Inspiration: Mirjan

It is Friday already. Any plans for the weekend? I decided to share some beautiful photos with you in case you decide to stay home and need some inspiration. This is one of my favorite contacts on flickr - Mirjan. She is from the Netherlands (I think) and she also has a blog. I think her diptychs would have to be my favorite - I just love how she combines two images. Don't you just want to hang one of her photos on your wall? I know I do!

Inspiration: Man Shops Globe

Have you heard of this TV show? I had not until a couple of days. Keith Johnson works for Anthropologie (I know!) and his job is to go around the world and find unique handmade or antique items that could be displayed or sold in Anthro's stores. Isn't that the best job in the world??

Unfortunately, I can't watch it anywhere online but for those of you in the US I think you can catch it up on the Sundance Channel's website. At least there is some short video eye candy! I would love to hear more about it if you saw it.

Lovely: Anthro & Libraries

Sounds like the perfect combination, doesn't it?

Photos: Anthropologie

Happy Weekend!

My dad called yesterday to tell me he bought a vintage film camera for me. Isn't he just the best? I was so happy! Can't wait to get it and try it out!

I had a discussion with a couple of friends about the magic of film yesterday. I think we got a bit spoiled by all the fancy new digital cameras. I mean, the way you think about film photography and digital is all different - you can take as many shots as you'd like with your digital camera but with film you usually spend more time thinking about the light, composing and then you usually take just one photo which you value so much more than number 1024 on your computer. Don't get me wrong, I love my Canon but I am also fascinated by the beauty of old film. Have you noticed how many people process their photos making them look like they are old? Yeah, it's a lot!

What cameras do you shoot with and which do you prefer - film or digital? Join the discussion - I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject!

Wishlist: Plumo

I just received an email that one of my favorite online shops Plumo is having a huge sale. Want to take a look with me?

Persian Letter Opener £4

Bird Paperweight £9

Hanging Baskets (set of two) £19

Tea Pot Doorstop £14

Sari Stool £29

Patch Clutch £35

Frida Clog Boots £59

A quite long list, I know. But I just couldn't help it - everything looks so pretty!

All from Plumo

Packaging: The Lovely Package Exchange

Remember the Lovely Package Exchange Danni organized back in the summer? I didn't want to upload photos of the package I sent because I didn't hear from my partner and I didn't want to spoil the surprise in case she hasn't received it yet, but I think that it must have gotten there for four months, lol. I wanted to send only things handmade by me or ones I got from small local shops or Etsy. I sent her a beautiful tiny notebook that was made entirely out of leaves, including the pages! I made some recipe cards, a bookmark and send some moo cards along with the other stuff. I also got her a very cute porcelain magnet in the shape of an old-fashioned shoe and a deco tape I got from Etsy. It is hard to tell from the pictures but the envelope was pale pearl pink and it was filled with a whole bunch of tiny hearts.

I had a lot of fun making this! I hope that she liked it.

Lovely

I dream that there were very few cars and people used bicycles for transportation. Then I can get this beauty and be as fancy as one can be.


p.s. in case you haven't alredy noticed - yes, I do love anything orthogonal and simple.

Etsy Love for Haiti

One of the best things about being part of the blog community is being able to spread the word when you need to be heard. I am following the example of many blogger friends sharing with you some lovely Etsy sellers who decided to donate a percentage (or the whole amount) of your purchase to the people in Haiti. I hope that you find something you like and by buying it you can also make a good deed.

Change the World Print by juxtaposeddesign - 7$

Hope for Haiti by madeforanangel - 20$

100 percent Charitable Donation Pendant by oliviamoon - 13$

One Love for Haiti in Sterling Silver by onelifejewelry - 20$

There is also an Etsy collective of donated items from sellers called Hearts for Haiti with lots of great sellers.

And last but not least, if you would like to help but you are in a difficult financial situation, Danni at oh, hello friend is wonderful enough to offer doing this for you. All you have to do is comment under this post and she will do the rest. Thank you, dear friend!

Projects: Housing Building

Here is the last one for this semester. The whole project was a provocation to the small number of parks and places for children to play in our city. I once came across a rather ironical article that suggested we begun to grow plants vertically in order to compensate it. And this is exactly what I did. I put the parking lot underground because I think it is much more important to have plants rather than cars in a backyard. I wanted to create a micro environment where mothers could leave their kids to play without fear because although the space appears open it is surrounded by buildings and personal enough to be treated like a backyard. I think it is very important to give people who live in a same building the opportunity to meet and communicate. It is really sad that most people (including myself) don't know their neighbors.

The whole inner space is treated like a sea of greenery and I hope that if you step outside on your balcony you would feel like standing on a pier with all those plants around you.

The other facades - the ones facing the street, are much more sterile and minimalistic because people usually want to be away from its noise and in a way separate themselves from the world outside, forming a more cozy, personal space. That, of course, doesn't mean that they should build a thick wall around them. Therefore the whole "solid block" is lifted above the ground allowing the greenery from the inside to spill.

Whew! It was a whole torture trying to explain all that in English! Hope you got the main idea. I would love to hear your thoughts as I believe these are all important issues and as we all live in housing buildings we all should be able to discuss their problems.

Lovely Weekend

Hello, dear friends! I am finally done with all of my projects and everything went really well and finally I can relax and enjoy my free time. My finals start on Tuesday but this is so much easier than all of these projects, so I'm not really worried about it. I want to thank everyone for the kind comments on my project! I have one more to share with you but this will happen on Monday when I will be back blogging here as usual. Sound good? As for your questions about the software I used for my previous project - the visualization was created with 3ds max.

So, how is your weekend going so far? I am taking mine really slow and quiet and I love it! We went to have brunch ( my new favourite thing to do on a Saturday) in a bakery they just opened and I just couldn't resist taking out my polaroid and snapping a photo of these deliciously looking breads! I loved how the place was kind of dark and all of the light was coming from the showcase. Simply magical! On my way home I bought a dozen of beautiful roses and an issue of my favourite design magazine and I am just headed to make coffee and enjoy all of this. What do you usually do on a lazy Saturday? Do you go out for a quiet coffee or brunch just like me? What are your plans for the weekend, tell me.

Projects

Hello, dear friends! One project is done, two more to go! Thanks for the good luck wishes, they definitely helped today (I got an A!) Here is my design project as promised.

The task was to create a series of furniture for a teenage room. My thoughts went in direction teenager -> lots of stuff -> place to store and organize -> box -> cube. So I based each of the pieces on a cube 40/40/40cm and with either adding or extracting a half or a third I get the shapes I need. I used white color because most of our belongings are very colorful and it would be nice to be stored in something cleaner, more simple. I also made a color version to show the versatility of the project and because some teenagers really love to use bright color.
Here are just a few of the pieces I designed for this project (turned out you can make literally everything with the system I came up with). I would love to hear your opinions.

this is the color version of the desk

this is my favorite piece. I would love to make this one for myself, hehe.
You can move the doors horizontally and arrange them as you like and you can change the look completely.the color version

Have a lovely day and please, keep your fingers crossed for me tomorrow! Thanks! xo

Happy Weekend!

How is everyone? Hope you are having a lovely weekend! Mine is a bit stressful but fortunately not something I can't handle yet. I left my render this morning and went to get materials for my model from the craft store. I got some beautiful dry flowers as well - lavender and I don't know the name of the other one but they are in the picture here. I love the smell of lavender, it's just heavenly! I even got some extra time and went to Starbucks and took a photo with my new Polaroid. I really love how this one turned out (except for the focus!!). This time I blocked the flash with a piece of cardboard and it worked excellent! My computer still hasn't finished rendering my design visualization and I decided to stop by and drop a few lines. Oh, I almost forgot - would you be interested to see my projects when I finish (which is next week)? I am designing a big housing building and for my design project - a series of furniture for a teenage room. Let me know.

Keep your fingers crossed Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for me, please! That's when I'm handing in my projects. Thank you! xo

Happy Friday!

I am very, very busy (have slept 3 hrs for the last couple of days) but I just heard that Abby Try Again is offering free worldwide shipping this weekend. I can't decide which print to get - it would be best for my budget to get no one but they are just so pretty! Which one would you choose?

p.s. she also has an Etsy shop and she's offering free shipping there as well.

Yay!

Guess what? I finally got a Polaroid camera! I've been dreaming about it for so long and my boyfriend gave it to me yesterday as a Christmas present. I am so happy! I got the Polaroid One which is a good start I think, especially since I've never even held a polaroid camera in my hands.
I took this photo this morning (I can't believe I cut the top like that, but oh well, imperfection is cute, right?). This is my bed cover (which I love!) and the throw is made by my grandmother. She was so talented and made the most beautiful throws you can imagine! I literally putting all of my effort to keep myself away from the camera because I don't want to shoot the whole film yet. I guess I'd better start saving for more!

On another note, today is my nameday. Hehe, this probably means nothing to you but in my country all the people who have the name Ivan or similar to it celebrate today. It is as big as a birthday and mine is today! So, happy nameday to me:)

p.s. Take a look at this lovely playlist Anthropologie posted today.

My Home

It's 2:40 am over here and I've just finished what I have planned for today. I hope everyone is doing great. Here is the photo I took yesterday for Holly's group Interior Styling. The challenge was to use the so called "triangle style" to display some of your favorite items. I used a lovely print by Maleah Matthews that I won in a giveaway. I just framed that yesterday but I still need to paint the frame white. The Keep Calm print I made myself. I like how the photo turned out although I didn't have all the things I wanted to use and I had to improvise. I am planning on taking more versions because I think it would be interesting to actually try and see what works best. Are you going to join the fun?

I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

Busy Week

It's been a little crazy over here with all of my projects due in a week. It's good actually because it is keeping my mind busy so that I don't get all sad now that the holidays are over and I am no longer with my family. The recent posts have been more about me and my daily routine and this is perhaps how it is going to be for a week or so. I'll still be posting because a short distraction is always good but I won't have time to dig up interesting and exciting things to share with you. So in case you want to see more of my home and my first steps in photographing still life you can check here daily, if not - I'll be seeing you in a week when all the fuss is over. Sound good?

On a side note, I joined Holly's flickr group Interior Styling and I am really excited and inspired to work on my styling skills. I'll be sharing more about this tomorrow.

Recipe

Did everyone have a fabulous first weekend of this year? Yes? Okay then! I had a pretty busy one but I managed to get up early on Sunday and make my grandma's famous muffins. Well, these aren't exactly muffins but this is the closest word I can think of in English. I remember how she used to make these for dinner and we ate them all in no time even though there was enough to feed a small army. The baking form in the picture is my Christmas gift from her so I thought making these muffins was just perfect to try it out. Here is the recipe in case you feel like making a lovely breakfast.

Ingredients:
400g yogurt (I use natural Bulgarian yogurt, no sugar or flavor, you might be able to find it in a store where they have Greek products, since theirs is pretty much the same, or just use the one you have)
3 tbsp oil or melted butter
2 tsp baking soda
about 1 kg plain flour
a pinch of salt
1 teacup of feta cheese

Mix all of the ingredients except the cheese and knead dough. Make balls a bit smaller than a fist and put a piece of the cheese inside each one. Put in a slightly oiled form and bake for about 20 minutes at 200 C. Easy, right?

I experimented and put spinach in some of the muffins but I think I like the original recipe better. I am pretty sure you can come up with some great additions and I'd love to know if you tried the recipe.

p.s. This goes great with tomato juice!
Enjoy!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, dear friends! I hope everyone had a fabulous night and has already got enough sleep. I celebrated with my family and my boyfriend and it was a lot of fun. We stayed until 4 am and I was quite sleepy yesterday but today I am relaxed and ready to work!
I want to thank everyone who shared 2009 with me, it was a truly great year although it had its ups and downs but I guess that's how it goes, right? Thank you for all of your kind comments and emails, for stopping by even if it's just to say Hi. I really appreciate all of your support and I am happy to say that I made some great friends here during the last year. I hope you will share this one with me too.

Have a fabulous 2010! xo