Vicky Sanderson Expect a bumper crop of flowers, birds, and other natural motifs in design and décor this year. And while they may be daintier and more discreet than the big blooms popular in the last few years, they bring quick beauty to any room.
Feature pic: Martha Burton Art
Take a look:
Go big with a Bird of Paradise by Australian designer Kelly Kratzing, who works with pencils, watercolours and fine ink pens in her studio in Papua New Guinea. From Wallsauce.
Ikea’s Alpklöver curtains, which are made from sustainable cotton and viscose, a renewable cellulose-based wood material, are an affordable source of florals. The fabric does let some light in and Ikea suggests they are especially suited to layered window treatments.
Echoing glass artists Dale Chihuly, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Rene Lalique, Lunada Bay Tile’s collection of glass birds is made with a lost-wax technique using a hand-carved wax mold, plaster, and molten glass. Unique, expensive, and probably impractical in many spaces, but so terribly beautiful, right down to the painstaking details in feathers, wings, and tails.
Ain’t nothing like the real thing, according to Christina Binetti, who along with Anne-Marie Voth owns Linden Grove Flowers, a custom boutique floral service in the east end of Toronto, ON.
“I really like to promote the idea that you don’t have to buy a huge expensive bouquet. You buy yourself a branch of something or one $10 flower that’s really exquisite and put it a lovely vase. That’s it, and it’s beautiful.”
TIP: Thrift shops are a good source of affordable vases to showcase a bloom. HomeSense is equally reliable — and almost as inexpensive. It’s easy to find handsome options there for $25 and under.
Binetti also has a soft spot for the species she thinks have come to be considered fusty and old-fashioned. “I know it’s almost hip to say you hate roses. But really? Do you? Can you? Because we love them.”
