Dommie

Vintage Door Dress Up

I wanted to share this idea for a wedding and summer party
of using a vintage door as a beautiful feature within a outdoor setting

dommie

Nest Vintage . Take Five Interview

 

Hi there! 

     I am Annie and I have a little furniture shop in Golden Hill, San Diego.

Its called Nest Vintage, we buy,sell and trade vintage furniture and homewares ..... heres a link to our blog:

 

http://nestvintage.com/blog/wordpress/ 

What is the most inspirational thing you have seen this month ?

 

Truthfully, the most inspirational thing I've seen this month is not design related.
I saw Roller Derby and its the most awesome thing ever, go watch it! The girls will amaze you! They certainly amazed me.

 

Tell us about a new tune/artist that have you been listening to throughout 2011

 

My co-workers kept telling me that I would really like this band called Hello Seahorse. They were right. 

 

Do you have any yummy recipes or food must haves you wish to tell us about ?

 

I'll just be honest here, I'm a Virgo and therefore a health freak.
My favorite thing to force on loved ones is Kale Juice.
I throw kale in the juicer with green apples, carrots and ginger.
Looks disgusting but tastes great and your body will love you for nourishing it. 

 

 

What is your favourite smell this month ?

 

Sugar cookies with cream cheese frosting. No way I'll eat them but damn they smell great. ok, maybe I'll have one, just one.

 

 

What home interior updates did you make this year ?

 

Sometimes in the furniture business its hard not to take stuff home.
It must be similar to what an animal lover working at the humane society feels.
I went to a girls house to pick up furniture she wanted to sell and she had a framed illustration of a cheerful little whale swimming in the sea.
I loved it so much it caused my heart to elevator drop.
She sold it to me, its in my living room now and it makes my heart happy every time I see it. 

 

thanks!!

Annie @ Nest Vintage

 

2012 Plan

 

I have kept up my promise to myself to write notes and sketch every day
and I have to say that it suits me well

My brain has a million and one ideas - a day
some rubbish, some rather huge if they were to be created and alot very cute

I find that popping my ideas onto paper
makes room in my head for more thought
as I know that my other ideas are safely nestled between sheets of paper

dommie

Bottle Apron Gift Idea

With Mother's Day coming up
how about a sweet little idea for making a washing up liquid look mighty lovely

dommie

Mmmmm Salad

To anyone who is on a diet and a bit fed up by now of salad
take a tip from me - pop some flowers on and just smile at your food

It still tastes the same and you will still hanker after a Mars Bar
but they do make meal times rather pretty

I myself - am not on a diet - diets make me sad ;)
but I will be prettying up my food with flowers this year anyway

dommie

Bruce Mau . Incomplete Manifesto for Growth

Why do I love the internet so ?

Well ..... just as I am about to put down my second cup of coffee of this early Sunday morning
go and pop on some tunes, open the windows, burn coconut incense (sickly but I am addicted) and have a shower
I stumbled upon this Incomplete Manifesto for Growth from Bruce Mau

 !!!!! WOW !!!!!

Read, absorb, enjoy .....

1. Allow events to change you. 
   You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
   
   
2. Forget about good. 
   Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth.
   
   
3. Process is more important than outcome. 
   When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.
   
   
4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). 
   Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
   
   
5. Go deep. 
   The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.
   
   
6. Capture accidents. 
   The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.
   
   
7. Study. 
   A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.
   
   
8. Drift. 
   Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.
   
   
9. Begin anywhere. 
   John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.
   
   
10. Everyone is a leader. 
    Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.
    
    
11. Harvest ideas. 
    Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.
    
    
12. Keep moving. 
    The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.
    
    
13. Slow down. 
    Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.
    
    
14. Don’t be cool. 
    Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.
    
    
15. Ask stupid questions. 
    Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.
    
    
16. Collaborate. 
    The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.
    
    
17. ____________________. 
    Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.
    
    
18. Stay up late. 
    Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you’re separated from the rest of the world.
    
    
19. Work the metaphor. 
    Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.
    
    
20. Be careful to take risks. 
    Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.
    
    
21. Repeat yourself. 
    If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.
    
    
22. Make your own tools. 
    Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.
    
    
23. Stand on someone’s shoulders. 
    You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.
    
    
24. Avoid software. 
    The problem with software is that everyone has it.
    
    
25. Don’t clean your desk. 
    You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.
    
    
26. Don’t enter awards competitions. 
    Just don’t. It’s not good for you.
    
    
27. Read only left-hand pages. 
    Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our "noodle."
    
    
28. Make new words. 
    Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.
    
    
29. Think with your mind. 
    Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.
    
    
30. Organization = Liberty. 
    Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a ‘charming artifact of the past.’
    
    
31. Don’t borrow money. 
    Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.
    
    
32. Listen carefully. 
    Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.
    
    
33. Take field trips. 
    The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.
    
    
34. Make mistakes faster. 
    This isn’t my idea — I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.
    
    
35. Imitate. 
    Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You’ll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.
    
    
36. Scat. 
    When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else … but not words.
    
    
37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.
    
    
38. Explore the other edge. 
    Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.
    
    
39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms. 
    Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces — what Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference — the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals — but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.
    
    
40. Avoid fields. 
    Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.
    
    
41. Laugh. 
    People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I’ve become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.
    
    
42. Remember. 
    Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.
    
    
43. Power to the people. 
    Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can’t be free agents if we’re not free.

There are so many FANTASTIC points that relate so wonderfully to how I want to live my life in 2012 and beyond

I am going to make a point of referring back to this manifesto throughout the weeks
as I find it truly empowering, inspiring and also grounding

dommie 

Send Your Kiss

 

I have had such a busy weekend making my new Send a Kiss Gifts
and making batches up of the old style gifts that have been so popular for many years

You can see my whole range here and make a purchase if and when you wish

When creating a range of products
I find that the most popular will rise to the top
( everyone loves the simple red kiss )
yet - it sometimes keeps your own love of your product alive
to just make an alternative or two
to just fiddle about with and see your product in a whole new light

dommie

While You Were Sleeping

 

Recently I have been spending alot of time caring for a VERY dear loved one
yet
it is was what I call 'a good op'
yep alot of ouchs and eeeeeks but NOW !!!!! my little lady is feeling the benefits of her new hip
and I am so happy that she is meeting 2012 with all her dreams and reality of gardening
and going on trips with family and friends

While my little lady was having an afternoon snooze
I popped into the kitchen and had five minutes of flowers diy fun
from scraps of items that I had to hand 

..... and when she awoke there was this sweet little flower
sitting happily in it's new home on the kitchen window sill

dommie

Pretty Up

When sending a little thank you to your neighbours
remember to grab some ribbon, a tag, and a card
and ta dah !!!!! a cute looking gift in an instant

dommie

Spread the Love

 

This is way too cute

dommie