Poppytalk

The Amigo Motor Lodge in Salida, Colorado was something owners Philip and Kaitlyn talked about on their first date back in 2014 and today they stand here as owners of a beautifully renovated 50s motel. But not just any motel, a stylish Santa Fe-style lodge with heaps of southwest details. Each room is unique in its' decor featuring accessories like southwest cushions, white sheets, and slick modern lighting. The entire place makes us want to save up for a motel of our own.

Let's take a look!

Crushing big time over the work of Toronto artist Kathryn Macnaughton. Spotted via Instagram a while back, Kathryn had her first solo show with Bau-xi Gallery this spring whiche featured some of her beautiful abstract paintings.

A graduate of OCAD, Macnaughton has exhibited in both Canada and abroad since 2010. Recent collaborations include Kit and Ace, Collective Arts Brewery, and The Gardiner Museum. Let's take a look!

Tetris painting 42x60

A post shared by kathrynmac (@kathrynmac) on Mar 10, 2017 at 9:57am PST

STOOD

A post shared by kathrynmac (@kathrynmac) on Mar 13, 2017 at 8:54am PDT

My first solo show opens April 1st @bauxigallery #SPRANG

A post shared by kathrynmac (@kathrynmac) on Mar 14, 2017 at 4:22pm PDT

#Repost @bauxigallery ・・・ Now you can preview new artwork we are bringing to @art_toronto next week! Visit the Curator's Selection on our website to see all of the incredible pieces. __________ Kathryn Macnaughton @kathrynmac 'Immersed in Verse', 30 x 24 inches, acrylic on canvas. Currently available in #Toronto for #arttoronto2016 #abstractart

A post shared by kathrynmac (@kathrynmac) on Oct 20, 2016 at 7:48am PDT

WIP

A post shared by kathrynmac (@kathrynmac) on Jun 2, 2017 at 6:57pm PDT

Garage door open ☀️☀️

A post shared by kathrynmac (@kathrynmac) on May 31, 2017 at 6:43am PDT

HARDCORE #Repost @cbcarts ・・・ 🎨@cbcq asked Toronto artist @kathrynmac what it's like to be a full-time painter. Her answer might inspire you: "There's a lot of failing. Days of just failing constantly. It's devastating. the majority of the time I'm devastated when I come home from work, but you end up discovering new things and creating new bodies of work that you're just so happy with through the discovery of failing so much." #cbcarts . . Kathryn Macnaughton "Hardcore" 2017 . . Dualities: A Bridge Between Two Worlds is at @bauxigallery in Vancouver July 8 to 22

A post shared by kathrynmac (@kathrynmac) on Jun 23, 2017 at 8:26am PDT

IKEA

It's almost July and that time of year when students moving into dorm rooms start thinking about what they need for the upcoming school year. I always love gathering inspiration for this, from dorm decor ideas to diys and IKEA stylists always have the best ones. Here's a few finds that have come across our radar. Check them out below.

Chicago-based Field Notes brand is celebrating it's 35th Quarterly Edition with a Campfire series, a perfect companion when you're hitting the trails this summer. Inspired by (of course) the campfire, Field Notes' Steve, Matt, and Bryan set out one afternoon to northern Illinois to build, film, and photograph the process of building, enjoying, and extinguishing a campfire. With the footage they created a whole bunch of variations with their collection of vintage notebooks in mind and also various Boy Scout handbooks, merit badge guides and other ephemera. They decided on a technique common before process color separations made color printing easy: a photographic halftone printed over blocks of solid spot-colors to simulate a color photo. Each book is printed with five different spot colors, the darkest color being the photographic halftone. Three stages of the fire are represented on the three covers, “Dusk,” “Night,” and “Dawn,”

In celebration of Pride Month and in support of our LGBTQ friends and community, here is a little round up of a few of our favourite rainbow-coloured projects:

Claude Monet -En promenade près d’Argenteuil - 1875 - oil on canvas

Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris

Photo: © Bridgeman Giraudon/Press

Shaping the course of Modern art to come, French painter, Claude Monet is a pivitol figure in Western art history. His 1872 painting Impression: Sunrise, gave name to the avant-garde movement of French Painters called Impressionism. And his most important works is showing at the Vancouver Art Gallery this summer. The only presentation of the exhibition in North America.

Pulling this treat out of the volt to celebrate all things midsummer. From National Aboriginal Day (hence the bannock), Summer Solstice and Mid-sommar Celebrations from Scandinavia where they always make a strawberry cake, this recipe is a good reason to be with friends and family and break some bread! This recipe is a twist on the regular strawberry shortcake, the bannock (a traditional Canadian aboriginal bread) is sweetened with a little bit of vanilla and sugar. Best eaten when the bannock is fresh. Happy midsummer!

Summer is finally here and we are loving these sixteen hour days of sunlight especially and can't wait to hit the beaches for a few dinners al fresco! I love creating a cozy beach dinner scene and have been collecting a few images for inspiration. Here's a few to set the scene.

1. Camp Out
(Above) A camper van on the beach with all the trimmings. Love this scene from Livet Hemma.

Father's Day is tomorrow and if you're like me, you may have forgot gift wrap. Whenever that happens I get to work on the computer and make my own. I loved this combination of vintage whale illustrations I came across at the Biodiversity Library, and so I combined them into a fun gift wrap pattern. When I see pictures of whales, it reminds me of the sad things happening to them because of climate change. Fun fact: Our friend @erinbonifero of @collagecollage just visited an exhibition going on at the Royal Ontario Museum right now about them. And so this to pay homage to these mysterious, beautiful mammals. (It also makes a cute print)!

Graça Paz is an artist based in Portugal. We've been following her online for several years now and recently we've been inspired by her new work, especially her Bach and Meditation series. A set of abstract graphics that pop with vivid colours. All of her work is inspiring though, from knitting to poetry. We invited her for a little Q&A, here's our conversation.

Father's Day is literally just around the corner, but there's still a few days if you want to make him something unique and special. We picked out a few of our favourite DIYs from our archives that we think Dad would love if you made. From a stool made out of a skateboard to a desk organizer. Check them out below.

A few years back, Emily Hirsch and Erick Steinberg created an outdoor shower for their camp and shared it here on the blog. We thought it was worth a reblog since summer is just around the corner, and how fun is it to shower outdoors (especially when it's heated). Check out the how-to below.

Due to popular demand and a bit of confusion, we created a separate and new post for our rainbow mini donuts which we originally published with our One Cake Two Ways how-to last year. As the donut recipe to top the cake was at the bottom of the post, many were missing it when we pointed it out on Instagram last week. So here it is, now with it's own link. Thanks for reading!

Instagram @xantheb

It's that time of year again, where IKEA hosted Democratic Design Day in Almhult, Sweden. Democratic Design, explained by IKEA's Marcus Engman, Design Manager at IKEA Range & Supply is, "great form, function, quality, sustainable, and available for everybody (low price)". I can't believe it's already been two years since I attended DDD, but thanks to Instagram, and IKEA broadcasting the event live, we had a chance to get a sneak peek! Here's what stood out to us:

I came across some beautiful vintage pear illustrations last week and started playing around with making patterns out of them and thought they would make pretty gift wrap. So as a thank you to you, our readers, I created them into a printable, along with a matching gingham wrap also. There's some desktop wallpaper too if you're interested. Links to downloads below.

Recently came across the work of UK letterer, Steph Baxter of @stephsayshello on Instagram and was struck by her beautifully drawn piece (above), mixed up lyrics from a Decemberist's song, from her sketchbook which she posted on her account recently. It rings so true during these troubling times. Nice to see also that she has an Etsy shop. Check out her work below.