Pin Pricks | 28.05.12

 

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What I've been loving this week on Pinterest. Lots of pink! And how adorable is Miss Donut Queen up there? What I wouldn't give to be awarded a crown for the consumption of sweet treats...

Carnations

Birthday blooms from my brothers sweet lady friend have been cheering up our decidedly more chilly apartment all week. Lovely little bursts of pink and yellow dotted around the house have made the colder evenings a touch more bearable.

Biscuit Brooches

We've got something new in the shop! We've been working away on delicious little brooches modelled after one of our favourite biscuits. They're in the store now, so you can check them out! There are only a few made so far, and we're also offering free postage within Australia. Peruse them here.

The Best Thing I Saw Today: May 23

Joshua:
Lego birds by DeTomaso. Very cute and very fun.  Brings back fond memories of building things as a kid.



Megan:
Historic Photos from the NYC Municipal Archives, via Lost at E Minor

A Birthday Weekend in Newcastle

We're back in Sydney and back to work after a deliciously warm and sunny weekend in Newcastle. I had a little birthday (hip hip for 22!) and we spent some time by the beach celebrating. We did lots of my favourite Novocastrian activities, which included a visit to my favourite hobby store from when I was younger to pick out a new Schleich animal for our collection. It's a nice tradition we've done for the last couple of years, and this year we brought home a sweet squirrel to make friends with the deers from previous birthdays. Chocolate desserts with friends who we hadn't seen for far too long, birthday cupcakes, twilight strolls, and a harbour-side lunch on Saturday with family all made for a perfect break. We also visited Trevor Dickinson's Newcastle Photo Wall and took some glamour shots. His murals are popping up all over the city, one of them even including the ice-cream van we had at our wedding! A wonderful weekend full of all the nicest things. Exactly how a birthday should be, and a much needed 48-hour time out from all the desk work I've been putting in lately.

The Best Thing I Saw Today: May 16 2012

Eight Hour Day regularly post 'The Best Thing I Saw Today' on their blog, and over here at McKean Studio we think it's a great idea to be sharing the weird and wonderful things we come across on a daily basis! With that in mind, we're going to borrow the idea from EHD and play along, hopefully on the regular!


Megan: Cinco De Mayo Pinata Cookies, complete with hollow insides for lollies. Have you ever seen anything more incredible!?
Via SheKnows

Joshua: Amazing photos by Christian Stoll with the theme of "epic".
The blimp has been my new background for a few days now and I still love looking at it.  Incredible wide angle shots and some pretty cool advertising images.

Chair Tuesday: Amarite

This nice little chair is by Jacob Nitz for Danish company Associated.

I really like the angles in this chair and the joint between the seat and leg.  I think it's nicest with the timber legs as it gives it a distinction between the two components.

It creates a nice contrast not only in materials but also thickness as the sturdy legs transform into the thin seat and back.

Nitz also designed a whole family of tables and stools that look pretty happy together as variations on a theme.

Design in the wild

Last Saturday was Matthew's birthday party in a terrific Surry Hills rooftop office.  Lots of cool kids, great food and beautifully labelled drinks, but what got me super excited was spotting one of Konstantin Grcic's Pallas tables in the conference room.

I first saw one of these in Grcic's book KGID where it was shot wonderfully contrasting with a highly decadent French interior. (Megan thinks this is all wrong but I think this image is genius)

I think it's pretty great, beautifully minimalist like a lot of his early work, but still quite an imposing presence from its size and heft.  Amazing angles from the folded steel which also give it some impressive strength as shown in this pic with all the factory workers standing on it.  With eleven of them on there it must be supporting around 800-900kg!

Pin Pricks 09.05.12

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Pinterest has slowly but surely crept into my social media / online life. I find myself checking to see what's new first thing in the morning, and my computer hard drive is exceptionally thankful to not be hoarding all sorts of images in various folders anymore. This is a little round up of what I've been pinning the last few days - you can hop onboard and follow along with me here.

Chair Tuesday: Gispen Originals

This nice little chair is from Dutch designer Thijs Smeets.  It was inspired by the work of the chair's namesake W.J. Gispen, a Dutch designer from the thirties.

I think these are a wonderful modernisation to Gispen's work.  Smeets has been careful and clever in the way he carries the feelings of the original designer without just copying them.

The chairs are have a curved back and base supported with a really nice timber frame.  Light and airy.  I really like the combination of white & timber in chairs but Megan is still coming around to the idea.

One of my favourite parts of this chair is the way the backrest curves around and down for the armrests.  Nicely resolved I think.

This Is New York

We all too often miss out on weekends around our house. It's rare for us to have days off that coincide, so this Saturday we took some time out and had a proper day off! We had brunch with friends at Cornersmith (too much hype to warrant a 50 minute wait for a table, in my humble opinion), Joshua had a haircut, I enjoyed a mid-afternoon lay down, and later in the evening we headed into the city to celebrate Matt's 21st birthday. We gifted him a copy of Miroslav Sasek's classic children's book 'This Is New York'. The illustrations are incredible, all in a perfect late 1950s style, and they capture everything about New York perfectly (despite a 50 year time difference now).  I bought it for myself a couple of months ago, and I think it's my all time favourite illustrated book - and what makes for a better birthday present than to force my love onto someone else!

April Snapshots

Blogging has slowed down a little, but we've certainly been up to a lot this month! A good chunk of April has been spent working on the computer, or working at our desks, which is a little bit scary to think about.
Some of the other things we got up to this month:
- The Easter Show (lambs, fairy floss, and way too many people in our personal space)
- Visited some cute new cafes around our area, Bread & Circus and The Grounds of Alexandria
- Pie making and baking for a different (and delicious) project
- Made vegetable soup like a proper grown up
- Spent some time with Juno the bunny while Kelly was away
Bye April! You've been a big one.

Paint by Numbers for Made590

We've been busily working away on all sorts of projects lately, so sorry for the quiet times around this little blog. This week samples and labels were sent away for a new collaboration at Made590 - some paint by numbers I've been working are going to be given a new lease on life! How fun is that! We're crossing our fingers that the fabric will look amazing, but really, with kittens, deers and horses, what can go wrong?!

Chair Tuesday: Medici

Today we have a brand new chair from one of my all time favourites, Konstantin Grcic.

With all the flat boards of timber and intersecting planes it looks as though it should almost be a fold-up chair, but it's just a nice looking reclined low chair.

In explaining this chair Grcic said he wanted to celebrate the planks of wood as they were straight from the timber mill.

I find it looks almost a bit awkward, with its arms out like someone going in for a hug and then realising halfway that the other person doesn't want a hug and is trying to back away.  But it is a good example of Grcic's pared back aesthetic.

I think my favourite view is the side profile. This is where it looks most comfortable with itself; where the lines and angles play really nicely together.

Ballet Boutique

I've been browsing for ballet flats lately, trying to hunt down the perfect pair of Audrey-esque shoes that work with everything. It's a task I'm particularly fussy about, but J. Crew have them organised impossibly well, pages and pages of rainbow hued shoes. Now I'm stuck on what colour to choose.