Mega Graham and Brown Wallpaper Giveaway!

Friends, I don't do giveaways very often. On a daily basis I am inundated with emails from press people trying to get me to review off brand paint and eco toilets, but I try to keep the blog strictly related to things I want to get in my house right now.

Things like wallpaper.

Me and wallpaper have a lifelong love affair going on. It started when I was a wee baby, swaddled in a muslin cloth tacked together by wallpaper paste, rocked to sleep with the sweet smell of wet wheat in the air... fast forward to today, when I have a closet filled with stacks of wallpaper samples. Sometimes I stroke them gently at night and whisper sweet nothings into their ears. Don't tell anyone.

All this to say I am a little excited to be giving away THREE ROLLS of Graham and Brown wallpaper designed by Steve Leung!

The winner will have her/his choice from any of the six Asian inspired patterns designed by Steve Leung in any available colorway.

THREE. ROLLS. BAM.

That's enough to paper a huge feature wall, or perhaps a small powder room, foyer, or laundry room.

So, basically $80000 worth of wallpaper... or maybe $255 USD. Whatever. That's a lot of wallpaper. Let's check out the players, shall we?

There's Jiao, which has a touch of the De Gournay about it. This color is very pretty in real life, but other colors are also available.

This is Bao, which means treasure. Adorable, because my Chinese bud always calls my kids "bao bao." Anyway, the rep sent me a black sample but I lovessss the cream on cream. You can't tell from the picture but this pattern is very textured.

Hua has some metallic interest in the branches.

Juan is so sparkly it's like a disco in your eyeballs. I am kind of obsessed with the gold on cream colorway.

Ling has great scale, and is slightly textured. All of the colors are nice. Karly likes the cream on cream but I think the red might be Chinese Chippendaletastic.

And then there's Mai.

Let me tell you about this honey of a paper: you can hang it vertically or horizontally. It has a teeny touch of metallic interest, but not Kim Kardashian much. All the colors are great -- the white and silver is dreamy and versatile, but the charcoal is dramatown and would be perfect in a foyer.

In short, I want to marry this paper and I'm a little annoyed I agreed to give it away rather than keep it for myself. 100% serious.

There better be a lot of entries or I will be tempted to create 100 anonymous email addresses and enter my own contest.

Kidding! Hahaha.

Ha.

I took some pictures of the samples the rep sent me so you could kind of get a sense of the texture on the papers.

Jiao/Mai

Bao/Hua

Juan/Ling

All of these patterns are nonwoven paste-the-wall papers that are so easy to hang even a dummy like me can do it. And if you tire of them, just peel the paper off the wall in strips.

You need this in your life.

Contest rules:

Please peruse the available selections here and pick a fave pattern and color. Leave a comment telling me all about your favorite paper and what you plan to use it for. The winner is free to change her/his mind so don't get all analysis paralysis on me... I'm really just curious and y'all know I love to talk decorating projects.

That's it! Leave a comment and you are entered for a chance to win three rolls of Graham and Brown wallpaper designed by Steve Leung.

The contest ends at midnight central time on Thursday, May 16. Winner will be announced on Friday.

Let's blow it up, people.

[Graham and Brown]

More Good Cheap Art (And It's Not Even Neon)

I am an art hoarder, and it's becoming a problem. I literally have racks and stacks of original paintings, antique prints, vintage posters -- I love it all as long as it's good. I tell myself I NEED it because I have acres of pale, lonely sheetrock that must be filled. Nature abhors a vacuum, right? Art to the rescue.

As many of you know, I did time in art school so I am kind of a picky snob about what goes on my walls. I'm not above quirky vintage charm, but if I'm hanging contemporary art it has to be on point... yet cheap. I'm not exactly Saatchi and Saatchi, displaying my Damien Hirsts alongside my Cy Twomblys. Enter Society 6, 20x200's cheaper (and still operating? wtf?!) cousin.

I'm not gonna lie... a lot of the art on Society 6 is just cheesy digital stuff with words on it. Sorry, guys. I'm not saying you can't make art with Adobe Illustrator, but it's not easy -- definitely not as easy as the sheer volume of digital art would indicate.

When I'm buying prints from places like Society 6 I try to buy things that were originally created as two dimensional works designed to be reproduced, and that usually means photographs. Or in the case of Beth Hoeckel, collages created from photos.

This one is maybe a litte homage to John Baldessari. AMAZING in a girl's room.

I'm thinking about buying this for our bedroom. Kind of a cross between Richard Hamilton and bauhaus collage.

I would kill to see this in a super refined space. The colors are amazing and it could totally be a room maker.

I am devastated this only comes in 17" square, because I have a client who needs this to be 40x40... I may even email the artist to request another size.

I've ordered prints from Society 6 before and was pleasantly surprised at the print quality. Everything is on heavyweight matte (almost watercolor) paper and the inks are fairly saturated.

The prints are open edition, so these aren't investments the way 20x200's signed editions are. However, if you need cheap awesome art for your wall, here it is.

All art by Beth Hoeckel. Buy it here.

Also:

Tune in next week for an AMAZING wallpaper giveaway! Like, a ton of wallpaper.

It's going to be supercallafragelisticexbealladocious good.

Happy weekend and stuff.

Green Dreams

I cannot even begin to tell you how glorious the weather in Austin has been... high 70s, crisp breezes, the scent of roses and freshly mowed lawns wafting about. The weather here is usually so HELLFIRE HOT by now that this spring seems extra special and it's really hard to do anything other than lie on the ground and stare up at this:

I love it so much that I just want everything to be green right now...

Green kitchens.

Green walls.

Green wallpaper.

The perfect green accent.

In fact I'm considering a little living room switcharoo to bring in more green, inspired by this:

Hot. Sex.

Should I maybe put my new blue/navy rug:

In the front of the living room:

And put the red rug in the back of the living room?

Please pardon the bad styling and photography. I did move about 500 toys out of the picture, so I kind of rule.

I'm not convinced red rug will be ok next to those green chairs (it's definitely not as vibrant as my picture shows, but it's still dark raspberry red), however blue rug could be looking mighty fab with my giant fancy new Jenny painting:

And some new pillows made from this Robert Allen fabric:

I don't know... it's tough to say how this will look in real life. Could be good crazy. Could be bad crazy. That's a lot of squiggly lines and a lot of black and blue together.

When I can pull myself away from tree gazing I hope to move some things around. This is just the first configuration I'll try... I have a lot of big rugs now.

Of course, I also want more big rugs.

Of course, I also also want to stay married.

What do you think the chances of success for this new look are?

More than 50/50 = furniture moving time.

[images via pinterest and my house]