My husband has been working so hard that I’ve barely seen him over the past six months. The kids and I are desperate for quality time with him and thankfully, his project is nearing completion! I can’t wait to have him back. I am counting down the days.

That said, we need a holiday. Reading this article on summer getaways made me want to pack a bag. And there was some serious deep sighing going on while I flipped through the slideshow.

Pause on the image of Cartagena, Colombia. It instantly reminded me of the striped organza Dolce & Gabbana dress that Kayley Chabot wore on the spring runway.

Don’t you think? This dress plus this place? Add the fam bam and it would be the perfect fantasy. Now, husband come home!

This is one of my absolute favorite projects. The theme is festive, the type clean, the color palette unpredictable. And the simplicity of the pinwheel conveniently lends itself to other manifestations—a pinwheel cake wouldn’t be hard to achieve, and making paper pinwheels is easy, too.

I wish I had used this for my own child’s birthday party!

I’ve mentioned before that I’m perpetually on the lookout for design ideas for my parents’ outdated 1970s home.

I come across a lot of ideas, but none of them have struck me quite like this one. It was also built in 1976 and is also in the Pacific Northwest, and this whole remodel would just work.

The company responsible for this remodel, NW Renovations & Design Co., is based in Portland. They’re going on my watchlist.

It seems like everything I’m coveting these days is in one of these two trendy hues.

But I’m trying to avoid “proceeding to checkout” because we are… drum roll, please… moving back to the U.S.! So I don’t want excess baggage. It’s kind of an anticlimax Not Shopping after a year of Not Shopping, but I’m convinced this is space-saving measure is the right thing to do.

I realize that I’m always bragging about satisfying the client on the first try. But it’s not always the case. Sometimes I’m way, way off.

Like in the case of this wedding invitation for Lori and Derek*. They came to me with numerous images of bird silhouettes and swirly vines, and I was inspired to go in this direction. It looks like a title page from a vintage book, doesn’t it? It would look so good if it was letterpressed.

Well, vintage title page or not, it wasn’t this couple’s cup of tea. They wanted something warmer, friendlier, more textured and layered. Something more like this.

My work may not always happen so magically, but I’m thankful for clients who stick with me through the creative process, confident that I can bring their vision to life.

*Names will always be changed.

I am so inspired by these images of Le Royal Monceau, a Parisian hotel redesigned by Philippe Starck, in the March 2013 issue of Lonny.

I am inspired by everything, from the geometric carpet:

To the images of 17th-century Italian architecture placed on light fixtures:

To the dizzying striped hallways:

And corridors with oversize brushstrokes:

To the subdued color palettes in the hotel rooms:

And the insanely beautiful, pink tufted headboard:

Subtly contrasting the mirrored bedside tables:

And the perfectly mismatched chairs:

And abundance of cozy places to curl up with a book:

Le Royal Monceau is located at 37 Avenue Hoche in Paris’ Eighth Arrondissement and costs over $850 per night.

It’s ironic that the most fashion-forward item in my closet is a twelve year-old pair of shoes. They’re snakeskin, they’re designer, and they’re sentimental—I bought them for my first professional job out of college, interning at a magazine in New York City.

I don’t wear them much these days. Being a stay-at-home mom doesn’t really call for snakeskin stilettos (though I wish it did). However, the snakeskin trend on Spring 2013 runways made me want to take them out and dust them off!

The thing about snakeskin this time around is that it’s not as sleek or as punk rock as it was in the early 00s. This time, it’s kind of… eccentric. I don’t mean that in a bad way. The juxtaposition of oddball and pretty is so very refreshing.

See what I mean below.

Python with Florals and Lace
From Holly Fulton, Erdem, and Preen.

Patchwork Python
From Proenza Schouler, Erdem, and Preen.

Python and Blue Hues
From Gucci, Jeremy Scott, and Erdem.

I pulled a few quotes from Christa D’Souza’s article on snakeskin for The Edit, because they’re so helpful when thinking about how to wear this wild print:

“As a pattern it’s hypnotic, the perfect counterpart to lace, DayGlo color or even denim.”

“What we are talking about is accents: using python as a vehicle to urbanize a look that might otherwise come across as girly or bland.”

“Just keep the image of an aging rock chick in mind as a warning, and you’ll be fine.”

Gasp! What is this? Black doors on white kitchen cabinets?!

Well, because they’re glass-faced and only on the upper cabinets, these black doors don’t look like retro hour—they look like picture frames! What a good idea, making your kitchen wares look like art on the walls.

*Images from Pottery Barn’s February 2013 catalog.

A friend of mine just sent me this fantastic quote from Bruce Shostak in a recent issue of House Beautiful.

“A small entryway is a great opportunity to use a dark color, like this terra-cotta. It feels like a big, warm, earthy hug, and you get a sense of compression that propels you into the living room—what architects call ‘squeeze and squirt.’ And if the living room is a lighter color, like this pale gray, the room will feel even larger and more airy, as if you’ve been hit by a gust of wind.”

This quiet color palette works so well in Hanni Liliedahl and Jesse Silacci’s Monterey, California home because of the wondrous variety of shapes and textures. There are so many beautiful things to gawk at that I don’t miss color at all.

*Images from the February/March 2013 issue of Rue Magazine.