Nest Decorating & Designs by Tamar

Charm-ing

After doing lots of resting on Saturday I ended up spending the rest of the weekend working away on some new projects,finished a whole bunch of Charm necklaces for a new shop in San Fransisco called Crown and Crumpet if you live in the bay area you should  check them out, they serve real English tea and the shop is adorable!!! I now have quite a few shops that carry my work in the US including the lovely Catbird in Brooklyn, it's all very exciting!
I mainly worked on jewelery this weekend and came up with a few new designs I like, I seem to turn to jewelery whenever I get sick of sewing or get tired of everything else,making jewelery has a wonderful calming affect on me. I love combining all the vintage components I collect, mixing up all the colors and beads and just siting quietly at my work table listening to music or NPR, bliss!
Here are a few of my new designs available in my shop
A giant flower pendant on an aqua vintage bead chain with red ribbon:

A pink vintage bead chain necklace with a funky crown and ceramic rose:

A vintage white bead necklace with a lovely big and rare bird pendant with a red ribbon:

and finally a collective photo of all my charm necklaces before being shipped out...bye bye...

xboxxbox have a wonderful week!

Saturday morning post

This morning is all about lazying around, still in my nightgown and slippers I've been moving around from room to room trying to take new photos of old stuff...
It's raining outside and I am just about to cuddle in front of the fire place and read the new issue of Domino Magazine, just arrive yesterday in the mail:) I also have a very interesting new book ,so far it's fascinating!
Here is breakfast:

I got a beautiful roll of vintage wallpaper from my aunt Susan and was playing around with it, I thought I might wallpaper the closet doors in the bedroom but Ronen thinks it will look too busy, he is probably right...

Here are a few more corners of the bedroom, a collage made for me by my niece

A vintage purse that belonged to my mother

a photo of my beautiful grandmother from 1928

a small cigarette box that belonged to my great grandfather

I hope you enjoyed this little bedroom tour...:) have a great weekend xox

A Vase of flowers

I was delighted today to see that not all the flowers in our garden have faded away,it is actually becoming very cool and the leaves on the trees are rapidly turning into glorious shades of autumn, but few of the summer flowers are still sticking around.
I picked some of my favorites but couldn't decide where to put them, so here are 3 studies of garden flowers in a white vase which eventually ended up on the dining room table.
Voila!
on the tall chest of drawers (with my sister's art work in the back):

by the window (with my son's art in the back):

on the dining room table:

they also smell divine:)

A tiny farm house

I would like to share this photo with you, it's of our house.
I've been getting many requests to see our house from the outside,as you can see it's not a beautiful classic VT farm house (see the bottom for that) but rather a simple neighborhood ranch ... I took this photo yesterday,I like it because the colors came out nicely, especially the bright pink door!  I love my house and it is what it is...

I really like the garden,especially the back garden,here is a reminder photo from our June party

But, I really wanted to write about our good friends Jan and Lee who actually have the perfectly loveliest white farm house

We were over there for dinner the other night and discovered they now added chicken and a beautiful chicken coop to their growing animal stock, look at this amazing kitchen garden they have:

the goats spend their days grazing and gazing at the beautiful view

my son Mikey helped herd them into the barn before dark

a cozy window seat in their home

for dinner we had homemade pasta, yum!

It was perfect!

Breakfast at Shelburne Farms Inn

When you live in Vermont beauty is everywhere,it's infused in your every day life, from going to the supermarket,parking with a view of the mountains ,seagulls soaring above your head, to driving the boys around going up and down winding hilly roads to watching soccer games surrounded by woods and landscapes stretching out into the horizon breathing in the crisp air of autumn.
But sometimes I forget to look around , I forget why we came here in the first place and I need a little shake to remind me that this is truly an amazing place.
Yesterday I was reminded of that beauty. Right around the corner from our home,3 minutes away to be exact, lays Shelburne Farms Inn and I had breakfast there with my sweet friend Jill.

I can go on forever about the farm, the amazing work everyone does there from land conservation and teaching to organic farming,cheese making, baking and gardening but you can read about all that here.

Breakfast at inn always promises an out of the ordinary experience, the house is so beautiful and grand but at the same time the rooms are cozy with lit fireplaces and masses of comfy sofas for it's guests to sit around and read on a rainy day

there is a beautiful wide hallway leading to the dining/breakfast room

and the room itself is breathtaking and grand

The whole breakfast menu is made from the farms produce, the eggs, the bread and the vegetables, even the berries in the pancakes are grown locally right around the corner! but the best part of it all is the affordable price...the most expensive thing on the menu is $10! definitely worth the splurge for a once in a while tete-a-tete with good friend!

The view from the dining room is also breathtaking

the gardens were dripping wet and magical

the farm and inn are open from early May to mid October, so if you are in the neighborhood it's really worth the visit!

have a wonderful rest of the weekend xox

Inspiring addiction

Yes, I am addicted, but not to any substances thank god....it's a beauty addiction, and a certain specific one to be completely honest, I am addicted to magazines...!
My favorite American magazines are :
Country Home","Domino", "Country Living", "Martha Stewart Living" and "Cookie" (which I love even though my kids are teens)...
Then there are the British ones:
"Country Living","living etc","Country Homes and Interiors" and "The World of Interiors" which is always over-the-top fantastic and the beautiful textile magazine "Selvedge"!
I also love the French "Marie Claire Idees" which is an AMAZING crafting mag.
I don't buy all of them every month...I sit around and read them in the store and only buy the issues I know I will cherish for a long time, use as inspiration or show my Interior decorating clients if I am working on a specific project. I also have a whole system of categorized folders of magazine cuttings I show clients to get a better idea of what they love and get to know them better, I will blog about this soon too.

I must have been to the book store about 10 times to see if they got the new issue of the British "Country Living", ever since the lovely Lucy wrote about it in her blog I have been waiting for it to arrive (a whole MONTH later here in the USA)...and it was worth it, the September issue is lovely!!
Here are a few glimpses from different stories in this issue including the amazing home of textile designer and artist Annnabel Grey

Home inspiration:

Vintage inspiration:

Color inspiration:

So for those who have been asking, my sweetie husband did get back safe and sound and LOVED the newly rearranged sofa! his only concern was if we will need to constantly straighten it out, but actually the Suzani sits very nicely on the slip cover and hardly moves at all! so we are all clear.
Here is just a little photo reminder (the Suzani is the embroidered panel on the sofa)

And just a few photos of my latest little corduroy pouches made from fabric my sister sent me from Israel, which is actually imported from Holland...they are on the smaller side, I have had a lot of request for smaller pouches that will fit into a smaller purse. These are lined with polka dots and are perfect for anything from makeup to change and great for kids too!
Available in my shop

have a wonderful day xox

Back to school and a little house tour

The boys decided they want to wake up on their own this year, so far it's been two days and they are doing a very good job at it, it's hard to believe how big they are...since I'm not an early riser their request is actually fine with me, but secretly I lay in bed and I'm ready to jump out at any moment in case of need, they managed to do it all on their own and didn't miss the bus or need me at all, is it actually a sad story? are my morning motherly duties over for good? I can't decide,I have mixed feeling about it.

This week I took some new photos of the dining room and living room back wall, I am dreaming of a new shelving system, one that will run from side to side and all the way up to the ceiling.Looking at the photos it doesn't seem like such a priority anymore, but I hope we can get around to building something nicer then these Ikea Billy system shelves we've had for 20 years now,they must have moved 5 times with us!

A gilmpse of the dining room (with a bit of my studio space spilling in on the left). The branch on the wall is actually a light fixture my husband built, it's covered with tiny lights in pink and white and looks very cool at night.The white hutch was a horrible brown I painted white, distressed and changed the knobs to mismatched ones.

The living room back wall with the Ikea shelves,we painted the fireplace matt black this year and hanged a smaller painting of my mom's, this one is of three flowers which reminds us of our three boys, I like the scale much better now.

A new photo of the white slip covered vintage chair, the dog's favorite spot...

I hope you enjoyed the little "house tour" of the day...xox

New Stuff...

This loooong weekend was very productive, I finished a few projects around the house including two pillows made from vintage pieces of chintz:

I also spent hours and hours yesterday photographing and listing 26 new gift sets from my Fall 08 Hair accessory collection
I decided to just do gift sets and not break them up into individual pieces,the barrette is 1.5",the ponytail holder is 1.4" and the two bobby pins are 3/4" all nice and big.  I think it's fun to give and receive a matching set all nicely packaged in a recycled box and tied with natural linen string.
The sets are made from different fabric collections, some made from high quality European cotton corduroys and some from luxurious velvets and they are great for ANY age!

I also have a few sets made from some incredible Liberty Of London Tana Lawn fabric

they come boxed in this:

and finally lots of small .5" brass bobby pin trio sets made with Liberty Of London fabrics

they all come boxed in this:

They are all available as of today in my shop

have a fantastic week:)