Two Zero One Three

 

Hello folks, hope you are all enjoying the holidays!

I will be blogging as per usual from next week, but until then you can follow me on instagram [@designgratis] and observe as I continue stuff my face with record amounts of cheese/chocolate/wine.

Happy New Year!

NEW to the Etsy Shop

The newest additions to the Etsy shop -

The Sailboat
8x10

I captured this photo of a lone sailboat in a secluded harbour off the Bodrum peninsula in southwest Turkey.

Bodrum Harbour I
8x10

This photo of sailboats in Bodrum Harbour was taken from the within the walls of Bodrum Castle.


 All photos are professionally printed on Fuji Crystal Archive Matt Paper, and signed on the back. Your prints will be packaged in a protective clear sleeve and posted via Royal Mail in a sturdy board backed envelope. Please note that the watermark will not appear on your print.

*Framing not included*

To view other DesignGratis photographs please follow link: http://www.etsy.com/shop/designgratis

Please contact me if you are interested in additional sizes. Also available upon request:

+ photo canvases
+ calendars
+ blank cards

The sale of my artworks do not include the sale of their copyrights. Images may not be reproduced.
© Copyright Derona Moss. All Rights Reserved.

Emerald City

Many of you will be aware that Pantone recently revealed their pick for Colour of the Year. I'm never really sure whether these colours are supposed to set a precedent for the year to come, or if they are simply chosen because they are already becoming popular.

Tangerine was certainly all over the runway last year, but not quite as visible in interiors in my opinion...and actually, looking at the other previous colours, one could be forgiven for thinking that the whole practice is little more than a publicity strategy.

This year I was sure it would be something along the lines of oxblood / burgundy, which has just been everywhere recently in both fashion and interiors. However, when the colour was finally revealed I did think "aaaaaah".

Im a sucker for jewel-tones, so unsurprisingly, I LOVE this colour. Emerald is vivacious and striking, and as the hue can be quite strong I think it makes a fantastic accent colour. Here are some of my favourite examples of interiors with touches of the new "it" colour.

via The Hunted Interior

source unknown

via Rue

via Lonny

via Emily Henderson

source unknown

via Lonny

via Veranda

And for those of you with both feet firmly planted in the "go big or go home" camp, and want to make more of a statement with emerald, these dramatic rooms demonstrate how it should be done.

via Lonny

via Lonny

source unknown

via Lonny

via Decorista

via Emily Henderson

My advice for if you're going to go with a rich, saturated colour like emerald on the walls, is to keep everything else in the room relatively neutral and simple unless you're going for a quirky eclectic look a la Emily Henderson (above). Otherwise, you just may end up with a disaster like this...

via Lonny

Finito!

Earlier this week, I headed to Robert Dyas and bought my weight in 3M Hanging Strips. I was so nervous about our huge mirror dropping off the wall that I didn't want to take any chances. It was well worth it, if only for the looks I got off the lady who rang me up on the till.

After creating an acne-like covering of velcro on the back of the mirror (I ended up using about 15 strips), I stuck it in place. I held it there, putting pressure on the wall for what felt like an age, until I finally worked up the courage to remove [just one] hand. Slowly I moved the other, and the mirror remained on the wall.

Stepping off the step ladder, I refused to take my eyes off the mirror, and even hours later I waited for the crash....but it never came.

Result!

You may have noticed that I tweaked the hangy - bit (technical term) at the top of the mirror. I much prefer it now than before - less is more I think in this case.

And with the successful hanging of the mirror, I declare the hallway done. Here it was when I came home one afternoon and thought to myself "ick"...

And here she is now in all her bright white, striped ceiling splendor.

Gone are the dingy peach walls. The hallway now feels more inviting, and the ceiling draws the eye up upon entering the flat. The shoe cabinet is still too large for the space, but unfortunately there is not much I can do about that.

And yes...that is a Game of Thrones book. I promise you, for the bottom of my heart, that isn't mine.

Feeling a bit Rope-y

It is seriously hard to photograph a mirror. Apologies in advance for the shoddy images.

Those of you who follow me on instagram may have noticed my Ikea visit on Friday.

I was initially on the hunt for the 55cm Ikea Kolja mirror, but after spotting the larger version for only £1 more I was sold. The larger scale, I thought, was a much better fit for the space above my shoe cupboard.

Earlier today, armed with my new mirror, some rope, and a bit of cardboard, I got started. Although inspired by the images below, I mainly ended up making it up as I went along.

First I measured out a circle, about a half inch smaller than the diameter of the mirror on cardboard. I then measured out a second larger circle to create a cardboard ring and cut it out.

Using a hot glue gun, I attached the cardboard ring to the surface of the mirror and then began gluing the rope to the cardboard.

My rope was thinner than I wanted so I glued many layers to chunky it up a bit.

 I then measured 4 corners and wrapped hemp string around the rope (and cardboard) at these points.

Lastly, I created a sort of hanging handle at the top...

 I've not hung it up yet...but I did lean it against the wall of it's future home just to have a look.

If you're wondering just how I plan to hang it, then that makes the both of us.

After a halfhearted, unsuccessful attempt at trying to find the stud in the wall, I'm thinking I may just whack 15 or so 3M Command Hanging Strips on the back and cross my fingers.

Looking Up

I thought I was so clever when I decided to paint the ceiling, but after taping off the first stripe I quickly realised how time consuming and painful the process would be.

First of all, my convenient little step ladder proved less than adequate when factoring in the ceiling height and my own [lack of] height. Put simply, I could barely reach it.

I had a brilliant idea to wear my biggest heels whilst on the step ladder to remedy this problem (health and safety, eat your heart out), but even I'm not that stupid (of course I tried it, but balancing was a challenge). In the end, I resorted to stretching on my very tippy toes.

After about 15 minutes, first stripe finally taped off, the pain in my neck was immense. This was when I decided:

a) To reduce the quantity of stripes and increase the space in between. No brainer.
b) Measure, shmeasure. We don't have one straight wall, or level floor in this ancient flat, so measuring turned out to be a huge waste of time. I ended up eyeballing and winging the entire thing.

Here's a peek of how it turned out, though I still need to touch it up a bit.

I would like to add in my very best American infomercial salesman voice, "BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE"!

I also wanted to tackle the bland space above the shoe cabinet. In an ideal world, I would just throw this up there -

But your eyes doth not deceive you, that does indeed say £775. Quite frankly, in the wise words of Kanye West, "That sh** cray."

So I did some internet sleuthing and found this! I'm hoping I can some how marry the two designs and produce my own spin on the hanging mirror.

On another note, I'm really enjoying using instagram. Follow me! (Username designgratis)

Instadump...Or So The Cool Kids Say

I've just gone and done it.

For the last year or so folks, I have been using Instagram purely as a photo editing tool. (I know, just bear with me, I can be a bit strange at times.) I have had my account set to private and filtered my "instagramed" photos into my camera library...or something like that. 

You know, for someone (coughbarelycough) under the age of 30, I really should be doing a better job of keeping afloat with technology...

The bottom line is, my instagram is now open to the public. Unfortunately, during the process of trying to figure out what the hell I was doing, I lost many of unloaded photos (I was able to recover them in said camera library) which I have "dumped" below.

These were taken this summer and are mostly Turkey, as well as a couple odd ones from Venice...I think.

Enjoy! And don't forget to follow me on instagram under username designgratis.

Oh and Happy Turkey Day for those of you across the pond, I only just realised it was today about an hour ago. I am thankful to my facebook newsfeed for informing me.