Archive for July, 2008

Inspiration | The guy’s take on virtual window shopping

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

Funky modern guy's jewelry

In the continuation of a theme, I’ve decided to do my version of Vivian’s post yesterday, where she showed our “flowerish” engraved jewelry matched with a summer outfit.

For the guy’s outfit, we’ve got a “smart casual” look. Starting from the top-left corner and going clockwise, the outfit is made up of:

Yes, I realize that everything in the outfit comes from the same store, but it’s true to the guy way of shopping: Get in, buy everything you could possibly need and get the heck out.

Inspiration | Virtual window shopping

Monday, July 21st, 2008

I would have said Windows® shopping, but our PC has decided not to connect to the internet so we’re almost exclusively Mac-surfing now.

I’ve been wanting to do a little shopping, but it seems whenever we have the free time to go shopping, it’s usually past closing time at the mall.  Instead, it’s virtual shopping for me and the added benefit is that there’s an overwhelming selection, and I can always pretend that everything would fit me perfectly. :)

I created a little inspiration board with the outfit I found for a fictitious dress-up lunch with the girls:
Summer fashion inspiration

In case you’re interested in the details, clockwise from the top-left corner:

Now, I created this little inspiration piece in Illustrator, but if you’re ever in the mood to pull together your own inspiration boards, you can whittle away some time playing with Polyvore, where I was able to pull together the same outfit, complete with clickable links, in a fraction of the time.

Weddings | Bridesmaid jewelry

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

We’ve been busy with making up a set of bridesmaid jewelry for five members of a bridal party.

If you’re curious, we were told that the bridal party would be wearing strapless dresses in taupe silk very similar to the dress below by Aria dress (style 160), only with the double-hem in taupe/brown and turquoise sashes. The bride wanted to add a splash of colour to the necklines that would co-ordinate with the hits of turquoise used in her wedding.

aria dress style 160

We suggested the turquoise plum blossoms necklace for the bridesmaids with the matching earrings (from Blend Creations of course!). They were a great choice for the bride who said she loved contemporary, modern and funky sort of styling. :) Even better — her bridesmaids are pretty happy with the choices, which is good since the jewelry was both bridal party accessories and bridesmaid gifts all rolled into one.

bridesmaid necklacebridesmaid earrings

For the bride’s niece, the “junior” bridesmaid who didn’t want to be left out of the bridesmaid jewelry shopping, we went with the small pendant version of the same plum blossom pattern, (but on a silver chain):

junior bridesmaid pendant

The wedding will be at the end of the month, and I know the focus is on the bride and all, but I do love it when brides choose to have their bridal party wear our contemporary jewelry. I can’t wait to see the wedding photos!

Sketchbook | Archived drawing

Friday, July 11th, 2008

We  were hunting through our archived files on our external drive and got distracted by some of the ghosts of electrons past. From a “Form and Colour” class during Vivian’s design school days, she had a life drawing session where *gasp* the model was not unclothed. For some reason that would have been too scandalous for a university to actually have an unclothed model. Before design school, Vivian had spent a year at art school where the life-drawing models actually posed in the buff. So its somewhat odd that it would be too scandalous to have a ‘true’ life-drawing model for a nationally-recognized design school.  Or maybe it would’ve just been too much excitement for the engineering students who shared the same building.

In any case, here’s a 30-minute long pose, dated from about six years ago.  One minute moving poses usually make for more fun and dynamic art, but we can’t seem to find any of those that were saved for posterity.

Life drawing, circa 2002

Maybe it’s time to pick up the conte and the newsprint and head back over to the art school for a life-drawing session? Loobylu did a “Friday Archives” feature, so maybe we’ll dig into the ol’ hard drive now and then and see what other dusty images there are.

Inspiration | From Teeny to Tiny

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

Being designers, we like to try to keep up with what is going on in different areas of design; in what ways the envelope is being pushed. One of the most exciting developments is always when things are designed to be functional and really really small.  Cue the Tumbleweed tiny house company where the houses are well… teeny and tiny… as described.

Since we last posted about the Tumbleweed tiny house company, they’ve completely revamped their site and they will be adding a whole slew of new tiny houses (can’t wait!). Their biggest house now stands at a majestic 774 sq ft. Their smallest at a proud 65 sq ft.

Seen below is the Harbinger at 297 sq ft (not including the loft).

Jay Shafer, the founder, has done amazing things with very little space. The floor plans continue to be my favorite to peruse. It’s great to see such a small space used so efficiently. Bigger builders should take a serious look at his body of work to see the improvements that they could bring to their oversized 2500 sq ft behemoths — at least by comparison.


I can just imagine Mr. Shafer working on his tiny drafting table drawing up these tiny plans. Note how big the arc of the door appears on such a small floor plate.

The only thing missing is seeing one of his houses done up in a more contemporary style. Not that it needs to be all glass and stainless, but something a “tiny” less country, and dare I say, a “tiny” bit more rock’n'roll.

Shop news | Be a fan of Blend Creations on Facebook

Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008

Find Blend Creations on Facebook

We’ve recently created a Facebook page and we’re looking for fans! (If you don’t have a Facebook account, it’s really easy to get one here.) We’d like to get as many fans as possible so we’re having a little contest:


“One fan = One dollar in merchandise” giveaway

We’re going to give away up to $1500 in Blend Creations merchandise on October 31st. But the exact amount? Well, that’ll be up to our fans.

For every fan we get, we’ll add $1 to the pot. So if by October 31 we have 100 fans, we’ll give away a $100 worth of merchandise. And if we have 1,436 fans? We’ll give away a $1,436 worth of merchandise. We’re willing to give up to $1500 to one lucky winner*. (In case this takes off in an insane way, we’ve got to cap it somewhere.)

To enter this giveaway, just go to the Blend Creations page on Facebook and hit the “Become a Fan” button at the top right and you’re in. (You may be prompted to either login or create a Facebook account).

On October 31, we’ll have a draw and announce the winner on the page and send you a Facebook message if you’ve won the draw.


*Obligatory fine print: Sorry — relatives, suppliers and retailers of Blend Creations are not be eligible for this contest, but they will still count as a “fan” for the prize pot. The final prize is non-transferable and has no re-sale value. You can use it to buy all your Christmas gifts, but it cannot be sold to someone else. The maximum giveaway amount will be for $1500 even if the number of fans exceeds 1500. The giveaway prize is redeemable only for merchandise valued at regular price and not sale prices; it cannot be used in conjunction with any promotional codes nor can it be used for the purchase of any Blend Creations collaborations, limited art editions and/or custom work. The merchandise will be shipped to the winner in a maximum of three separate shipments either to three different addresses or to the same address spread over a period of time.