Posh & Paisley

Zzzzzzz

I'm sleep deprived.

I work crazy long hours, and all day long I daydream about my bed. Instead of normal dreams and fantasies of knights in Shining Armour, I dream of this paisley bedding in particular, and wish that I could spend more than five hours a night asleep.

It's a sad state of affairs. I know.

Find this chocolate paisley bedding at Bed Bath & Beyond. It's called the Luxe Mink Duvet by Raymond Waites and it rocks my world.

Sweet dreams.

 

Paisley, You Light Up My Life!

Lighting is very important to me. 

You can create ambiance and set the mood for any occasion with a bit of tweaking of the lights. A great way to feel all warm and cozy if used correctly.

I L-O-V-E these beautiful votive candles that remind me of expensive jewels. Apparently they smell fantastic too, and I don't know if these are carried only on the Monarch's Heaven website or in any Toronto stores right now, but I'm on it.

I recently had an amazing dinner at an Indian restaurant in Kingston, and my date and I were seated in a tiny little room off of the main hall. It had such great ambiance and lighting that I had to take a photo for you. There were even little paisleys on the walls! 

The restaurant was called Curry Village, incase you're ever in Kingston Ontario, and they even made a special vegetarian version of the Kashmiri Chicken for my picky self. All in all, I left there feeling twelve pounds heavier, and wishing I could be in Kingston more often.

It's amazing what good food and awesome lighting can do. It can even make a God-forsaken place like Kingston seem like a place you'd want to be in more than once! (Some Kingsonite is going to be very mad at me, oops.)

Giving Thanks, a Day Early

I'm cooking a turkey today. A big, fat butterball that's gonna feed an army.

I know that it's a day early for Canadian thanksgiving, but my family usually does a family dinner the night before.

I'd really like to present my turkey to a paisley place setting, and next year I'm going to search high and low for these dishes on the left from a company called Horchow.

You could really use these at any time of the year, and can change the mood by changing the colours of the place mats and napkins. For thanksgiving you could put out orange and red accessories, and for Christmas you could even do an icy blue to really create some drama. That way, you can justify their crazy high price by doing some simple arithmetic. Just divide the cost by the number of times you think you're going to use them, and voila!, they were meant to be a part of your life!

Happy Gobble Gobble!

Green Friendly Paisley

Look what I found!

Many a baby boys will be happy to know that there is a very masculine looking paisley bedding set out there for them. I'd promised to find a boy-friendly one for my friend Kris, but now that I've seen this, I'd really like it for my own kid one day.

I think that this room would look extra fabulous if it had some plants and greenery like this to give it that warm earthy feel.

Actually, now I'm kind of wondering if there should be any trepidations against putting greenery in a baby's room. Does anyone know if the gasses that plants release at night are in amounts that are harmful to a baby?

I guess if all else fails you can always put up prints of plants in nicely framed arrangements like these. I love the way green and brown compliment one another, and I say that if mother nature picked it for her crazy kids, then why shouldn't other moms?

Pillow Talk

I almost moved into the Pottery Barn today.

Everything was just so pretty that I couldn't bear to leave the store and once I saw this wool jaquard pillow, I knew that I needed to camp out in the place.

But I'm not that crazy... so Instead I opted for a picture with it.

I also vowed to make the pillows mine. I don't know when, and I don't know how I'm going to afford yet another paisley purchase, but it needs to be mine.

(Donations to the Posh & Paisley shopping fund would be greatly appreciated. We take cash, cheque and Pottery Barn paisley pillows. Just letting you know. Oh and please and thank you.)

Warm Welcome Home

It's good to be home. For me, nothing beats a warm summer night in Toronto and that's exactly what I got to enjoy on my first evening back at home from Florida.

In the early evening, my cute date and I took a relaxed, leisurely stroll through the beautiful campus of University of Toronto (my alma mater) and we both marveled at the sight of the grand, century old buildings.

We couldn't help but conjure up black and white images in our minds of students who had walked through the same halls and saw the same sights that we were seeing before us.

I think that I must have been around in another lifetime, and that is why I am so drawn to old buildings and to the classic shape of my wonderful paisley. I am a sucker for the feeling and sense of nostalgia that I feel when surrounded by antiques and paisley motifs.

When looking at the picture of this fabulous room with the warm paisley wallpaper, I can't help but feel a slight tug at my heart and feel right at home. Cole & Son makes the Rajupur paisley wallpaper you see here on the walls of the entryway of Bush Interiors' West Hollywood office and I first found this photo on one of my all time favourite blogs, called the Scoop. I think the room to be the perfect combination of posh and paisley, and would probably be less likely to travel if the room were mine. I mean, why would I want to be parted from a room like this?

 

Weekend Frenzy

Wow. What a crazy weekend.

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a couple of days, but there haven't been enough hours in the day for me and with the weather warming up and all, I haven't been indoors long enough to get anything written down. I did happen to go out to the Distillery District on Sunday, and found this lovely paisley ceramics tile to post for you. It's from a beautiful boutique called Fawn Ceramics, and the ceramic tiles can even be doubled up as coasters for those pesky beverage rings. The boutique boasted a trendy, inviting space and was jam packed with tonnes of awesome pieces of art. Definitely worth a look.

So to fill you in, Saturday was day of that wedding I attended, and it was fantastic, amazing and crazy! It started out beautifully, and by the end of the night, the open bar had relaxed everyone into laughing, dancing party animals. Unforgettable. Here is a photo of me with the couple and with the beautiful bride so that you can see both her ivory gown and red dress that night.   

Becky is Chinese-Dutch and Nick is Indian-French and so the wedding was a fabulous melange of cultures and magnificent food. After a 16 course meal of shark fin soup, lobster, abalone... I was sure that I was going to explode and die a happy, gluttonous death that night.

I must admit, that it was a bit tough getting out of bed the next morning, but with the gorgeous sunny weather there was no way that I was staying in. And so I woke up, got dressed and proceeded to have one of the most amazing days ever! I enjoyed a beautiful drive down to Kensington Market, where the first Pedestrian Sunday of the year was underway and enjoyed an array of stunts, shows, musicians and bazaars. Here are some photos to make up for my slow posting time.    

After Kensington, I made it to the Distillery District, and explored all the little shops and historic architecture. I was particularly intrigued by the old, working freight elevator from 1926. Here are some of my favourite pictures from there.   

Hope you like 'em. Took forever to post!

Time To Kick Those Feet Up

Another busy day for me today.

I also met up with Stefania at around 6 for some mouth watering sushi at New Generation, caught an amazing Academy Award winning Austrian/German film called The Counterfeiters at Bloor Cinema, cried for 98 minutes straight, grabbed some coffee, then proceeded to walk from Bathurst and Bloor all the way to Yonge and Lawrence. The walk took about two hours.

Needless to say, my feet are a little sore.

Yonge street is a great walk though, and I found tonnes of little shops and boutiques that carried Paisley items in their store windows. Must be a trend in the yuppie areas between Rosedale and Lawrence.

Since there were so many furniture and antique stores along the way, I was very inspired and thought I would post this paisley pillow sham from Pottery Barn. The room surrounding the pillow is really pretty as well and looks really inviting after a long, busy day.   

Paisley Magic

I understand that I've posted a fair bit of paisley home decor this past week, but I couldn't resist posting this beautiful throw blanket from The Museum Shop at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Last night, I spent a rainy evening watching Layer Cake and Stardust, and was happy to be cuddled up in a soft, warm blanket while wasting the night away.

My date and I decided to each bring our favourite movies along for the other to watch. He brought Layer Cake and I Stardust, two very, very different films, with two very different audiences in mind. Neither of us knew of the other's choice, or had even heard of the other's film.

His was an action packed crime thriller that follows the precise, articulate Daniel Craig as he maneuvers through what he intends to be his last business (drug) deal in modern-day London.

My movie, Stardust, on the other hand was an amazing fantasy adventure. It is about the fantasy kingdom of Stormhold in the 1800s, where a boy becomes a man when he ventures into Stromhold in pursuit of a fallen star, to prove his love for the village beauty. It is an absolutely beautifully made film, that's being touted as the next Princess Bride.

We both thoroughly enjoyed each other's films, and at first thought it was a cool coincidence that some of the actors were the same in both movies. Then it just seemed a bit freaky when we realized that both movies shared Matthew Vaughn as the director.

I guess it shows that we have the same taste for stunning cinematography and great acting, and that it can't be a bad sign for us as a dating couple. It's actually pretty cool that we both love two movies that not a lot of people have heard about, and that they do happen to share the same director.

The whole weird coincidence thing spooks me out enough to want to keep my head under my throw blanket for the duration of the whole night, but then again, if my blanket were as nice as the one above, I probably wouldn't mind anyway.

Mommy Dearest

Happy Mother's Day everybody!

I am in the middle of helping prepare a celebration dinner for my Mom, and am running around like a chicken without a head. Moms make it all look so easy, they have careers, they cook, they clean and they put band aids on scraped knees and kiss boo-boos away. They really are real life superheros.

I'm posting this elegant Kim Seybert Paisley table runner from Neiman Marcus for my Mom, and for my two older sisters who have three gorgeous little girls between the two of them. Gosh, I love my nieces.

My mom, and my sisters all have three beautiful homes with three very distinct looks, and I find that this table runner has the potential to fit in with all of their very different tastes.

That's the best part about such a fabulous, shape like Paisley, it's just so versatile that it goes with everything. And that's definitely one thing that great Moms know really well, that versatility is key.