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space matters: holiday homes around the world (part 2)

Here’s the second part of our “holiday homes around the world”.

Yesterday, I took you to Europe (Germany & Austria) and Australia. Now, let’s go to USA to peek into the homes of Fallon Akers from El Paso, Texas, Melanie Renn from San Francisco, California, and Alyn Carlson from Westport, Massachusettes. Thank you very much for sharing!

And to all of you, Happy New Year! See you in 2010!

(p.s. move your pointer over the pictures for the captions/notes.)

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Fallon Akers is a sewer from El Paso, Texas who loves 50s-60s vintage stuff. She also maintains a blog and an etsy store. In the style that she knows best, she filled her home with all handmade and vintage goodness for Christmas. Her “soft” tree ornaments are quite unique. I also love her pillows! Very pretty.

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Melanie Renn of San Francisco, California is also a lover of vintage decors. She has Christmas ornaments saved since the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Her collection is more on the classic side–figurines of angels, reindeers, swans, snowflakes, and real lead tinsels–each having a sort of magical character. What I also love about her collection are the stories that accompany every ornament.

Read more about Melanie’s holiday decorations in her blog here. She also maintains a group called h ♥ m e  in flickr that pools photos of the nicest homes.

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From a classic Christmas home, let’s check out a fun and quirky take on holiday decorating.

Alyn Carlson of Westport, Massachusetts is a graphic artist, designer, and actor. Her graphic design works can be found in her website here, while her designer hats can be purchased in etsy here. Alyn also has a blog where she shares her daily musings.

Her home for the holidays is decorated in a different way, veering away from the usual images of Christmas. She made a “Dr. Suess Christmas tree”, with all sorts of trinkets that create a whimsical, cartoon-like image. There is also a quirky gold wreath reusing old headless Barbie dolls that seem to be doing a “James Bond Gold Finger Radio City Music Hall thing” according to Alyn. 
 

space matters: holiday homes around the world (part 1)

Technically, Christmas is already over. But not here on Design Folder (nor in Manila, for that matter, haha)!

For the benefit of our readers abroad, Christmas/the Holiday season in the Philippines “unofficially” starts in October, peaks in December, and ends in January (i think after the feast of the three kings).

So, to extend the holiday celebration, I’m taking you to a Christmas design trip! Thanks to my new-found flickr friends, I got a peek at some of the lovliest hoiliday homes from different parts of the world. Seriously, their designs brought so much inspiration to me!

First up, sharing you the homes of Anita from Austria, Ivy style33 from Germany,  and Sarah from Australia.

(p.s. move your pointer over the pictures for the captions/notes)

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Anita Dawoodi is a home-styling blogger from Graz, Austria. She writes mostly about her daily design inspirations in her blog 1richtungsblog.com. But this time around, I’m blogging about her!

In spite of the snowy weather in Austria, her home is all warm and cozy, decorated in the classic silver, gold, and white Christmas fashion.

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Ivy style33 is a freelance decorator and interior design consultant based in Germany. What I especially like about her style is her extensive use of whites. Love, love whites! Check out her blog here for more photos of her work.

For Christmas 2009, she combined whites with hints of earthy colors and organic textures to decorate her penthouse. Her handmade ornaments are just adorable!

See more of her handmade goodies at her etsy shop here.

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From Europe, let’s go to the land down under to visit Sarah’s beach cottage home.

Sarah from Australia loves all things vintage and cottage. She just adds a modern twist giving it a clean crisp pallette. Her decorating philosophy is to create a beautiful home without spending a fortune. She does this by using her skills as a thrift-junkie, decorating with what is available and seeing beauty in ordinary things.

This year, she created a dollar-free holiday home using pieces of driftwood her boys found at the beach and combined them with glittery ornaments and some white seashells. Her alternative Christmas decors perfectly complement her white cottage home.

Check out her blog where she chronicles her adventures of living by the sea.

Watch out for the second part of the feature tomorrow!

space matters: a very merry vintage christmas

Before we take a break for the holidays, we would like to leave you with a peek at the lovely home of Gene and Ache Florendo.

Ache (or Ma’am Florendo to me) was my professor/adviser in college. Because of a feature in MyHome magazine, I learned that she has a penchant for collecting antique decors and does holiday decorating with so much passion. With that in mind, we were quite curious to see for ourselves how she puts together her home during the holidays.

True enough, the Florendo house sports a nostalgic look for Christmas with their vintage trinkets and decors. Every corner of the house shows off an array of cute Christmas-y ornaments. From the foyer, living and dining areas, down to the kitchen, the interior spaces are all rendered in the familiar holiday colors of red and green.

Their Christmas tree is filled with multicolored lights and the most adorable collection of handmade figurines.

At the bottom of the tree is a “Christmas Holiday Express” train railway setup. This triggered me to sing the old Coca Cola jingle “Holidays are coming…. Holidays are coming,” in my head all throughout the shoot, hehe! Ache told me that it’s one of Gene’s collections. Yup, collections with an emphasis on the “s”! Apparently, her husband also shares the same love for collecting interesting thingamabobs. (We’ll reserve that for a different post)

Their decors are not just limited to the nook of the Christmas tree. Tabletops, curio cabinets and shelves allover the house feature Christmas tableaus with a whole range of Santa Clause ornaments, unique antique finds (we especially love the vintage sleigh and the mini sewing machine), and mini Christmas trees.

In contrast to the contemporary, trendy decorating styles that we often see, Ache’s take on creating a classic Christmas atmosphere at home has an element of nostalgia and sentimentality. Her home actually made me feel like a kid again, bringing memories of how I eagerly anticipated the celebration Christmas during my childhood.

I’m sure these pictures are already making you feel the warm Christmas spirit!

So, from all of us here at Design Folder, we wish all of you, dear readers, a very merry Christmas!

giveaway!: biksa coffee

Remember our feature on Biksa Coffee last October? It’s the laidback, not-too-commercial coffee shop that’s making a buzz in Marikina. This afternoon, I dropped by Biksa for a cup of almond mocha coffee. Yum!

It’s definitely Christmas in Biksa! After being submerged under the chest-deep flood of typhoon Ondoy, it’s good to see that the coffee shop is back in it’s usual “happy and creative” self.

What’s even more interesting is Biksa’s effort in going green for the holidays–all of their Christmas decorations are made from the coffee shop’s ”trash”. This just shows that one man’s trash SHOULD ALSO be his own treasure, hehe

They have a paper mache Santa Clause using Biksa’s old newspaper,

… a colorful Christmas tree made up of empty Torani bottles,

… a relief wall art using painted milk cartons,

… and poinsettia trims made from cut softdrink bottles.

After being one of the hard-hit victims of the flood, it’s very inspiring to see that Biksa still has its creative drive to put up wonderful handmade decors, rendering the place with a warm Christmas atmosphere.

Here’s another good news. Biksa is giving away two (2) P500 gift certificates to our df readers! Yey!

To join the draw, just leave a comment on this post with your email address (will not be published). This giveaway will end on Tuesday, Dec. 29, 8am (manila time). Two winners will be drawn through a random number generator, announced on this post, and will be contacted via email.

For their complete menu and contact details, visit Biksa’s website here.

UPDATE 12/29/09: Giveaway is now closed. Thank you to everyone who joined and gave their wonderful comments! Congratulations to the winning commenters: #7–Daniel and #3–Lesley. The Design Folder Team will contact you through email on how to claim your gc.

i saw design: UP lantern parade

Every year, students, alumni, employees and faculty of the University of the Philippines (UP) celebrate the start of the academic Christmas break with a lantern parade. This year, the theme is the environment and the use of recycled materials.

There were a lot of bee-inspired lanterns (maybe in line with the idea of save-the-bees-save-the-earth) and mother naure floats. We especially loved the huge Manny Pacquiao and Mommy Dionisia floats and the students’ colorful and creative costumes. We are definitely looking forward to next years’ parade!

Learn more about the UP Lantern Parade through the years here.

diy project: not-so-christmas stocking

Add a twist to traditional Christmas ornaments by trading the red-and-green combination for an unconventional color scheme. Turn to fashion for inspiration. I went for a cute pink and brown mix for this Christmas stocking.

The brown fabric that i have has thick threads, perfect for fringing. I suddenly thought of adding the fringed detail usually seen on cowboy boots.

So, what was supposed to be a Christmas stocking, became a fashionista’s “Christmas boot”!

giveaway!: belle hop by lewis n. clark

Because it’s holiday giveaway season over here at Design Folder, the gift-giving is not yet over! We have two more giveaways this week for our df readers.

To begin this week, our friends from Belle Hop by Lewis N. Clark  are giving away three lovely stocking stuffers: one (1) wristlet and two (2) leather luggage tags.

These bright and colorful accessories combine fashion and function to allow you to travel in style. The strappy wristlet slides on your arm to keep your ID, credit cards and cash close and ready for action. The leather luggage tag, on the other hand, sets your luggage apart with a hidden-window tag that accepts a standard business card.

As a way of saying thank you, we’ll be raffling these off to our facebook fans! Just add us on facebook by clicking here. This giveaway will end on Monday, 8am (Manila time). Two random winners will be drawn via a random number generator, announced in this post and on facebook, and contacted.

UPDATE 12/21/09: Giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to the winning facebook fans: #104–jeng padaoan-nano (luggage tag), #213–guill ramirez (luggage tag), and #259–em bermio  (wristlet). The Design Folder Team will contact you through facebook on how to claim your prize.

giveaway update: heirloom manila winner

Thank you very much to our readers who joined our heirloom giveaway! We combined all 20 comments from the two posts and arranged them in chronological order. #1 is the first commenter while #20 is the last.

So, who’s the lucky winner? Congratulations to #10–cream_puffs! The Design Folder team will contact you via email on how to claim the gc.

Have a fun shoot at The Heirloom Manila! Hope you’ll share your photos with us here at Design Folder.

diy project: twine christmas tree

12 more days to go before Christmas!

With the cramming mode turned on, you probably don’t have enough time to put up and decorate a big Christmas tree. But don’t worry, you can still add a bit of Christmas spirit to your space by opting for a small tabletop tree. This can be readily purchased in malls or bazaars, and are usually made of papier-mâché or wire.

But, if you’re a diy person like me, you can just make and customize your own tabletop Christmas tree for half (or even much less) the commercial price. This one is inspired by the twine balls we made last week.

Materials:

Cardboard; abaca rope, raffia, and paper twine; brown and maroon ribbons; gold string; berries, glittered leaves, pinecones and other small Christmas tree ornaments; glue gun and (lots of) glue sticks.

Instructions:

1) Make a cone by rolling a large sheet of cardboard in an angle. This way, you’ll come up with a stiff cone base. Glue the edges in place with hot glue.

2) Cover the cone base by alternately gluing around it the paper twine, abaca rope and raffia (images 1 & 2).

3) Decorate the tree with ribbons (alternating the brown and maroon), berries, pinecones, and glittered trims (image 3).

If you want the tree to be much taller, make a base using a box filled with crumpled newspaper. Just cover the newspaper stuffing with paper twine and a bedding of glittered leaves around the the tree’s base for a neat finish.

diy project: recycled paper gift bow

For me, the gift wrapping/packaging is equally important as the gift inside it, especially if you know that the giver was the one who personally wrapped the present. While I believe in making the gift look personalized and pretty, I don’t think that it should be costly.

Instead of buying the traditional materials (ribbons, gift wrappers, gift bags, etc.), consider making your own wrapping materials. Here’s a paper gift bow project from howaboutorange that uses a magazine page instead of ribbons. For the detailed instructions, click here.

This is a great way of using the gift wrappers I saved from the presents that I got last Christmas! For demostration purposes, I made two versions (refer to the image above): the bow on the left is made from an old wrapping paper, while the one on the right is made from a magazine page (TIP: choose a page that has a nice, cohesive color palette).

For this gift, everything is recycled–the ribbon, bow, and box all came from presents last Christmas. The gift card, on the other hand, was cut from an old perfume box.

Watch out next week for more cheap tricks on wrapping gifts!