Magazine hoarding & recent inspiration

I have a confession to make. I'm a magazine hoarder. 

Although I've tried to organize them throughout the house, I can't bring myself to throw them away. I love going through old issues (some go back to the 90's!) and no matter how techy this world gets—there is something about a printed magazine that will NEVER go out of style. Last night I curled up in bed with my magazines and ipad, and had so much fun looking up some of artists featured in the latest issue of Garden & Gun. Here are several of the amazing artists I came across... 

Meet Kiki Slaughter, a contemporary artist based in Charlottesville, Virginia. Her paintings are beautiful and I love her use of color.

Meet New Orleans artist Rebecca Rebouché. Yes, that's her on the cover of G&G.

I love her whimsy-filled paintings as well as her story, and how she was discovered by Anthropologie. Check out her blog, website and her artwork. She also has an Etsy store that has so much to offer.

And finally, meet the incredibly talented duo, Shovels & Rope.

I'm in love with this band. Read the full article from G&G here. I love their story as well: "On a typical night before a May show in West Virginia, Shovels & Rope tandem Cary Ann Hearst and her husband, Michael Trent, spent the night in a Walmart parking lot. No, they weren’t stuffed into shopping carts or folded into the backseat of a car. They lived it up in the back of their van, replete with a queen-size bed, a television, and a good bottle of red wine."

Listen to them here and you'll discover they are the real deal. My favorite song as of now is Lay Low. I could listen to it over and over again. Aren't they amazing? Their music makes me miss home and the mountains for some reason. 

That's it for now. Happy hump day everyone!

Artist I LOVE

I've blogged about Sally King Benedict before (see this post from last year) but I just had to share her beautiful paintings again. Her use of COLOR inspires me, and I can't get enough of her work.

 I stumbled upon this article on Glitter Guide and had to share. It's true, she is just as beautiful as her paintings.

Garden & Gun featured her as one of the Southern Women Redefining the Southern Belle....

Visit her fabulous website for more info...

yellow + gray

Although I don't use it as often as I would like, yel­low and gray will always be one of my favorite color combinations. Sarah from The Happy Enve­lope cre­ated these gor­geous wed­ding invi­ta­tions for a des­ti­na­tion wed­ding in Napa Val­ley.  She paired ele­gant script and serif fonts with beau­ti­ful pat­terns for an over­all design that is both laid back and sophis­ti­cated – and com­pletely stunning.

The entire suite is wrapped in oys­ter gray twine paired with a neu­tral khaki enve­lope and hand-lettered black ink calligraphy.

From Sarah: This wed­ding is a Napa Val­ley des­ti­na­tion event.  The upbeat color palette of yel­low, gray and taupe brings a sense of cheer to the whole suite.  All pieces were let­ter­press printed on weighty con­ser­va­tion board — thick enough to allow for let­ter­press print­ing on both sides of the invi­ta­tion.  All pieces were printed in a warm putty gray on the front, with var­i­ous pat­terns printed in warm yel­low ink on the back of the invi­ta­tion, the reply card, and the hangtag.

The bride wanted a laid-back, Cal­i­for­nia feel but with an under­stated, sim­ple aes­thetic.  The invi­ta­tion itself is fairly under­stated on the front with a mix­ture of type and a light dot­ted line motif.  The punch to this invi­ta­tion is the bold pat­tern print­ing on the reverse side of select pieces.