Girl Meets Glamour ~ Chairs & London Calling...

I just came back and am quite enjoying catching up on all of the posts. I had to interject with these two posts that Girl Meets Glamour did that I think are so fun!

Chippendale Chairs and Sources.
I think Chippendale Chairs are classic. They'll never go out of style.

London Calling.
The Union Jack is just plain fun!

Back from my Cruise! The Ports ~

Today I'm showing the ports that I visited on my cruise. I visited ports in Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. I've a photo or two of every port I visited. It's been pouring and cold here in San Fran and going to warm weather made me realize how much I missed the sunshine. I moved to San Francisco about a year ago. Prior to that, I lived about an hour away in Silicon Valley which is much warmer. Mark Twain has quoted that he thought San Francisco has among the coldest summers in any city. I've found that I had to replace all of my summer clothing with fall clothes for the summer. Anywho, come with me and take a look at where I was last week.

St. Thomas has an amazingly beautiful deep water part. The cruise ships can dock o

right up against the island. Cruise liner ships extend 26 feet or more beneath the

surface. The cruise ship in the back is a Disney ship. It was soo cool to hear the ship

toot its horn and play the Disney theme before sailing off.

Another look at the port of St. Thomas. St. Thomas has really great

duty free shopping. Perfumes, jewelry, liquor, you name it.

Most especially diamonds!! Gotta be into the bling.

No visit is complete to San Juan without a visit to the largest

Bacardi factory in the world :) My favorite is the Bacardi

coconut flavored rum. Yum Yum...

The Dominican Republic has beautiful rain forests and beaches.

I particularly liked the colors of this Tapas and Bar.

This is a replica of a church in the Dominican Republic.

Many famous people have vacation homes in Dominican Republic such as

Oscar de LaRenta. I took a photo of this home while we were sailing away.

Massive...and a gorgeous spot.

Haiti has some pretty amazing beaches. Nothing like a barbeque

on the beach. Going to Haiti from the Dominican Republic is interesting

because it's actually two separate halves of the same island - yet the

two different halves are very different.

Rustic Glamour

I recently came across an ad for Hudson Furniture, a company that custom makes all types of furniture and accessories, but is best known for its beautiful, rustic tables which come in many shapes and sizes. I'm not typically drawn to a rustic look, but I can certainly appreciate the beauty and craftsmanship of this type of design.

Upon browsing Hudson's website, I learned that they choose only to use trees that have lived 250-300 years and are located in places where they would have to be cut down anyway (like ruining a home's foundation). I also realized that they have some seriously gorgeous pieces. My favorite is the gargantuan English Windsor table shown below. Almost immediately, I thought that it would be perfect for glamorous dinner parties. The juxtaposition of tons of candles, flowers, and beautiful china would be incredibly striking against the rustic wood. The Hudson table reminds me so much of Aleksandr Petrovsky's dining table from Season Six of Sex and the City, though it is about half the size.

Just for Laughs ;D

Valentine's gift for your ipod - Red lingeries ;D
LINK

Mademoiselle Valentino

By Phillippe Starck

Back from my Cruise! The Boat.

I'm Back!! Many thanks to Felicity from All Things Bright and Beautiful who made some guest posts for me while I was away. The rest of this week, I'll be posting bits from trip. Today I wanted to show some photos of the ship that I was on. I took a 7 day cruise in the Caribbean on Celebrity Cruise line.

I think this is about my 8th cruise. My parents started taking us when we were young and the habit never died ;) Cruising is a great way to be pampered and leisurely travel. Great for headache and a relatively details free vacation because everything is planned for you and you can choose to do whatever you want while you're on the ship. I slept in every day and ordered in tea and room service every day ^_^ Meals are all inclusive on cruises including the room service, it's what I LIVE for on these cruises. Celebrity has really great service which is one of the reasons I prefer this line.

There are many other lines out there that are great as well. I've personally been on Norwegian Cruise Lines, Carnival, Celebrity, Princess, Royal Caribbean, and a smaller Greek liner in the Mediterranean. If any of you are thinking to plan a cruise and have questions about cruises or any of these lines, feel free to email me! I highly recommend cruises for a relaxing vacation - great for singles, couples, and families.

I was on the Millenium on Celebrity Cruise Lines.

We booked a balcony stateroom.

Sofa and balcony area. It's hard to see from here, but I

specifically booked a balcony room that had 1/3 more space

than the average balcony and you pay nothing extra. The

way you do this is look at the ship/deck plans when you book

and request the specific stateroom that has this extra deck

space. A great trick that many travel agents use to get a bit

more bang for the buck so to speak.

And the lovely balcony. Nothing like enjoying tea and

reading a book while enjoying the views and feeling the

sea breezes out here.

Balcony staterooms usually come with complimentary

champaigne and fresh fruit every day. I, for one, am

not complaining.

CDs & Stereo

Modern style shelf to help you organize your CDs & display your stereo in an extra trey that looks awesome, also you can use the top to hold the speakers!
LINK

The Grace of the HanBok

As you know I am rather a fan of Korean Han boks and I know that the lovely Alkemie is too. So for you (and her) - and I couldn' t resist showing these gorgeous images of actress Song Hye-kyo taken by Paolo Roversi for June 2007 Korean Vogue above and by photographer Gun Ho Lee also for Korean Vogue below.







The traditional woman's han bok consists of a (short jacket with long sleeves) with 2 long ribbons worn over a full length, high waisted wrap around skirt or on this case a type of strapless empire line dress. The han bok is worn with cute flat boat shaped shoes made of silk and long white cotton socks. They are usually worn during Korean weddings tho they can still be seen worn by ladies walking around Seoul.




Images 1 - 4 courtesy Korean Vogue June 2007
Photographer:Paolo Roversi Source: Popsoeul

Images 5 - 9 courtesy Vogue Korea unknown issue
Photographer: Gun-Ho Lee. Source: JeongA at Flickr

Small with Style

Here are some small spaces that I thought were nice...

Running alarm clock!

It's no joke! This alarm clock runs away beeping to get you out of bed!! Brilliant idea :)
& here is a Youtube link to see it in action!
To buy one of those clocks CLICK HERE

Carve your own card

Awww! So cute! A blank wooden post card that you can carve on the front side & write on the other!
To buy one click the LINK

Happy 50th Anniversary

The famous egg chair is now 50 years old! & came back to us with a great new look!!! WOW ; It looks sexy with it's chocolate color suede back & leather front!! Happy 50th Mr. egg chair & congratulations to Fritz Hansen

Ladies only ;)

Valentine's day is coming to town!! think about what you will wear? Please don't go for red please please please don't... it's so wrong in so many ways that I don't know where to begin!
Here is a selection of what the look should be like - in short: think classy, playful & modern.
LINK

Swirls and light

I'm loving this background screen by British designer Jona Hoad Design. Jona is most famous for his illuminart and bespoke lighting for residential and commercial interiors.
I'm looking at his work and I'm thinking "Is he using laser cut metal over a colour filtered background light or what?"

What he actually uses is an embossed acrylic cover with LED technology lighting behind it.

Now here's a little bit of physics for you - which is probably WAY to much for you if you're doing a power surf through blogland to say a quick hello.

But for those of you who have the time and inclination LED is basically is a Light Emitting semiconductor Diode that can emit different colours of light (depending on the element added to it) without having to have a colour filter over it that traditional lighting requires. (Now that is as simple as I can explain it with out sounding like an electrophysicist!!!)

Below is some of his work in the Vanilla Bar in the UK which really shows off the LED and Jona's designs well.

All images courtesy Jona Hoad Design

Titania Suspension Lamp

Whats great about this lamp , is that you can change the shade according to the theme of the place, by just inserting few slices of transparent colored sheets!
LINK

Before & After - again :)

WOW!
Look at this link to guide you through the transformation of this room