One of the wonderful aspects of our apartment is the 12 foot ceilings — but it also means an almost overwhelming amount of white wall. We’d been struggling with how to fill the space. (In my fantasy apartment, we’d hang a beautiful large scale Michael Abrams).

And, as much as I’d like to do a photo wall like the ones I blogged about recently, I don’t really have the photos, time or patience to start on a project of that scale (some day!!). However, we’d both seen this image in Elle Decor of a map of Paris that had been cut up and framed:

This bathroom is also in my home clipping book (loving multiples of botanicals right now…):

The idea of cutting up an image and framing it inspired us to put one of my favorite BluePrint ideas to use. Blueprint is one of my favorite magazines these days — they just really get me and my demographic — I feel that magazines like it (that combine shopping, design, culture and cooking in a smart, beautifully designed package) are the future of “women’s magazines”. I cherish each issue and actually save them and re-read them, which is something I’ve never done with a magazine before. In any case, in their March/April 2007 issue they featured “Quick Change” Art installations using “jobbers” or shop ticket holders which I thought was awesome:

I did some searching online and found jobjacketstore.com (25 for $30 = affordable). The husband found a site, rasterbator, that takes images and raztorizes them (turns them into a set of 8.5 by 11 images). We choose a 4 by 4 but we could have done much larger 8 by 8 for those of you with lofts in a city not NYC. It was also his idea to use a snapshot from our honeymoon (in PARIS!!) of the Effiel Tower. We printed them out on our home printer, slipped them into the sleeves, stuck them on the walls with basic office tape (which in my experience has the least negative effects on walls) and we were in business!! I’m really pleased with how they came out.

Action shots:

And, result:

I think this would look great with landscapes, done in color (abuse that work color printer!), or of a vintage snapshot, scanned and uploaded. The best part is that since the sleeves have a slot at the top it is easy to change these as often as you want.

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Country Living did a piece on these vintage serving trays manufactured by Nashco in the 1920s- 1950s — they were used for serving drinks or appetizers or used as wall hangings. Similar french trays are known as Toleware. However I like the funky feel of these American pieces — prices range from $20-$50 and Ebay has a great selection. I bought these at the last second on ebay for $11.62! I’m thinking of hanging them in my office, I think there is something really romantic about hot air balloons. This second is another type of Nashco tray — more traditional, but still stricking.

Founded in 1977, the Society works to promote and support the study and understanding of design history. (How cool is that?) Its activities are focused on demonstrating the widespread cultural and economic significance of design history.

New Obsession: Water Lillies and Container Water Gardens. I’ve started one of my very own, which started as a wee root sitting in a huge container on my porch. I purchased a lightweight 20inch container from Home Depot (to make sure the lilly could be submerged 12-18 inches) and a lilly plant. I put the plant root into the aquatic soil I bought at Home Depot and made sure to really limit the “organic material” ie soil in the water, as soil can cause algee. I left it alone for three weeks, making sure to keep the water topped up. After about two weeks of very little action, lilly pads started poping up! Then, I added an aquatic iris and star rush plant, which I may have done too soon, as the water turned 100% slimmy algae and smelled 100% like a pond. I let it sit like that for a week or so, and then changed out about half the water and the algae cleared up. I then added guppies and two snails, who seem very happy. Now I’m waiting for the lilly to bloom!

Update: Here is some great ‘how-to’ on water gardening from Home & Garden TV.

K. at work brought me this delight — a huge scrapbook that seems to date from the 1930s-1960s! It is overflowing with pages pasted with images of fantastic oversized corn, lettuce, pumpkins, calling cards, flower arrangements, gardening catalogue clippings, lots of photos of Navy-men and even a few silhouettes. Its is obviously the work of a lifetime and many of the pages are organized by COLOR, glorious and so modern in their approach. This is just a tease — stay tuned for more images!

Brendan Dawes’ Cinema Redux project is refreshingly real — he has created a small piece of software that samples a movie every second and generates an 8 x 6 pixel image. It does this for the entire film, with each row representing one minute of film time. The resulting image is random and unified at once. I of course am draw to it because I’m drawn to multiples in any form. However, there is a bit of voyeurism here, almost as if each of these is a window we can’t quite look into. It seems that I’m not the only person impressed, MOMA is including this project in a 2008 exhibition. I look forward to seeing these in person. Not to mention — Dawes’ website is worth a trip alone. His use of videoclips is unique and changes the experience of using his website.

Silhouettes are such elegant distillations — like the tree in the clipping above, which is such a beautiful representation of a tree. I clipped the image above out of an Air France magazine last year — I thought it was such a smart use of silhouettes (and the jewels are gorgeous, too).

While on vacation, we stayed at my cousin’s lake house, known to the family as Pickle Pine. For as long as I can remember and a good deal longer than that, there have been silhouettes on the walls there. Similar to the wonderwalls I blogged about yesterday, hanging multiples on your walls is a nice way to highlight family or collections — in this case, both. These silhouettes below are all of family members through various generations. A nice alternative to family snapshots.

If traditional silhouettes don’t do it for you, check out Karl Johnson’s work (top image above) I love the armadillo (very fresh) and on his site. He’ll do custom silhouettes of your pets, children, home! The bottom image is a fabric from Quadrille’s “Paradise Background” in Tinted Linen which is yet another way to include silhouettes in your home. Finally, for the lazy, check out moooi.com for their “Pantheon” throw, which would be perfect for picnics or a late summer dinner party tablecloth.

I found this silhouette above in an antiques place in New Hampshire — around a hundred years old, it was selling for $190, which was too expensive for my cheap self. And, the dead soldiers are a little creepy on the bottom right. Once you’ve got your eye out for them, its amazing where silhouettes turn up and to see the real diversity of images artists make with just paper and scissors.

One last project that I’ve been meaning to make since the day I saw it in Martha uses iron-on transfers and totebags. If you have more great silhouettes, send them my way and I’ll post them up here and on Flickr.

I think this is a great way to fill a large wall, to showcase a collection, your children’s art, your travel photos, family snapshots. I believe in living with photographs (and memories, I guess). I’ve never seen the point of photo albums you only look at every other year. I’m thinking about making a wall of the vintage photos I’m slowly collecting or maybe just of family snapshots both from my parents and grandparents as well as my own. These are from my house journal, the book I keep of all the images that inspire me for the home. They come from Domino, Elle Decor, House Beautiful, New York Magazine and others, all in the last year. While I was on vacation I finally had time to catch up on my clipping . One of the pleasures of keeping a journal like this is that it is easy to see patterns over time — that an idea, item, color continually interests me. My favorite image is the top above — I like the idea of displaying/framing fabric. I have fabric that I will never use on a chair or pillow (because, really how many upholstered chairs/pillows does one woman need?) that I’d love to find a way to use in my life.

(Via Flickr)

(Via Flickr)

Over all I think that the walls that work the best are the ones with different types of frames. How to make one yourself, easily? Check out these two options from the Conran Store, the Antix Multiframe kit and the Picture Wall Gallery Frame Set.

UPDATE: I came across this funky image today via Liquid Sky Arts: