wallpaper love.

okay... so while i'm still crazy about getting our yard in order... i am now officially obsessing about wallpaper again. this time for our downstairs bathroom. 

i have already purchased paint for it (a very dark, plum purple)... but need to get wallpaper too. for those of you who have never seen the inside of our house, our bathrooms are a little different. there is an outer area for the sink and cabinets... and then there is a separate area for the shower/tub and toilet. these areas are separated by what i call 'corral' doors. doug hates them. wants to tear them down. except that they would leave extremely large holes in the doorway, and i'm not ready to deal with that. i actually like the doors. they offer privacy and keep the two areas separate. 

so, the outer area has this off-white vinyl wallpaper that's probably been there since the house was built. it's not cool retro wallpaper... it just needs to go away. there's also a nice ugly patch in the wall where someone opened the door a little too hard. beautiful. we retextured the walls in the upstairs bathroom when we took down this same lovely wallpaper and found out how messy and expensive retexturing is. and then you have to paint! so... it will be just as much, if not a little less costly, to just pick out some great wallpaper and go from there. the problem is, which wallpaper to pick?

the inner area is currently painted white, and that's where the purple paint will go... our tile is white, as well as our cabinets, tub and tile.

i am really wanting to go with a black, white and purple color scheme, with silver/gray mixed in. i have certainly thought of other crazy color combos, but want this to be something that will appeal to others if/when we sell our home. i want drama, but don't want to go too over-the-top. here are the top competitors so far...  

Julien Macdonald - Dazzle

Pemberly Gold Floral Retro

Darcy Pearl Modern

Heritage Charcoal Modern Damask

any thoughts or ideas? i am planning to order a few samples once i narrow it down a little... but i've only hung wallpaper once and have never picked any out for a room before. and i can't decide...

paperlust on stylemepretty!

does anyone remember this book? why, you ask? well, laya's wedding was featured on stylemepretty.com and the book i created for her happened to sneak it's way into the photos... you can view the whole posts here and here. photo by jonathan hanson via stylemepretty

will work for art.

nevermind that i already have tons of art that is sitting in my office, ready to be framed, hung upon the wall, and loved. there is always another piece that i find that i would like to add to my collection. and this would be one of them. floral burst collage by box64studios. i love all of the textures and especially how the colors come together. this would be a great piece for a room with hardly any color or a room with tons of color that need something to bring it all together... mine would probably be the latter...

i hope you all had a wonderful father's day weekend. i know we did (other than the rain!). it was so nice to get to hang out with family and just relax.

rocks in the garden

my obsession with design and pattern does not stop at print media. i have been longing to add some texture and color to our very concrete backyard and i think i found the answer. we have a little spot of concrete near the back corner (where our 'second patio' will someday be) that is in very sad shape. we looked at that area last night and quickly learned with our handy shovel that the concrete wouldn't be too backbreaking to remove. so... now we just have to find a bunch of different colored small rocks and come up with a design! we are actually thinking of just making a bunch of stepping stones so that we can move them around and work on them over a longer period of time. here are a few inspiring images... both are from fine gardening, and jeffrey bale has a great article/how to on actually creating your own...

the love of type.

i love books. and i love great typography. i even love black and hot pink. i'm sure many of you remember sitting in typography class, working on your type poster (mine was garamond) and maybe thinking how silly it all was. studying each letterform so meticulously. and how in awe we were every time a professor could shout out what typeface we had used before we could even look in our notes. well, type is our life and we love it dearly now. and we embrace it.

this was posted on poppytalk yesterday, but i just thought i would share it here as well. graphic designer judith shalansky created this book fraktur mon amour as her homage to the gothic/blackletter typefaces. and printed it all in black and pink! so beautiful. how i would love to own one of these... and gently caress each pink-edged page of blackletter goodness...

books, books, books...

it seems this is what my life has about been lately! a few fun books for my photobooth friend up north... (say that three times fast!) i really wish i could see the decor at the wedding for that top book. the bride wanted some 'western-y' paper and luckily, i was able to find something she liked locally. i can't believe this week has passed by so quickly! i can't say i'm not ready for it though. i have a few projects in mind that i would like to tackle...

work + papercuts.

i love it when i propose a cool/outside the box idea to a client and they say yes! (you know, instead of looking at me strangely) i don't want to say much except that these are for the next issue of pulse magazine and i am super excited about the way this feature is going. i work with some wonderful people to put this publication together and am very thankful for their open-minds... otherwise, i wouldn't get to do half the fun things that i do! here are a few... and yes, they are all made out of paper! and are pretty tiny... that graduation cap is only about an inch tall! it has also been fun to photograph these...

more books.

hello monday! i can't say that i'm excited that it's the beginning of the week yet again... but at least i got some work done over the weekend and can hopefully rest a little more next weekend. these are a few books i finished last friday, and i will have more to post later as i just got another 4 bound today. 

i have yard work, gardening ideas, furniture makeovers and diy projects swirling around in my head today. oh to have some extra time to accomplish these things!

etsy faves.

organic cotton bag from hellome

was looking through my favorites on etsy today and thought i would share some here. just in case, you know, you get the urge to send me something pretty... :)

goodtime ring from yellowgoat

kimono robe by plumprettysugar

upcycled bottletop pendant by mintyfreshfusions

awesome wood portfolio by janiesmash

linen tea towel form jewelweeds

yard work.

okay, so i'm still on this gardening kick. it probably didn't help that i bought 2 gardening (landscaping and perennials) books last friday at our favorite used bookstore. last year i just randomly planted stuff without thinking much about the next year. well, i'm going to do it better this time around. i roughly measured our backyard this weekend and sketched everything on graph paper so that it would be to scale. i then redrew it all in illustrator so that i can easily make changes and plan plantings accordingly. one of the books said to divide your yard up and tackle one section at a time. this makes tons of sense. earlier, i was looking at the whole thing, thinking that i would never be able to get it the way i want it. well, i'm going to try!

everything should be pretty self-explanatory. the part labeled 'house' is actually the sun-room and the very back end of the kitchen. our main patio is brick and there is a ton of cement! The green is obviously grass and the brown patches are just dirt for now. (and actually, i lied... that very middle patch of green is just dirt right now, but we are trying to remedy that as i speak!) the dark green circles are evergreen trees/bushes and the lighter green circles are shademaster locust trees that we are trying to revive. our plan for the second patio is to build a pergola and keep our patio furniture and grill out there. 

our backyard right now looks so much better than it did when we first moved it, but there is lots of work still to be done. i plan on planting some shrubs and lots of perennials so that maybe next year, it's not quite so much work and there won't be dirt (and rock) patches everywhere. any thoughts, ideas or favorite plants? i keep finding things that i like and am browsing websites for more ideas... 

pretty as a peacock.

this one just got finished and mailed off last week! leanne is having a peacock inspired wedding and wanted a guestbook to match. this great paper came from hodgepodge and i really love the way it turned out on her book. 

did you have a good weekend? i actually got a few things done, and aside from having a killer headache sunday night, it was a good weekend for us too. if only i had a little more time...