this week in inspiration: 05.05.08 to 05.09.08.

10. Real Simple steps up to the plate, err, doormat, with a Design on a Dime charity event to benefit Housing Works. If you're in NYC, you simply must attend. Details here. Thank you, Real Simple!
9. Sarajo tells us how we can help those left homeless from the Burma tragedy.
8. Finally, someone finds a way to make Craig's List funny again. Brian Ponto has created UnpaidGig in honor of the fabulous "no budget" clients that we all love so much.
7. Steven Hull brings us one of the most interesting projects I've seen in a long time: examining the relation between illustrative art and personality. Eek! I love. Visit Abovo Project right here.
6. If Dwell married Metropolis and had an affair with Wallpaper, I think the kid would look something like this newbie: LoftLifeMag.
5. It's Can Can time!
4. Writer Christy Moss is looking for young, twenty-something philanthropic couples for a profile piece. Email myself or Christy directly for more information! Please use subject header "PHILANTHROPY PROFILE".
3. Forget pink. Blue is the new black.
2. Photographer Chris Jordan accepts social responsibility for consumerism in today's youth with his groundbreaking DVD: Intolerable Beauty. Simply breathtaking. Chris: I commend you.
1. Reader Ana is giving back this May: half of the proceeds from her Etsy shop will go to a cause that is very close to her heart: Passa a Palavra (Spread the Word), dedicated to informing Portugal's female youth of a vaccine that could save them from a deadly uterus cancer. If you shop handmade this month, please shop through Ana's site. Her Faceless portraits are so striking.

style pick of the day: bubble hem shorts playsuit.

"my kinda playsuit."

£35 from TopShop.

photo of the day: untitled.

"push in. now pull. no, you pull. push here. eek!"

from erin nelson.

angie burr.

Reader Angie just sent in a link to her fantastic new shoppe! A girlfriend of mine just had her firstborn (just in time for Mothers Day!) and named him Orion. How perfect would this painting be as a welcome baby gift?

Click here to check out Angie's paintings and handmade scarves (which are LOVELY). Thank you, dear Angie!

print of the day: untitled.

"my mama always said that life is like a box of boxheads."

from the portfolio of james yang.

gretchen wagoner.

Reader Gretchen was another wrongfully spammed victim, and I'm so sad to see what I've been missing for the past 30 days! Unfortunately, I didn't make it to her show, but I'm pretty sure her upcoming work will more than make up for it.

Keep an eye on her Etsy shop; she'll be adding these two collages shortly, which I LOVE LOVE LOVE!
[thanks, gretchen!]

photo of the day: chocolate.

"double the clean." from loraine.

irana douer.

New work from Irana. Because indeed, three heads are better than one.

tsilli.

It's about time for a new desktop image, yes? TGIT: Thank God it's Tsilli. Download here.

reap what you sow.

Love this typography from Sawdust. Fantastic.
[eek! can't remember where i found this?]

print of the day: cat and man.

"cat vs man: an existential dilemma."

from the portfolio of julia pott.

miss crowland.

Still loving silhouettes, and this take on the trend is certainly noteworthy! Thanks, Maria!

the dailies: stephanie congdon-barnes.

One of the emails that landed in my spam folder was this lovely Daily from Stephanie Congdon-Barnes, FANTASTIC artisan and partner-in-crime of 3191, along with Mav from Port2Port Press, who has her daily right here.

Anyway, I had NO idea I was sitting on such a treasure trove of daily activity! Apologies to Stephanie for posting this MONTHS after she had submitted it, but hey--- better late than never, yes?
--

6:04 am: Awaken when my eight-year-old daughter comes in our bedroom looking for a book. She's a real early bird and often gets up hours before everyone else. Doze off again.

6:30 am: My cat Chester tells me it's time to get up. I head downstairs, feed him and put water on to boil for coffee. I'm pretty useless until I have coffee. Once I've had a cup, I make breakfast for my daughter and cook and pack lunches (they're having pesto pasta, apples and trail mix today). I check my email and 3191 to see how the last night's pairing turned out — always exciting and fun. Peek outside at the weather. Frost on the ground means clear skies today! A welcome change after a week of snow/hail/rain.

7:30 am: Head upstairs to wake up my six-year-old son (he has a completely different internal clock than his sister). My husband Jack makes him breakfast. I nag everybody to get dressed, brush teeth, find coats and hats, etc. Spend a good amount of time tracking down school fundraising paperwork that's due.

8:30 am: Jack leaves to take the kids to school and go to work. He's also self-employed (as an architect), but has an office a few blocks away. I have the house to myself! Time to get cleaned up and dressed. Even though I spend most of my days at home, I always get completely dressed every day. I'm much more productive that way.

9:00 am: Head to my office/studio which is a spare room adjacent to the kitchen. Put on some music first thing. Today it's Bon Iver which is my latest obsession and seems to get me in the mood for my next collection of soft toys and sculptures called "Picnic". Due to travel, visiting family, and a round of the flu, I haven't had a day to sew in weeks, and I'm really excited to get started. I gather some fabric and materials together that I'd like to use for the collection including some eyelet I picked up yesterday. As I play around, the idea of slipcovering rocks in the eyelet comes to me. It's the perfect match of hard/soft and organic/handmade that I love. My first attempt with exposed seams looks really sloppy, and I toss it aside and start work on an animal design. Something makes me come back to it, however, and I figure out a way to hand sew the eyelet with hidden seams. I am really pleased and make two more. I photograph them to share on Flickr and create a post on my shop blog.

11:15 am: Realize I never ate breakfast! Make some tea in the teapot that my sister just gave me for my birthday and have a homemade marionberry-oatmeal bar to hold me over until lunchtime. Answer a few emails (I am always hopelessly behind!) and browse Flickr a bit.

11:45 am: Jack calls to say that he's having lunch with a colleague. He usually comes home for lunch, and I'll miss him, but now I can go ahead and eat. Which I do, sitting on the back stoop in the sunshine.

12:00 pm: Look through the first pass of the design of the Year of Mornings book which I just received yesterday. Exciting! Make notes so I can go over changes with Maria tomorrow by phone.

12:30 pm: Spend 15 minutes looking for my phone. Find it buried under fabric on my work table. I spend a lot of my life looking for things.

12:45 pm: Call my sister and chat about life, family, health, trying to survive financially, and ideas for working on a collaborative project. Always grateful for her!

1:30 pm: Back to work on the book and some household accounting.

2:00 pm: Our weekly organic produce delivery is here! The radishes look especially good.

2:15 pm: Head out to walk to the market for a few things and get my kids from school. It's a *beautiful* day and I really enjoy my walk. Spring in Portland is exceptional. I love seeing the blossoming trees against the gray skies, but blue skies aren't too bad either!

3:00 pm: Collect my kids from school, visit with friends on the playground and make plans to go on a hike the next day. Walk the mile plus home which takes much longer with two hungry and distracted kids.

4:00 pm: Home again and time for a snack. The kids go back outside to play (love this weather!) while I prep dinner. Put some Beirut on the stereo. We're having cider-glazed pork chops, brussel sprouts, asparagus, and cheddar-chive biscuits. I'm not sure what my kids are doing, but it involves rope, bricks and a hammer. Nobody gets hurt.

When Chester gets bored he likes to go to the basement and rummage through the storage and bring things upstairs (his favorite are the Christmas decorations). As I'm cooking he shows up with a giant piece of wool blanketing from my fabric scraps. Wish I could have captured him carrying it up the steep basement steps in his mouth. Silly cat.

5:15 pm: Call my son in to set the table and snap a photo of my daughter in a tree that I will use later for 3191.

5:30 pm: Jack's home! We finish up making dinner and eat. Kids go back outside to play. Jack and I clean up and share our days.

7:00 pm: Everyone inside to get cleaned up and ready for bed.

8:00 pm: Kids in bed. Sigh. Time to revisit all the work that I didn't finish earlier including some accounting. Some nights, Jack and I relax and watch TV or a DVD, but most weeknights we both have our laptops or sewing needles out.

9:00 pm: Meet with Jack to go over some financial stuff. Being self-employed means always having to stay on top of things, and tax time is no fun, but we wouldn't have it any other way. We love our freedom and autonomy!

10:00 pm: Reward myself with a glass of zin and some chocolate with sea salt given to me by my friend Shari. Seeing the chocolate reminds me that I was supposed to send her a photo for a project. Return to my laptop to email the photo. Respond to a few more time-sensitive emails (including sending my 3191 photo to Maria), browse Flickr and make a few Scrabulous moves against Jack. He wins the game. [editor's note: CUTEST. COUPLE. EVER.]

11:00 pm: Time for bed. Read a chapter in my book club book (TC Boyle's "Drop City") and then it's lights out. G'night!
--
Stephanie---- I can't thank you enough! Your day has been SO inspiring. THANK YOU!

print of the day [part deux]: blowing bubbles.

"the pot bubbleth over with hotness."

$40 from Gavin Bunner at LPP.

my apologies. seriously.

Oh gracious. I am a loser. It just occurred to me that a spam folder is meant to be checked ohhhh, every so often. And said spam filter has not been checked by said blogger in ohhhhh, never.

So, to the masses who sent me an email and I never responded, I am SO, SO, SO sorry. I actually do respond to emails. Quite often, actually. So much that I've been doing it since 6pm this evening and it's now four hours later. Not a hard math problem, if you know what I mean.

Turns out I need this pad from Knock Knock in a manic way.

If you or someone you know has NOT received an email from me, do me a favor and re-send it to designformankind@gmail.com. I PROMISE I will check my Spam folder from now on. Truly. I'm raising my right hand.

Eek!

applicant.

"One night while rooting through the recycling bin for magazines, I found all the confidential Ph.D. applicant files for the biology department at an Ivy League university from the years 1965-1975."

And the rest is history. Purchase 'Applicant' the zine right here for just $4.

photo of the day: c.

"give me a C!" from Marc Wathieu.

emmanuelle villard.

Would have loved to see this exhibition by Emmanuelle Villard someday. Guess I'll just have to move to Belgium, eh?

print of the day: treehouse.

"alternatively titled: my dream home."

from the portfolio of samuelle bastianello.
[eek! i can't remember where i found this site?]

book of the day: customiser.

"ok, i'll be honest. i just really think the cover's cool."

$30 from Galerie Doux Dimache.

lola goldstein.

Karina just posted the cutest ceramics by Lola Goldstein, so of course, I had to jump over to her site! Simply adorable.

the dailies: amy from pikaland.

My dear friend Amy is having quite the busy week with the launch of her first PikaPackage Project, so I'm so thrilled to have her join us for a sneak into her creative life! Thanks, Amy!
--



8.30am: It's a beautiful Saturday! I wake up, and jump right out of bed (although I would love to laze around in bed, it's not in my genes!) and head out to our garden and say hello to my two dogs -- Bessie and Cookie.There's a lot of things to do before the launch of the PikaPackage Project, but today I'm going to venture to town to take a breather.

9.00am: I have a simple breakfast of toasted bread (peanut butter and nutella chocolate spread) and hot cocoa, before I plan out my schedule for the day. I write everything down in my Moleskine planner and right now it's a big pile of scribbles and to-do lists.



10.30am: I reply emails from artists and illustrators who are interested in the PikaPackage project, and also respond to link submissions. I check my Flickr daily (I love Flickr!) and get inspired a lot just from a visit. I also write drafts of posts and research a little on what's new out there.



11.30am: It's time to go out for the weekend (I rarely get out on weekdays), and Mr T, my fiance and I are going to see an art festival happening in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. Before that, we have ourself a little hot lunch -- hot pepper pork soup, with rice (a Chinese specialty).



1.00pm: We head off to the city center, and this time we weren't driving -- we decided to take the train! It's hot and I'm all sweaty, but the exercise was good! It's in an old part of town, and it's been awhile since I've been there.



2.30pm: We arrive at the Annexe Gallery, and we take a look around -- my favourite was a gallery that had works by a famous Malaysian artist's work on its walls -- Yusof Gajah, who illustrates children's books and paints his favorite character: the elephant. Ironically, his name "Gajah" also means elephant.



There was also a small gallery for affordable art, and a quick browse showed a variety of contemporary artists displaying their work -- the showing was definitely better than a few that I've seen before.



5.00pm: We're hungry, so we decided to walk and have one of the best porridge in the country -- fish porridge with a side of steamed chicken. The fish is raw when it comes, and we put it into the steaming hot bowl of porridge to cook them. This particular stall was already here when my mom and dad were dating (that's 30 years ago!) Yummy!



7.00pm: We arrive home, and I'm off to make my gocco cards for the PikaPackage project. I sketch, ink and burn the screens (two for this one) and proceeded to ink the cards while Mr T cuts the paper for me to print on.



10.00pm: I'm done with the printing and we're decidedly very hungry because porridge doesn't last very long in our tummy, so we went out to have wantan noodles at one of our favorite stall in the city as a treat (this time we took the car). You would have noticed by now that we like to eat!

11.30pm: Arrive home from supper, and it's time to reply emails (my emails from readers mostly come in at night, and all the action on the website is happening while I'm asleep). I tinker a little on the backend of the website -- adding and checking on what can be improved. I also draft up ideas for posts and save them for another time.

1.00am: Off to bed!
[editor's note: Isn't she WONDROUS?! Thanks, Amy!]

photo of the day: hotel carter in ny.

"let it rain."

from the portfolio of mariell amelie.

style pick of the day: tano passion.

"tano passion? total passion."

$210 from Lori's Shoes.

print of the day: la frere.

"the original teen wolf."

from the portfolio of eva han.

heart handmade.

Sometimes I like to create little contests in my head and award imaginary prizes, such as "Best Candy Bar Ev.Er" [which, just so you know, the prize always goes to Butterfinger b/c I'm manic about that stuff].



Anyway, I'm getting off topic. I wanted to send you over to Heart Handmade today, where my dear friend Marichelle has kicked off her new feature, entitled 'Shop and Tell', and where you can see an actual photo of what I look like [eek!]. You know, in case you were curious.



Seriously, Marichelle has a knack for this stuff. She's just started her venture in blogging and has already [in my opinion] found her niche. With an excellent design/layout and some super fantastic content for all handmade-lovers, her blog is an everyday visit of mine.



On top of it? She's a sweetheart, which I love. So anyway, I award her an imaginary prize of this, this and this. Congratulations, Marichelle! You've won my love today!

book of the day: napa 06.

"i'd take a nappa with a Napa anyday."

£6 from Napa Books.

double take: monster-in-law [part ii]

It's Double Take Tuesday, which means our dear Kylie from Bandelle is here to share with you yet another fabulous film [from a decor standpoint, that is!]. Thanks for your hard work, Kylie--- take it away!
--
Soon we'll feature some of your terrific movie suggestions for Double Take, but we just had to finish exploring Monster-In-Law. Viola's (Jane Fonda) quintessential Southern California mansion is almost as grand as her character. Let's see how they furnished this Mediterranean-inspired estate...



Unlike the vibrant orange accents of Charlie & Kevin's house, Missy Stewart (production designer) purposely kept Viola's palette fairly neutral with some cooler undertones. Most of the seating in the living room is upholstered in creams and whites, including the sofa, chaise, and ottoman. The profile of the earl collection is reminiscent of some of the pieces but with a tufted touch. Rest your feet on the petrie ottoman before heading over to dine on the louis upholstered armchair, similar to a classic Louis fauteuil. And what better way to divide the room than to use the four ladies soapstone room divider from Modabode.

Since I associate soft creams and whites with Martha Stewart, her Valspar paint collection may provide just the right hue for the walls. Perhaps the zen garden sand would be a good match.

Fancy a cup of tea on the patio? I could spend many hours reading a book on the santenay lounge chair while sipping irish breakfast in my juliet tea cup from Wedgewood. Add a soft spring touch with a couple of small asian floral toss pillows. Finally, accent the space with a bamboo outdoor floor lamp and a hand carved ebony buddha statue.



Can we please take a moment to drool over the architecture and gardens of this Wallace Neff estate? Neff's Spanish Colonial style is sprinkled across Southern California, which is now well-documented in the book entitled, Wallace Neff and the Grand Houses of the Golden State. The set designers only spruced up the already immaculate rose garden just a little for the winter filming months, otherwise it looks as glorious as it does in the movie all year round. Hmmm...I think I'll take that cup of tea in the garden instead, thank you.

Keep those terrific Double Take suggestions coming. We'll try to feature as many as we can, including the upcoming Sex And The City movie.

Image credits: New Line Cinema, Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, Crate & Barrel, Modabode, Martha Stewart Colors, Ballard Designs, Wedgewood, Cooking.com, World Market, Dharma Sculpture, and Amazon.com.

the middletons and a BIG thank you.

Reason #4,502 why I love what I do.

This beauty of a set just arrived in the mail from Ted and Angie over at Poketo. And I swear to you, they are the most breathtaking dinnerware I have ever owned. [Sorry guys, I can't bear to give this package away...]

Thank you both!
[p.s. If you live in L.A. and are as in love with Poketo as I am, head on over to the warehouse sale from 10am-5pm. I'll be there, as well as Ted, Angie and the Poketo regulars!]

the post it project by sissel johannessen.

A self-designed alphabet exhibited in post-it notes. Oooh, Sissel. You know sure know how to make a lady swoon. More right here.