a wee gothic bairn

Oh this nursery makes me want to have a little goth baby! Or maybe I'll just make myself a mobile instead... yeah... that's probably better.

via Design*Sponge

appreciation post 101

Um, hello, neon table. Do you want to come live in my house? You can come too, bookcase wallpaper.

Seriously. This place is gorgeous! So many spray painted things! Plus, they've got a giant Magritte-like pear in the kitchen!



via (you guessed it) Design*Sponge

like a moth to a flame

Okay. I lied. I only ever read Design*Sponge. I'm thinking about turning this blog into a Design*Sponge appreciation blog!

So, today Grace lead me to the work of mischer'traxler. There is some gorgeous stuff on this web-portfolio, and I do suggest that you check it out! They have a series called RealLimited which features hand numbered representations of objects found in nature. Like the limited moths lamp above, or the limited fungi shelf below. These are based on endangered species, and each tin or copper representation is numbered to correlate with one live moth or mushroom in nature!



The moth lamp would be a pretty easy DIY for any of you crafty peeps out there! All you need is a little copper sheeting, some tin snips and a whole lot of patience (okay, maybe "easy" was not quite the right choice of words). You could also do it up with a little Tyvek sheeting a la Tord Boontje!


via Design*Sponge

inspirational clutter

Okay, it's time for another repost! From Design*Sponge, yet again. Grace has set up sneak peaks to run all week while she's away, and I LOVE a good sneak peak (I do read other blogs... I swear)!

This particular sneaky peak belongs to artist, Ann Wood. Her place is overrun with stacks upon stacks of creativity and inspiration! It's like a fairytale exploded: lace bits pinned to linen curtains, flying papier machee ships in windows, and even a couple of paper horses trotting through a paper blizzard! This is the most magical dreamscape... and it's REAL! Grace has uploaded the full home tour on her flickr, and I highly recommend checking it out!



via Design*Sponge

picnics for shut ins

I'm a little late picking this up, it was featured last week, including DIY instructions, on the Design*Sponge guest blog, and was created by Paige Russell. I just think that it's the sweetest thing ever! I'm a huge fan of fake nature, and this blurs the lines with some real grass! Perfection!

blah

Well, you've gotta start somewhere. I wish I could tell you all that I was doing something exciting during that nearly two month long hiatus that I took... or even that I was doing something productive, but I wasn't. I wasn't off being exciting or productive. I was merely existing, and sometimes that is the only thing one can do.

So, a couple of weeks ago, our shared studio space sprung a huge leak. AGAIN! This time it spread from the wall to the middle of the ceiling, and there was A LOT of water!


I spent a good half hour pulling down all my lamps that were hanging directly under part of the leak, and dragging all of Shane's recording gear out of the room so that it didn't get wet. Our apartment hasn't fully recovered from the disaster. There's still stuff strewn about everywhere!


We're waiting to hear when the plaster guy will be coming to fix the hole in the wall. We're merely existing until then.

isabelle sicart

Did everyone see the amazing lighting by Isabelle Sicart over on Design*Sponge today?

The one pictured above is called "Grand Lustre Branches" and it's making my heart hurt! Constructed from resin, ceramic and silk! That is such a dreamy combination of materials! I could stare at this forever and not get bored!

movin' on up

First Etsy and now Apartment Therapy! My little apartment is making the rounds this week!

Thanks so much Amy!

get the look... etsy style

Well kids, today just got a whole lot better than yesterday!

For someone who was told just days ago... hours ago even, that her amateur merchandising skills left much to be desired, the good folks at Etsy pulled through and posted a little feature on their blog, the storque, about how to get the look of my playful parlor! There's a link to more detailed photos (some that didn't appear on my blog) here.

Thanks Christine and Alison! You guys made my day; my week; possibly my month! Maybe even my year!

splish splash

I was takin' a bath... oh, hello there. Welcome to my bathroom tour.


Our apartment is basically a long rectangle that consists mainly of hallway. On one end of our long hallway is the living room, on the other is the bathroom. Off of the main hallway, there's a funny little mini hallway leading into the bathroom. Being a maximalist, I have used this space to it's full advantage! On one side is a collection of things with a mostly nautical theme, including some old ships placed on limited edition 1974 reissue Koziol shelves, a velvet painting of a ship, a Justin Richel print and a Julie Knoblock print. On the other is the requisite "for like ever" poster from village.



Once over the threshold of the bathroom, there is still more hallway! This is a photograph of some garden gnomes by my friend Todd Duym. It was love at first sight for me and this photograph! Todd's pretty easy on the eyes too.


More Tord Boontje! This time shiny silvery metal garland goodness! That man can do no wrong!




The bathroom is small (which I think is ideal), and our windows are very large, so essentially one wall IS a window! I dressed this one up in Emma Jeffs' Otto window film. My dear friend Alice brought this for me from England last year! I still have my Amy Earles Valentines lady up, and I think she's staying up forever!



This series of photos was taken by my friend Randy Kramer. We liked them so much that we used them for the love and mathematics ep artwork. I did some illustrations that continued the narrative of the photo series for the inside sleeve and cd artwork.




I need my bathrooms to be clean and fresh. This is always the first room that I paint. It's the room that starts your day and ends your day, everyday, so I like for it to be calming and inspiring. I almost always use mistints and sometimes mix several together to get a specific colour. I mixed white and ivory to get a nice warm white for the walls, and painted the ceiling in a colour that I like to call "electric mint"! I have a very organic way of decorating. I usually use some element of the room as a jumping off point, and in this case it was the tiles in the tub surround!




1950s shift dress: thrifted 12 years ago!
tights: store in fan tan alley
boots: browns
1960s enamel brooch: thrifted

come into my parlor

Every time I do a wardrobe remix post, I have to rearrange my furniture so I can get a head to toe shot with an uncluttered background. Megan and Ambika have expressed their curiosity regarding my home decor, so I decided that the best way for me to show off my cluttered little apartment would be to revisit the Hinterland Who's Who idea and camouflage myself in my natural habitat. One. Room. At. A. Time.



The green and yellow floral cluster hanging from the ceiling is Tord Boontje's Midsummer Light. I adore this design and own several! The velvet victorian style love seat and chair came out west with me from Ontario six years ago. The brocade victorian chair was found a few years back at the Salvation Army near my work; it's such a perfect match with the velvet chair. One of Dawn's Jack Rabbit Love Creatures lives on the brocade chair. He occasionally hops to another chair, but he's mostly here. I found the coffee table at the Salvation Army near my work for fifteen dollars! It has tiny brass claw feet! The book case is from the late 1800s, and we're babysitting it for Shane's sister while she's in Toronto... oh wait! She came back almost two years ago... and we still have it. I guess it belongs to us now!


The landscape, that you're all familiar with, was found in the scary basement of my neighborhood Salvation Army. When I bought it there was a hole in it, the stretcher was broken in two places and someone had drawn a UFO in the top left corner (I still had to talk them down to a reasonable price). I fixed it up and found a frame that fit it perfectly the next day!



More old furniture! The chairs used to be that hideous brown with speckles that was popular in the late 1970s before I redid them... oh wait! There's some right there, under the TV! I'll probably end up painting the end tables at some point. We even have a matching coffee table that I am dying to repurpose! Right now it's just taking up space. I don't know if you noticed the sponge painting behind the TV. It came with the apartment. We were told that we were not allowed to paint, but I cannot live in a space with "apartment beige" walls so I painted the one wall and hoped for the best. Luckily we didn't get in trouble for it (it's a heritage colour!)... I'm still hiding the bedroom paint! Anyhow, I bought wallpaper for that wall, but then couldn't figure out how to make it temporary. They need to make post-it glue for apartment wallpaper! I will eventually get around to doing this, but until then it's little sponge painted clouds.




I collect many things, including animal theme ceramics (mostly Japanese from the 1950s) and they're scattered around the apartment, but most reside here.


This is how small my living room is. I can fit the entire thing in one photograph. I'm not using any trick photography or wide angle lenses here. It is THAT small. It's cozy and perfect, but I think we could use a bit more storage for our books and stacks of dvds... the piles are kind of ridiculous at this point! I'm waiting for the perfect shelf to come along.


sweater: thrifted
sleeveless blouse: thrifted
skirt: thrifted
black tights: the bay
turquoise over the knee fishnets: I'm not sure
shoes: camper

you asked for it

Alright, so, maybe about a week ago the lovely Ambika tagged me to show where I blog. I'm cheating and showing you just the desk because I'm currently too depressed to clean up (yeah, that's it)... So there it is.

My lovely old desk, my shiny white computer, my hacked mystic wall clock, the top of my fake Eames shell chair, a prayer plant emerging from the dark, a stack of clothing that may or may not make it into the shop, a stack of paper, a hair ribbon, a giant box of "student quality" pencil crayons (I bought these when I was in uni because I was too cheap to shell out the $100+ price tag for the professional ones. I regret that decision. These are too waxy.), and a drawing that I was working on last night in the dark... almost. I was working on it by light of a single amber glass lamp from my collection of 17 that reside in this room. Here they are, Susan, in all their tacky glory!


Now you see why I hesitated to add another to my collection yesterday; these things take up A LOT of space! I can't even close my closet due to an ill placed orb. There's a couple not pictured because they are in the messy portion of the studio! Photos of them will have to wait until another happier day, when I get around to tidying up!

One of the disadvantages of working by the amber glow of these lamps is the inability to discern colour! It's virtually impossible to differentiate grey from blue, purple from brown, pink from orange, and so on, and so forth. I had no idea what colours I was using on my drawing last night. In the morning light I found pinks and purples where I assumed oranges and browns to be. It was strange. I would never have chosen purple (I think it's for wizards and unicorns), but it kind of works here.



I am a terribly lazy artist. I rarely draw anymore, and I find it so incredibly frustrating that it makes me never want to pick up a pen or pencil again... and paints? Forget about it! I used to be so good at colour mixing it was insane! I could duplicate any colour with ease, but now I don't even know where to start. It's funny how one forgets. As you can see I ended up scratching out the bottom half of this drawing in a fit of rage, but it's all part of the process. I've decided that I must, MUST get back into the habit of drawing and painting. Yes, friends, I'm putting my ego aside and hanging up that case of "masterpiece-itis" that I developed way back when because it inhibits my ability to finish ANYTHING!

my inner snow white is squealing with delight

These, my friends, are LAMPS!!!!

They're made by Heico, Germany and are available here and here from rose and radish.

I couldn't find a website for Heico... but I did find this importers website! It shows a whole bunch of other designs including a kitten with a ball of yarn!!! OMG, Anabela!!!! I'm going to send this to my manager and see if we can convince the owner that he needs to sell these lamps in the store! (I don't think it will work... but a girl can dream)

the weather outside is frightful

We're experiencing a bit of a cold snap out here on the west coast. It's snowed for days and has been actually cold enough for it to last! Today was the coldest of the last few days and our heating system was struggling to say the least. Vancouver is in Canada, but it doesn't actually ever get the classic Canadian winters. This is one of the reasons why I moved here. I freaking hate winter. The cold is too much for my bony frame to withstand! I dressed in layers today. If you want to know the extent of layers you can click here.

I wasn't brave enough to venture outside, so I stayed in and decorated a bit more for Christmas. I fixed the tree problems and made some Christmas pillows! I know, I know, I am one step away from breaking out the Christmas sweaters! But that will have to wait for another post...

I didn't mean to buy so many extra ornaments for the tree. I bought the lights which I needed, and then they had this glass bead garland on sale that I just couldn't say no to (but didn't even use in the end) and then I found these amazing almost florescent pink glass ornaments and the opaque blue ones at the thrift store, so I couldn't just leave them there either... I'm going to have a bit of a storage issue come January, but just look at this glorious tree! It's perfect!


I also added a few ornaments to my totally fake and totally Christmassy red pine garland!


Finally, I made four new pillows! Two are made from the velvet I used to upholster my chairs backed with a mint green cashmere wool, and the other two are pillow panels from the archives. I bought these when I worked at the fabric store, so they are at least twelve years old! Crazy! I still remember that they were from a collection called "vienna" because they are loosely based on Gustav Klimt design elements.