It's been a hectic few weeks around here (both in & out of the studio), but all in all, I think we're on our way to a super-productive and exciting rest of the year...

A big part of us feeling (as well as being) more productive is having a clean & organized workspace. The studio is now much cleaner than it was before and we've found ourselves walking in each day and saying something ridiculous like, "oh, Studio, you're SO clean!" -

Here are some shots taken recently to give you a peek into what our "office" looks like...

*to see more images (+ full-size images of the pics above), check out our new Flickr site!

I seriously love anything that Angie Hranowsky does. Take, for instance, this cozy and bright den that just looks perfect for summer.

What a great mix of square (the sectional sofa and coffee table) and round (the barrel chair and rattan side table), accented by the fantastic wooden mirror, colorful pillows, and striped rug. The bright yellow lamp is the ultimate exclamation point.

I predict Angie will be the next Ruthie Sommers.

Images from Angie Hranowsky Design Studio.

As more time goes by being immersed in "running my own show" as it were, the more I come across others who are loving/struggling with their own attempts to be self-employed. And since January, I'm now living with another small business owner... needless to say, the ups & downs of clients, product development, marketing, the economy, etc. come up pretty much every day -

To give you a bit of a peek into what another small company goes through, check out this interview that Jw did recently with Indigo on Ponoko Blog... I think my favorite answer is to the question "What would you do with a bazillion dollars?"...

Click here to find out Jw's answer and to read the full interview.

*And while you're at it, take a glance around Ponoko's site... There's a lot of awesomeness going on over there. I'm thinking about submitting something to one of their design challenges...

a bit of Ponoko's M.O.:

Armed with nothing more than an idea, professional and hobbiest designers, crafters, hackers and artists can turn their ideas into real products - and new revenue streams - using our web commerce and digital make-on-demand services. No upfront costs. No minimum orders. No inventory. Simply click to design, make, sell and deliver your creativity to the world, at your own speed.

Sounds pretty sweet to me... for more, go here.

Reading aloud is one of my favorite activities with my daughter. She seems to enjoy our sessions as much as I do - though admittedly, I get the most satisfaction out of cultivating a library that includes some great storytellers and artists.

That's why I was excited to check out Charley Harper ABCs, a board book with glorious illustrations. The late artist, known for his Modernist wildlife prints, created some truly beautiful pages of animals and corresponding letters. I'm half-tempted to cut up the book and the pages on the walls!

If Catherine becomes a Harper fan, she can someday graduate to Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life, an enormous (almost 20 inches wide!) volume edited by Todd Oldham. Anthropologie is now carrying this book and I recently spent a good deal of time at the store just looking through it!

For more on An Illustrated Life, visit Emily's post here.

Images from Amazon.

After a great birthday weekend (despite the multiple downpours at the beginning of our cookout!), I'm ready for a slightly short work week, starting some new projects & finding great inspiration in unexpected places: like these shrinky-dink earrings from Etsy shop BrokenFingersArt. I love the great color combinations & the organic illustrations...

The Explode Earrings are probably my favorite, but I also love all of the oversized rings, too!

images c/o BrokenFingersArt.

I don't usually go for butterflies - blame it on an old roommate/subleaser with an odd obsession with the butterfly-loving Mariah Carey.

But, I saw this rug at Anthropologie and can't stop thinking about it - especially the color combination. The yellow-green is the exact color of my kitchen, and it's a difficult color to work with (as I found out after the paint dried - but kitchens are a pain to paint, so the color stayed). I like it paired here with the silvery sage, brown and black - good inspiration for color accents in that room.

Image from Anthropologie.

This weekend I saw the movie P.S. I Love You and I really liked it (especially the Irish husband...seems familiar!). However, the part that should have inspired but instead really bothered me was when Hilary Swank's character decided to ditch her boring job to open an artisanal shoe boutique. The concept was fun but the shoes she designed were completely awful.

The Eley Kishimoto shoes pictured here would have served as better inspiration for the movie plot. Each pair has such interesting line, color and detail - truly artistic, in my eyes.

Possibly I've been living under a rock, because I've never heard of Eley Kishimoto before. (I first saw the pair of shoes at the top of the post at The Coveted.) Apparently, Mark Eley and Wakako Kishimoto have their designer hands full with womenswear, shoes, accessories, fabrics, wallpaper, and tablewear collections, as well as more industrial applications including automotive and technology partnerships. They also serve as creative directors of Cacharel.

By the way...a selection of Eley Kishimoto footwear is available at Zappos.

Images from Eley Kishimoto.

I was born.

So, yes, it's my big 3-0 and well, mostly, I'm just really excited for the times when I get carded and I can say, "um, actually, I'm 30!"...

Other than that I'm not sure I feel that it's too big of a deal. Thoughts?

(I know this image is totally for someone else's birthday, but it was just so lovely that I had to grab it... it's from a Flickr site called lilacmoon).

Eric over at Broadway Paper sent me & B an email letting us know that he spotted our catalog over at design*sponge yesterday... sure enough, there it is atop the laptop of Summer, from the lovely, Fawn & Forest! How exciting! Eric certainly has a good eye... I don't know if I would've caught that if he hadn't pointed it out!

Check out the entire Sneak Peek of Summer's home... it's fabulous (even without our catalog ;)

thanks for the tip, E!

Retro Flower Gocco Placemats (14x18", set of 4), $20.00 at 12fifteen's Supermarket shop.

Since I will be forever obsessed with all things GOCCO, I thought you might enjoy a few GOCCO finds, via Etsy and Supermarket...

Rabbit & Flora Gocco Print (5x7" w/ white mat - fits an 8x10" frame), $28.00 at Petit Collage's Supermarket shop.

Puffer Tail print (5x7"), $15.00 at jenskelley's Etsy shop.

A Set of 4 Gocco Prints (ea. 5x7" in size), $26/set at Jess Gonacha's Etsy shop.

And, as always, if you ever have any questions about the Gocco printer: what it does, where to get one, tips on printing, etc... feel free to email me. I'm not an "expert" per se - but I have been an avid Gocco use for about 5 years now...  ;) *don't forget to check out some of OB's Gocco products, here and here.

So, we're spending the beginning of this week getting the studio in (some much needed) order. Everyone that stops in usually says something about how "organized" we are - but I guess the important thing is that we feel organized. Which, at the moment... we do not.  ;)

We'll post up some progress pics later - to, hopefully, be followed by a full studio tour, so check back soon!

image c/o e's laptop.

I'm just too excited to keep this to myself, so here's the tiniest sneak peek at the work our photographer, Peter Weisgerber is doing for our new lines.

and this is just the start of what's to come!

photo by Peter Weisgerber.

I saw this amazing cabinet in a post over at automatism and well, my OCD need for little nooks to store things just went nuts! I L-O-V-E this - if this was in the OB studio, I think my heart would skip a beat every morning when I walked into work!

The piece is called Fractal 23, by Brooklyn-based, Takeshi Miyakawa Design - now I just need to find out how to get my hands on one! ;)

via automatism.

As promised, here is a second re-photographed series from Ryan Feeney. These images came from a midcentury celebrity gossip magazine; Ryan created drawings on top of the original images using colored pencil, then photographed sections of the new drawings.

Ryan's idea for the marks was to "act as distraction or a barrier, preventing the viewer from entering the image as originally intended."

It's intriguing to see the difference in application between this series and A Fortiori, posted yesterday. I love them both!

Images from Ryan Feeney.

I had to share this pretty shot from my friend Colleen's house. She collects amazing vintage items and I love the wallpaper (found on Ebay) and china layed against each other.

We got a few emails this week about that cuckoo clock (above) from L's A Merry Mishap house tour - and then I came across these cuckoo clocks by Sonic Design, available at ELSEWARES.

Cuckoo Clock, $95.00 by Sonic Design/Klaus Rosburg.

Lost Cuckoo Clock, $125.00 by Sonic Design/Klaus Rosburg.

I'm not sure which one I like more... the best thing would be to have both and hang them side by side - to really push the fact that they're direct inversions of one another.

Check out L's post on the home of Jennifer (A Merry Mishap), right here.

Photographer Ryan Feeney is doing some really interesting work with photographic "interaction" - that is, changing an image through mark making, collage, or re-photographing to discover how the new context changes the image as an object and connects past and present.

His series A Fortiori explores how time can change an image's relevance. Ryan re-photographed Life magazines from the late 60s, calling attention to the physicality of the images' surfaces, to see what the images became by removing them from their original meanings and context.

I think the results are quite beautiful - you get a sense of the original in a sort of ghostly way, and also a sense of the paper and printing. It's an interesting way to re-frame the images. I especially love the one at the top of the post.

I'll post another Ryan Feeney series tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Images from Ryan Feeney.

OrangeBeautiful's new Type Line is now available on our Etsy shop...

*and for more on all of our new lines, check out our online catalog!

images c/o OB.

Art and design has been part of my life forever; I truly can't remember a time that I wasn't drawing or crafting or creating. Therefore, I just know that my little-girl self would have adored a cardboard dwelling that I could "decorate" myself. The Italian-designed Nume house, top photo (available stateside at Pomme), with its whitewashed interior and exterior, just begs to be customized. In fact, an event called Crea il tuo spazio, or "design your own space", showcases kids' creative playhouse interpretations of the Nume structures. An alternative house design can be found at Paperpod in traditional kraft, along with other paper play spaces like rockets, teepees and a very cool-looking "den". Both companies' structures are made of recycled materials and are recyclable after use.

Interior of a Nume house from Crea il tuo spazio.

From Bluelines editor Jodi Levine comes this fun idea for younger kids: writing and illustrating blank board books (available at Romp, only $3 - $5 each). I just love the title of the book her son created, Friday Brothers!. A stack of blank board books would even make a great baby shower gift, so that creative parents could put together volumes about the baby's family history.

Images from Nume, Kidsmodern, and Paperpod.

When you get a chance, please check out this article by Kelly from Paper Stories over at the Storque (aka the Etsy "blog").

The article covers some of the ins and outs of trade shows, specifically the most recent National Stationery Show. If you scroll down, you might be as shocked as we were to see a picture of... me & B!

;) check it out!

(I just couldn't leave the post without an image, so here's a little Photoshop action for you ;)