This summer I'm into...

all of these things.  No rhyme or reason, this season I'm into these things.  Enjoy!

Planters from Pottery Barn, I'd love to cover my porch with these! 

These knitted poufs have long been on my list of things 'to buy', though my hangup is I'm not sure where to put it in the house! 

This was one of my favorite wedding gifts, so personal and I love it!  I recently decided that it was ok to actually use instead of just admire, so if you come over, you'll probably see it holding some cheese to be eaten. 

Scrabble tiles!  As necklace items, as inspiration for decor, who knows what possibilities they hold! 

Copper lanterns from Pier 1, really like this type of metal look.

Photography Dilemma

A while back we got a gift certificate to CanvasOnDemand.com for a 16x20 canvas print.  Nice! But we then decided to print our New Zealand photos elsewhere.  So now this gift certificate is expiring and we could not think of any photos we wanted to get blown up!  Well sure, there's a few but we thought, our house is already full of New Zealand photos, Wedding photos, Europe photos...so we kind of want a little something else, something different then a photograph, something more unique. This dilemma (granted, it's a nice one to have...) lead me back to the photo manipulation skills I learned in college but rarely have the chance to use! I waded through piles and piles of negatives, did some photoshop work and came out with something I really love!
PHEW, what a long explanation, when all I really wanted to show you is the fruits of my labor.  Enjoy!

This is the one we went with!  Windmills on the island of Mykonos, Greece

Gondolas in Venice

Ponte sant'Angelo across the Tiber river in Rome

And the ominous gargoyle from the top of Notre Dame overlooking Paris. 

Wild Flowers in Bottles & Jars

I feel pretty behind the times on this semi-trend, but since its spring/summer I've been seeing these everywhere again!  Lovely compilations of wild flowers in unique jars and bottles.  They looks so wonderfully haphazard and almost shabby chic?  I love them, these pictures make me wish I had a collection of apothecary jars and a field of wild flowers behind my house! 

From a wedding post on holleeanne

And another from the same post as above, love that the bottles are all different colors and what kind of flower is that yellow ball!!

From a DIY project on Style Me Pretty

From Elizabeth Ann Designs, beautiful colors in these flowers and veggies on the table too! 

Not sure these are wild flowers, but I still love the variety of bottles holding various flowers.  Makes things so much more interesting!  Also from Elizabeth Ann Designs.

Feeling Crafty

With knitting season coming to a close for me, I've been itching to do some crafty things with my hands when I would usually be knitting (since this cold weather won't seem to go away!).  So I've tried my hand at a few things recommended by friends or things I've been wanting to tackle.  Pictures below, enjoy!

Yarn wreathes, made for some great mother's day gifts! Thanks Lindsey for teaching me how to make them!

And one for me since I didn't want to be left out.

Tissue poms, made into a summery bouquet of flowers for the kitchen table.

Necklace made out of fabric, really fun to make! 

Color Wheels

Seems like lately I've been seeing the most unique color wheels!  Either on purpose or by accident, the color wheel seems to be emerging as a nice info-graphic.  I love the way these people have been using a normal graphic depiction with a small twist to share their point of view.  Check these out!

From Bonnie Krims Architectural Color Consulting Newsletter

What to do with this Door

I purchased this door about 3 years ago at an antique shop in Glen Ellyn.  I paid $10 for it, it's solid wood with white paint cracking off of it.  It is heavy, let me tell you.  It moved from my old apartment to our house, over the last 2 years we've decided to throw it away 2 times, but it never made it to the trash (thankfully!).  I love this door, but I really have NO idea what to do with it anymore.  I'm putting it on here so I can collect your ideas!  Please....tell me what you would do with it if it were yours.  :)

Before & After Photo Wall

A while back I posted some of our favorite photos we took while in New Zealand.  Since then, we decided to fill pretty much the last wall in our house that's empty, with some blown up photo canvases of a few of those pictures!  The wall over our couch in our family room we've been keeping open hoping to put something really special there, and I think these fit the bill.  Here are the before and after pictures of what we decided to put there.  Let me know what you think, enjoy!

Before, messy couch with a poor bare wall.

After!!

New Zealand Photos

Hi All! Its been so long since my last post because we just returned from our vacation to New Zealand!  We had an amazing time and I would highly recommend it. 
I wanted to share some of my favorite pictures with you, not just the ones of scenery or of us, but the ones that were more artistic in nature.  Most of these photos were actually take by my super talented husband Josh!  Enjoy!  More regular posts to come, also I'll be asking you're opinion on which pictures we should enlarge to hang in our house. 

My Etsy Shop!

This is pretty exciting for me, even though its still in it's infancy.  I've opened an Etsy Shop!  Check it out here.  You'll see some recipe cards like below, but I plan to expand into many more things so keep coming back and looking.  And as always if you want a custom design, email me here!

Macaroons

Just because they're beautiful, and delicious.  And a recipe for those brave enough to try. 

Paint by Numbers

Friday I abused my lunch plate at work so much it cracked in half.  It's a cute melamine plate (a set of 4 I bought a long time ago!) with a paint by number scene of various wood animal on each plate.  The set is pictured below.

Sad things have happened to these plates.  Two still exist, one as I said, broke in half, you're definitely not supposed to microwave them although I did very often.  The last one was thrown away by someone, having mistaken it for a disposable plate! 
Anyway, all of this reminded me that I really enjoy the kitschy-ness of paint by numbers.  Here are a few things I've found recently that embrace it and do a great job!

This great zipper handbag from Etsy, here. 

And a very similar pattern of fabric but made into an apron!  Again on Etsy, here. 

Very cool men's tie with just the illustration (of the Mona Lisa) on it.  Found here.

Blog Recommendation

I frequent the blog Design*Sponge pretty often and one blog I've learned about through that site is the blog Small Measures by Ashley English.  She recently published books called Canning and Preserving and Keeping Chickens. 
Her blog is excellent.  She always gives great advice on sustainable living, doing things yourself that you always thought would be too difficult (like the subjects of her books keeping chickens and canning both intimidate me a lot!) and her column on d*s ranges from how to make your own hair rinse to cooking recipes to natural stress reducers. 
I also recently found a few videos on YouTube of her talking about the benefits of canning and raising your own chickens.  My favorite one is below, and its very convincing!  I've been doing a lot of freezing this summer but next summer might try a hand a canning because of this video.  Check out her blog when you have a minute.

Big Cartel

For those who love Etsy, I recently stumbled across this amazing find called Big Cartel.  Similar in style and purpose to Etsy but it seems to be slightly more 'official' in nature.  What I mean by that instead of each 'shop' having the same look and feel with a customized banner of some kind, each 'shop' has its own look and feel, generally they seem to be matched to the stores or business's website.  This is a nice feature for places that have the resources to put up a website, but maybe don't have the time or money to have someone build them a shop within that website.  
So, speaking of one of the companies that has a shop in Big Cartel, I am really liking what These Are Things has up in their shop! 

And the one below is actually letterpress!  More on letterpress later, I've become enthralled with it, but I think it deserves its own post. 

Book Review: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I try very hard to only post things on Kaleidoscop that relate to art, design and the like.  However, I wanted to share the review I wrote of the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  The biggest reason is because I feel passionate about what Barbara Kingsolver is writing about.  If you have a minute, check it out and if you like the subject, I'd highly recommend reading the book.  It has really changed my life!  Read the review here. 
Below are a few pictures of our attempts to make cheese like she does in the book!

New Lonny Magazine Issue

The new Lonny Magazine issue is out!  If you're not familiar with Lonny, check it out, it really is a great digital magazine.

Kaleidoscope Video

Ok the music is a little creepy, but I love these colors and fractals it creates. 

Another Bravia Commercial

The marketing people at Sony are geniuses.  I read that they used 70,000 liters of paint to shoot this commercial which is essentially them exploding paint all over and inside an old deserted building.  Yes, the music isn't as great as the previous commercial I showed and the clown is slightly creepy but still: beautiful colors and amazing idea!
Check it out:

Bravia Commercial is Bliss

Has anyone seen this commercial for Bravia?  If you haven't you are in for a serious TREAT!  Check it out.  Its such a beautiful & innovative way to promote a product that's all about the visual. 

Kaleidoscope?

So my best friend and I have been going back and forth about starting a blog, so here I am, just giving it whirl. I never started blogging before because I kept thinking, who would read things I want to write about? So, to you who are reading, thank you! :) You're probably thinking why did she name her blog kaleidoscope?  Mostly because I couldn't think of a witty phrase/jingle that encompassed all the things I want to talk about.  But also because I love the word kaleidoscope.

Not to get all...when I was a kid on you...but when I went to summer camp as a kid, our counselors used to name themselves something, example, my counselors were kit-kat and crutch.  I always used to think to myself, if I'm a counselor I'll have a much cooler name then those.  I thought about it on and off for years and finally about 10 years ago, decided I would be kaleidoscope.  From that point, I grew to love so many other things about kaleidoscopes: the colors, their changing patterns, good clean visual fun!

Essentially this blog is going to be about anything and everything that intrigues me, which are mostly things like art, art history, design, color, pattern, interior design, paper, hand made things, architecture and so much more. I hope you enjoy, and just to start us off, I've included a few beautiful kaleidoscope images.  Who doesn't love these!?