Posts Tagged ‘interior decoration’

book shopping in tokyo: take that concept in. yes, it was very good and by day one of our trip i was well on my way to a potential excess baggage fee. the bookstore in the basement of the parco department store was heaven, and all of the books i want to show you today came from there. i could have come away with many, many more because the range, and the quality was amazing. but i’m not at all disappointed by what i brought home…

“cheerful in 3 1/2 months” is a really amusing book  by Gerard Jansen full of great colorful illustrations by Sue Doeksen.

the book provides one tip per day for a 3 and a half month path to cheerfulness. and how could you not be cheerful at suggestions like inventing your own toilet choreography, jumping in a bouncy castle, and my #1 tip – “be your favorite piece of pie”.

was this for my son? no. no it wasn’t. i’ll just put it on the shelf next to my “worst mother ever” trophy.

…i mean, sure, he can look at it – while wearing cotton gloves. when he’s 19.
inside the back of the book is a collection of stickers to be used in the various activities through the book. and if you know of a kiddo who would definitely appreciate this book, then you should get it for them because its filled with fabulous alain grée illustrations. and probably a fun way to learn french!

“colorful room of the japan” is jam packed with some of the most “colorful room of the japan” you’ll ever see. but wait! there’s more..

not only rooms “of the japan” but also of the spain, and of the france! and there are some cute crafty decor projects too. i’d really love to tell you more but its all in “the japanese”.

so, i have NO idea what this is all about. but its PACKED with adorableness. anyone? leave a comment and enlighten me. it seems to be the inspiration files of a couple of designers – but i could be way off. its full of deers, and pandas so lets all look at some pandas!!

what do you think? should i go back and get some more books? go on. twist my arm!

 

some fun stuff you might have missed on drawpilgrim.com in december ’10:

 

i shared a printable color-in christmas angel (in case you’re having a christmas-in-july party)

a slice of my life: 7by7 shows the week i launched some button badges and more!

decorate! pilgrim: three rooms inspired by my scandinavian folk print

hey remember that time my print was the pull-out in frankie magazine? yep. i’m still pinching myself about that one.

and i showed you all how to make a cute pen case for your filofax!

welcome to decorate! pilgrim post. in these posts i put together polyvore rooms inspired by a draw! pilgrim print. this time its the letter Z from my alphabet series.

no one does burnt orange and brown like those folks in the 70s, so above, i took their lead and put together a sophisticate retro space. product information here.

 

i love challenging myself to come up with fun kid’s spaces, and this room takes some inspiration from camping. thick blankets, a picnic table for drawing and that fun log fire lamp give it some outdoorsy cheek. and mess is always allowed in rustic rooms, of course! keep that tower of books coming! product information here.

 

 

this autumnal room mixes up the colors and textures of food, and leather with a big pop of color from the wall hanging, and the mixed glass ornaments. settle in here on a crisp autumn evening for a fondue supper! product information here.

in september 2010 … my son turned 4 and had a space birthday party!

i showed three rooms decorated around my ‘little girls print’

we had lady’s nite! and i made an all girl mixtape

i swooned over sean yseult’s silk scarf designs

the groovy illustrations by sandra smith in ‘firebrand‘ was top of my bookpile.

 

i hope you find something fun you might have missed – september was a fun month*

 

 

 

*except for that bit were i was really really sick and convinced i was dying.

this isn’t really late breaking news, but its taken me aaaages to get around to posting about the changes i made to my son’s room. its no secret that’s for sure! if you’ve seen my apartment therapy home tour shots you’ll be familiar with all of this already, but oh sweet lordy do i love talking about makeovers! can we get a before…?

nothing intrinsically wrong with that ‘before’ pic. it was a very nice calm and minimal babies room. i went with an aqua, lime, and orange palette largely inspired by the rug you see. the changing table was the same that i was changed on when i was a baby, and it was made by my great grandfather during the depression (from orange crates). don’t worry the cabinet has been moved into another room where it will take on its seventh life as a guitar bench. and there’s the wee little guy, back in the day, i think that was taken when he was one year old. and what about the ‘after’ shot…?

TA-DA! there is a sideboard where the cot was! and a bed where the change table was! and a bunch of different stuff! working from left to right we have: ikea storage ‘bins’ holding toys and supplies (painted in nippon paints ‘bamboo’ color), a second hand sideboard scored from my friend’s shop (the top was pretty rough so it got a lick of paint ‘satsuma’ by nippon paint, to be precise), the print on the wall above the sideboard is by shinzi katoh, and the smaller print on the wall is ‘gama go’s critter boat’ by tim biskup.

the bed was actually the first thing i bought. i found it in a thrift store and thought it was such a sweet, perfect ‘first bed’. from that point i put the room together really gradually. i had a folder on my desktop and a photoshop file that i used as a digital mood board. i took photos of what we already had (the prints, the clock, the chair) and then worked out a palette and ‘theme’ (i was inspired by the yellowing colorful illustrations in vintage kid’s encyclopedias) and then added the other furniture as i discovered it. i would search very generally on etsy and ebay for extras using very general terms that fit my theme, eg “vintage woodland” and if i found something intriguing i’d drag the pictures into my mood board to see if they worked. it was just trial and error and patience. but i enjoy putting rooms together so much, and this was such a special project. i adored my bedrooms, growing up, and i wanted this extra special first ‘big kid’ room to be as fun and cute as it was functional. storage was an extra special consideration seeing as previously all the toys had lived in our lounge room!

here’s a view of the million dollar rug! its not really that valuable, i bought it from urban outfitters and it arrived a very different color to the one online so i spent about its equal value just getting it to be the color i wanted! ugh.

so after i worked out i was going for a vintage woodland, nature, kinda theme i could. not. believe it when i found this sheet on etsy! its a smokey the bear single sheet, in great condition, that i’ve turned into a duvet cover. its got that lovely soft vintage sheet feeling, but i sewed it to a new plain white sheet to give it some extra thickness . i still can’t believe my luck! my son loves pointing out the animals on the sheet and reading all the fire safety messages. the cushions are ‘orla kiely for target’ napkins set i picked up on ebay.

here is one of my woodland patchwork prints in its natural habitat! now you know what informed my choice of colors for that print… its all about me, baby! also pictured is a leaf print by ubiki, from etsy.

the sideboard was a real score. my friend was closing down her shop to set off on a world adventure, and so i kindly offered to relieve her of her shop counter, and here it is! a freshly painted top, and a new lease on life. it now holds lots of boxes of smaller toys and games in its shelves, and some smaller clothing items in its drawers.

some woodland-ish trinkets my son corralled into his room. funny how little people take ownership of certain things. he’s just claimed my whisk as his own recently!

the bedtime story chair has a very new and lovely cushion on it from arthur’s circus! the chair and the bed frame are both painted in nippon paint’s ‘wainscot’ color. its a nice, very 70s brown. the chair was one of my grandma’s kitchen chairs, so its really cool it gets such an important role in this room.

can you believe i found some squirrel bookends at my local housewares/gifty shop.. these babies are keeping us safe from a total book-alanche. we have an avid story-listener on our hands!

and finally, on the wall at the foot of the bed, by the doorway, we have a little cluster of art wall goodness. the dreamy lab partners prints (and the matte stephens’ bear monster) frame the ‘moon in my room’ light. father christmas brought my son the moon last december and so every night we check out what phase the moon is in, and adjust the light accordingly. it makes a really pretty nightlight and educational tool.

as i mentioned, a lot of the things we already had around the house, and the other furniture brought in is half ikea, half second hand so i’m quite happy with the thriftiness vs practicalness balance.

so there we have it! from nursery to nearly four years old! my son loves his room and even after a couple of months of it being all set up he’s still thrilled to have a room of his own, with character and interest, and that’s the big triumph for me.