Some really beautiful and haunting images from gingerlillytea’s Flickr set, Explore…

{images shown belong to gingerlillytea}

This morning while reading SouleMama, I started noticing a trend…  In many of the photos of Amanda’s daughter Adelaide, there is usually the house cat, Banjo, either nearby or in her lap.  So I went over to Amanda’s Flickr and low and behold, there’s a set called “A Girl and A Cat,” filled with photos of the two.  As a fellow a cat lady, this set truly melts my heart.  I love how children and animals can become fast friends, and it brings back memories of me and my cat Ernie and our special bond when I was growing up.  Kitties make such good friends, and I love how close these two are and have been ever since Adelaide was a babe.

{images shown belong to SouleMama}

There’s something that makes me giddy when I see objects grouped by pattern or color.  I don’t know if this is my “design brain” that enjoys it, or perhaps the Type A and organizational part of my brain (which maybe is the same part).  So this Flickr set created by salbug00, called Grouped by Color (found via Oh Happy Day), really speaks to me.  Some are from an old calendar he found, others he created.  They’re all great in my book… and makes me want to go color coordinate some of my bureau drawers…

{images shown belong to salbug00}

The country of England holds a special, dear place in my heart for countless reasons, but today I’ll share with you one of them.  I absolutely love the traditional architecture of many entry areas of London flats that are accented by the boldest, brightest, richly colored front doors.  The contrast between the two is like eye candy to me, a “pop!” of unexpected color juxtaposed to the stately exteriors, and makes me wish we had similar color taste for front doors here in America.  I’ll have some haggling to do with my husband for when we have a front door of our own (and a house, for that matter) to paint.

{images shown belong to the following owners, respectively: nicksarei - blue, nicksarebi – yellow, nicksarebi – green, maggie jones., and MisterPeter!}

Some really beautiful paper designs from Essimar.  I’m really enjoying her use of color (especially the bright color groupings I normally wouldn’t think of to put together), her shapes, pattern and line.  I’m really attracted to her animal pieces, but I also like her abstract ones as well.  Her creativity really comes through in her Flickr photos.

Besides her Flickr, make sure to check out her Etsy store and blog.

{images shown belong to Essimar}

Amazing, colorful, gorgeous images of clouds and skies from mrs. french’s Flickr set, summer travels.  Seems like these sorts of clouds only happen around where I live once in a blue moon during a sunset.  It must mean I need to go on vacation more often!

{images shown belong to mrs. french}

There are plenty of things that are no longer considered common everyday actions that make me sigh and wish I lived in the 19th century … writing a heartfelt note to a loved one (instead of a quick email), walking to town to visit with friends and shop for necessities (instead of taking the subway or a car, and buying more than you need), and taking the time to braid your hair (instead of throwing it back into a ponytail like I do most days).  I tend to romanticize things, braided hair included, but it’s good to know I’m apparently not the only one.  I just came upon the Flickr group Braid Wednesday and I cannot wait to start partaking in their love for plaits.  I tend to have a hard time doing my own hair (which is why it’s always in a pony tail) but these other women are inspiring me to keep at it and practice… and not cut my hair anytime soon.

*I did it!  I joined.  Check out my first entry.  Pretty boring, I know… I’ll have to think of more creative things.  Gotta break out my old braiding book from when I was little.

{images shown via Braid Wednesday}

Sometimes I think I’m late to the blogging party, when I come across amazing projects between creative people when apparently they’ve been around for a bit!  This is definitely the case when I came across the Favorite Things Polaroid Project between photographers Susannah Conway and Alicia Bock. The two talented ladies create polaroid diptychs without discussing with each other what they will create prior to shooting the images, and all of their work has such a nice texture and color sense to them.  And even though I found out about the project via Flickr, they have a blog as well.

{images shown belong to Susannah Conway and Alicia Bock}

I am such a cat person.  I know it and completely embrace it.  I have three: Smokey, Cosmo, and Jullio (or just JuJu) and I am totally crazy for them.  So it wasn’t suprising when I came across m a v’s Animals set on Flickr that I totally fell in love with it.  I especially love those sleeping shots!

{images shown belong to mav}

It’s become cold and rainy recently, those types of days where you want to stay snuggled up under the covers and have hot cups of  tea all day.  Maditi’s photographs on Flickr fit perfectly with this type of weather.  The contrast and tones match perfectly with the grey, overcast daylight, and I love that these photographs seem to tell you a story.  I want to know who’s the person in the photographs, what’s their relation to the photographer, and where were these photographs taken.  The perfect images to savor and ponder over a steaming cup of tea…

{images shown belong to maditi}