HUGE Sale at Mod Green Pod!

Just wanted to alert everyone to a huge sale going on now at Mod Green Pod, an eco-friendly fabric and wallpaper company based in Austin, Texas. Everything, yes, everything is currently 50% off. Fabrics are now $15/yard for solids and $20/yard for prints. Wallpaper is currently $55 a roll. Hurry while supplies last! I'm thinking of picking up some fabric to recover a small bench I bought on One King's Lane a few months ago.

And no, I'm not a paid promoter, just a big fan. A few years ago, I used their Grand Jubliee fabric in cream to recover a wingback chair. It's now one of my favorite pieces of furniture -- and where I nurse Baby G. every night!

Happy weekend!

Decorating with Quentin Blake

As a child, my primary passion was drawing; in fact, I spent the first ten to twelve years of my life convinced I was going to be a children's book illustrator or Disney animator. Little wonder then that two of my leading role models were Walt Disney and Quentin Blake, an English illustrator and author who is probably most famous for illustrating the works of Roald Dahl. Dahl's fantastical, decidedly English and just a little bit dark tales were perfectly suited to Blake's quirky cartoon drawings. And oh how I loved both the stories and the drawings as a child.

As a soon-to-be mom, I appreciate Blake's illustrations (and Dahl's stories, actually) as both child-appropriate and adult-friendly. There's nothing saccharin sweet about these drawings, nothing overtly childish and their appeal (at least in my opinion) is cross-generational. In fact, I've been knocking around the idea of doing large-scale color copies of several of my favorite Dahl book covers and using them as inexpensive art in my son's nursery.

Blake's new collection of fabrics and wallpapers for Osborne & Little, dubbed Zagazoo, are unmistakably Blake and exhibit his trademark whimsy and wit as his illustrations have for decades. And now that I've seen these, I just know I'll have to incorporate at least one of these charming patterns into my nursery design. While I'm still debating which, I'm thinking of having the crib bedding made out of Alphabet Tales, which includes miniature illustrations for each letter of the alphabet. But there are plenty of other fantastic prints to choose from:

I love the typography of Quentin's ABCs wallpaper, which comes in a wide range of colorways that work with just about every fabric in the collection. My favorites though include a couple of very cool black backgrounds, which impart a fun chalkboard look without the mess of the real thing.

Darling for a girl's room and would pair beautifully with the Alphabet Tales print.

I like the larger scale of this print, and the wonderful color stories. This would be a great print to design a room around, pulling out specific colors in different accessories and other fabrics.

Animals are a classic motif in children's rooms, but what I love about this print is that it lacks the cutesy-pooness usually accompanying them. Another great thing about this print is how gender neutral it is.

 

Perfect for your little skateboarding dude or dudette!

The Story of A Few Throw Pillows

I realize that I haven't posted any updates on decorating my new house in the past few months, and that's because that progress ground to halt sometime back in November when work and social obligations overwhelmed me and all but shut down my decorating élan. But with the start of the new year has come an fresh burst of inspiration as I've made a number of great finds for the new house. Today though, I thought I'd share the latest additions to my family room: a pair of pillows I picked up from Plum Cushion (who I found via Jenny at Little Green Notebook). And I love them. The pillows are Chiang Mai Dragon from Schumacher. The print is one of my all-time favorites and, while the aquamarine colorway is admittedly ubiquitous, I don't see the China Blue colorway very frequently.

Isn't it gorgeous? If it weren't so pricey I'd probably be buying this in bulk for curtains. In any case, I was incredibly impressed with Melanie's finish work on the pillows; the self-welt and the hidden zipper are immaculate. I also appreciated how she centered the dragons front and center:

Despite the latest additions to my sofa, I still had that gut feeling that something was missing. It looked good, but the sofa still needed that little extra oomph to really put it over the top. And that's when I had a Eureka! moment this afternoon and pulled this out of my closet:

Three yards of KWID Imperial Trellis II in Navy that I scored at discount from Pink Wallpaper back in June! The larger-scale geometric fabric works perfectly with the Chiang Mai Dragon; like nectar and ambrosia, these two fabrics are the perfect pairing. Even better, Melanie accepts custom orders and a customer's fabric so I'll be shipping these three yards to Oregon tomorrow and in less than two weeks I'll have two 18" pillows for the couch and a small lumbar pillow for my wingback chair. I'd also consider the price for fabrication to be more than reasonable (perhaps even a steal) given the amount of work that clearly goes into her pillows.

Ultimately, this "story" of my new pillows is illustrative of what I love most about the Internet: it connects you to all sorts of talented (and kind!) people and opens up doors you assumed were closed to you. Through the magic of the blogosphere, I've been connected to individuals who have allowed me access to "trade only" fabrics and bespoke pillows at prices well within my budget. Kind of amazing when you think about it, isn't it?

KWID Imperial Trellis at a discount!

Talented interior designer and blogger Shannon over at Pink Wallpaper is offering a great -- and incredibly generous -- discount on the iconic (and normally available to-the-trade only) KWID Imperial Trellis fabric and wallpaper for the next 7 days. If you've always loved this pattern, but couldn't stomach the price (or didn't have access to a designer), now is your chance to snap some of it up. While it's still pricey, a yard or two of fabric (or a roll of wallpaper) won't set you too far back and would be plenty to whip up a couple of pillows, recover a seat cushion (usually about 1/2 a yard) or wallpaper the back of a curio cabinet (or even just cut and frame it as art).

Shannon's offer also covers the new(ish) Imperial Trellis II fabric line, which includes my favorite colorway, the navy/ivory:

In fact, I just picked up 3 yards of this for the new house. I'm not entirely sure what I'll do with it yet, but that's enough yardage to either make a couple of pillows or reupholster my existing dining room chairs (since I'll probably have to "make do" with them for a while anyhow).

Happy shopping!