Stripes and Stamps?

So I've been married and living in my own place (well, K lives there too I guess) for over a year and a half now, and our living room has yet to have a Look. You can look at it, yes, but it has no Look.

There are several reasons for this. First, we've always had mismatched, hand-me-down seating. Tan. Black. Green. Sofa. Metal futon. Wood futon. Second, we've only made minimal progress on getting anything up on the walls since we move every year (it's hard to break the college habit).

And then it hit me, a solution to bring unity to my hodgepodge living room...

couch pillows

I went to Joann and grabbed some blue upholstery fabric, trying to pull some colors from the photos on our wall of Lake Tahoe, taken during our honeymoon. Then I it, the perfect blue and tan stripe. And then I saw another perfect fabric, a blue and white stamped motif. I had to have them.

Uh...won't that look weird? K asks. No, I tell him, it will look modern! But really, what to I know. A few days later, newly bought fabric not yet touched, I got affirmation.

Enter, Pottery Barn's outdoor pillows:


And my end products:

Did it tie my living room together? Well, nothing is going to remedy that mess completely, but it's a good start!

Stomach This!

Brush a little color on them, dab a bit of cartoon cuteness, and wa-la - you can make anything cute. Perhaps I am underestimating the talent of those behind I Heart Guts, which makes even those don't get woozy at the sight of blood will swoon for these adorable little treats.

Classics feature our favorite organs, like the liver, as shown below.




Coming to a vacation stop near you!

Javier Alejandre - Industrial Design

There's a certain satisfaction I get from the seeing the perfect marriage of industrial and utility design. Industrial designer Javier Alejandre has created quite a buzz in the creative communities with his newest design ChromoSoma - a mix and match lamp creation. The Madrid-based artist is showing his design at the Salone del Mobile di Milan 2009.