Loving this painting, “My Imagined Heartbeat” by Rebecca Urias found on the Shiny Squirrel.

You may have noticed a cute little koi pond has taken up residence on my sidebar. Click anywhere on the pond to “feed” the fish and they will move around and be extra cute. Note that the combination of 8 goldfish and one black goldfish is especially auspicious! You can make a custom pond of your very own here.

Utowa, my favorite flower shop in NYC, just launched a new and improved online photo gallery full of delicious floral inspiration. The photo up top is of what you’ll see when you walk into their store: find them off line at 1 West 19th Street.

Montana was great. We went fly fishing every night in the stream right by our sod house (an entire post on that later!).

Me taking a break from said fly fishing with my mom.

Mom: who caught more fish than than the rest of us combined.

Click on the image above to see more detail of what can only be called one awesome dollhouse. Made in the 17th century for Petronella Oortman, a wealthy Amsterdam lady, I’d argue that this was where she stored some of her ideas about interiors she loved (similar to the blogworld, or our clipping files). As much as we’re different we are the same. More here.

This water garden was last summer’s big outdoor project, complete with a tiny fish and two happy snails.

See them all here.

This round up of writer’s work rooms is one of my favorite posts ever.

One of my favorite things in the world is auction house catalogs.

More here.

More here.

More info on where to buy here!

Flashback: Domino’s awesome DIY wreath…. now is the time to collect those shells!

We’re packed for Montana and we’ll be on the road at 5:30am (groan, but saving lots of money along the way).  I’ll be back on the 30th — see you all then!

PS: I’m feeling inspired by Camilla Engman’s lovely photos from her recent vacation.

PPS: While I’m away I’m running some of my favorite posts from the deepest archives of Design Scouting which I hope will inspire you in one way or another.

The gray chairs in this lovely apartment (belonging to Deborah Needleman of Domino!) have been on my mind recently. I love the laid back, elegant color gray and the sweetly feminine style of the chairs. I’d love to find this fabric — anyone know what it might be? PS the rest of the apartment is fantastic and full of inspiration for real living. I love the matching rugs, the firewood and the love settee, too.

I’m pen obsessed. I have different pens for various tasks (list making, thank yous, love notes, taking notes in class). For a while, all I used was a certain pink Pentel Papermate Flair. This afternoon, I spied this Caran D’Arch Essentially Swiss pen and snapped it up. YES those are silhouettes on that pen!  I’m going back to writing checks just so I can whip this baby out. What is your favorite pen brand?

PS. Now my pen matches my sigg bottle!