Buying Art (and inspiration) Online

"Tea Bird" image from ohmycavalier's Etsy shop (see below)

There's been much ado about Etsy lately that I just can't stay away from it! I click on a link to see the art in question, and the next thing you know, I've spent 45 minutes looking at jewelry...

While this isn't great for my career (I end up staying late at the office), it is good for my little artist's soul.

And while photography is my One True Love, and pottery a close second, nothing beats the sublime beauty of a simple sketch...

So I finally bought my first two online art pieces from ohmycavalier's shop.

The first is the lovely little bird print shown above. I adored this print because it's simple and sort of naive, but it was the little bird feet that sold me on it. They are just so delicate and perfect - simple lines whose precision tells you this is a very skilled artist! I also love that the print was painted using tea!

And the second print, "Tangle Hair", I love because it's mythical looking and old-fashioned and gestural, and I have a little thing for swallows and period dresses with great necklines...



I will frame these for the entrance of our house.

Inspiration: Oh so blue...and muted

A lthough I change my mind about 50 times per day, I've recently begun to really narrow down what makes my heart sing loudest when I look at decor photos and when I study beautiful rooms. Here are a couple of rooms I truly love, courtesy of the amazing shoot factory. What is there not to love about these grand, spare spaces? But it's the colours...the whites and pale watery blues and grey that I long for most.

I recently painted my office the same saturated blue (and white) shown in the top two photos....

In Our Garden

At last, some photos taken in the gardens of our new home in early June...I need to do an update already!

Calgary sits in a cold, arid gardening zone (Zone 2-3), so sadly, our gardens lag behind those in much of the rest of Canada and other warmer climates. Our peonies haven't bloomed yet, while in some parts of the country, they're already past their prime! However, we are a hardy and optimistic lot, us desert gardeners, so in Calgary, we wait. And we savour our precious blooms, which change and grow every day but seem o-so-slow unfurling.... Containers of impatiens, verbena, dahlias, alyssum, and such on the front steps (above).
The shade garden (above) in our back yard, full of ferns and hostas, wonderful sweet woodruff (which has since filled the bed), and a little Japanese pagoda we inherited. We rested Davey's antique gate against the fence and placed a low-slung pot of geraniums in the crook of the mayday tree (back).
My three herb containers (above) with a cedar box in the background, which is full of coniferous shrubs and an ornamental caragana. We planted heather in the cedar box this year. My herb garden is luscious with lemon balm, basil, rosemary, chives, humble parsley, and several varieties of thyme, my favorite herb.
One of two new columbines (above) I planted this year. If it survives the winter, it will spread into new stalks, which will climb the fence alongside the original.
Pots on a window ledge (above) containing the ubiquitous geranium, and bacopa (the little white flowers), which remind me of wild strawberry flowers.

The cedar box, again, plus my precious herbs. The little cymbal-playing cupid/muse was inherited from the previous owners whose tastes ran to the traditional. Note the solar lanterns we have scattered throughout the beds, to add a moonlit glow at night.
Hydrangeas starting to fill out (they will get very tall), plus lamium (purple nettle), I think...
Containers in the front yard, where we have a "dry river bed" rock garden feature. The spikey purple flowers are salvia, which I love. There are also pansies and crysanthemums and stuff that wasn't yet in bloom since the pots had just been planted.

Another pot of snapdragons and osteospermum (sp?) under our crabapple tree in the front yard. The neighbours dogs like to run around here. A cotoneaster hedge sits in the background...

Fleurs

Some flowers from a recent dinner party.

My Mom was here visiting for 2 weeks but returned home last weekend. Her visit and her company was simply wonderful. I miss her so now that she's left, but I have some wonderful memories, especially memories of her here in our new house. It was her first visit, and since she lives several thousand miles away, it may be the last for a year or two. But now I have memories of her here, to keep me company, and she has context now for all my stories. But more about that later.

I'm lonesome for my kind and lovely Mom (who is great company, like a best friend only better...a best Mom!) but I'm keeping busy with work and our bountiful backyard garden, which is revealing new wonders every day. I will soon post about the garden, shopping for a console table for the living room, and other exciting bits, like choosing paint colours for the office. Oh, and I also borrowed several decorating books from the library, including Pottery Barn's Work Spaces (for office planning) and a gorgeous book published in Spain called Cozy Atmospheres: Bedrooms, which is terribly inspiring and makes me want to do the whole house "rustic" with lots of relaxed, natural materials...I wish I could stop changing my mind about which styles I love most - it's making this nest-building process awfully hard. I keep falling in love with new things...

Decorating Crushes: I am presently in love with feathers and light watery colours, like pale blue, and things from the seaside like driftwood and polished stones. And anything and everything white!

More updates soon.