a creative mint

"DECORATE WORKSHOP" Blog Tour

2012-11-27T00:07:00-08:00

I am sharing one of my dear friend's books with you today. Decorate Workshop:Design and Style Your Space in 8 Creative Steps, is the second fabulous decorating book by Holly Becker of Decor8. I have had the absolute pleasure of knowing Holly for three and a half years now, we have worked, traveled and spent countless hours laughing and chatting together. She is a fantastic teacher and wow, does Holly ever have an incredible eye for design. She just gets it, design and decorating are innate for her. Decorate Workshop is filled with her unpretentious accessible approach to decorating. An amazing step by step design lesson for you to transform your house into a home that reflects you and your style. I can't wait to sit down and read through this book again from cover to cover as it is so full of useful and beautiful information.

As I have been photographing this book I cannot help but be inspired for the many craft and design projects I have got going on. I thought it would be fun to share the photos I took while looking at the gorgeous images in Holly's book captured be Debi Treloar. Debi is one of my favorite photographers and she is a lovely person. It has been a treat spending time with her on a few occasions.

Here is the first "inspired by" photo and every other image will be now throughout the post.

Holly created inspiring mood board collections throughout the book that kept me flipping the pages wanting more!

I especially loved how Holly shared her own home in the book and explained the design decisions she made to create such a gorgeous and creative space.

Holly also had Samantha Hahn create illustrated floor plans of all the homes in the book. They add such a unique element and help you clearly understand the layout of each space.

Holly's home studio and work space looks like just the place I would want to hang out in!

I really enjoyed being included in the Decorate Workshop blog tour that Chronicle Books has organized. I have only featured a couple books on my site and they are ones I love, have read through and want to share with you. Great job Holly, BIG cheers from Vancouver Island!!!

Thanks for visiting me today and I will see you back here soon. xoleslie

Ocean Inspired

2012-10-02T20:31:52-07:00

Hello,

I am back here playing catch up!

I wanted to post this series that I did back in May for my Color Me Pretty column on decor8. At the time I was enjoying playing with ocean blues, like aqua, ultramarine, indigo and pale blue. Please visit decor8 to read my full post. I am still painting a lot with my watercolors and will share more soon.

Thank you for visiting me here,

xoleslie

Updates and Flowers

2012-09-24T13:38:37-07:00

Hello friends,

Sorry I have been missing from this space for so long. I took the summer (and a couple more months) to focus on my family and various other creative projects. I will be back here more regularily now and thought you would enjoy catching up with some of these links.

In May my friend Kathy Davis, who is one of the most inspiring and creative women around, posted this interview of my mother and I on her blog that you may enjoy.

In June I did this recap of my visit to the New York Stationery Show.

In July I shot most of the photos above using flowers from my mother's garden.

In August I attended an incredible Angele Ritchie Ace Camp with the delightful, talented and generous Aran Goyoaga of Cannelle et Vanille in Whistler B.C. You can read about it on her blog (one of my absolute favorite blogs ever) right here and click through from there to see many of my fellow Ace camper's wonderful work.

I almost forgot, I also update my Pinterest boards daily. You can see all the things that are interesting me there. Do you use Pinterest? Let me know.

I look forward to being back here and thank you for all your wonderful emails while I was away. I totally appreciated being missed and was quite touched by it. Thank you.

xoleslie

Happy Spring

2012-04-07T21:23:51-07:00

Hello!

I hope you are enjoying your weekend.

It has been a beautiful spring holiday weekend here in Victoria. Clear blue skies and cherry blossoms everywhere! Today I spent three hours on the beach with my family. We enjoyed a picnic lunch and hunted for sea glass. I imagine collecting enough to fill some jars in varying colors. One jar filled with blue glass pieces, another with green glass and one with clear white pieces. I think that the collection of jars could look really pretty on a shelf, don't you? I have seen some people collect a tiny bit of sand from various beaches they have visited on holidays. I like the idea of gathering pretty specimens that take you back to a place.

I hope you enjoy these photographs from my "Color Me Pretty" column in case you missed it a week ago.

See you back here soon,

xoleslie