Schoolhouse Electric & Supply Co. is a must visit Portland destination for homeowners and decorating afficiandos. The massive showroom is located in a 100 yr old industrial building that also houses their manufacturing and shipping center. It’s not just a candy shop for decorators – it’s more like Willy Wonka’s freaking Chocolate Factory. The brand’s signature products, reproductions of turn of the century American lighting, fill the space along with displays of the original-era molds that inspired them. On the day we were there, a group of college students were huddled around a long study table gathering reference from Schoolhouse Electric’s publicly accessible design library.

In addition to the lighting products that Schoolhouse Electric is best known for, the showroom also stocks a complete line of home accessories. The space is beautifully renovated, expansive and wide open while retaining the original factory feel. All the product displays and vignettes are finely curated and expertly styled – classic Americana filtered through an uncompromising modern lens.

For the products, for the space, for the styling, Schoolhouse Electric is full of inspiration and delight. And for extra enjoyment, there’s a boutique florist and coffee bar at the entrance. Highly recommended.

Bonus: watch this video to see more of the showroom and hear the owner of Schoolhouse Electric describe the backstory of the brand.

Almost there… We are working hard to get these bags in the shop soon. Been busy painting, painting & painting! Aiming for next week (fingers crossed).

Coming Soon! Canvas and Leather Mason Bags made by Heritage Leather Company in California with a stamped The New Domestic leather patch. Available in two colours, process yellow & basic red – hand painted by us using waterbased screen print ink. Hope to have it in the shop within a week or so…

Currently working on our next product line for the upcoming Christmas season. I’m a little late on my schedule but hope I can pull this through in time for Christmas.

The other weekend, we went to the Design Sponge book launch party held at Anthropologie and met the lovely and talented Grace Bonney. I’m so honoured to have my book signed by her and to have finally met her in person after years of continued inspiration. I also have to say that I am completely flattered of her nice write up on our totes over at Design Sponge – so amazingly sweet. You can read it here. Thanks Grace for including Vancouver to your book tour. Come back soon! xo, Nerissa

Back To School Sale is only on until October 16! Come and get your Eye of The Storm for only $26 (regularly $36). Hope everyone is enjoying Fall so far. Big love, Nerissa.

As Luna grows, our space grows with her too. We’ve changed our studio space numerous times to continually adapt to our ever changing lifestyle. Before Luna came to our life, our studio space was mainly used to work. When Luna came, we had to share the space with her and had to move furniture around to make room for her to crawl around. Now that she’s a little toddler and is more mobile, we’ve changed the space again to adapt to her needs and created a little fun art/play factory for her.

Luna loves doodling and being read to. So she now has a little art table, a reading rug, storage for her toys and a place to feature all her art work. We also created a family picture board where we’ll continually add photos of our family. She loves looking at it and screams out “mommy’ & “daddy” as she points to our photos. Luna loves spending time in here and every time she walks in, she goes straight to her artwork hanging from the ceiling and screams out “nice!”.

I always find it important to create different spaces in the house based on the activities that we would do in them. Luna knows that this is her space and it’s a place where she can freely explore, discover & play.

A few months back, I had a pleasure working with story producer/stylist/farmer Heather Cameron of Missing Goat Farms. I met Heather during the Anthology Magazine photoshoot last year as she was the stylist for the day. Heather makes these delicious organic jams and I was thrilled when she asked me to design her jam labels. It was so fun working with Heather as she is so passionate in what she does and she is just such a lovely & sweet lady. You can find her jams at Walrus, Edible Canada, Butter Baked Goods, Urban Fare to just name a few. You can also get it from her cute little shop which she calls ‘The Shabby Shack‘ when it’s open in the summer (she makes homemade blueberry pies too!). Give these jams a try, I promise, you will love them!

Javier Tellez, “Letter On The Blind For the Use of Those Who See,” Saint Estache Cathedral. Projected Video.

Felicie D’Estienne D’Orves & Frederic Nogray, “Monolithe et Massage,” Saint Roch Cathedral. Installation and Concert.

Jeremy Blake, “Station to Station”, Englise St.-Paul-St.-Louis. Multichannel Video.

One year, we decided to take a vacation to Paris to check out Nuit Blanche. Nuit Blanche is an all-night arts festival where public spaces including churches and civic buildings serve as unlikely settings for installations and performances. We tried to see as much as we could but it’s impossible to see all the venues. But with jetlag, it wasn’t hard to stay up all night.

Nuit Blanche happens in major cities like St Petersburg, Rome, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Toronto to just name a few. We chose Paris because… well, we love Paris. It was such a fun night and also nice to see so many people out in the streets enjoying all the art & hearing music everywhere.

We’ve been to Paris a couple times and absolutely LOVE everything about the city. We always like staying in the Marais and for this trip, we stayed at Hotel Jeanne d’Arc and was lucky enough to be given their one and only 2 bedroom suite at no extra charge. Lucky us! A wonderful hotel situated in the heart of the Marais. It’s also really close to the most amazing falafels we’ve ever tasted in the heart of the Jewish neighbourhood called, L’As du Falafel. Amazing, believe me! You also can’t go to Paris without stoping by Laduree to fill up one of their georgous boxes with macarons.

Aaahhh… Paris. So beautiful, romantic & inspiring. A perfect combination for a city. Also worth noting, Nuit Blanche is coming to Vancouver for the first time in 2012. Yeah!

This weekend, we were at the Mayfair, a yearly fundraising event for our nephews’ school. There were rides, food vendors, old-time carnival games, live music and a thrift market. At the market, we found some cute wooden toys for Luna including this vintage wooden bear for one dollar. He’s a noble little creature who says his name is Mr. Bearbear. This is his story.

Mr. Bearbear lives high up in the forest trees. On a bright spring day, he felt a calming breeze full of Seawind & Willows billowing by, beckoning him towards the beach and seashore.

At the beach, Mr. Bearbear did what all bears do. He nestled into the warm sand staring out at the waves and boats.

He sat on a log and quietly smiled at the gulls that flew by. “Now this is living,” thought Mr. Bearbear.

Suddenly, without warning, a Polka-Dotted Giant picked up Mr. Bearbear.

The Polka-Dotted Giant threw Mr. Bearbear to and fro. Mr. Bearbear wasn’t hurt but he was all twisted and tangled up. The Polka-Dotted Giant did not have a gentle touch. She only knew of joy, love and excitement.

After seeing Mr. Bearbear twisted up, the Polka-Dotted Giant realized Mr. Bearbear was too delicate a creature for this kind of Giant-sized rough play. She put Mr. Bearbear down letting him sit gently in the sand.

And the two of them lived happily ever after.

You know it’s Spring when the tulips in the garden are in full bloom. Our tulips pop up whenever the temperature warms a little. They’re the easiest perennial flowers to grow. Plant some bulbs in the fall and watch them bloom come Spring-time. Actually, we didn’t plant ours. They were planted before we moved into our house and gave us a pleasant surprise when they sprouted up three Springs ago. We’ve never watered them, fertilized them or helped them along in anyway. The bulbs in the ground pack all the nutrients and the Spring rains give them plenty of water. They just take care of themselves, year after year. This year, I like the classic yellow ones because they’re an exact match with Eye of the Storm.

We spent yesterday morning at the Vancouver Aquarium. At $21 per person and $10 parking it’s not the cheapest thing to do but worth the price of admission to see Luna’s amazed expressions. The dolphin show and Dora & Diego in 4-D are the major attractions but my favs will always be the jellyfish. I snapped these grainy pics with my iPhone using CrossProcess with default Photoshop sharpening applied for extra grit. Such beautiful, delicate creatures. I could look at them all day.

We’ve been busy! The New Domestic Store will open in April. Our first line of products are large screen printed graphic totes made from 12oz. heavy-weight recycled cotton canvas. Each bag is printed with a bonus diagonal pattern on the back (so you get two looks with one bag). We are launching with four designs to start with. The one shown is called “Dreaming of Marrakesh”. More products are coming in the Summer.

Last night even in the pouring rain, we made it to Illuminate Yaletown 2011. Pictured above is: “Kinetic Floating Pixels” by Shaun Mavronicolas & Miles Thorogood, “Sound Clouds” by Alex Beim & Daito Manabe, and “Factory” by Mark Ashby, Hans Christian Berger, Alex Grunenfelder, & Phil Johnston. Unfortunately, I can’t ID the last installation because I don’t remember where that was. The light festival is on til tonight.

Apartamento Magazine is “an everyday life interiors magazine” from Spain. I first heard of this magazine via Sight Unseen which published an excerpt from Apartamento #04 showcasing a collection of objects, designer & artist, Geoff McFetridge created for his daughter. It’s an inspiring story in which Geoff writes: “There’s nothing I like better than to build things for my 6-year-old daughter Frances. As an artist and designer, I spend much of my time making things, or helping other people make things. In making these things for her, I feel like I’m putting these skills to good use.” Sight Unseen published the article in its entirety but I liked the story so much that I wanted a hard copy and ordered a copy of Apartamento Magazine.

The first thing I noticed is the format, at 6.75″ x 9.5″ on uncoated paper, looks decidedly more like an independent arts journal than an interior design magazine. The photography and writing is documentarian in nature somewhat akin to The Selby. Generally shelter magazines showcase a “pretty” aesthetic even if the editorial direction is marketed as relaxed and casual. In Apartamento #04, however, you get sneak peeks with unmade beds, snapshots of style-less Beijing apartments and a tour of Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon & Thurston Moore’s pack-ratty home, making The Selby look like Better Homes & Gardens in comparison.

Apartmento #04 also includes a 32 page kids-oriented supplement called “Kinder” which features a coloring book by Andy Rementer, an interview with kids-design legend Enzo Mari and a story about Jordi Ferreiro’s “Impossible Furniture Workshop”.

Much has been written about the collapse of the print publishing industry with the shelter magazine genre hit especially hard. Fan favorites like “Domino” and “Blueprint” have vanished into the ether. In the aftermath, though, we’re seeing independent voices filling in the void with strong creative direction, niche audiences, fresh graphic design and more experimental sensibilities.

You could say printed magazines are like vinyl records now: collectible, tangible, warm and only for the aficionado. If so, mags like Apartamento, Anthology and Spaces are the indie stars of the shelter genre. Rawk on!

While they say that “opposites attract” there’s also something to be said about partnering with someone who innately shares, values, nurtures and understands your passions. A partner who can be a collaborator, critic, confidant and best friend. Creative couples inspire us by their ability to blend together life, love, work and play. This list consists of creative legends as well as contemporary talent. It didn’t work out for all the couples listed below, though. Even so, their synergistic unions resulted in, arguably, their greatest life work.

Charles & Ray Eames.
Rudy Vanderlans & Zuzana Licko.
John Lennon & Yoko Ono.
Bjork & Matthew Barney.
Josef & Anni Albers.¹
Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera.¹
Alvin & Elaine Lustig.
Jackson Pollock & Lee Krasner.¹
Pablo Picasso & Dora Maar.¹
Elaine & Willem de Kooning.¹
Jasper Johns & Robert Rauschenberg.¹
Christo & Jeanne-Claude.
Gilbert & George.¹
Alvar Aalto & Aino Marsio Aalto.
Tibor & Maira Kalman.
Beyoncé & Jay-Z.¹
Barry McGee & Margaret Kilgallen.²
Nathan Strandberg & Katie Kirk aka Eight Hour Day.
Inge Grognard & Ronald Stoops.
Siegfried & Roy.
Tim Biskup & Seonna Hong.³
Steven Heller & Louise Fili.⁴
Paula Scher & Seymour Chwast.⁴
Mira Calix & Sean Booth (Autechre).
Ted Vadakan & Angie Myung aka Poketo.
Darrell & Julia Gibbs aka Sukie.
George Sand & Frederic Chopin.⁵
Mike Simonian & Maaike Evers.
Valentino Garavani & Giancarlo Giammetti.⁶
Aaron & Carla Osborn aka Osborn Shoes.
Mary Matson & Matt Even aka Chocolate Editions.
Jason Kottke & Meg Hourihan.
Marie & Pierre Curie.
Kim Gordon & Thurston Moore.
Jack Conte & Nataly Dawn aka Pomplamoose.

Thanks to tweeps: ¹ Shilo Byrd, ² Stephen Beck, ³ Jason Landry, ⁴ Cory Ripley, ⁵ desole and ⁶ Mark Shieh for contributing to the list. If you know of a creative couple not listed send us a note or leave a comment.

Yeah! We finally got our first issue of Anthology Magazine in the mail today. We’ve been so excited about this magazine so it’s awesome to finally have it. Luna seems really excited too as she kept on wanting to grab it while I was taking the photos. What I like about it is that it’s not just nice photos of homes and furniture. It’s about stories of people, who they are, where they come from, what they do. And, there are a few recipes in the back I might want to try! I love getting magazines in the mail. It feels more like an event to receive a special delivery than it is to buy a magazine off the rack. Anthology will be arriving quarterly and I’ll be looking forward to the next issue delivered by Mr. Postman, or Ms. Postwoman as it is in our case.

This past year, I’ve been working on a special book documenting Luna’s first year of life. When we had Luna, everyone kept on telling us to take a lot of photos as the year will go by really fast. Well, we did and we took A LOT! In this digital age, I was a little concerned that the photos we were taking were just getting lost in our computer. I grew up (Which I’m sure all of you did too) where we had tons of albums at home documenting our life. I think that’s been non existant lately as our computer has become our photo album. But I don’t find the satisfaction looking through photos on my monitor screen – I feel less attached to the photos I am looking at. It’s just not the same. I want to be able to hold a book, go through the pages, feel the paper… it’s more intimate and feels more special.

So I came up with this idea and jumped right on it the first month Luna was born. It’s a 276 page book with different chapters for every month of her life. Here’s a little write up taken from the book:

To my daughter Luna,

I made this book, for you, to document your first year of life. Whenever you were having your afternoon naps or dreaming away in the evening in your cozy room I would be working on this book – creating something special for you to have. For such a little person, you sure have taught me so much about patience, love and to see the world with fresh eyes. When we first laid our eyes on each other when you were born, it was as if you knew who I was already and I felt the same. The love that I feel towards you is so powerful that I always have a hard time describing what it feel like. This book shows how much you have impacted our lives and how much love you have brought into our lives too. I hope that when you grow up and look at this book, it will be a nice reminder of all the special moments we have shared with you during your wonderful first year of life. All the milestones you had accomplished, your first frustrations, first solids, first rollovers, first vacation, first birthday… everything you learned and discovered, we were always there beside you, watching you discover your world and grow to become such a beautiful little girl. We are so proud of you, our dear daughter and thank you for coming to this world to be part of our lives.

Love, Mommy

I plan to do one for every year of her life (crossing my fingers), kind of like an encyclopedia with different volumes. It’s really not that much work. I just take a few hours per month working on a few pages. Looking through this book now after a year has past, I can’t help but get a bit emotional as it’s really been such a special year. We now look forward to what year 2 will bring!

We celebrated Luna’s birthday this weekend at home with family, friends and a whole lot of balloons hanging from the ceiling. We filled our dining table with food and treats for everyone to enjoy. It was a sweet little homey celebration and seeing Luna so happy playing with all her baby friends and being surrounded by so many balloons makes for a perfect 1st birthday.

On the dessert buffet menu: Chocolate mousse in little cups, marshmallow swirls in sticks, cupcake, yoghurt raisins, old fashioned lollipops, brownies, m&m cookies, strawberry wafer sticks, vanilla birthday cake and an assortment of little round mousses. I was happy to see it almost wiped out by the end of the party.

For the goody bags, I used little brown lunch bags and filled them all with a package of yoghurt raisins and sweet berries. I always have a lot of great little fabrics lying around my studio so I cut up two different fabrics using pinking shears to cut the edges. Pinking shears create a saw-tooth pattern that’s graphic and fun. Then I printed thank you notes on thick watercolour paper using my epson printer and cut the edges with pinking shears as well. Mini red & blue clothes pins were used to hold the thank you note and fabric in place. To finish it off, I wrapped bakers twine around the bag and tied it up like you would a ribbon.

It was so fun making these goody bags and the best thing about it is that it’s cheap and really easy to put together. There’s also a folky but modern feel to them which I really love. The little packages of yoghurt raisins and sugar berries were individually wrapped with paper I already had at home. For the yoghurt berries, I used these newsprint zine magazines we bought awhile back from WeWorkForThem. The sugar berries are wrapped with picnic cloth patterned paper that I’ve been waiting to use for a special occasion.

Below is the balloon-themed e-card invite we sent out. We hung up balloons on the ceiling of each room which created a sculptural mobile ceilingscape. It’s so fun and festive were keeping them up until they all deflate or fall down on their own.

Using inkjet sticker paper, I also created customized water bottles and cups. Each water bottle was a solid block of color with a celebratory word on it like “HIP”, “HOORAY”, “JOY” & “LOVE”

If you haven’t noticed yet, I have an obsession with wrapping and packaging things. I will make all the effort to wrap a loaf of homemade bread, fresh cookies, herbs etc… to give to friends. I also love the feel of paper and fabric together. I guess it’s the smoothness of the paper and the raw texture of a fabric that always seems to work together nicely.

This little present was a wooden alphabet ‘A’ train for little Avenir. The fabric and paper gives a homey feel while bakers twine wraps the preciousness inside and seals it with love.

Recently, we went to my friend Janice’s birthday party for her little boy Kai who turned 1. The party was filled with little packages of popcorn for everyone to help themselves with, party favours in blue packages filled with their favourite teas, water bottles with custom labels, cupcakes and other yummy treats. I like how everything was cute and on-theme. It was lovely how it all came together. With a little imagination, it’s not really that hard to do. It’s mostly finding readymade packaging and re-imagining it by dressing it up with some ink jet stickers and nice simple designs. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Janice is a professional graphic designer (we both worked together at Kevin Louis Design before we went on mat leave). Kids birthday parties are a fun way to make and experiment with DIY projects. And, it’s also an excuse to treat yourself with all the sweets you wished you could eat everyday. Happy Birthday Kai! Thank your mom for a lovely party.

Photographs taken by Jason & Lena from Jaylena Photography.

Yay, I received my bakers twine in the mail today and i’m so excited (my simple pleasures in life)! I found a fantastic site where you can get them super cheap ($8.95 each + shipping). Each twine is a 2-pound cone – that’s approx. 3,400 yards! I got a red and white one and a lime green and white. I’m so loving them!! These should last me for many years.

You can order them here. Happy twine shopping!

Our Weekend Art Project has been making the blog rounds including mentions at Apartment Therapy, How About Orange and Craftzine. Welcome, everybody! Even more exciting is the fact that others have been inspired enough to create their own versions of the painting. Neat to see DIY examples from: The Late Afternoon, Hanna Kim, Holley Simmons, Chic Coles and The Clueless Homeowners. The absolute best rendtion we’ve seen so far is from See That There.

Nice work, folks! Have fun and send us a pic of your creations. As always, see our DIY/Make section for more project ideas or the Arts section for more inspiration.

Mia, an old friend from art school, and her husband, Brent, graced us with a visit this afternoon. A month ago they were vacationing in France and brought back a lovely souvenir for us – Eucalyptus Soap. Coincidentally, we have a big Eucalyptus tree on our backyard. Three years ago we, actually, had four Eucalyptus trees but three of the more spiry ones couldn’t survive the wind and the winters. Also, as an ode to art school, I snapped an image with Sonic Youth’s “A Thousand Leaves” inner sleeve in the background with Kim Gordon peeking through some Eucalyptus branches.

Yesterday was Peter’s first Father’s day and I decided to surprise him with Jennifer Causey’s ‘Simply Breakfast More Please’ book as a present. I didn’t have the time to make him a special Father’s day breakfast as we had to rush out of the house in morning to meet the rest of the family for an all day Father’s day picnic at Kits beach. But I figured he can just feast his eyes in Jennifer’s breakfast photos instead. We’ve been a big fan of her blog with all her delicious breakfast photos so we are happy to add her book to our library. Happy belated Father’s Day to all the father’s out there!!

Allium are my current favorite flowers. Allium are part of the onion family. They bloom in near-perfect spheres, especially the giant ornamental varieties. And what designer doesn’t like geometric perfection? It’s the kind of flower I imagine Buckminster Fuller would decorate his domes with. Pictured above is a 5″ allium bought at the florist ($4/stem) next to a chive flower from our garden. They say you shouldn’t let your herbs flower too early in the season because they’ll cycle to their dormant state but I can’t resist. I just let them be and let them flower when they want to. C’est la vie.

We made a painting this weekend! We’ve been wanting a large scale art-piece to go up on our dining room wall. We had a large framed photograph up but, at 26″ x 32″, it didn’t have the right scale for the room. We wanted to go big. Like, 60″ x 36″ big. Now the last time either of us did any painting was in art school. Back then we didn’t enjoy it much, mostly because neither of us were particularly good at it. Undeterred, we gave it a try. Things tend to be more enjoyable when you do it yourself and it turned out to be a lot of fun.

Inspired by color field paintings, I made a sketch in Illustrator and we tried different color combinations til we were happy. Then it was off to the local art store to buy the acrylic paint, the canvas and some 1/4″ painters tape. A few hours later, we were done and it was up on the wall. We’re enjoying it. It’s the bold, large-scale signature piece the room has been waiting for. We call the piece………“Untitled.”

Update: To complete the dining area, we painted a high chair red to add another splash of color to the room. View the post “Red High Chair” for the full room view. Check out the DIY/Make section for more project ideas. If you love this style of geometric art, patterns and triangles see our line of graphic tote bags. You’ll like!

Also, congrats to everyone who has been DIYing there own versions of the Weekend Art Project. You can see a few examples our reader’s handiwork here.

Bruce Lee’s “Fighting Methods” series and Charley Harper’s 123′s and ABC’s books are displayed side-by-side in our studio. The colors and design of the books play off each other perfectly despite the disparate subject matter. It’s an example of our all-ages, unisex, ass-kicking decorating modus operandi.

I found the Bruce Lee books, years ago, in the street-side dollar-bin of a used book store on Granville Street. It was quite the score since these are rare and sought after amongst collectors. Although, I have to admit I only bought them because the minimalist covers are cool. The other quirk about this set is that it’s the Yugoslavian printing. Presumably, “Metoda Borbe” translates to “Fighting Methods”.

The Charley Harper kids books were bought a couple years back when Old Navy stocked a small collection of Harper merchandise. At $10 each they’re a steal compared to the Charley Harper retrospective “An Illustrated Life.” We bought them before we were even planning on having Luna. They’re nice to have and beautiful to look at, even if you don’t have kids.

Yep, ABCs, 123s and…martial arts. All good.

The soundtrack to this weekend was “My World” by Tim Kay. The song is probably best known as the theme song to Jamie Oliver’s “Jamie At Home” series and we’ve had it on loop for the last couple days. On Saturday, I caught Nerissa watching an episode of Jamie’s Australian Tour Diary where Tim Kay performs a live acoustic version of the song. Nerissa kept rewinding to hear the song again. I thought I’d save her the trouble and buy the track on iTunes. Some songs you just connect with and 99¢ for a song that captures the spirit of the moment is totally worth it. P.S. The photo above was taken in Provence. In my world, the backyard doesn’t quite look like that yet but one lovely day it may.

I wanted to put together a special package for Valentine’s for Nerissa. While searching through our hard drive, I found a photograph of scooters and macarons Nerissa shot in Paris. It’s a beautiful image and it was a shame it only existed in our digital archives. I came up with the idea of printing and framing the photograph and packaging it with a set of macarons. Unfortunately, sourcing macaroons in Vancouver was more difficult than I anticipated. There was none to be found near home or near work. With a little one in the house it’s hard to sneak out on long secret missions and I wasn’t able to put all the pieces together for the 14th. Luckily, the next special occassion, Nerissa’s birthday, is soon after Valentine’s. Perfect timing since I figured I would need one or two more weeks to get everything together.

I sent a message out on Twitter asking where in Vancouver I could find macarons. I was told La Baguette et L’Echalote on Granville Island or Thomas Haas. I chose Thomas Haas. I then packaged the macarons in a Ladurée souvenir box we bought in Paris; fitting since Ladurée started Nerissa’s macaron obsession. The framed photo and box of macarons were stacked together, tied with a ribbon and, viola, there it is. Bon Anniversaire!

Last year at work, as part of the new website design, we created a team section where we individually created compositions that represent who we are. For my self portrait, I decided to gather some of my favourite things and put them together to create a still life. Here’s a list of what you see:

- The framed pattern was a gift wrapper found at the Vancouver Art Gallery

– Framed illustration purchased from Yumi Yumi via Etsy

– My handmade Bricolage journals

– Baby Eames chair reproduction from Nood (50% off sale! btw)

– White Eames Eiffel chair from Herman Miller

– Skirt from Anthropology

– Matryoshka doll was a souvenir from my trip to Alaska

– Twigs & rocks from the beach where I live

– Brown oxfords brought back from Paris

– Smena 8M toy camera

– Catalogues: Habitat, Muji, Anthropolgy

Last note for the weekend: hello to Hooray Design. Thanks for including us in your awesome blog.

We keep an inspiration board up in our studio. It’s a easy way to casually pin-up artwork, clippings and other tidbits that inspire us. Items currently include:

• paint chips and fabric swatches for on-going projects;
• few old photos that don’t have a home in our albums;
• spare art prints that we haven’t framed yet;
• reference material and souvenirs;

But most special are the hand-made cards & mini-crafts given to us by our friends. Those gifts always get a special spot on the board or in our library. Alice Cho holds the current record for most things pinned up.

I had a housewarming dinner party with my friends from work last year and I decided to make it a little bit more special by making everyone their own place cards that they could take home with them. I chose my favourite origami patterns and created little envelopes by folding the origami paper in half and stitching the side for a more hand crafted look. And to make it even more fun, I put random goodies inside each envelope which everyone excitedly opened to see what they got. It was like Christmas all over again!

I always like dinner with friends to be more interactive and add an element of playfulness to it. These are super easy to make and your guests gets to take home something special that you personally made for them.

We often like to wrap presents in newsprint or butcher paper. It has a nice raw texture and neutral palette. All you need is some nice ribbon to finish it off but sometimes you just want a splash of pattern. A couple months back, YouWorkForThem was clearing out their book collection. They were practically giving away their newsprint zine, “Sentence 01“, for 95¢. A different artist designed each page of the 16 page zine full of abstract black and white imagery. At the risk of offending the artists and author, I bought three copies not to read but for the sole purpose of using each sheet of the zine as wrapping paper. And it works wonderfully. Rissa put the package above together for Doni, Gen & Aoi. Inside is a loaf of home baked cinnamon raisin bread (Rissa’s go to gift for 2009). Newsprint ink tends to run, so if you don’t want ink on your gift, you’ll want to wrap your gift in an additional layer. In this case, Rissa wrapped the raisin bread in cling wrap before wrapping it in the newsprint.

Below is a gift given to Luna by my sister also nicely wrapped in newsprint with a simple pattern of chinese characters. So simple. So lovely.

Fifteen more days until Christmas. Yay! I usually like to make something festive every year to give to friends. In the past, I’ve made cards, notebooks, baked goods etc… This year, I’ve decided to make Christmas cards to send out to our lovely friends. This is the most realistic task I can do as lately, Luna decided that she wanted to be in my arms ALL DAY! So the idea of baking Christmas goods have been scratched off my list including other crafts that needed cutting and gluing. There’s only so much I can do with one arm!

So I’ve been sitting in front of the computer designing these cards the past few days. As I am designing them, Luna is laying in my arms fast asleep & snoring away. But having a baby at home also means that things just take longer to get done which is something I am still getting used to. When she cries, I have to get up and cradle her to put her back to sleep. When she’s hungry, she cries for milk so I have to move to the couch to nurse her. But having her always so close to me is really so special. She will never, ever be this small again.

When I started designing these cards, I wanted to stay away from the typical Christmas shapes, ornaments and colours used to design anything for Christmas. Though, I still wanted it to look fun and festive. The base pattern shapes are taken from Kids & Toys Petite Pattern Book which is full of fun patterns you can customize or use as is. The colours I used are inspired by what I see outside my window. The chilly winter air, smoke from chimneys, fallen branches, pine cones… Yes, this is winter!  These cards have been printed using my epson printer on card stock.

I hope to send out these cards within a day or two so it can soon find it’s new home. Happy Holidays everyone!

Rissa and I are currently working on Luna’s birth announcement. We sketched up some ideas together on the weekend. Rissa spent yesterday reformatting some of them into InDesign files to print out and mock-up on paper. Other than posing for cute photos, Luna wasn’t actually too helpful on this task. Her favorite activities continue to be eating, sleeping – I think she dreams about swimming in rivers and oceans of milk – and something new: stretching out and exercising her limbs. Maybe one day soon she’ll have fun putting stuff together with mom and dad. We’re hoping to finalize the design and production this week and send off the announcements asap.

Two of our favourite friends, Jonathan and Anita, gave us a few CDs from Japan for Luna to listen to. Thanks guys! We play them to her most of the day but Peter and I enjoy listening to them so much that I wonder if we play it for Luna or for our own enjoyment! The CDs are from Lullatone, a husband and wife duo, who’ve invented their own whimsical musical genre that they call “pajama pop“. Listen to some their songs below.

We really appreciate seeing indie creativity in the kids scene, so we’re happy to know that there are artists reinventing and re-imagining the lullaby genre. You should totally check them out. You can read an interview with Lullatone here or check out their website.