Happy Monday! I thought I would help brighten up the day with some luscious bold wallpapers available from Flavor Paper. This company is based in Brooklyn, NY, and creates these vibrant hand-screened wallpapers used by nightclubs, restaurants, hotels and homeowners aiming for a bold impact with their interiors.
Images by: Sara Essex for Flavor Paper
With around a month to go until our new home is finished, I’ve been keeping an eye out around the web for interesting decor that I’d love to buy for the house. The colours and fittings we have chosen are quite earthy and neutral.
Here’s a few items I think would look fantastic:
We all love a bit of vintage decadence in graphic and web design, the next free download is a vintage inspired blog header I designed. For a bit of fun I’ve shown the different design elements that were used to create this header. If you have Photoshop or other photo editing software, have some fun playing around with different textures and elements, you never know where the design could go, but that’s half the fun!
Here’s the final outcome, I experimented with some pretty washed out hues and overlaying the elements. The download below comes without the blog title, so if you would like to use it all you need to do is add your own title.
To download click on the link and save the image to your computer:
Header (985 x 225 px) - Download
Please read the Terms of Use before downloading files from August Empress.
There’s no denying that vintage birdcages have a whismical charm to them when displayed inside your home or outdoors in the garden. They are often popping up as motifs on handmade products and textiles, so here’s a little selection of lovely birdcage items:
I came across these adorable paper origami lights in Whimsidoodle‘s etsy store, and thought they would be fantastic to hang up for parties, in a kids bedroom or just as a cute decoration. I wanted to buy some but couldn’t decide which colour scheme to go with, until I realised that the store also offered a PDF of step-by-step instructions to fold the little origami boxes, so I decided to buy some patterned paper and make my own.
I bought around 20 different sheets of paper from Monograms Fine Papers, an Australian online stationery store, which allows you to buy per sheet rather than a whole pack of each design. My absolute favourite is the watercolour peacock print pictured above, it is stunning.
So I’ve started folding these little origami boxes, they are really super simple to create. The only hard part is finding a set of christmas lights with white wire, everywhere I’ve looked only stock green. But as it’s not long to go until Christmas now I’m sure they will pop up somewhere.
Here we have the very first free pattern to be featured on the blog; a chevron watercolour pattern which is seamlessly repeats, available in 3 colour variations. You could use it to liven up your blog background or blog post designs, or in a crafty project, it’s up to you!
To download click on the link and save the image to your computer:
Pattern 1 – Download
Pattern 2 – Download
Pattern 3 – Download
Please read the Terms of Use before downloading files from August Empress.
To celebrate the launch of August Empress, these two wonderful books will be given away to one lucky person; Print & Pattern by Bowie Style which documents the best work of surface designs as featured on the popular blog, and the newly released book Creative Inc. created by Joy Deangdeelert Cho & Meg Mateo Ilasco, ‘The Ultimate Guide to Running a Successful Freelance Business’. If you are interested in being part of this giveaway you simply need to complete one of these 3 easy steps:
It’s as simple as that! This giveaway will close on the 15th November, 2010, and I will announce the winner on the 16th November, 2010.
*This giveaway is now closed, thanks everyone for all your lovely comments and tweets, and joining up to the Empress Society*
The artwork featured above might look a little familiar to you as I commissioned Honor Bowden of Galahouse to illustrate the ‘empress’ featured in the header as part of the branding of August Empress. Her bold and feminine aesthetic was perfect for capturing what I envisaged August Empress to be.
Honor is based on the Gold Coast also, it was wonderful to collaborate with a local artist. View more of her work on her website or follow her illustration journal.
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