Make it a bright New Year with Room & Board

This morning, Room & Board began its twice-annual media tour. I'm a fan (maybe you've seen earlier posts on the shop) and a client (we bought a new sofa last fall), so I always love going to see what's new. And what's new this year is... color -- brilliant bright pops of it! The store has long been known for its neutral, natural palette, so to walk in and be met by a dazzling green sofa (Pantone's definitely in effect here) was exciting. 

With an expanded range of textiles (from blankets to rugs), and a burgeoning tween/teen department, as well as a booming outdoor collection, there's no shortage of great, easy, affordable pieces to add to your home. They've even restyled their catalogue to read -- and inspire -- like the pages of a magazine, right down to the pull quotes.

A quick run-down of my favorite finds:

The Murphy sofa, dressed in emerald green, and one of the few remaining hide rugs in the store. They can hardly keep them in stock. 

A sampling of the gorgeous new rug designs, handwoven in India: (clockwise from top) Medici, Kayseri, and Bokila.

I can't see a velvet sofa and not think of Mae West. I just can't. 

Colorful new textiles... with a delightful air of legendary designer David Hicks.

Snuggly alpaca blankets from the Danish manufacturer Elvang, one of the few European suppliers to Room & Board. Some 90% of the company's suppliers are American.

New this year: tabletop items from the Oregon firm Pigeon Toe. Lovely, smart pieces.  And more designs are on the way. (Yay!)

It's a lucky kid whose parents put together this kind of bedroom! (There's a clever storage drawer at the foot of the bed. Am eyeing this one for our own bedroom redo.) And I love the idea of using Josef Albers prints in a child's room, they're so bright and cheerful. And let's face it, it's never too early to start learning a little art history.

"Slip-colors," let's call them! Also new this year is a range of not-neutral Sunbrella slip-covers for Room & Board's outdoor furnishings. Would that I had a patio, I'd buy a few of each and rotate them through the seasons. 

For more information on Room & Board, click here. Or, visit them on Facebook, and enter to win a $5,000 sweepstakes! All you need to enter is a snap of how you're keeping their 2013 catalogue in your home. Dare  I admit that my cat's been sleeping on it? It is a lovely soft paper... I can't really blame her.

Happy shopping!

Happy New Year!

What will it hold?

Below, a mounted trio of Parisienne tarot cards, circa 1800-75, at the British Museum.

Soolip: Starting the New Year in style

The new jewel box-sized Soolip unpacks and gets comfy

I'm certainly not the first to blog about Soolip Paperie & Press, Los Angeles's most famous stationary store, but perhaps I'm the first to blog about its new location.

We've been on the hunt for J. Herbin writing supplies, so early on Saturday morning we stopped into Soolip's new (and I mean brand new) store at the Pacific Design Center. They were still unpacking but the lovely owner, Wanda Soolip Wen, kindly showed us the new digs, and even took us upstairs to their studio for a peek behind the scenes. The first thing we saw? A late-19th century press. Soolip's the real thing, and has a genuine love for the history and art of writing.

It was tremendously fun to see the stationary Wanda unboxed for us upstairs -- invites and note cards of some of the city's most famous residents (and I mean famous residents) -- but it was equally wonderful to learn that the store is truly available to all people. Designs range from digital to hand-drawn and the paper selection is vast, which means that prices vary and beautifully designed, custom papers don't have to cost a fortune.

With that, a few images of Soolip 2.0!

Soolip has no shortage of fantastic cards for the season (I'm partial to the fauteuil and deer, naturally!) but I loved that they had New Years cards, for those of us who don't quite get ourselves together in time...

The circa 1890s press and a few hand-designed invitations

A little clue to the celebrity couple behind this Christmas card: The Wild Dolphin Project

For more on Wanda and the bustling event side of Soolip, visit A Soolip Wedding. Or follow Soolip online with Facebook and Twitter.

A Carol for Children by Ogden Nash

Prayer candles, St. Peter's Church, Salzburg, Kevin Tangney/National Geographic

A Carol for Children

God rest you merry, Innocents,

Let nothing you dismay,

Let nothing wound an eager heart
Upon this Christmas day.

Yours be the genial holly wreaths,
The stockings and the tree;
An aged world to you bequeaths
Its own forgotten glee.

Soon, soon enough come crueler gifts,
The anger and the tears;
Between you now there sparsely drifts
A handful yet of years.

Oh, dimly, dimly glows the star
Through the electric throng;
The bidding in temple and bazaar
Drowns out the silver song.

The ancient altars smoke afresh,
The ancient idols stir;
Faint in the reek of burning flesh
Sink frankincense and myrrh.

Gaspar, Balthazar, Melchior!
Where are your offerings now?
What greetings to the Prince of War,
His darkly branded brow?

Two ultimate laws alone we know,
The ledger and the sword --
So far away, so long ago,
We lost the infant Lord.

Only the children clasp His hand;
His voice speaks low to them,
And still for them the shining band
Wings over Bethlehem.

God rest you merry, Innocents,
While innocence endures,
A sweeter Christmas than we to ours
May you bequeath to yours.

Ogden Nash, circa 1936

Pomanders: a whiff of history

In honor of my attempt at pomanders (below, with our initials), a look at their history through the collections of some of my favorite museums:

Pomander (from Fr. pomme d'ambre), a small metal container, usually silver or gold, designed to hold aromatic spices or herbs, such as ambergirs (whence the name), musk, or civit, and worn suspended from the neck or girdle as protection against infection and noxious odors. As fashionable jewelry in the late Middle Ages, pomanders were luxury objects, and often embellished with gems or enamelwork. In the late 16th-century, the traditional spherical shape was divided into segments, like those of an orange, in order to accommodate a variety of exotic powdered spices such as mace, nutmeg or cinnamon (spices that were more valuable than precious stones). Pomanders were replaced in the 18th and 19th centuries by vinaigrettes, and in the 20th century by the clove-studded citrus, still popular today.

Not just for the ladies: Portrait of a Man from the Weinsberg Family, Bartholomaus the Elder,  c. 1538-39, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

Portrait of a Young Woman from the Slosgin Family of Cologne, Barthel Bruyn the Younger, 1557, Metropolitan Museum

Lady with a Pomander, Wenceslas Hollar, 1640, at the University of Toronto's Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

A 16th-century gold and pearl (some missing) pomander, made in England and, incredibly, dug up from the Thames River in the 19th century, The British Museum

A 17th-century silver pomander from Italy, Metropolitan Museum

A mid-17th-century example with enameled decoration, from either Germany or the Netherlands, Art Institute of Chicago