design, etc.

I subscribe to many (too many?) design blogs and therefore get to be privy to quite a bit of completely amazing and beautiful stuff that I would otherwise never have the opportunity to see. Case in point: the super website etsy is the place to go for many up-and-coming designers. For example, Jen Renninger has these wonderful prints that make modern design into alphabet flashcards. My favorite? The green one, of course.

Then we have (via Bluelines, the blog from Martha's magazine Blueprint) the coolest bathroom ever: The walls are covered in the text of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The owners of the restaurant in which one could find this charming bathroom, Provence, used hardback books (pages are creamy and give a soft glow), cut out the pages with a straight razor, and used wallpaper paste to adhere them to the wall. Then they glazed it all with a coat of Polyvine glaze to seal. I think I'm going to do LPT's bedroom walls the same way, but I haven't decided on the text. Any ideas? D says I should do The Art of War, but that might be a little much. Perhaps something French...

Going back to etsy we find swallowfield, by Jennifer Judd - maker of spiffy collages like the one below, titled "I feel lucky". Lastly, I feel compelled to include the name of someone I absolutely adore on so many levels. Her name is Lotta Jansdotter, and I first saw one of her beautifully elegant designs in Real Simple magazine's holiday 2003 issue, when her café apron was listed as an idea for a gift under $50. Her designs have a distinctly organic feel, always simple, always somewhat subdued. But what I really like is that her design is so accessible. For instance, I just got her book, Simple Sewing. Now, I am a confessed MORON when it comes to making two pieces of fabric come together. Honestly, the thread goes on strike and I won't even begin to tell what the sewing machine does. (Let's just say that the repair shop is a fan of mine.) But these patterns, they make even my all-thumbs approach produce sophisticated, gift-able goods. I will post a picture later. For now, here are Lotta's screenprints. Jeebus, I love 'em.

If anyone is interested, here are a few of my preferred design blogs. I am always looking for more.

Bloesem
Bluelines (link is mentioned above somewhere)
Design*Sponge
Happy Mundane
The Style Files

And because I never know when to quit, here's a project I just now found via The Style Files. It's by Tiago de Fonseca and it's called "Bedtime Stories." It's a multilayered blanket with a bedtime story on each "page," and as you read you can add or subtract layers of warmth to customize your comfort. Chouette.