just in time for holiday packaging: lovely letterpressed tags from old tom foolery. $6-$8.50 right here.

just a little friday morning eye-candy to start the day: i’m loving these beautiful tablescapes by lynn butler of the product gallery. i wish i was eating my morning breakfast at that table. [via ms weddings]

ps: click here to check out roseline’s great guest blog posts on plaids…

If you’ve visited {this is glamorous}, you’ll recognize a fondness for tartan & plaid, and when the days become shorter and there’s a heavy briskness in the air, the coziness of wool plaid blankets and the comfort of the woven striped patterns make the cold seem but a memory . . .

Incorporating tartans & plaids at home can be as elegantly simple as using standard drum lampshades, recovered with a favorite wool tartan or stripe for a stylishly warm highland chic.

{patterns shown, begining third from the left:}
Lomond Tartan {F5880/01} wool
Lomond Stripe {F5882/03} wool
Lomond Tartan {F5880/03} wool
{all Osborne & Little}

{p.s.}
It’s been a delightful week here at the d*s guest blog — thanks so much for stopping in, and special thanks again to Grace.

Have a lovely weekend! Roséline
{this is glamorous}
xo

{images: 1+2 – photography by Venetia Scott for British Vogue September 2008; 3 – House & Garden October 2008}

Few things are more luxurious than exquisite fabrics, and as with Muriel Brandolini’s fabric-covered walls, using beautiful fabrics in unexpected places, such as headboards made of daffodil Dupioni silk {top} or soft, golden mohair {bottom} add a tactile warmth and elegance that, snow as it might, makes bundling up for the evening a cozy delight . . .

{images: top -photography by Mel Yates for Livingetc. April 2008; bottom – photography by Mark Darley for California Home and Design, November 2008 via katiedid}

maya at maya*made sent over this great before & after- complete with an online tutorial. she rescued this salvaged chair with a hand-stenciled linen fabric and the result is simply fantastic. to view her full project steps (and more pictures) just click here. [thanks, maya!]

today’s sneak peek takes us into the 2 story loft of sarah fox (cursive design) and jon satrom in chicago’s noble square neighborhood. between the two they make jewelry, home accessories, art, teach and own studio thread (a small video production company that primarily works with artist and non-profits). everything is run out of their home so they needed a versatile, functional space for living and working. despite being a small space, the open floor plan was the answer to their problems. click here for more, full-sized images. [thanks so much sarah and jon!] -anne

[above: 1st floor - this room is our main living area. it's a living room, dining room, kitchen and my studio. it's basically our everything room. there is a bathroom on this floor and our porch connects off to the side. when we first saw this place we fell pretty hard for the brick, exposed timber and ductwork.]

this is our dining room/my studio. in the morning i pull the curtain open and sit down to work. and at night when i’m done for the day i can pull it close and unwind. my studio used to be in the basement and i really craved being up here in the natural light. i’m finding that more influences from nature are popping up in my work since i’ve moved up here.

this is my favorite piece in our apartment. the tord boontje midsummer night light in white. tord boontje is one of my favorite designers and i draw so much inspiration in my own work from this piece. the owl plate was a wedding gift a friend got for us in portugal. and the print is from third drawer down. (it was way too pretty to use as a dish towel)

i really wanted wallpaper for this room but couldn’t afford anything i was looking at. so i decided to hand paint, and silver leaf a pattern of my own design. i am in love with this mustard color and i think bathrooms are for trying out a bold look. a couple months ago i got lena corwin’s printing by hand book and learned how to make my own stamp for hand printing. the pear/tear drop shape was a stamp i made and the vines are hand-painted and silver-leafed.

this is our 1st floor bathroom. i painted it this fresh mint color. the shower curtain is marimekko and the print is from golden hen press.

our porch is our salvation. it doubles our living space in warmer months. we basically live and entertain friends out here for 6 months out of the year. my favorite thing this year was the bunny tail grass i grew from seed and my organic herb garden. sadly our “porch season” is ending but i think we have a couple days left. the porch furniture is from a thrift store. i re-painted them and stained/sealed the wood. the table was a bookcase i found in the alley and re-fashioned it into a table. the white standing planter is from cb2, and the hurricanes are from crate & barrel.

our bedroom in downstairs. we built the room ourselves. built a frame, hung the drywall, mudded, sanded, primed, and painted. (phew!) it is a very small bedroom which we like. it feels cozier to us. we also need every square inch of the space behind this room for jon’s studio, and our video production studio for studio thread. here is our lovely cat megabyte (mega). the weather is getting a little colder now and soon she will be all the way under these covers. the quilt was a wedding gift, the light blue duvet is marimekko, the white & blue pillowcase is also marimekko (and i’m just now realizing just how much marimekko stuff we have…) the yellow pillow case is from ikea.

this before and after makeover makes the most of one of my favorite diy tools- stencils. d*s reader taryn mccabe explained that “instead of doing [her] homework” she decided to stencil her lanai. i’m all for school work but sometimes a little side project like this is perfect to clear your mind and refocus- especially when it turns out this well. the color is so cheery and bright- perfect for a small outdoor space like this. thanks to taryn for sharing!

ps: stay tuned for a special sneak peek next, and a beautiful vintage-inspired wedding tomorrow!

over night we made a few small changes at d*s and i just wanted to point them out quickly. if you look above this post you’ll see the top bar menu has changed slightly: in addition to a biz ladies page (new dates will be announced in january!) where our information docs are available to download, we’ve removed the job board (sadly it just didn’t generate enough interest) and added a new page: budget-friendly design.

with the economy being what it is, i know it’s important for everyone to have options that are easy on your wallet. so from now on i’ll be tagging posts that are budget friendly and they’ll appear on that page with a little thumbnail image to explain what the post is about. for me, diy posts are a great way to keep costs down, but i won’t be tagging them there because at this point there are so many on d*s that it would push everything else off the page. so the budget page will focus on cost-focused product roundups and posts that have a specific budget angle. i hope this will help with our tightening budgets. stay tuned for our budget-friendly holiday gift guides after thanksgiving!

also: we’ve added the “in the kitchen with” recipes and all d*s videos to the left menu bar (they havr the word “new” in bold next to them)

last week d*s reader laura jean sent in her first ever “trash-to-treasure” creation- a hutch makeover. she found this top part of a hutch in the trash on a streetcorner in her brooklyn neighborhood. so she picked up some sandpaper, a can of paint and some toile wallpaper from ebay ($15) and created a “new” piece of furniture for around $32 all together. you can’t beat an affordable makeover. click here for more information on laura jean’s project.

d*s reader carrie willrich found this fantastic cabinet at the salvation army (why does my local salvation army only have broken plastic coffee tables? i’m so jealous) and decided to paint it a bright apple green and finish the back of the cabinet with flocked yellow wallpaper. i like the piece both ways but it’s always fun to see what a little color and pattern brings to a piece. thanks to carrie for sharing!