In true American spirit, Ballard Designs is getting people to shop for Memorial Day. That's right, they're running a Memorial Day sale, offering 20 percent off of all of their outdoor furniture. The sale ends on Tuesday, so shop fast! If your backyard is already chock full of furniture, or you have no outdoor space to speak of, there are still some items that would work indoors, like their garden seats. Here are a few products I wouldn't mind saving spending money on.
The Tord Boontje Fig Leaf Wardrobe for Meta has doors comprised of 616 hand-painted, enameled copper leaves in 10 shapes and many colors. It opens up to a cast, patinated, bronze coat tree and interior walls lined with hand-dyed and woven silk.It's certainly not as "ready-to-wear" as the other Tord Boontje designs I've written about, but that doesn't make it any less mystical. Very Adam and Eve, right? Source
Want in on one of the cheapest, quickest, and most potent small changes you can make in your home? Let the sun shine in! Since most family spaces (dining rooms, kitchens, living rooms, dens) don't demand the privacy that a bathroom or bedroom does, forgo the curtains or blinds. You can even strip them off your windows altogether if you're feeling particularly brave. By letting in natural light, you'll save energy by using daylighting. Not only that, but all rooms look better when naturally lit, and sunshine improves residents' moods as well. Source
You may not know this but Etsy, the online marketplace for handmade goods, also sells vintage items. When they first introduced vintage, I whined a little, saddened that it would no longer be 100 percent handmade. But, when I come across vintage items like this Dessert Please Cake Plate ($65), everything is okay in the world. You'll be hard pressed to find anything like this milk-glass beauty elsewhere, and if you do find a mass-produced version, retailers like Anthropologie will charge you upwards of $150 for it. I'd normally say that the combination of the rose garland, butterflies perched on top, raised polka dots, and teardrop doily plate are a bit too much, but this cake plate has a sort of Victorian, old-world charm that beguiles me.
London-based production designer Óscar Díaz dreamed up a novel printing technique whereby a specific type of paper absorbs ink gradually. The technique allowed for him to create self-printing designs, where numbers on a calendar, letters on a card, or leaves on a botanical (etc.) are revealed bit by bit, so they are "growing works." Quite appropriately, his calendar design showed under the "Gradual" category at the 2007 London Design Festival. Each number on the calendar is printed daily, until the end of the month when the ink well is dry. So, the calendar not only signals elapsed time but gives a true sense of it. His plant posters grow up slowly, mimicking the growth of a real plant. In the case of his larger plant posters, complete growth can take up to four months. His Christmas card, which reads "Happy New Year 2008," took four days to print itself. Clever, huh? I have to say this is genuinely one of the coolest ideas I've shared here. Let's just see if Díaz can take a note from Gutenberg and make this printing technique commercially viable. To see his card in action, read more
Calvin Klein
Fly London
Christine Bec