Provencal Kidney Bedside
Silk and Satin sheets
Genevieve Mirror
Costes Chandelier
These are some pics of a quirky sweet shop in Covent Garden. This is the way I always imagined a candy store should look like. The shop can be hired by the hour or closed for a full day for photoshoots. I just love the colours and glass jar displays at the back.
Photographs from Light Locations.
Congratulations to Samm and Charissa for each winning a set of greeting cards with drawings by artist Julia Staite, sponsored by Imagekind.
Happy Mother's Day!
ohh....I just love the warm honey colour (below) of these arm chairs by French designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. Named the 'Papyrus', these chairs were designed for Kartell and launched at the Milan 08 furniture fair last month. Made from transparent polycarbonate, the Papyrus armchair is inspired by the linear, well-defined structure of vintage chairs. For more info and pictures, see here.
Coffee, sugar and spoon in one, this tubular design by designer Hye-Yeon holds both the instant coffee and the sugar/creamer in one neat package. When the contents are poured out, you simply use the package itself as a spoon to stir your brew.
This video excerpt is given by Allan Chochinov (of Core77 fame) at the PSFK Conference New York 08. While what he says is nothing revolutionary, I have to admit that I do allow myself to forget some of these fundamental values of a designer, take myself too seriously and doubt the neccessity of "process".
Quote from video
"You have to make a lot of shit if you want to create something of significance. The attempt is to “clever” your way to a solution without cranking out a lot of work. You need to give a shit about what you do. Need to make your work personal. In this time of focus groups and user testing, with the tyranny of the user going on, I think we’re starting to commoditize creativity and turning ourselves into problem solving machines and innovation specialists. Forgetting there’s a reason they called us in the first place. The students able to find a place that was personal not only were more successful but they had a lot more fun. Don’t work on shit jobs, only create artifacts and services of value…" (quote via Design Sojourn)
I was recently browsing through pvuk when I came across the work of UK based freelance illustrator Julia Staite. Really love the colours in her whimsical and childlike mixed media collages. 
(above) Mother's Day Giveaway
Yup! Another honey post for honey and lovely packaging addicts out there! This lovely design is from littlefury. Love the colour and the "cassette tape like" packaging of this product that is so different from the conventional round honey jars/tubes we usually find. Not sure whether something as beautiful as this will be practical enough to store honey on the kitchen shelf though. One thing for sure, the ants will definitely love it! 
Did you know that the wedding fashion diva Vera Wang has a stationary collection? And do I have to say how gorgeous it is? I just love these wonderful vintage and handmade-looking lasercut pattern notes. I can just see these details taken off one of her exquisite gowns.
What a pretty way to welcome Spring! Klein Dytham architecture have created outdoor furniture resembling giant pink flowers for a cherry blossom party in Tokyo. The seats and tables are made from polystyrene and coated with a urethane surface which "spreads the pressure and stops people in kimonos from puncturing the polystyrene with their chop sticks!" Lovely! (via Dezeen)
I love these whimsical graphic stickers from French company Harmonie Interieure. Really like the vintage coloured stains on their walls and the polaroid pics too! Looks like it is coming out of the pages of an old fairy tale story book.
London-based architecture and design studio Voon Wong & Benson Saw have created a cloud-like installation using polystyrene cups for the opening of a design store in Malaysia. (Via Dezeen)
(above) A vinyl plant!
(above) A vinyl wall clock
Chocolate-pencils is a collaboration between Design Studio Nendo with patissier Tsujiguchi Hironobu, the mastermind behind popular dessert shops like Mont St. Claire and Le Chocolat de H.
Have you seen anything like this before? This amazing book-lined staircase is part of Veronika and Sebastian's rental apartment.London-based Levitate Architects came up with this ingenious solution to a book storage problem. The books are even sorted by colour! With a stairs like this, it will probably take me forever to reach the top! I would love to see a bookstore or library designed along this concept of storage-cum display. (Via Apartment Therapy)
I am just fascinated by the labour-intensive work by book artist Rachel Hazell. Rachel designs, writes, illustrates, prints, binds and exhibits book-related work using age-old labour-intensive methods. The tiny booklets she created above are handpainted and handsewn - using a medieval long stitch. Perfect for tiny sketches on the beach or poems with few words. (via Oh Joy) 
Isn't this chair simply gorgeous?? Designed by Nendo for the XXIst Century Man exhibition curated by Issey Miyake, the cabbage chair is made out of the pleated paper that is produced in mass amounts during the process of making pleated fabric. This paper is usually abandoned as an unwanted by-product.
This is for all handmade jewellery lovers out there! Sparkle Thots is organising a mini contest to find out what you love about them. Anyone can take part, regardless of which country you are in or whether you have bought anything before. All you need to do is to tell them what you love about them, which item you really like in particular and you might get it for FREE! 
