Mint

Michelle Smith, the founder of Indie NC (both the blog and the online boutique), asked me a few questions recently about non-blog things. I’m so flattered that Michelle asked to do this, and I hope you’ll hop over to Feminine Modern and check it out. My favorite part of the interview was giving away my fiance’s fantastic Banana Horchata Smoothie receipe… yum!

Thanks Michelle!

My friend Hilary, who writes the food blog Smorgasbite, posted on these bowls from L.A. company Arktura. Aren’t they pretty? Arktura has a bunch of other cool stuff like these powder coated steel tables.

They’re environmentally friendly, too:

“The majority of our products are made using durable long-lasting materials with high recycled content, that produce zero landfill waste form manufacture; and, at the end of their life cycle are fully recyclable. We also use high quality zero VOC finishes, which release no toxins into the environment during application or in situ.”

Because when we’re sick of staring at the computer, we can take a break and make letters out of the scraps from the paper shredder to post on our blog OK Great.

You can check out the full set of photos on Mint’s flickr.

I recently wrote about the great bag my brother gave me for Christmas by the NC company Tillvaro Designs. I got in touch with Corie Beer, the woman behind Tillvaro, and was excited to get some additional pictures of her work. Corie has some great Spring and Summer stuff coming out soon, so stay tuned! You can inquire about any of the pieces shown here or other Tillvaro pieces via the website.

To say I’m bummed that Domino is closing is kind of an understatement. To me, Domino is the only shelter mag worth subscribing to. The others fall short in that they feature homes that are too fancy/expensive, or just plain not my taste.

I’m not saying Domino is the be all end all (I mean, the February issue was a bit disappointing) but there is something to be said for books and magazines.

One Coco + Kelley commenter wondered if the fall of all these shelter mags is a result of all the fabulous design blogs we have to choose from. I suppose it might be true (although Conde Nast reports the closing of Domino is a result of falling ad sales in a terrible economy), but to me having design books and magazines is so valuable. When you find something you love on the internet, you can bookmark it, but who is to say the site won’t be updated or gone the next time you want to review it?

At the design firm where I work, we have a small selection of design books. I’ve poured through them so many times that I am 100% familiar with each and every page. But seeing the same well-done projects over and over teaches me something that a glimpse of a constantly updated blog never can. It’s looking at something for the one hundredth time that you say, “Oh, now I understand why that color trim works with that room” or why that typography looked great on that poster but isn’t cutting it in my brochure mockup.

My bookshelves are becoming filled with design magazines, the pages marked as inspiration for some future bedroom redesign or edgy graphic design project. My online bookmarks are fabulous, but they’re no replacement.

Thoughts?

My fiance launched his new portfolio site the other day! As he says, “Constructive comments encouraged, friendly comments adored.”

My mom and grandmother instilled a deep love of classical music in me, starting from the time my mom signed me up for violin lessons at age five. So when it came time to prioritize our “most importants” for the wedding budget, a string quartet for the ceremony naturally topped my mom’s list. The musicians we chose to work with gave us a list of songs they typically play and we’ve been listening to them via youtube.

The coolest part about this is that once you sign up for a youtube account, you can create playlists. So now we have several playlists going – one for processional favorites, one for recessional favorites, and one for general favorites. Since my mom and I don’t live in the same town, we can share our music ideas via our youtube account.

What did people do before the internet, really?

[photo by jesper sidhu]  Click to read more about how we’re planning our wedding online

thanks uncle mark!