A NEW LITTLE PROJECT

...or possibly not so little, actually. I've decided to revive the Etsy store of which, once upon a time, I was proprietor. It's stocked with a little bit of vintage everything, from beautiful antiquarian books to spiffed-up thrift store finds. My apartment is stuffed to the brim and I'm forbidden to buy more things, so rather than trying to make room for my favorite finds (or leave them behind - anything but that!), I'm offering them up to you. In addition to vintage housewares and décor, I'll also be selling ephemera, vintage stamps, and rare books chosen for their particularly beautiful bindings. 

Here's what's in store right now...

lucite box, $25

gold faux-bamboo frames with marbled paper, $25

set of four apothecary jars, $30

petite chinoiserie willow pattern ginger jar, $20

I have to say, I have always been firmly on the side of utter disgust when I see books used for purely decorative purposes. This little trend that went around the stores a while ago (Pottery Barn, Ballard, Restoration Hardware, etc.) makes me cringe, and this just makes me sad. Why do designers create beautiful built-in walls of shelving for clients who don't have any books and will never touch or look at the "purely decorative" books their designers bought to artfully fill them with? And, having worked in not one but three different libraries over the years, the disturbing trend of displaying books spines inward almost makes me gag. Please tell me that nobody does this in real homes:

In short, destroying or shamefully hiding books to make a room look "styled better" is not okay in my book [see what I did there? ha.] Buying books for their covers, however, is something I can kind of get behind. Just like antique furniture and ephemera, rare and antiquarian books are valuable for many reasons, not least of which is their aesthetic value - the "they just don't make 'em like that anymore" factor. Though starting a collection of books with their covers torn off might get you some dirty looks from book-lovers and design enthusiasts alike, a collection of beautifully illustrated bindings is pretty legit. And if that's not a good enough argument, a lot of these sound like pretty interesting reads...

set of three rare books, $50

set of three rare books, $40

set of three rare books, $50

Vintage postage stamps have become quite a trend in wedding and party design lately, and I can't argue - who wants [a] when you could have [b] or [c]? ...

So here you are: a huge selection of vintage stamps, sold in packets of 44¢ or in custom lots for weddings and parties. And if you are looking for something to match your color scheme, style or theme, well - I've got it. What you see listed is just a teeny, tiny portion of what's available...

vintage postage stamps, magenta

vintage postage stamps, black and white

vintage postage stamps, red white and blue

vintage postage stamps, flora

vintage postage stamps, green

vintage postage stamps, purple

vintage postage stamps, blue

Go check it out! 

And if you're wondering why I have a near-unlimited supply of vintage stamps, well, that's a story for another day...

A LITTLE SNEAK PREVIEW...

Of a little something I'm working on:

More to come later in the week! Plus a new Craigslist Decorating is in the works, too...

WELCOME!

Welcome to everyone visiting from 6th Street Design School today! I'm honored to be featured on Kirsten's fantastic blog as part of her Feature Friday series. If you haven't already discovered 6th Street Design School, go pay a visit! Here's a little sampling of the loveliness you'll find there...

 

 

Thanks again, Kirsten!

SLIPPERS

Thank you all so much for your thoughtful comments on my last post! It sounds as though my existing regimen of posting about whatever I'm currently obsessed with is just fine with you all. Although I'm sad to say that posts about my personal decorating projects will be few and far between now that our apartment is just about stuffed to the brim (and the fiancé has helped with about as many DIY projects as he can handle), I would love to do more Craigslist and look-for-less features, since we both love them. Let me know in the comments which city's Craigslist you'd like me to explore next!

In the meantime, what I'm obsessed with right now is fall fashion. Fall is far and away my favorite season, and as soon as August hits I start getting fed up with sticky summer and longing for cooler air, changing colors and plenty of plaid, wool, flannel, jackets and boots. Although I still love my lace-up heels and wedge ankle boots, I've been fixated with this fall's take on flat, cozy tuxedo slippers (did I mention that fall also seems to turn me into a total prep?). Referred to alternately as 'tuxedo slippers,' 'smoking slippers,' or included under the more vague heading of 'loafers,' these preppy shoes have come a long way since these gents donned them:

via here and here

Not only have they become an acceptable form of daytime outerwear, they're also not just for men anymore.

I've put together a rather exhaustive roundup of this season's offerings, from vintage to Urban Outfitters to Alexander Wang. Starting with the masters: Stubbs and Wootton. They make bespoke slippers with an enormous assortment of fabrics, colors, and embroidery options. While you can certainly go the traditional route and order a pair of black velvet slippers with a gold monogram, they also offer some more unconventional options. 

all via stubbsandwootton.com

 
If, like me, you cringe at the thought of spending several hundred dollars on a pair of flats, here are some more realistic potential purchases.  In everything from snakeskin to tapestry to sequins, studs and spikes, here are some modern interpretations of the classic style:

columns, left to right:
column 1: Donald J. Pliner, $175 || Nicole, $85 || River Island, $55 || ASOS, $64 || ASOS, $119 || J. Crew, $275 || Etsy, $16 || J. Crew, $228 || Etsy, $18
column 2: Steve Madden, $130 || next three, Steve Madden, $80-$120 || Steve Madden, $130 || Donald J. Pliner, $175 || Urban Outfitters, $39 || Urban Outfitters, $34
column 3: Sam Edelman, $150 || Matiko, $80 || Etsy, $20 || Jeffrey Campbell, $100 || Ebay, $40 || Zara, $70 || Jimmy Choo, $495 || Matt Bernson, $154 || Alloy, $35

 
Among my favorite details are Topshop's brightly colored tassels and Cynthia Rowley's yellow trim – and the versions by a few designers who got even more creative with the trend and introduced heels to the mix. Alexander Wang's patent loafers seem to be already ubiquitous, featured in all of this season's fashion magazines and scattered across the blogosphere. Lucky for us, I found some tassels, monograms, and Wang knock-offs at reasonable price points...

clockwise from upper left:
Stubbs and Wootton on Ebay, $111
Topshop, $100
Topshop, $100
Etsy, $23
Céline
Ann Taylor, $137
Cynthia Rowley for HSN, $129
Etsy, $34
Alexander Wang, $650
Ralph Lauren, $650

And if you're not satisfied with any of those options, the British company Shipton and Heneage offers COM slippers. That's right, you can have any fabric you can get your hands on made into a pair of shoes. What fabric would you choose?

YOUR INPUT!

After a lovely week spent with family in Arizona, we flew home Saturday night, just in time for hurricane Irene. On the positive side, the MFA closed today so I didn't have to go to work. On the negative side, if they had made that decision just a few hours earlier we could have rescheduled our flight and spent three more days in the sun. Boo.

In any case, you've probably noticed that I did not spend my vacation blogging. I did, however, spend some time thinking about what to blog about. My original plan for this blog was a very informal one: something to the effect of "post about whatever's on my mind when it's on my mind." But posts take a very long time to write, research, and publish, so the reality has involved a lot more thinking and planning than expected before actually posting. I've noticed my posts falling into unintentional categories of sorts, and I've been thinking that perhaps I should create a little more structure and get your input about what you'd like to see on this blog. I don't want to go so far as to create regular "features" (like "wedding Mondays," or "Craigslist Tuesdays"), but I would LOVE to hear which types of posts are most interesting to you. Here are some of the aforementioned categories I've noticed, with examples of each...

1] Inspiration roundups (pictorial wallpaper, midnight blue + ochre, inspiration boards, greige, billowy skirts) 
2] Product roundups (velvet, metallic-toe shoes, bamboo, agate + geodes)
3] Craigslist decorating (I, II, III, IV, V)
4] My projects (recovering my ottoman, making my desk, making my inspiration/bulletin board)
5] Being an art history nerd (J. Crew + Millais, J. Adler + ancient Peru, 18th century pocketbooks)
6] Wedding plans and ideas (inspiration, more inspiration, table settings) 
7] Looks for less (Plantation Design ad)
8] Random assortments of images and links, either from my files or products I've come across; this would result in more frequent posts but less structure (examples here, here, here, and here)

I'm not a huge commenter – I NEVER commented on blogs before I had my own, and I'm still pretty bad about it – so, comment-shy people, I get it. But I really want to hear from you, even if it's just an anonymous "I like #5." And feel free to give me any other feedback you want! I started blogging because I wanted to be able to talk about my crazy interests with people who wouldn't be bored to tears by them. Now that I actually have some readers, I'd really love to hear from all of you!

ASSORTED LOVELINESS FOR YOUR FRIDAY

A short trip we just returned from has left me rather emotionally exhausted, so for lack of a real blog post, here's some assorted loveliness for you today: the things that have stuck in my mind over the past few weeks...

Robert Rodriguez dress at Neiman Marcus

Amy Merrick's beautiful new website design

Rue magazine

Vera Wang Lavender Label at Neiman Marcus

via Style Me Pretty

Black Crow Studios wallpaper

via Style Me Pretty

Hadleigh's bespoke slippers, via VT Interiors

Vera Wang Lavender Label gown, at Neiman Marcus

Heather Safferstone via Aesthetic Oiseau

And a little peek at what I've been up to: the results of a trip to my favorite flea market [more on that soon!] ...

PLANTATION DESIGN: LOOK FOR LESS

Now that this is finally over, I'm starting to slowly regain my sanity and my interest in blogging. My past week has involved very little sleep, making plenty of design boards (yay!), and a lot of long, angry lines (boo):


approximately 1/3 of ONE of the two lines that wrapped around the MFA on Saturday - picture via Twitter



With my newfound downtime, I was flipping through an issue of Elle Decor a couple days ago and came across this ad for Plantation:



apologies for the bad scan



I love the calm but playful atmosphere of this room. It feels like the perfect twentysomething room, the kind of room I could see a lot of my friends loving... if any of us had the money to buy $2000 mirrors. Every time I browse Plantation's website I fall in love with about a hundred things, and simultaneously wonder who on earth spends many hundreds of dollars on a single tiny box or frame. This particular image got me to thinking about how many of the things in this room are beautiful but not particularly unique, and I wondered whether I could put together a lookalike room on a more reasonable budget. Here's the result:

rug one / rug two / Plantation rug
nightstand / Plantation nightstand
ring pull
pillow / [cheaper, if you don't care for pink] / Plantation pillow
lamp / [closer, more expensive lamp] / Plantation lamp
stool / [the same stool, for less] / Plantation stool
mirror / Plantation mirror
duvet set
bench / Plantation bench
bed / Plantation bed

Not perfect, but pretty close. The rug is clearly meant to be a knockoff, but it appears to be darker than the original, which is why I offered an alternate option. Despite the different pattern, I think the second option more closely resembles the luxurious texture and muted colors of the one in the ad. The details of the garden stool and the bench aren't precisely identical to Plantation's, but the prices are right! The bed was by far the hardest to match; after scouring the internet and browsing through what now seems like hundreds of upholstered beds, I realized that I'd have to compromise on something. I found tufted beds with no wings in the perfect color, tufted wingback beds that came in all the wrong colors, wingback beds with no tufts, and beds whose headboards were twice as tall as Plantation's (see below, Z Gallerie runner-up) - not to mention a few almost-perfect ones whose price tags took them out of the running. I ended up choosing a white one, prioritizing tufting and wings over that precise platinum-grey color. I know it loses points for having curved wings rather than those pretty clean-lined straight ones, but I think it most closely fits with the idea of the original room. Plus, it's about half the price of the Z Gallerie bed that I was leaning toward.

None of the accessories seem to be on Plantation's website - they were probably brought in by a stylist - but here are some lookalikes to fill in (almost) every last detail:

clockwise from upper right:
jewelry box, $30
pink quartz cluster, $23
Avedon Fashion: 1944-2000 exhibition catalog, $63
big skeleton key, $12
frame, $17
green vase, $23

What do you think? Is it a good substitute, or do "looks for less" just not compare to the real thing? 

WHAT OUR WEDDING NEEDS IS...

...some fabulous gold sunburst chargers. And, while we're at it, I'll take some of those napkins that happened to be monogrammed with my initials.

I'll pass on everything else, though, especially that tablecloth. There will be many more wedding-table-setting related posts before next June, but while we're on the subject, I have a question: WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE SHINY AND PLASTIC? We went to the showroom of a linen rental company a few days ago, and after seeing a lot of polyester faux-silk, I voiced my dislike. The (otherwise very nice) woman responded in a rather belittling tone, "Well, yes. That's because it's a party. It's not like you have to live with it." Are parties supposed to have more fake dupioni in them than real life is? 'Cause I feel like good taste is good taste. Not to mention that my tables are going to have plenty of real (silver or brass or gilt) shiny things on top of them. 

Back to the topic at hand, does anyone know how to get their hands on sunburst chargers?