mom" pile (she is a closet celebrity gossip fan), and lastly, there is the "throw away" but rip out all of the pages that i might possibly want to see again in the future....which brings me to this picture....

i have a notebook of my ripped out "fav" pages of inspiration from all of the leading design magazines. i love my notebook, i look at it often and wish that i had these spectacular clients that would lead me to design such impressionable rooms (if any of my clients are reading, i do love my great clients). so it was this notebook, where i stumbled over this halloween striped wall. It's from Elle Decor (can you believe i ripped the pages out of that magazine). i think it was a combination of this picture and domino's email newsletter, that gave me the courage to do my own stripes in my daughter's nursery. anyway, that could be a blog in itself....but i thought this would be fun to share this halloween inspired paint palette and confess my obsession w/ magazines. sorry, for my randomness in writing...if you have any solutions to magazine pile-up's, saving me from future argument w/ my hubbie about my beloved magazines, or just want to tell me to not write run-on sentences, feel free to comment....otherwise, i want to wish you a very spooky happy halloween!!

i am not martha...

so i totally hesitated in showing y'all this but i said that i would so here it is. our 2nd annual pumpkin carving happened on sunday night and here are the results. as you can see everyone else used a pumpkin stencil and then there is mine (top one, in case you couldn't tell). i wanted to be martha stewart and try something creative and original...well, unfortunately my pumpkin is awful. you know, i am an interior designer and so i thought i would just be gifted at this whole pumpkin carving thing...not so much. for those of you that are confused (believe me, my husband and neighbors got a huge laugh out of mine) i was going for cute "dots"....i started out great (i thought) by scalloping the top edge of the pumpkin. then i got out the drill (real funny, me w/ a power drill) and things were still going okay. i did a little four dot design in the scalloped edge part. the next step is when my neighbor sabotaged me and told me to use a drill attachment to make the big holes (it was the attachment you use to make a hole in the back of your armoire for the tv cables)....and that's when everything went terribly wrong. poor, poor pumpkin. i disgraced it and martha! next year i'm going back to the pumpkin stencil....

*side note- using a drill on a pumpkin causes mad chaos in the kitchen...pumpkin guts go everywhere!

super white

so i went on an exploration for granite yesterday at A & S (a local distributor for all of the granite and marble in the c'town area). it is insane how many varieties of granite there is out there. the client i was scouting for prefers granite, so i walked up and down this huge warehouse accessing the situation. i wanted to find something that would work well for her but may not be your "typical" granite. that's when i stumbled upon super white (of course, i have no idea its real name; companies tweak the stones names so you can't shop around). i love this granite b/c it has gossamer veining like a marble. it doesn't have the flakes or "fish scale" appearance that you see in the a lot of the granites. i was so happy to find this, it gives you the durability of a granite (stain, scratch, and heat resistant) but the beauty of a marble.

O & L delivered

well i met with the grizzel and mann rep yesterday and as always, osborne and little gave me some good staples for the upcoming season. i will have to say that i saw a ton of black....there was a lot of it in the backgrounds of the fabrics and in the wallpaper collection. and i am not going to lie- i like it!! for a girl who was sold on the robin's egg blue/chocolate brown color combo three years ago, i was relieved to see the new color palettes. there is still a ton of that blue color out there though. i loved the vintage II wallpaper by O & L, the pic above is one selection from it (i love the acid yellow and plum color combo). apparently, vintage I came along while i was on bed rest, so i will have to backtrack and take a look at it. liberty (a division of o&l) had some good cut velvets. i love the art deco one featured above. if you are in the market for some fun fabs and wallpaper, check out O & L with your local interior designer.

i also got to see raoul....i love this company (even more than O & L, which i sometimes get tired of). they offer gorgeous linen prints that are very subtle, organic, and earthy. they had a lot of ikats and of course, unique botanicals. if you have the cash, this is a great company to splurge on! well, that's if for the rep meetings this season. i am excited about my new samples. when they come in, i'll share a few that are my favs! have a great thursday, i'm off to battle the rain and look at some granite. until tomorrow.....

disappointing rep meeting....

i was so excited about getting back out there and seeing reps again since i have been gone for so long. unfortunately, there wasn't much to get excited about with earnie gaspard. i felt like there wasn't a lot of change. ralph lauren's collection was completely blah, but they have never been one of my favorites. b. berger yuck and yuck again. quadrille's linen prints were cute....some ikat patterns and some remininsent to china sea (they actually overlapped in their appearances). one of my all time fav's, china sea had some good ones (two are featured above). but they weren't screaming "new" at all. the color palette's are the same...i saw a lot of navy and orange in china's collection. chocolate brown is still a very prominent color in all of the manufactures. romo had some fun fabrics and wallpapers but do you ever notice that their collections are always very similar to the ones previous....its like they take a flower and tweak it slightly and than there's the fall collection. kind of strange. i did like their wallpaper book this season. it had a lot of the geometric patterns featured in it...a two color flame stitch pattern that is done in a metallic could be fun in a powder room....anyways, that's about all there was to report from that meeting. i go see osborne and little today so hopefully that will be a lot more exciting! i'll let y'all know.

vintage baker chairs

does it get any cooler than these circa 1950's Baker chairs? The arms just kill me. gosh, they are just gorgeous....i am envious of the home that they will one day belong to.

simon pearce

i love this light from simon pearce. it's so simple but elegant and could work in numerous spaces, traditional or contemporary. for those of you that aren't married yet, than you may not be familiar with this company. i was introduced to it three years ago when my husband and i got married. they offer beautiful hand blown glass products and pottery. our "everyday china" is simon pearce's belmont dinnerware. after viewing the website, i saw that they also offer a beautiful restaurant, glassblower cafe, that reminded me of the one in "Sweet Home Alabama"....you know, the one that the hottie owned....might be a great place to visit if you are ever in vermont.

Thanks Melissa for the following comment!

Hello Shannon,Thank you for a great post! The reason our restaurant reminds you of the one in Sweet Home Alabama is because the "Deep South Glass" store/cafe in that movie was based on our Quechee, Vermont, facility. We actually created many of the glass pieces in the movie, including the lightning sculpture that resembles a tree.We're glad that you appreciate our product as much as we do. Thanks again!

Warm Regards,Melissa Dickerson

Webmaster, Simon Pearce

how cute is this??

can you say christmas? how great is this little diddy? what a fantastic clutch from kate! the color is awesome! happy saturday! its beautiful here and the weather is perfect...a jeans and t-shirt kind of day.

timeless art....

silhouettes are classic and timeless. the black and white is so chic. i love these plates done by rabbit toes. i love when you mix silhouettes together in a wall arrangement....i love antique ones of men you have no idea who they are, thrown in with a childhood one of yourself (mine is above). my in-laws have beautiful ones of my father-in-law and his sister done and they are just priceless. silhouettes don't have to be limited to black and white. just last year, i had one done of our dog (yes, this was before we had a child)! it's great....the background is robin's egg blue and his silhouette is chocolate brown. i gave it to my husband for christmas. he must have loved it b/c its still in the tube that it came in....

is this what my life is suppose to be like....

give me more jay jeffers...

he describes his design as "sophisticated fun" and that is exactly what this picture is. i love it when designers don't take themselves too serious. jay does amazing interiors and its easy to see why he was named one of HB's Top 100 Interior Designers. His interiors are fresh, vibrant, and have an element of surprise in them....that is why i heart JDG; not to mention the fantastic wallpaper featured in the room above! Bored, check out his inspiring website!

take me to Hudson....

while web surfing i stumbled across this gorgeous store Hudson. i love this store...well from what i have seen of it online. its like the perfect mix of old and new, stylish yet sophisticated...right up my alley. the owner, jill goldberg started out as a struggling actress in LA and left to become an interior designer. don't you just love the kelly weastler's trellis fabric upholstered on the armchair...and those pillows are vintage feed sacks...so chic!