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Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Little Green Notebook's DIY Sputnik Chandelier

I tried just posting this on The Design Junkie's Facebook wall, but they have all of their panties in a bunch over there and pegged it as spammy. I threw a mini-tantrum then decided I didn't want to forget to share it with you so here you go:





For the rest of the post, fantastic photos and the nitty gritty click HERE



This is a GENIUS IKEA hack of the Maskros chandelier by The Little Green Notebook. Maybe my favorite IKEA hack of all time. I am seriously in awe.

It's positively brilliant and I cannot WAIT to make my own version. I feel like the DIY part of my skull just cracked open.

I've already added the Le Fleur Cups in Seagreen (100 ct/box) to my Amazon store so I can hit it up later. You can totally buy them HERE

Le Fleur Cup Seagreen, 100 count box

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

This is not a blog about Aqua. Or Pillows.


This is basically a very long letter to and about my friends.

Chances are, you're going to find that very boring. I will not be offended if you opt not to read it.

That being said...


Everyone has something that moves them, that marks their character, makes them who they are. It's the piece of their soul that defines their personality and is the essence of their experience in this world. It is likely what they will be most remembered for, most revered and quite possibly their purpose in this lifetime.

For me, it is making connections with other's souls.

As a child, I did not make friends easily. I changed schools every year, sometimes even mid-year, until sixth grade I was always the new girl, always wondered about, always looked at with a sideways distrust and curiosity. This caused me to be more paranoid about what other people were thinking about me than I likely should have been, but it also caused me to be more outgoing and social than most kids my age. I was open, talkative and eager to learn about someone new and what interested them. Perhaps because I've always regarded my relationships as potentially temporary and transient? I dunno, but, what I do know is that over time I came to realize that making connections with others and maintaining them became very important to me.

There are so many friends from my childhood that I remember fondly that I would leave for a new location expecting never to see again. Thanks to Facebook I have found all but 6 of those that I have searched for but every time I would start in a new place, I would wonder and worry just how much time I had to really get to know someone and make a connection with them. I had no idea what it was like to have a friend you've known for your entire life. Though I had friends who did and I envied them. My earliest friends go back as far as the third grade and considering they are STILL my friends and I talk to them often, I'd say that's pretty damn good. There is a boy that I met once one summer when I was about eleven. His grandmother babysat my little brother and after he came to visit for one week, we remained pen pals with for the next ten years or so and still remain in contact today. I have yet to find my best friends from fourth grade, Crinn, Cindy and Charlotte or the boy that I secretly had a crush on until I passed him the "Do you like me, check yes or no" note (he checked "yes", by the way). I also haven't found my friend, Lisa, from Caro, that I met after I decided she was so pretty and well dressed that she just HAD to be my friend. Or my friend, Elisha that my aunt Marcia nicknamed "Junior Shit" because she didn't want me to be the only one with "Shit" as a nickname.

Insert convo that perfectly illustrates my adolescence:


Me: So, if you call me Little Shit and aunt Linda calls me Dippy, does that make me a Dipshit? 
My aunt Marcia: Hahahaahaha...no.
(Hey, I was eleven, this was a serious inquiry)

Aside from those isolated instances, I have managed to find everyone else, or they have found me. I don't wonder what happened to anyone, not even the first boy that I ever fell in love with that broke my heart. He found me last fall and I briefly reunited with him last October. The boy I met at Cedar Point in the line for the Meanstreak and wrote letters with for the next four years? Yep. My first prom date, the first boy I ever kissed, the first boy I ever went on an unchaperoned date with. Even the boy I fell in love with when I was nine who loved that I was content just to sit next to him on a tractor while he baled hay, is accounted for. The girls I missed my first bus with, my best friends from my first high school and even from my second high shool. My large group of girlfriends that are all now Mommies that I met through other friends who knew other friends who...(you get the idea) and ten  years later, we're all still together. We still love each other and we're all still close and now our children are friends with each other. I still have them all. And if you're my family, you will wonder why they aren't enough, why I could possibly want more. "Don't you have enough friends?" they ask me, and you know what? I don't even know what that means. What determines enough?

Six years ago I started blogging on Myspace. Actually, I started commenting on Myspace, the blogging came later. Over the course of the next three years of writing and reading, phone calls and radio shows, girl party weekends, blogger conventions, baby showers, pool parties, weddings and more crazy stories than there are Thai restaurants in Seattle, I have met some of the greatest people that I have ever known. Writers, painters, photographers, actors, singers, thinkers, scientists, philosophers, surfers, storytellers, mothers, fathers, friends. At first, you're just bantering back and forth over the most seemingly lame stuff, then you're calling each other whenever you can fit in a phone date, next you're making plans to meet, soon after you try to figure out how quickly you can afford to see them again because airfares a bitch and before you know it you find yourself six or seven years later with a bucket of extended close friends that live all over the world that you haven't met just once or twice, but that you talk to every day, that you're invested in, that you care about, that you pray for and just absolutely and totally love. And I'm not talking about some freaky Catfish stuff either.

You have disagreements, falling outs, mutual deleting from various social networking sites, forgiveness and re-adding of various social networking sites. You've learned about each other, from each other, you've met each other's families (who now, after about your third trip, are finding this whole thing a bit less weird). We've introduced our friends to our other friends and have managed between us to amass a group of mutual friends that is larger than I could possibly explain to you without getting the side eye. Hell, I poached one of my very best friends from a guy's Facebook wall that we both met on a dating site, I have no shame. I introduced her to all of my friends and then she introduced me to hers and between us we could start our own shopping mall. Some of the most amazing women and best girl friends that I have ever had are nestled in Atlanta and only being able to see them once a year gets pretty difficult sometimes, but it's the punch you roll with when you make friends that don't live in your city. Or even your own state.

I  have collected a group of the most amazing and fantastic people I have ever encountered and have the equivalent of town hall meetings several times a week so that we can all keep up. We don't always agree, and at times because of our varied backgrounds our personalities will clash, but what we all have in common is that we appreciate the human connection we share together as a unit. Our soul's are connected.

And because now everyone else has most assuredly stopped reading this except for them, I want you to know, this post is for you.

It totally started out,

"Dear best people I've have ever known,

You keep me sane. You make me feel important. I'm not worthy.

Love me."

But you know me better than that. I get down to the end of this and I wonder what in the hell I am even talking about. But, what I do know is:


  • This is my first word stuffs blog in over two years
  • This is why I stopped word stuff blogging

And to you, my friends, what I really want to say is that I love you. You inspire and motivate me every single day. Your support drives me and compels me to be a better person, to find the best part of myself and share it with others, as you share the best parts of yourselves with me. You have shown me that throughout all of my life, and the years of loneliness that I had no one, I would go back and live it over gain ten times over to be able to spend the rest of my life being supported by the likes of you. Your kindness, your strength, your tenacity and of course, your grace, makes me prouder of you than you might ever realize.You make me want to be the best part of myself not only because I should, but because I want to return on your investment, to make you proud of me.

Everyone has something that moves them, that marks their character, that makes them who they are. It's the piece of their soul that defines their personality and is the essence of their experience in this world. It is likely what they will be most remembered for, the most revered.

For me, it is you.

Your friendships have marked my character, you have helped me become who I am. You are the piece of me that defines my experience in this world. I have brought people together, I have mattered. I have touched people and got to stand back and watch them touch each other (don't touch that, Elrod). I will be remembered for who I was, regardless of what I still have yet to do. I have entered and become part of the lives of people that I might never have had the chance to meet, for I have been lucky.

I just want to thank you, from the core of my being, for making my life better for being part of it. 

For me, the most meaningful experiences have been those that I've shared with you, my connection with your soul. It means the world to me that you chose to connect with mine.


This is an open letter to all of my friends, but especially dedicated to my Havenites. 


Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Things I love Today

You probably don't know this, I mean, why would you, but this blog was almost called "Things I Love Today". I really loved the name and my original intention (because I am shameless enough to admit it)  was to have a website that would generate revenue. I thought "Love" and "Things" would be quite searchable. Hahahaha...silly Chrissa. I also didn't realize that my love affair with all things design blogish would overrule any of my previous affinities for making the dollars. Besides all of that, it's irrelevant to this post. Anykitten, after that, I played with "In Love With Awesome" and even named my site that, made a lil' logo and everything:


(yes, that'd be me)


Handmade, duh. But it just didn't feel right, as much as I tried to to "own it" so I inevitably killed the FB page, hid the blog (I still have it) and whipped up Stuff Chrissa Loves. It had a decent first showing. When I left her, she had a nice 284 like base. The only problem with that, no one really cares about what Chrissa loves, because besides her own friends, no one knows who Chrissa even is until they've decided they love (or hell, even like) what she likes. It was inwardly polarizing for me and I became obsessed with finding a new name. I felt as though I couldn't write again until I had worked that part out. I was so wrapped up in my so-called identity, that I just stalemated and did nothing. I still haven't had the kuhunas to kill her off because I have links to snag from her. One night, I was having a very deep conversation with a friend about garage sales life and was heavily contemplating what this site was going to be about. I hadn't been able to write since abandoning my blog on Myspace (the blogs are still there collecting dust, having no good place to put them I just let them sit) and I didn't want to be isolated to just furniture B&A's, photos of beach huts, or you know, rugs and curtains that I think are pretty.

How do you convey your total obsession with something that you instantaneously fall in love with, become immediately obsessed over and stalk every inch of, even when it might be a person and their outlook on life? Speaking of, thank you, Design Blogs, for giving me that. Never before in my life has it been so socially acceptable to peek into people's homes, offices, bedroom closets and such, prior to now. It means a lot and I deeply appreciate it. Buuut, I'm digressing. Where was I? Oh yes, so I knew using the word "Design" was a catch 22. On one hand, it'd get me more Twitter followers because people just do blanket searches on "Design" but at the same time, it lumps me. On the other hand, how else could I truly articulate my junkie status without using it? Then I decided I was over thinking it and to just STFU and here we are. I decided to make In Love With Awesome a series of blog posts including someone/thing that I think is awesome, and highlight the shit out of it. Things I Love Today will just be random posts of...well...not to be too obvious here,  things I love today. 

I know, I know, I just spent 3 paragraphs saying, "My name is the Design Junkie because I'm obsessive and when I like stuff sometimes I'm probably going to gush about it" and there you go. Now, if I can only figure out how to slap up my Pinterest blogs. I was going to do each post with "How Pinteresting: Insert Pinboard name here" but Pinterest themselves stole my idea (because we're in each other's headz of course) so now I have to call it something else. Maybe Pinjunkie? Pinaholic? Pinnerific? Wait, I think I saw that last one somewhere. I know Pinlove is taken. Let's think about it for a minute and discuss. I'm leaning toward Pinjunkie, you know, to keep with the theme. 

Oh, yeah, if you're on Pinterest and would like to follow me: The Design Junkie on Pinterest.
Feel free to leave your own Pinterest URL in the comments.

Moving along, I'm glad I got that out, and for those of you that have asked me the very questions answered above, you're welcome. Really guys though, I'm not that interesting, I promise, I just talk a lot of smack and use too many words. 

SOOOOOOOO...Things I Love Today:



Which I found after I found/this girl found me on Twitter and I thought she was funny and pretty and decided to research* her other internet stuffs. She writes a blog  I read until I got to the very beginning. She loves shoes that are amazing and look like this:


So her and I will be friends someday. Bet. 

While checking into Getglue for Glee, I noticed the girl that commented on my "What about prom, Blane?" quip was reading a book with an awesome cover. I totally judge books based on the cover and have yet to go wrong so added it to my Goodreads and my Amazon store:


You can buy it here

If you'd like to follow me on Goodreads Clicky Clicky

And then somehow I found this blog with this banner:


and actually stopped what I was doing to drop some ohhmmms because it made me so happy. Like, truly. I listened to this song, which I loved, and then I "liked" that too. 





Side note: I really have some rather compelling arguments for the love button.

Everything about it relaxes me, and no, it's not all the white. I dunno, her words, her photos, her energy...I can sense it, I can feel it. I know that sounds craaaaazy town, but well, hello my name is Chrissa and I'm weird. Pleazedtameetcha.

I wandered on and I found Megan Anthology on Tumblr, with this photo:


Navy, white and orange?

Well hell, yes please.

esss: The Candelabra is Dunes & Duchess, and I pinned this lamp from their website last week (thanks, A.H!)



Back to Megan...I find her Twitters and this photo:


and then this one:


And now I love her, too. See how it works? Nutter, I tells ya. Crazy, loving everything, nutter. 

I find this blog with this photo that makes me want to find mah man and run away to a vineyard that has nothing in it except for grapes, a picnic table, some wine and a chandelier hanging from a tree. That's all it needs. And maybe a blanket. And some candlelights. That's all it needs. Well, and maybe some fruit, but that is it. That's all it needs. 

And hell, it doesn't even need to be a vineyard or have any grapes. It can be a hayfield. Wait. My allergies. Soybeans. That's all it needs. 



Finally, when I've made sure to pin all of my finds, sub all my new blogs, follow all of my new peeps and "Like" all there is to like, I close my tabs, snuggle down with my fuzzy blankie and start my nightly repins. I am now following Peggy Wong's Pin Boards, the author of Blue Pool Road and pinned to her board "Just Because" I find my evening's gem...I'll leave you with my final, and favorite of the night. 



Vast.

I've spent a solid 30 minutes searching for who owns it which is a month in real life time. I want to purchase the print and have it printed on canvas because my bathroom needs it. Or my bedroom. One of them. If anyone recognizes it or knows who took it, holler.

Now that you get the idea, expect more of these. I thought I should post a PSA in case the ADD overload is too "Woo shiny thing!" for you to take, in which case, I'm not offended. I get it. I mean heck, this is just covering my last hour ;)

*editors note: by research I always mean stalk

Friday, May 6, 2011

In Love With Awesome: Mabley Handler Interior Design

Someday, I'm going to write a really long post about Alicia Paulsen, how Posie Got Cozy, my friend, Adrienne, and how, just as Dorothy woke up from the tornado to find her gray world filled with color, I, too, woke up one day to a bright new world filled with new people and beautiful things that I had never realized existed.

At least not virtually, anyway. But that day isn't today.

No. Today, I want to introduce a new series in which I highlight something I am in love with. Because I don't just love things a little bit. You see, Junkies? They can't just have a tiny bit of their fix, they need it in excess, and I am no different. When I find something and fall in love with it, I want it in piles, in buckets, in excess and most likely even potentially lethal amounts.

And I want it now! (Ha, I sound like that chubby little blueberry chic from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory-but if you were to ask any of my friends, they'd tell you that is exactly what I sound like when I'm all about something). So, because this is mine, and because I can do whatever I want with it, I am going to indulge myself each and every Friday (and hopefully you will, too) with awesome things that I am in love with.

Because caring is sharing. You know?

For my first post, I had to start with someone(s) super-duper special to me, and pair it with a teensy-tiny story (you guys know how I love to tell stories)...

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away  Michigan, there was a girl who became obsessed with design blogs, white, and various shades of aqua. So much in fact, that this girl would find any and all who shared photos on blogs of various shades of white and aqua, who designed things using various shades of white and aqua and eventually even those who just liked the colors of white and aqua. She would hunt then down, stalk their internets and fearlessly tell them she was in love with them hoping they would like her too, and if she was lucky not file a restraining order. One day, she met a fine blog that told the tale of a pool lounge, with shocking shades of peach (melon, pumpkin, orange?) with her beloved aqua. Well, this had never occurred to the crazy girl obsessed with white and aqua. She became fascinated and obsessed and decided to hunt down the creator of such magic in any way she could. She stalked their Twitters, she liked their Facebook, she subscribed to their website, found their blog, and finally, after right clicking and saving all of their images for inspiration, she was happy.

Hahahaha....And then one day she also realized she was a doofus and just emailed these amazing designers of the aqua and pumpkin (or orange or melon) and said, "You guys are awesome! I'm in love! You're super duper spectacular, Mabley Handler Interior Design!" and the rest, as they say, is history. (Yeah, so it kind of didn't go exactly like that, but who cares? It's just a story).

Thus, I only find it fitting to start you off with photos of the space that hooked me (and spearheaded a wonderful friendship with one of my favorite people, Austin Handler), the pool Lounge (Hampton Designer Showhouse 2010):







Right? I mean, seriously, riiiiight? Remind me sometime to show you the lamps that I made because I tried adding this same touch to my own rooms. The result was cute, but mostly just funny.

Now I must admit, I do not love my friend based on design ascetics alone. If he was daft, pretentious and not-nice, I'd still love his work, but truthfully? Austin is one of the nicest people that I've ever met that I haven't actually met yet. When I emailed him to tell him I was starting this series, I told him I had some questions I'd love for him to answer and that if he could take a photo of his workspace it'd be just swell. His response? "Do you want staged, posed, a flurry of activity, candid? You just let me know what you'd like because I can totally do it". Spoken like a true designer. Spoken like a true friend. 

I had to keep them all. They were just too darling. That, and I wanted one with his friendly smiley face as well as the one with the "flurry" and of course the one that best showcases the fantabulous built-ins.





Pretending we actually got to have a little sit down, I had questions, because well, I'm a nosy girl (get used to it, each post in the series has them). So let's have a sitty-sit.


When you were little, what did you imagine yourself doing when you "grew up"?


When I was little, I wanted to be an astronaut (what 9-year-old boy didn’t?!). And the funny thing is, I didn’t realize that I was even remotely creative until I was in college…I started taking photography classes, and I love it…And that somehow led me into graphic design and I loved that so much that I decided to become a graphic designer after college (even though my major was in journalism). And when I met Jennifer and we decided to leave our jobs in New York City and move out to the Hamptons and launch an interior design firm, I still had planned to remain a graphic designer…I figured that I would design the business cards, build the website, photograph the projects, but still maintain my freelance graphic design business. But after a year or so, we started getting more and more busy with the interior design work, and Jennifer was pulling me into project after project…And before I realized it, I was an interior designer more then I was a graphic designer. I’ve been doing this for almost 10 years now, and it sometimes still surprises me where I ended up! But looking back, even though I never really thought that I cared about interior design, I always wanted my dorm room and apartments to look nice. If I could find the bed I wanted, I would just build one. I was also always interested in architecture…When I lived in New York, I would often grab my camera on a beautiful spring/summer day, and roam the city taking photos of the buildings. And when I think back, when I was boy, I can remember a time when I drew up a floor plan to the house I envisioned myself living in one day…It was very modern, with a double-height open living room/great room, a catwalk, and a large metal spiral staircase. Now, I don’t think that I’ll even live in a house like that (I like traditional shingle-style houses too much!), but to this day, I remember the passion I had while drawing that plan, and how important it was for me to get all of the details right, and to make sure that the catwalk and the spiral staircase flowed well and fit properly into the open space that it was in. So, maybe I really did want to be an interior designer after all, without fully knowing it.


What inspires you?


I am constantly inspired by visionary people and the things that they create, whether it’s one of Wes Anderson’s quirky, beautiful films, Richard Avedon’s stunning, timeless photographs or Michael Schwab’s distinct retro travel style graphic art posters. When I see something that resonates with me, it grabs a hold of me in my gut, and makes when want to design and create, and to achieve that perfect moment when you have created something that is as great as you can possibly make it be. And I’m inspired by the works of other designers as well…It’s amazing when we think about how to design a room or a piece of furniture…And then stop to think about all of the other ways different designers might have achieve a variety of different results.


If you could be remembered for one thing, what would it be?


I would love to be remembered for creating things that made people happy…One of the more satisfying feelings that Jennifer and I have had professionally is when we have created beautiful interiors for a client, and they walk in and see it for the first time, and are so happy that they can barely express what they are feeling. THAT right there is a drug…That’s a high we want to get back to again and again! And speaking of inspiration, that feeling is what inspires us to constantly challenge ourselves, to push our creativity, and to always be on the lookout for new things that inspire us.


What are your favorite products, websites or vices that you simply can't live without?


Some of my favorite products are furnishings that I know I may never have in my life…I am very attracted to industrial style lighting and furniture, the kind of things you would see in a really cool Tribeca loft. But that doesn’t necessarily fit into my life now in small shingle-style house with a wife and family of two boys, four dogs, and two cats. So, for now, I’m content that it will be an affair…A flirtation from afar, most likely never to be realized. But hey, I can dream, right…?

Also, I can’t live without Dr Pepper. At the end of a long day, when we sit down for a delicious home-cooked dinner, a nice, frosty Dr Pepper can taste like liquid gold strained through a hangman’s noose.


Speaking of gold...





(look at those walls!)









(all images property of Mabley Handler Interior Design)


But my favorite spaces? My very FAVEoritest?
The Mabley Handler's private residence. 







WANTWANTWANTWANT!




Aren't they just the cutest? Forget that they're not old enough, I think that they need to adopt me. Why don't y'all get on board the convincing train and just help me out. We just need for Jennifer and Austin to realize that if they adopted me they would never have to hire someone to watch their boys for date night ever again. Nanny schmanny.


If you think you like Mabley Handler as much as I do (totally not possible) then feel free to stalk them in numerous ways:









Pillow Decor - Fire Coral Red 17x17 Throw Pillow123 Creations C762.18x18 inch Coral Colored Coral Needlepoint Pillow - 100 Percent WoolPillow Decor - Red Coral 22x22 Decorative Pillow


Arteriors 49846-892 Bexley Aqua Glass Lamp, Aqua