Real Books

Loving this random act of creativity.

Last year, husband and wife design duo Lisa Blonder Ohlenkamp and Sean Ohlenkamp undertook a project to reorganize their bookshelves by color (something I myself do at home) and make a stop-motion video about it.

Using bookshelf color-coordination as just the seed of an idea, they recently took the idea up a (very large) notch and brought a bookstore in Toronto to life a fantastical, whimsical stop-motion animation video. I hope this is really what books do while we’re sleeping.

It’s one of the most impressive stop-motion videos I’ve seen in terms of the sheer hours I imagine it took to make it — I worked on a stop-motion video myself (the one on the home page of Cultivate Wines), and it took 14 hours of shooting, plus editing.

According to the writeup on the video, the team of Type bookstore in Toronto, along with the Ohlenkamps and many volunteers, spent many sleepless nights to make this happen. Yeah, I bet!

The score, which is so absolutely perfectly suited to the video, is by Grayson +Matthews.

A Murmuration of Starlings

Remember this post about posters of collective nouns? At the time, the phrase “a murmuration of starlings,” was one of my favorites, and I liked the accompanying poster as well.

And then today, I discovered this video! Of a murmuration of starlings!

And it’s amazing. Have you ever seen a murmuration of starlings? I hadn’t, and I am awe-struck. It’s one of those things you can’t believe really exists in nature. I had to watch it twice just to take it in.

via Swiss Miss

The Patient Gardener

My time to work on Wonderlust has been incredibly pressed recently as things with Cultivate are taking off (very exciting, but very busy!), but I had to share this with you, it’s one of the most clever, fantastical things I’ve seen in a while.

Swedish architects VisionDivision have dreamed up and planted the beginnings of what will become a beautiful resting spot in Milan after the ten Japanese Cherry Trees have grown up and been pruned and shaped into this structure.

But it won’t be done for 100 years! Hence the name.

I actually love that it will take 100 years. Everything in our culture is so oriented towards instant gratification, and it’s a lovely reminder that some things of beauty and value, like trees, cannot be sped up or gotten to via shortcuts. They must grow on their own time and be lovingly taken care of and tended to in order to become something magnificent.

Did you notice in the images above that some of the branches will be shaped into a ladder, and others into basket-weave shapes for sitting on?

via Dezeen

Word as Image

A delightful, thought-provoking project by designer Ji Lee– a new book called Word as Image. In his words:

“When we were children, letters were like fun toys. We played with them through our building blocks. We colored them in books. We danced and sang along with TV puppets while learning C was for “cookie.” Soon, letters turned into words. Words turned into sentences. Sentences turned into thoughts. And along the way, we stopped playing with them and stopped marveling at A through Z.

Word as Image brings a little magic back to the alphabet by helping us see the fun and humor behind the lines and squiggles.

This project started nearly twenty years ago as an assignment in my typography class at art school. Students were encouraged to see letters beyond their dull, practical functionality. We played with their unique shapes and tinkered with their infinite possibilities. The challenge was hard, so the reward of “cracking” a word felt great. This became a lifelong project for me.”

Check out the short animated video above, it’s awesome!

Roost + Cultivate Wines

I love photography like the above… that dinner table in candle light… I have an obsession with shots like that. So it’s particularly awesome when those shots also include your wines!! Coco from Roost blog captured the Outstanding in the Field event at Blackberry Farm where Cultivate’s wines were poured!  The shot on the left features Dream Walking, our California Chardonnay.

I’m also so glad to have discovered her blog, it’s another healthy food (no sugar or grains) blog with seriously gorgeous photography!

My New Roots

I have a new obsession: this food and nutrition blog called My New Roots. It’s been around for a while, but I just discovered it, and I’ve been staying up at night reading it. Seriously. In addition to being a chef, the author, Sarah Britton, went to school for holistic nutrition, so the blog has a whole-foods, healthy-eating slant that I love.

With the recipes, Sarah explains the nutritional elements as well, so in addition to your mouth watering, you get the sense that if you make these dishes, you’ll be doing your body major favors.

She doesn’t label herself as vegan, or gluten-free, or raw-foodist, but rather takes a laid back approach to nourishing your body with as nutritious food as you can, and I’m already on board with that, but now I’m finding myself thinking maybe it wouldn’t be that hard to sprout my almonds or make my own almond milk (see video below, it’s really nicely done!). Ha! Things I’d never considered, but now think sound like a really good idea, and not that hard.

For those of you thinking that sounds pretty weird, she does have tons of recipes that are much more normal sounding! It’s just that I’m really loving her nutritional info and tips too! I feel like I’ve already learned so much from reading her blog. I’m currently dying to make this fig-lavender-thyme jam, black quinoa corn muffins, and four corners tomato-lentil soup,

RRL’s Vintage-y Lookbook

As Miss Moss said, there have been an influx (onslaught?) of vintage-inspired lookbooks recently, but as Ralph Lauren tends to do, they really nailed the details on making the style of this lookbook for RRL look authentic, and I’m really liking how they took it to the max. Even the models look like they’re from another era!

It also totally fits with RRL’s overall aesthetic, which focuses on rugged American old-West classics that look authentically, convincingly vintage-y and distressed. I’m not usually a fan of pre-distressed clothing, but again, RRL does it so wellll.

If you like this, check out this post about an artist who is bringing back collodion process photography.

Sketchtravel

What a wonderful, brilliant, cool concept! Sketchtravel is a project that has taken one sketchbook around the world to 60 different famous illustrators, with the end foal of giving money to charity.

Each artists had one page to fill, and then they would pass it off to the next artist (all passes had to happen in person, no mailing, which is an interesting detail!).

And now that the book is filled, it is going to be auctioned off to raise money for the non-profit Room-to-Read, which focuses on child literacy.

Check out this trailer to see more. The animation is really clever!

Also, the website is awesome.

Yvette Van Boven’s Recipe Illustrations

If I knew how to draw and stuff, I would make these for all my friends and family for Christmas. How sweet would that be? Ask them their favorite go-to recipe, illustrate it for them, and frame it! Voila! I would love to have a series of framed illustrations in my kitchen of my favorite recipes!

I looked around on Etsy and didn’t see anyone who offers this service. If you can draw, I advise you get on that hole in the market asap. You’ll be getting commissions til the cows come home, I can’t think how many blogs would love to feature that, and like, Martha Stewart Living magazine.

Yvette van Boven is the artist behind these illustrations above, that lead me on this whole chain of thought, and she has a new cookbook out that looks delightful. It’s called Homemade, and it’s a mix of recipes and diy how-tos for the kitchen, like how to make ice cream without an ice cream maker, and its decorated with her illustrations and photography.

Modern Cottage

Loving this modern cottage in the woods of Ontario. I’m all for cozy, traditional cottages, but how wonderful to have these giant windows so that during your trip to the woods, you get to see the woods all the time!

This cabin looks wonderful for both summer (open all those window-doors!) as well as winter– with all of the warm wood tones everywhere, the modern style of this cabin is in no danger of feeling cold (as modern styles sometimes can).

images from this article in Style at Home