Striped Polkas

Yesterday we were featured (along with Amy Ruppel's lunch set seen above) in a lovely little design blog across the pond called Striped Polkas. And boy are we glad! We've been looking to add more British designers to our store and thanks to Striped Polkas, we've found a ton more items from the UK that we're not sure we can live without!

Striped Polkas focuses mostly on British design (although exceptions are made for particularly charming items no matter where they're from) and is run by Mags L Halliday who's taste, she admits, is rather eclectic. "I grew up with a lot of stuff from earlier periods rather than the kind of perfect rooms you see in lifestyle magazines. My own house is 18th century but filled with a shambolic mix of stuff. So there's a set of red velvet theatre curtains closing off the kitchen from the rest of the house, a 1950's Ercol chair in the bedroom and an IKEA daybed in the attic."

Mags keeps things simple by limiting the blog to one post a day and features a quick peek at the latest item to catch her eye. In her own lovely, British accented words, "I want to provide a daily dollop that people can enjoy looking at elevenses." Sort of makes you wish you were British, doesn't it?

Designing a Blog- Easier Said Than Done

We've been hard at work the last few weeks with redesigning the layout of our online boutique, Seltzer Studios. And part of that redesign includes adding (yep, you guessed it!) a blog. So, now we find ourselves attempting to design a "fun, insightful and aesthetically appealing" blog as well. And its turning out to be a bit harder than we thought.

Our first dilemma- what color palette should we use? (This is especially tough since we're still noodling with the color palette of our boutique and we'd like them to match.) Should the blog layout have turquoise in it since Pantone, the global authority on color and well-known provider of design standards, announced back in December that Turquoise Pantone 15-5519 is the official color for 2010. Seems like a no brainer, right? Okay, then. Now what about accent colors? How many should we use? Do we want bold accents? Soothing accents? There are to many options when you're choosing from...all the colors in the world!

So, here's what we're gonna do. We're going to spend some quality time on COLOURLovers. (For all you color junkies out there this is going to be your new favorite site.) COLOURLovers, in a nutshell, is an online community where people from all over the world create and share colors, palettes and patterns...all in the name of love. That's right, love. You can download them and use them for free, create your own, bookmark favorites and a bunch of other things. It's pretty much the most colorful and mesmerizing way to pass an afternoon. We're gonna go get started.

Thanks, Kitchn!

We want to give a special thanks to The Kitchn for their post about us yesterday. As most of you know, The Kitchn is Apartment Therapy's sister-site, a wonderful blog that focuses on all things cooking, kitchen and delicious. We've found many favorite recipes on their site so we're delighted they're digging some of our colorful kitchen accessories!