Treasures

After a truly brutal Tuesday which was topped off with taking a cranky 18-month-old to Ikea all by myself (NEVER AGAIN), I decided that today I would write about a few things I am really loving right now.

First up, this tile that I found at Ramacieri Soligo, my favourite tile place in the city:

It is designed by Raw Edges studio in London. They are so cool and their designs are jaw dropping. These were commissioned by Mutina, an Italian tile manufacturer that works with some of the top designers around. I actually used the Mutina tiles designed by my big time crushes the Bouroullec  brothers for a client’s country home bathroom. Gorgeous. This Raw Edges design is called “Tex” tile and was inspired by textile design. It comes in eight different colours with three shades per colour and there are five different textures.

The rhombus shape means that you can make different patterns on the floor: arrows, diamonds, squares. The different textures mean that even if you used only one colour way, you would still have a visually interesting element. The three shades per colour give you an instant 3D effect. I LOVE this so much. For a kitchen floor or backsplash, a bathroom or a playroom, this is not just tile, it is ART.

And speaking of art, (albeit in a completely different vein), one of my closest friends has been making beautiful works that are really worth seeing. Her name is Jessica Moss and we have gotten very close over the last three years. Our sons were born two days apart. They go to the same daycare, so we see each other every day. And we really, really like each other. She is beautiful and talented and a great mama and I’m so lucky to have her in my life. For many years, she has been making light and shadow boxes with mostly found objects. For the boxes themselves, she uses old suitcases, tool boxes, crates, etc. They are beautiful and magical and haunting. These are some pictures I took of her studio, a cabinet of curiosities – a beautiful, magical, haunting place:

There are places that I absolutely love going to: pharmacies, hardware stores, flea markets. Jessica’s studio kind of feels like that – maybe not a pharmacy but definitely the other two. Bits and bobs everywhere, pieces of wallpaper and fabric, tools and little animals and angels and plastic flowers and feathers. And the boxes themselves are so sweet and romantic and sad. I love it when you have to get right up close to a work of art, really get in there, and you see all the little touches and textures and treasures.

This is a shadow box that we bought for our home. We haven’t found its permanent spot yet but for now Mr. Bear stands guard.

At the end of my bad, bad Tuesday, I picked up O from daycare and went home with the kids and we made pizza. It was my first time ever trying and I knew it could go either way. He is a picky eater and little Lou is too young to really enjoy the process. But I needed to try and turn the day around. I had picked up pizza dough from my neighbourhood Italian grocery store and a rolling pin from my horrid Ikea trip. I sautéed some veggies in advance and then let the kids roll out the dough. They got to choose what they wanted on there. My son loved it all and my daughter loved eating flour off the counter. We made a mess. We made faces on their pizzas with the veggies. We had so much fun. And the picky kid ate the whole thing.

Thinking about these beautiful things and beautiful people I love was a surefire way to turn the bad, bad Tuesday around. Pizza also helped.

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