Jess’s Picks

No picks from Mary who is taking the week off. Mine are full of yummy food and bright colors though so hopefully it will keep you sated until Mary returns next week.

• Monday morning, Real Simple emailed me this recipe for Eggplant Parmesan Rollatini. I was in the mood for something along these lines anyway, so we made it for dinner on Monday. It was delicious! And not really that much work. It would be great to take along to a potluck.

• I love the shade of yellow in this feeling like a citron sorbet… roundup at Oh Joy!. I pull of yellow pretty well — so well that all mom bought me for years was yellow and I rebelled against it until I finally reached adulthood and would admit that she was right.

• I was so inspired by Bright.Bazaar’s profile of the  Zara Home Spring/Summer 2012 Collections. Bright, bright, bright. Bold hues. Really beautiful patterns. Perfect.

• Finally, you have to check out this Pantone fruit palette at the french Griottes It looks beautiful, fresh, and delicious.

Yesterday, I saw a photo on tumblr that really caught my eye! My friend Karl is a bicycle enthusiast, and I’m sure he thought the bike in the photo looked great. I can’t get enough of the bright colors in the room.

The bright red bike, the yellow walls, and the orange table and chairs really pull the bike into the overall feel of the room. I used to have to store a bike in an apartment and it really isn’t an easy thing to do well. I’ll have to file this away in case we are ever apartment-bound again.

(via Cycle Chic)

 Mary’s Picks

• Recently some renegade cyclists dumped water based paint all over an intersection in Berlin. It created such a cool piece of art! But, I can’t help but wonder if it made that huge intersection really dangerous. Nonetheless, the color choices were really pretty! (via Honestly WTF)

• I’m totally loving all the mason jar DIY lanterns I’ve seen floating around lately. I really want to make these firefly lanterns without catching the fireflies! Which I like seeing fireflies sparkle throughout my whole yard anyway. This one just takes a broken non-toxic glow stick and shake it up in the jar! So much fun! Love these ideas for summer! (via Pinterest)

• Carrying on with things that glow, Rachel over at Smile and Wave made an awesome sign out of glow sticks for her military husband. It’s so creative and makes me want to stock up on glow sticks!

Jess’s Picks

This week, I think a lot of blogs had high points, but I’m going to try to share mostly things from blogs that I don’t often post from because they’re more on the artsy/designy end of the spectrum.

• First up, Design*Sponge pointed me toward Pattern Pulp which pointed me toward Jenny Hart’s Twitter. I’ve been on the mailing list for Sublime Stitching for years now and I never knew embroidery could be so cool. I still don’t do much of it though, but I like the idea and maybe someday soon I’ll develop some skills.

• Over at The Fox Is Black, Kyle gave a great rundown of the DIY movement in its current state in the post “Making Our Own History By Doing Things Ourselves.” It’s definitely worth a read!

• HiLobrow shared these amazing  Wordless prints by Matt Siber. I’m impressed by the amount of work that goes into each image and I think the idea is really brilliant.

When I was a child, our house in Kansas was a little bit country and realistically a little bit dated, but around the time that I hit high school, Mom started watching Trading Spaces and a few other design shows and slowly the rooms in our house began to transform. From my high school bedroom which was the most relaxing place of my high school career to my friends first apartments, I will always feel at home in the Midwest. I’ve also noticed that a lot of my favorite design blogs tend to focus on the coasts. We try to feature a variety of design here – usually our own and thus no-coastal, but I was excited to see two Midwest home tours on Offbeat Home recently.

The first, published in May, is An antique-filled Midwest bungalow for four. The antiques are beautiful and I love the wood floors. The design of this home is really subdued with a lot of neutral browns and refreshing pops of color.

Plus, any bedroom that incorporates a dog bed and the dogs into the design is my kind of place to sleep. In fact, our bedroom has a chair, ottoman, and a dog bed for Oats with her own comforter (one of our old ones). The color of the bed, by the way, is one of my favorites. I love the scale of the patterns on the pillows.

Though it’s a small house, the design makes it seem very big and open, even in pictures. This mantle is great. I love the variety of decor. It takes a creative person to combine some cameras, a print of pears, old books, and two jars full of spools, but it really works.

The other home tour I loved as this “punk-bohemian curl-up-and-read rental in Lawrence, Kansas.” I spent a lot of my days in high school wandering around the very downtown that this apartment is in, so it’s always nice to see something so close to home get featured. Also, the style of the place seems distinctly Lawrence. I don’t know what it is about Lawrence but a lot of the houses and apartments I’ve been in seem to have really compatible styles. Look at the chairs in this living room. Couldn’t you just lean back and put your feet up in one?

I’m obsessed with this bed. Maybe it’s just that I’m operating on not enough post-Independence Day sleep, but it looks so comfortable. The bedding all looks so soft and the mix of colors and textures and patterns is begging for someone to ruffle up the sheets and take a wonderful long nap. Cat for cuddling included.

There is so much more about this home tour that I love. For such a small apartment, there are so many beautiful details. Make sure you pop over to Offbeat Home and check both places out!