NeoCon 2012 Dreaming

NeoCon 2012 "the 3 most important days of the year for the commercial design industry" was this week and once again I didn't go. I figured since I mentioned some famous past furniture designers we could talk about some new innovative ones today!

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NeoCon is like the Fashion Week of Furniture, the Detroit Car Show for Interior Designers, it's in Chicago each year and it's awesome. All the furniture manufactures, textile companies, ect come together for 3 days to show off their latest and greatest products, new innovations, and furniture lines. I hear it's a whirlwind 3 days of running from each show room, seeing everything they have to offer, and signing up to listen to keynote speakers. And I hear they have some pretty fun after parties as well!


One day I'll get to go and see all the glitz and glam but for now I'm happy with reading up on all the new introductions.


One product that caught my eye was this conceptual office fire pit from Hayworth.

How cool would it be to have this in your lobby at work? Relax in front of the fire on your coffee break, maybe roast some marshmellows at lunch? The purpose is to help people relax and de-stress at work; the natural element of fire has the same calming effect as looking out a window. Only problem tight now is that this particular fire pit had to be lit by the fire marshall- so it's still in a conceptual phase right now.

Maharam Textiles always has an amazing show room. They have some of the most beautiful fabrics I have ever seen. This year they came out with a glass product with their signature fabrics printed on it.

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The designs are printed using ceramic inks using a digital printing process. The collection can be scaled and sized onto several types of glass and can be used for indoor and outdoor applications. Very cool in my opinion!

Another manufacturer I want to mention is Herman Miller. They are one of my favorites but I may be a little biased since I did my first Interior Design Internship at a Herman Miller Dealership... Anyway one of their big introductions was a collaboration with fabric designer Alexander Girard. I think their show room looks so fun and exciting!

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I love these brightly colored stools!

I thought this was an interesting display of how the office chair has evolved over time and showing little tidbits from each era.

So that's just a tiny taste of what all the lucky designers saw at NeoCon this year. There's supposed to be a lot more info and images coming out next week so I'll be keeping my eyes peeled.

They also have a mini NeoCon in Dallas (3.5 hrs away- much closer than Chicago) later in the year. Maybe if I'm feeling ambitious I'll go check it out!

Till next time ~ have a great weekend!!!

Furniture Designers I Love

It's no secret I love furniture, especially Mid-Century Design. The clean lined, forward thinking designs of the mid-century era still resonate with people today as evidenced with it's popularity today.


Perhaps my favorite designers are the Eames- Charles and Ray. 

An American husband and wife design team most famously known for their furniture designs but were also great architects, industrial designers, and film makers. Their view that stylish furniture should be affordable for all gave them great success in the post war era. Everyone wanted to work for the Eames because they believed design should be fun and playful- an idea they expected from their employees as well.

Oh Eames Lounger; how I covet thee.

One day I will have an Eames chair, be it a vintage or new one. I will have one!! Once I save up the money.... You can buy their pieces new from a Herman Miller Dealer or from places like Design Within Reach.

Another awesome designer is Charles Pollack. 

Though he gained his fame from the Sling Chair he developed for Knoll;

He is most famously known for his Pollack Office Chair. Designed with comfort and style in mind the chair is still a best seller today.

He has recently come out of retirement with a lounge chair line he designed for Bernhardt; the CP.1. Awesomeness!

Another designer I want to mention is Florence Knoll. In a field dominated by men she designed and produced some of the most well know pieces of the mid-century. 

She trained as an architect and is known as a champion of planning and "total design". She and her husband formed Knoll Associates and encouraged other designers to develop their own modern designs. She developed new ways of planning that are still used today.

Couldn't you see this in a home today!?

There are a million others I could name but I'll just leave you with 3 for now. 

I'm not sure when my love for clean modern design began but it culminated in college during Interior Design School where we learned about all the modern masters. And also at an internship I did at a Herman Miller dealer where I was exposed to the classic furniture on a daily basis.

Today I like trying to mix old and new together in our home. Slowly but surely it will come together. Maybe I'll even have my own Eames Chair one day!!

Vintage Trophy Wine Stopper

Hello All! We're back from a whirl wind vacation- we drove down from Oklahoma to Louisiana. Then over to Texas and back up again. We've been gone for almost 2 weeks visiting family one last time before Tiny Falcon #2 shows up (I'm almost 35 weeks now!!) 


It was great seeing family and friends but I'm glad to be home again. 


I have a quick and easy DIY for you today. While I was home in Houston my Mom informed me that it was really time for me to get the last of my stuff out of my room; you know since I'm 30 and all... (is it sad that I'm referring to something of my own as "vintage"?)


I've cleaned out a lot of it but some things still linger. One of those things are my old soccer trophy's. I was a big soccer player back in the day. I played from 3rd grade all the way into college. So needless to say I had a lot of old trophies hanging around. It's hard getting rid of things like that so I decided to keep one of them and thought it would be neat to make something out of it.

I had seen this article a while back which gave me my inspiration for this little project; a trophy wine stopper!

 I started by taking the trophy apart and scrounging up an old wine cork.

Since my cork was used I utilized the hole already made by the cork screw. I used a Philips Head screwdriver to deepen and widen the hole. If you use a new wine cork you may need a drill with a 1/8" drill bit to start the hole.

I wanted to make doubly sure my soccer girl stayed on the cork, so I dropped a little Gorilla Super Glue into my newly made hole and some on to the top of the cork. Then screwed the Soccer Topper on.

Done! Seriously I think it took me longer to type this post then it to do the actual project. Now I have an awesome wine stopper that will always remind me of my past and of one of my favorite activities. And it was FREE! Triple Score (or as we say in soccer speak a Hat Trick!)

How do you hold on to old memories? Did you have a hard time getting rid of all the things in your childhood room?

I was also left with the marble bases from the trophy. They are Carrara Marble so I didn't want to throw them away; need to think of something to do with them next!

Convex Mirror DIY

Happy Wednesday Everyone!!! Today I have a quick and easy DIY for you. 


I had a pair of small convex mirrors forever. I found them at a thrift shop back in college for $1 each- thinking one day I'd make some sort of frame for them I bought them. But inspiration never came. They sat in my craft box for years.


Then I saw this from Worthing Court Blog. 

So Simple! So Stylish! So Easy! Why didn't I think of this?


I went to Lowe's and found the ceiling medallions I needed. I bought 2 small ones for $7 each instead of the large.

Once I opened my ceiling medallion I realized my mirror was to small for the hole, so I decided to cut a piece of fiber board (Lying around from another project I have yet to start.) using my jig saw and use it as a backing to glue my mirror to. I traced the size of the circle then cut it out a little bit larger than my pen mark so I'd be able to glue it to the back of the medallion.

I didn't mind that it wasn't cut perfectly since I was glueing it to the back of the medallion.

Once it was cut out I glued it on to the back using Gorilla Glue for wood, stone, and metal and let it dry. 

Once that had dried I use a semi gloss white spray paint to paint the whole thing. Though I did learn not to leave my projects lying around or else some one (The Con-Man...) will come by and step right on top of it. Oops... had to do this one all over again!

The final step was gluing my mirrors onto the medallion using the same super glue and done! My mirrors were not the same truck mirrors as in my inspiration project; they had flat backs so there was no prep work to be done. Lucky me!

I hung them in our bedroom. 

I'm glad I finally was able to use these mirrors I've been carting around with me. Do you buy materials for projects and don't always get started on them right away?

What I've been Up To & Giveaway Winners!

Hello All! I hope everyone had a fabulous Memorial Day Weekend. I wanted to say a special "Thank You!" to all our Military Members past and present; especially my military man!


We've been out of town for over a week- hence my blog silence over the last few days.


We went down to our old stomping grounds in San Antonio. The Hubs had training and The Con Man and I tagged along for the ride. Here are a few highlights from our trip:

Dinner on the Riverwalk

San Antonio Zoo

Sea World

And for Memorial Day Weekend my MIL came in town. We went over to Medicine Park, OK to hang out at the natural bathing hole and drove through the Wildlife Refuge.

The buffalo were roaming across the field...

And across the street!

And what you really came here for- the winners of the contest that were held last week!


CameraBag2 Giveaway Winners! There were 5 liscences to giveaway so here are the 5 winners as chosen by Random.org:

Drawing #10,330 PRIVATE

CameraBag2 Giveaway 8th drawing held by Rachelle Falcon Completed on Tuesday, 29 May 2012 at 03:38:30 UTC 11 entrants, 5 winners

Winners (5)

 1st: 6
 2nd: 3
 3rd: 9
 4th: 11
 5th: 7

✿ⒹⒺⒺ✿@ A Lapin Life said... 6

How exciting! I would love to be enter in the contest. The pictures look fantastic!!!

Dee

May 20, 2012 7:01 PM 

Kari M. said... 3

I follow CameraBag2 on twitter.

May 18, 2012 6:20 PM 

sophiepeanut said... 9

I would love to win this. Thanks for the chance!

May 21, 2012 9:20 AM 

Anonymous said... 11

I would love to win this as I am not super swift on PhotoShop!

Gail said... 7

I would really like this. Thanks.

May 20, 2012 7:43 PM 

Congrats to the winners! Gail and Sophie; you did not leave an email address or other way for me to get in touch with you- please email me in the next few days or I'll have to go on to the next winner.

And the winner of other giveaway from PrintRunner for 250 business cards is:

Drawing #10,331 PRIVATE

PrintRunner Giveaway 9th drawing held by Rachelle Falcon Completed on Tuesday, 29 May 2012 at 03:51:31 UTC 5 entrants, 1 winner

Winners (1)

1st: 4

Nicole Buckingham said... 4

Oh, I would promote, promote, promote.

Aloha,
Stopping by to say "hi" from the Aloha Friday Hop. Thanks so much for joining the fun.

xoxo,
Nicole
localsugarhawaii.com

May 22, 2012 4:07 AM 

Congratulations Nicole!!

Thank you to everyone who entered. I really appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and enter the fun giveaways!!

Till next time!!