Room of the Week 11.10.09
At Home Friday Favorites 11.6.09
Are you ready for some major inspiration? For today’s Friday Favorites, just a few of our many favorite blogs–home design, fashion and otherwise.
Anne of The City Sage is as sweet as can be, and her creative style and clever way with words make her blog on design and fashion one of the most-loved out there. One visit and you’ll be addicted–trust us.
Cassandra La Valle is the incredible talent behind Coco+Kelley, where her interior design savvy is revealed through glamorous images and chic compilations in fashion, color and decor.
This is Glamorous never fails to find the dreamiest, loveliest images imaginable, and combines them in a way that will leave you swooning. A wonderful escape from everyday realities.
Design*Sponge is a daily website dedicated to home and product design, with diy projects, before & after furniture and home makeovers, home tours, recipes, etc. All you’d ever want in a blog, and probably more!
How does she do it all? Local designer Tobi Fairley has taken the interior design world by storm, and is now paving her way through the industry with her successes in social media.
Local blogger Elizabeth Owen has captured our hearts with her humorous vintage-inspired blog, Mabel’s House (named after her sidekick dog, Mabel).
Really and truly, you won’t find a much more fantastic blog than Creature Comforts–from its crafty projects to its big, colorful images. And the way it’s arranged like an inspiration board makes it appear almost 3D. So fun!
Enjoy! Oh, and…Happy Friday.
At Home Hits the Runway 11.5.09
This master bedroom (by Tobi Fairley and featured in our March 2009 issue), with its gold hues, ornate light fixture and luxurious wall coverings and fabrics, called for a runway look that screamed “look at me.” We found what we were looking for in this corset dress by Richard Nicoll. Its gold velvet panels and even a tiny arch at the bottom (like the arched doorway) make it the runway equivalent of this gorgeous 24-karat bedroom. Add some gold jewelry and strappy high heels–and a coat to ward off a winter chill–and people will think you’ve acquired the Midas touch.
At Home Room of the Week 11.3.09
Featured in our November “The Best of the South” issue, the historic Fayetteville home of Julie and Mike Roetzel contains a beautiful kitchen worth special attention. Mike converted an antique hutch into a functional island with an ice maker, designed for easy entertaining. Especially this time of year, with holiday cooking and get-togethers on the horizon, we couldn’t be more charmed. In fact, if it were our kitchen, we’d never leave it. We’d just stay home and make desserts all day, which we would fool ourselves into thinking look a little something like this (courtesy of the Southern queen of cooking herself, Paula Deen).
This pumpkin gingerbread trifle would be a festive way to begin.
Followed shortly by a picture-perfect strawberry cake.
Topped off with a big heaping scoop of chocolatey goodness.
At Home Friday Favorites 10.30.09
An Ode to Southern Women
Our Best of the South issue is out, and we’ve been getting great reviews, including one reader who topped our Southern style with her favorite email “ode” to Southern gals. We thought all y’all would enjoy the read, shugahs, and hope y’all are fixin’ to have a good weekend. If you get timed of football, there’s always the DVD of Steel Magnolias (or your latest issue of At Home to read!).
Southern women know
everybody’s first name:
Honey
Darlin’
Shugah
Southern
women know their summer weather report: Humidity
Humidity
Humidity
Southern women know
their vacation spots: The
beach
The rivuh
The crick
Southern women know the
movies that speak to their hearts:
Fried Green Tomatoes
Driving Miss Daisy
Steel Magnolias
Gone With The Wind
Southern women know
their religions: Baptist
Methodist
Football
Southern women know
their cities dripping with Southern charm:
Chawl’stn S’vanah
Foat Wuth
N’awlins
Addlanna
Southern women know
their elegant gentlemen: Men in uniform
Men in tuxedos
Rhett Butler
Southern girls know
their prime real estate:
The Mall
The Country Club
The Beauty Salon
Southern girls know the
3 deadly sins:
Having bad hair and nails
Having bad manners
Cooking bad food
More
Suthen-ism’s: Only a
Southerner knows the difference between
a hissie
fit and
a conniption
fit, and
that you don’t “HAVE” them, you
“PITCH” them.
_____
Only a Southerner knows how many fish, collard greens,
turnip greens, peas, beans, etc., make up “a
mess.” _____
Only a Southerner can show or point out to you the general
direction of “yonder.” _____
Only a Southerner knows exactly how long”directly” is,
as in: “Going to town, be back directly.”
_____
Even Southern babies know that “Gimme some
sugar” is not a request for the white,
granular sweet substance that sits in a pretty little bowl
in the middle of the table. _____
All Southerners know exactly when “by
and by” is.
They might not use the term, but they know the concept
well.
_____
Only a Southerner knows instinctively that the best gesture
of solace for a neighbor who’s got trouble is a plate of
hot fried chicken and a big bowl of cold potato salad. If
the neighbor’s trouble is a real crisis, they also know
to add a large banana puddin! _____
Only Southerners grow up knowing the difference
between “right
near” and “a
right far piece.” They
also know that “just
down the road” can
be 1 mile or 20
_____
Only a Southerner, both knows and understands, the
difference between a redneck, a good ol’ boy, and
po’ white trash. _____
No true Southerner would ever assume that the car with the
flashing turn signal is actually going to make a turn.
_____
A Southerner knows that “fixin” can be
used as a noun, a verb, or an adverb.
_____
Only Southerners make friends while standing in lines, …
and when we’re “in line,”… we talk to
everybody! _____
Put 100 Southerners in a room and half of them will
discover they’re related, even if only by marriage.
_____
In the South, y’all is
singular, all
y’all is plural.
_____
Southerners know grits come from corn and how to eat them.
_____
Every Southerner knows tomatoes with eggs, bacon, grits,
and coffee are perfectly wonderful; that red eye gravy is
also a breakfast food; and that fried green tomatoes are not
a breakfast food. _____
When you hear someone say, “Well, I caught myself
lookin’,” you know you are in the presence of a
genuine Southerner!
_____
Only true Southerners say “sweet
tea” and”sweet
milk.” Sweet
tea indicates the need for sugar and lots of it — we do not
like our tea unsweetened. “Sweet milk” means you
don’t want buttermilk. _____
And a true Southerner knows you don’t scream
obscenities at little old ladies who drive 30 MPH on the
freeway. You just say,”Bless her
heart” … and go your own way.
_____
To those of you who are still a little embarrassed by your
Southerness: Take two tent revivals and a dose of sausage
gravy and call me in the morning. Bless your heart!
_____
And to those of you who are still having a hard time
understanding all this Southern stuff, … bless your
hearts, I hear they are fixin’ to have classes on
Southernness as a second language! _____
And for those that are not from the South but have lived
here for a long time, all y’all need a sign to hang on
y’alls front porch that reads “I ain’t from the
South, but I got here as fast as I could.”
Southern girls know men
may come and go, but
friends are fahevah !
Now……
Shugah, send this to someone who was raised in the South or
wish they had been! If you’re a Northern transplant,
bless your little heart, fake it. We know you got here as
fast as you
could
At Home Hits the Runway 10.29.09
At Home Room of the Week 10.27.09
Step through the front doors of this quintessentially Southern Greek Revival home in Harrison (featured in our November issue) and you’ll find an interior full of inspiration from unexpected places–if you’ve ever seen the movie “Out of Africa,” you’ll know what we mean. It’s owner Carolyn Grisham’s favorite film, which influenced the British Colonial look she weaved throughout her home in fresh new ways. In this sun room, converted into an office, you’ll notice Carolyn designed and painted a patterned floor, installed wicker chairs and chose an exotic rug. All it’s missing, in our opinion, is Robert Redford.
At Home Hits the Runway 10.23.09
The similarities between this Prada design and Kevin Walsh designed Little Rock living room really need no explaining. We’re loving the Sammy Peters painting in particular. Turn it into a dress and, voila! You’ve got one gorgeous spring 2010 look.
Behind-the-scenes look at our October fashion/beauty trends photo shoot!
Putting together our fashion and beauty sections at the back of the magazine is more involved than you may think!
After we spend weeks gathering the products we want to use (lots of emails and phone calls), we spend a day–sometimes more–in the studio photographing them. If they’re going to be cut out on the page, that requires a white background. But sometimes we style them (as we are currently doing with our December beauty feature, out soon!)
Laura had to work hard to get those bubbles out of the Too Faced lip gloss.
Mandy and Laura looking over magazines for inspiration.
Recognize this line up of fall makeup from somewhere? Hint, hint: https://athomearkansas.com/At-Home-Arkansas/October-2009/Fall-rsquos-Top-Beauty-Trends/
Photographer Rett Peek, caught doing what he does best.
The studio–where the magic happens!
At Home Room of the Week 10.20.09
Our November issue, The Best of the South, will be headed to your mailbox and on the web shortly. As a sneak preview (drum roll please…), here’s the oh-so-beautifully Southern room that graces our cover.
What makes it so Southern, you might ask?
- It’s designed by Arkansas native Kevin Walsh of Bear-Hill Interiors, a Southern charmer if ever there was one
- The artwork above the mantle is by acclaimed artist Sammy Peters, another famed Southern soul, whose work is carried in Little Rock’s Heights Gallery. Here’s a link to more of his work: http://www.sammypeters.com/paintingsmain/page18/page18.html
- The room’s symmetry, traditional moldings and pilasters flanking the fireplace, all common in Antebellum Greek Revival homes
- Comfortable, gracious furnishings, loaded with personality: silk damask seats in raw silk French chairs (Southern nearly always has a touch of French…), velvet covering the sofa, and an Oushak rug. The room is as well dressed as a Southern belle.
- And of course, those magnolia branches, with perfect blooms
If you’d like to see other projects by Bear-Hill Interiors, click on the links:
https://athomearkansas.com/At-Home-Arkansas/August-2009/French-Dressing/
https://athomearkansas.com/At-Home-Arkansas/July-2008/Tone-on-Tone/
