i wanted to wrap up this week with some beautiful new textiles from the john robshaw fall 2009 collection. i’m currently trying to find a replacement for my aging robshaw coverlet and there are so many possibilities here. i always love the rich colors he brings to his work- they’re a fantastic way to perk up your bedroom without breaking out the paint cans. click here for more info on john’s work. until monday, i hope you all have a wonderful weekend! ps: click here to check out amy’s last post at the guest blog! below is a summary of this week’s highlights:

• must-read posts of the week: sneak peek of office SF, faber poetry book covers, iphone paint color apps, before & after: jennifer’s bedroom
• weeder’s digest: peonies part 3
• in the kitchen with: sabra krock’s apricot tarts
• new sneak peeks: office, leslie siegel, jorey hurley, caroline lubbers, clementine press, kristen davis
• new diy projects: lauren and derek’s knot trivet, kate’s rolling coat rack
• new before & afters: holly’s built ins + carolyn’s bookshelf, 3 wooden wonders, tamera’s cart, nikki’s trunk (love this), jennifer’s bedroom
• for the walls: gorgeous designs from wingbud wallpaper, new alan the gallant gold wallpaper
• misc: lovely new wooden ‘dirty’ shelves, stereo.type paper mobiles, artwork by jing wei, roddy and ginger prints, merkled pot rack, heart card from subtitude foundry, textiles from natsumi and slide sideways, iphone paint apps, bamboolarule (for those with arthritis), faber poetry book covers, judith van den boom ceramic lights, stackable outdoor seats by luxxbox, unique wedding invites, jen corace for your laptop, iphone and walls
• new d*s guest blog: posts from amy ruppel! (and a fun interview with her here at converse)

we’ve been lucky to have photographer sabra krock share two beautifully shot recipes with us so far (maple sour cream walnut muffins and artichoke casserole) and today we’re thrilled to have her back for a delicious seasonal recipe that’s perfect for weekend guests. i’ll let sabra take it from here, but i wanted to congratulate sabra on her new kids website and line of limited edition greeting cards (below). she’s offering a beautiful series of feather/egg photography cards and summer fruit photography. if you’re interested in picking up one of her sets just shoot sabra an email right here.

from sabra: i had originally thought about doing this recipe for the first post, but apricots have only just now hit the stores on the east coast. the recipe is (heavily) adapted from marcel desaulniers’ “oven-roasted plum cakes” in julia child’s baking cookbook, baking with julia (written by dorie greenspan). i must confess to being a bit of a cookbook junkie. i buy them now as much for the beautiful photography as for the recipes. i describe some of my current favorites in a recent post on my blog.

baking with julia is already more than ten years old but the recipes are as fresh and informative as ever. it is a great general baking reference book as well as a nice compilation of recipes from wonderful bakers such as nancy silverton and nick malgieri. one of my favorite food photographer teams, gentl and hyers, did the photos.

my recipe calls for baking the cakes in disposable tartlet cups (approximately 4 inches in diameter and ¾ inch high). The cups are just the right size to ensure that the pretty fruit pokes out of the top at the end.

CLICK HERE for the full recipe after the jump!

read more …

PEONIES PART THREE; behind the scenes wedding weekend

After having recovered from a month of sickness in our house, we jumped into another June wedding weekend in our new (unfinished) space. I have two amazing floral assistants, one of whom always brings homemade baked goods. [This week was lemon poppyseed cupcakes.]

Everyone should really have the chance to arrange flowers in a construction zone. At our new space we have a bid dumpster, which if you have a flowershop is incredibly exciting. I posed on top of it. With the brides bouquet.

The bigger of the two weddings on Saturday was up at Wave Hill, a bucolic scene lush with blooming viburnum, roses, summer hydrangea…when you work there you get strict rules about not cutting stems from the premises. Apparently there are no rules about florists using the golf carts, as my assistant found out. When she announced that she had permission to use it I had a quiet internal meltdown. “but I want TO DRIVE THE GOLF CART! ”

The bride had excellent taste, and matched some of the glassware on the tables to the eggplant colors in the centerpieces. A little visual tie-in like this goes a long way. We made all the centerpieces a bit different.

I like a whole lot of texture with a big mix of flowers. Especially this time of year. This way it’s like a big garden distilled into a 6×6″ clear glass cylinder in the middle of your table! Guests talk about what flowers they recognize, what they have grown themselves. You got some pitcher plants in there, some smoke bush…obviously peonies…ladies mantle, blueberry, hydrangea, button mums, lisianthus, purple basil, coxcomb, pulsitilla, princess roses, black beauty roses, scabiosa pods, nigella and more…next week I’m going to come at you with some tips for doing your own wedding flowers…till then!

in the world of designing women, there are a few special artists that i have a major girl crush on. and right up there at the top of the list is jen corace. so i wanted to share a few of my favorite jen-pieces that are out on the market right now. namely her laptop and iphone covers at infectious, and prints at art star. one day i will save up enough to invest in an original jen corace, but for now, the pieces will definitely fill my need to have more jen corace work in my life. if you want to listen to jen talk about her work, life and inspiration click here to check out her podcast with d*s.

even though our big day has come and gone, i still get a kick out of beautiful wedding design. so i was thrilled to hear from emily henrickson and her groom keith cotton about the cute details at their march 2009 wedding- namely their stationery.

designed by mok duk, their invites had such a fun, playful feel- a mood that was carried out in other details (like the various mustache photos).

speaking of fun wedding invites, this fun wheel invite from lauren venell’s wedding, via do it yourself. i love the wooden details.

and last but not least, check out this doozy of an invite below, designed by matt dorfman for his 2008 wedding. it’s long, but i love all the typefaces and getting to hear the full story of how they met, along with the actual invite. [via i do it yourself]

although the weather today isn’t conducive to outdoor celebrations in brooklyn, it’s bound to clear up some day. and on that day, i’m going to wish i had space to sit outside and enjoy the sun. if i did, i’d definitely be in the market for something like these new tingle stools from australia’s luxxbox. designed by jason bird and made of 100% recyclable low density polyethylene, the tingle stools are stackable, weather-proof, and come with a pad that can be added for extra comfort, or a hard top that can be used as a small table (i’d love to pick up a white set and make my own cushions out of summer-friendly josef frank patterns). the best part is, you can stack a ton of these together with a pretty small footprint, making storage easy, even if you need to provide seating for a larger group. and to those of you with room to seat that many people outdoors, i salute you. as a brooklynite with no backyard, i can only dream of what that will be like one day. click here for more info on luxxbox’s tingle stools.