it’s always nice to see how a bold coat of paint can liven up an older piece of furniture. d*s reader shirin painted this vintage trunk a gorgeous bright red and it now brings just the right pop of color to her room. thanks for sharing shirin!

[stay tuned for a new diy project at 1!]

i’m loving these beautiful new tea towels, bags, aprons and kitchen textiles from teresa green…click here to check out her full collection. you can view her earlier collection here, too.

i’m always trying to find notecards and stationery that are suitable for ac. when we send joint thank-you’s i’m pretty sure he’s not too fond of my lacier, girlier, animal-themed paper collection. so these designs from thoughtful gent are right up his alley. thoughtful gent has a collection of folded notecards called “mancards” that are part of a yearly special edition based on the paintings of michael magrin. if you’ve got a guy in your life who might want to send a note now and then and would like something a little less girly, click here to check out thoughtful gent’s collection.

the new york times has a fantastic story this morning about learning from college students’ dorm rooms. i personally wasn’t lucky enough to go to school with anyone as creative as some of these kids, but i sure wish i had been. there are 19 photographs of several students attending pratt, risd, sva, cooper union and yale and what they’ve done in their homes. i love the loft bed created by a pair of coupled architecture students at cooper union, diagonal shelves by a pratt student, the honeycomb cardboard bed frame, and the risd kitchen that looks way better than mine. some of them didn’t seem like the best fit for this article (painting a room a rosy color counts as creative?) but for the most part there are a lot of great ideas to check out. click here to read the full article and just click on the slideshow feature for the full piece. [the times doesn't allow you to re-run text or images from any article of theirs so unfortunately i can't share the pictures here, sorry!]

more must reads? billie and tootie’s guest blog posts this morning (one on a new artist and one on a seriously awesome music school)- click here to check them out.

[image above from bryan boyer's sneak peek- these photos were taken when bryan was a student at harvard graduate school of design. click here to check out his full peek]

between this post and our previous post on virginia’s telephone table, i am so in the market for one of these tables to fix up and use in my entryway. this makeover comes from d*s reader elizabeth of quest twenty eight. elizabeth lives on top of a mountain in south wales and bought this telephone table for around $28 at a local flea shop. she decided to give it new life with a new coat of paint and lovely new fabric. the results are so fresh and clean- perfect! click here for more details on elizabeth’s project. thanks, elizabeth!

[the curiosity shoppe crew are under the weather today (feel better soon!) so diy wednesdays will run tomorrow, on thursday afternoon]

i’m all sorts of busy and frazzled today so please excuse the short posts. and it doesn’t get much shorter than this: how gorgeous are these sleek interiors by all the bells and whistles of san diego? click here for more of their lovely work…

i’m loving this new textile design from vermont designer laura lienhard. such perfect colors for fall…click here for more information on laura’s collection.