Dispatches from Sweden

Contributor post by Camilla Engman

This trip is taking you to Karlskrona in Sweden, situated by the Baltic Sea. I will hang my exhibition and attend the show opening at Karlskrona Konsthall (arthall). It is a cold day with the sun trying to shine through the clouds. I was supposed to go by train but the train is set so there is a bus taking us to our destinations instead.

 

The bus driver could only drive four hours at a time, so after a while he takes a break and hands out sandwiches to all of us, and takes his break with us back in the bus. He lives in Karlskrona and promises to go to my exhibition.

I have great help to hang the exhibition by the gallery technicians. Half of my paintings are already in the gallery and the rest will turn up the next day, straight from my exhibition in Östersund. It is a little bit nervous before you know if everything really gets there on time. It turns out the paintings are stuck somewhere on their way, but close. The janitor, where the paintings are, offers himself to bring them to us. Happy ending :)

See the paintings here.  And a few more pictures from the arthall.


Next day after hanging it all I get time to look at the surroundings. It is a very cold day so I can't go so far. Maybe I should try to exhibit in the warm part of the year.

I walk around randomly on the streets. It is a very pretty town. Apparently the Naval Port of Karlskrona is now on the UNESCO World Heritage List The main square of Karlskrona is the biggest in Scandinavia, and actually the second biggest in Europe, after the Red Square of Moscow. I visit the Fredrik Church, the foundation of the church was laid in 1720, and it was inaugurated in 1744. It differs from usual Swedish churches in its yellow color and its adornment.

 
It seems like there is alot of "old fashioned" cafées in Karlskrona = they serve you by the table, they only have filter coffee, you get a refill and the cookies are small. I prefer a cafe latte, but I like these cafées very much.

 
Since I am going back home right after the opening, we do the celebration part the day before. They take me out for dinner and then a concert.

For obvious reasons I can't stay out late :) The opening goes well. They had a small contest before the show, people were asked to look at three of my paintings and write something, a story about one of them. We had so much fun reading them. Three of the contributions were selected and they got a small prize and read their own stories during the opening. I had tears in my eyes, they looked so proud.

A quick stop at the hot dog stand, for mashed potatoes and falafel, and then back to Gothenburg.

20 in 20

Create 20 handmade crafts in 20 days- and then give them all away? That's the idea behind Abbey Hendrickson's 20 in 20 project. Abbey, the artist behind the daily lifestyle blog Aesthetic Outburst, started her project as a personal crafting challenge, but now 20 in 20 has become a fun handmade giveaway for us all! Click here to find out how it all works! And then follow the giveaways each day!

A glimpse of spring

A little glimpse from the new Spring 2011 House and Home line from Toast that just launched.  Loving the stripes!

Today at Poppytalk Handmade

steel petal press

matte stephens, alicia bock, leah giberson

redstar ink

(l to r) ruby press, pumphouse studios, vicinity studio

un lieu sur terre

New Online Magazine: dabble!

Canadian design aficionado, Kimberley Seldon joins the ranks of online magazines today launching her newest project as Editor-in-Chief with dabble magazine! The design, travel and food publication is jam–packed with features such as an interview with Diane von Furstenberg, a home tour with Nashville's James Ingram, a faux–panelled wall DIY, heaps of travel destinations and delicious looking recipes! Click here to view the first issue.

Dispatches from France

Contributor post by Karine Candice Kong of BODIE and FOU

Hello everyone, today I want to tell you how I styled up our loos in France...OK not the more enticing subject but bear with me on this :-)

I'm currently in our home in France and one thing that I usually find relaxing when I'm down there - providing it's hot outside, I can get a tan without getting bored on a beach towel and I can listen to French radio - is doing DIY. Clearly February is not the appropriate season to dig out my bikini and paint brushes but while I'm there, I thought I would share with you a little DIY project in our toilet I did a couple of years ago on a budget and which still looks good.

Loos in Kong, a bar restaurant designed by Philippe Stark

I'm attracted to beautiful things and get 'a bit' stressed out when things don't look their best in my home. The loos we have in one of the homes we rent to other families during the Summer, were seriously doing my head in. Even if we hardly stay there, I still wanted to do something nice with them for the people who did. So here are the culprits....

ugly 60's style tiles, sad looking plastic bin, fake flowers hanging...

My inspiration came from a photoshoot styled by Sweet Paul for Country Living (see below) where Paul covered a wall with pages from a book. I just love how simple and calming it looked.

Sweet Paul

When I say 'nice book', it is really about the layout of the pages, the whiteness of the pages and the width of the margins rather than the content or the author of the book.
Then I just put some wallpaper glue on the pages and positioned them onto the wall...

So it's hardly as striking as the toilets designed by Philippe Stark but given the time and cost (you can get great books from junk shops for almost nothing + cost of the glue), I'm very happy with the results.

Here are a few tips...
- Select a book with a good layout. Lots of books nowadays have the title of the book on each page which won't look good on the wall so go for a book with a nice, airy layout.
- Measure the area to wallpaper and the size of your page to work out the number of pages you will need. If you need 100 pages, go for a book which has 200+ pages (pages are counted on recto & verso but you will only be able to use one side. Pretty obvious but wasn't to me at the time until my smart mum enlightened me.....
- Get a varnish that doesn't turn yellow over the years and spray your wall once finished to protect the pages from water projections.
And then of course you can do this with pages from comic strips or from The Times etc or even pages with gorgeous women from glossy mags but I wanted to create a relax feel to it and it just worked out perfectly.

Today at Poppytalk Handmade

vivienne strauss

elsage

(l to r) silver minnow, mondocherry, starshaped press, verla ivans

place michel

Stylist Stalking :)

Inspiration Board by Selina Lake

One of my favourite stylists is Selina Lake, I was first introduced to her work via my sister, who works for Ryland Peters and Small. My sister brings me the most beautiful books when she visits, for me to study and do lots of oohs and ahhs :) One of my favourite recent books was one styled by Selina called Bazaar style.

My coveted books are studied from page to page for me personally to use as decoration ideas for my own home and of course inspirations for our weddings.

I love this inspiration board, it is filled with divine colours, I know my two older daughters love this style as their bedrooms are decorated in these colours. LIttle Twinks is still lurid pink and princesses at the moment but we are working on her!

Again we are moving away from the very pale washed out tones of the vintage that has been so popular and moving to slightly bolder sorbet colours to brighten everything up slightly just in time for the Spring weddings.

I am just dying to know where that last photo of the pastel coloured fairground ride came from, in fact I am desperate to do a fairground themed wedding after seeing the fabulously glorious one on Preston Bailey's website, you must go and check this amazing wedding out, it is jaw dropping!

I was toying with feria ideas last week for events and weddings here :) A seed was sown which is always dangerous!

Alternative Guest Book Ideas for Weddings

As a Wedding and Event Stylist, I am always looking for different ideas and love this one sent to me of a fingerprint wedding tree :) What a fabulous alternative idea to a guest book and rather than put it in a cupboard after your wedding, you can frame it and proudly hang this on your wall as a piece of wall art.

These trees are made by Love from the Thumb on Etsy, they are the unique idea of Ricky and Ashely after they created one for their own wedding and you can order your own personalised tree and some really cute sets of inkpads for your guests to personalise your tree.

What I also like about this idea, again if you are planning a destination wedding, is that this is easily transportable back home.

Vintage Finds from an EBay Observer

Guest Post and illustrations by Lea Redmond of Leafcutter Designs

As a maker of things, I often look to curious objects from the past for inspiration and ideas. People tell me I have a knack for finding unusual and lovely things on eBay, so I'm delighted to share some of my favorite finds of the week with you. I've drawn the eBay photos with pen and colored pencil in order to spruce them up a bit. All of these auctions are still live, so feel free to go bid if something strikes your fancy. I promise not to bid against you. (And some of them are "buy it now," which means you can just buy it if no one beats you to it.)

At four inches wide, this vintage yellow ginger tin would be the perfect home for gum in my purse. Or perhaps I would keep quarters for parking meters in it. I love the patterning around the edges.

The head and tail of this vintage turtle pin cushion bobble! Complete with pink velvet and rhinestone eyes, the only better pin cushion I have come across is the one my grandmother made for me.

A lovely painted milk-glass item, this strawberry jam jar was made by Hazel Atlas, founded in 1902. These sweet little containers were given away with Corn Kix cereal as promotional items around 1940. There are usually five or more up for auction, so search "glass strawberry jar" to find one anytime.

Dennison blank gummed labels - a classic. Anything written inside of of these sweet red borders attains extra importance.

Be prepared for the future of communication technology with this set of vintage walkie talkies, "Merit Space Patrol." I wish my cell phone looked like this.

This is a collapsible drinking cup with a couple on the lid riding a tandem bicycle. I love the font and embossing. Perfect for your pocket.

I have fallen in love with all the vintage and antique water faucet knobs on eBay. These two are part of a larger lot, of which there are many. Just paste this phrase into the search box: "(vintage,antique) water (valve,faucet,knob)" and they'll come up. I bought a lot of these and plan to mount them all over my bathroom walls. Just gorgeous. (As part of my Curio Search Service, I once wrote a letter about a faucet knob, Buddhism, and the desert.)

* * *

Lea Redmond crafts objects, ideas, and actions. She loves to make things. Things that tell stories. Things that question. Things that envision and create a new world. She runs Leafcutter Designs and the World's Smallest Post Service out of her little workshop in Oakland, CA. Some of her eBay finds can be found in her project, Curio Search Service.

Happy Sunday!

onelittlebirdstudio

We are sitting here a little snowed in this morning which is rather cozy, however I thought we were well on our way to spring with the buds shooting out of the ground these past couple of weeks. Funny weather. Oh well, off to a big snowball fight (well, sort of)! Have a happy day!

top ten vintage wedding items on etsy: february 2011

{each photo links to its shop}

as usual, plus two to grow on.