When I attended a recent craft show, I was enthralled by the jewelry one of the artisans had made.  She worked in silver and added pearls or other stones to her delicate designs.  I had to buy something and settled on a pair of earrings. 

But the thought of actually making jewelry had not really enticed me until l picked up the new library book “30-Minute Bracelets” by Marthe Le Van.   Although the designs certainly don’t rival the work of the artisan at the craft show, many are lovely and perhaps might not be too difficult for a novice to try.  

I decided to see what the other books are available in the library which might help get me started in this new endeavor.  Once again, Calgary Public Library comes through in spades. 

I found several books that are aimed at the beginner with detailed instructions and pictures.  “The Encyclopedia of Wire Jewelry Techniques” by Sara Withers seems like an excellent introduction for anyone interested in trying this out.

If you're thinking of creating your own original pieces, check out our selection of books on the topic — and have fun!

–Linda

No one will ever accuse Sera Hersham-Loftus of being tasteful. Still, her over-the-top decorating is a lot of fun. Her style could be described as somewhere between early brothel and late bordello. According to the dust jacket from her new book, Seductive Interiors, she is an “innovator of the seductive and boudoir trend”.

Lush rooms are richly layered with brocades and satin. Lampshades and tablecloths drip with heavy fringe. Sofas and alcoves are cushioned with velvet pillows and leopard print. Dramatic lighting in dusky interiors creates sultry ambience.

Some of the spaces have the quality of childhood fantasy where you might dress up in unlikely costumes and act out stories; others are like stage sets. Many of the rooms have the hallmarks often associated with romantic interiors: candles, polished silver, lace and flowers.

My favourite is a barge that travels the waterways in London. It has the appeal of a gypsy caravan and offers a cozy, built-in day bed where you could curl up with a good book – or friend.

Maybe tasteful is overrated.

- Jane

Kristeen Griffin-Grimes loves knitting and all things French. The second of her French Girl Knits: Accessories has just arrived and it is a charmer.

The book includes many appealing projects like the Tattoo shawl, “the perfect modern wrap…with a dose of French gothic mystique”. This wispy and elegant creation features an ostrich-plume-stitch pattern in fine silk/mohair yarn.

There are patterns for many chic hats as well as lacy anklets and long blanche-neige stockings. Dainty ballet slippers are worked up in watermelon red silk and merino yarn. They have a buttoned strap and black velvet ribbon wound through a lacy edging.

Her first book (shown below) offers patterns for sweaters, dresses and vests with boho chic design aesthetic.

Creating a French-inspired life is the mantra of her website that includes blogs on knitting and cooking as well as information about tours of France in the Languedoc region that she leads. On her website, I also found a wonderful video on scarf tying that I am planning to revisit. It was an “aha, so that’s how you do it” moment. Check it out.

- Jane

Today's blog post is by Candace, one of our Central Library staff.

“I wish you could see what I see out the window—the earth pink and yellow cliffs to the north—the full pale moon about to go down in an early morning lavender sky...pink and purple hills in front and the scrubby fine dull green cedars—and a feeling of much space—It is a very beautiful world.” – from a 1942 letter to painter Arthur Dove

Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings are amoungst the most well loved paintings in North America.  They are pretty and simple and austere. One of our new books, Georgia O’Keeffe and Her Houses: Ghost Ranch and Abiquiu, sheds light on the two homes in New Mexico where she created many of these paintings.  It is a book that walks into the personal spaces of a great artist.

Ghost Ranch frames many of her most memorable landscapes.  The flat topped mountain twelve miles distant dominates the landscape and provides a dramatic backdrop for “The Deer’s Skull with Pedernal”.

O’Keefe painted the rocks and bones that she picked up in her rambles through the desert and brought back to her studios and the Jimson weed that grew by her patio.

The Abiquiu house provides us with her more livable house: the one with the garden and the cloths line.  It is also where she painted her patio door series. These doors represent, to me, some of the mystery in life.  I look at them and contemplate both their simplicity and the mystery they evoke of the unknown. They are not typical for her because her paintings were not usually mysterious, they were hymns to what she found beautiful.

Check out our other books on this iconic artist, and the biopic produced in 2009.

–Candace

Two new books on paper craft offer a wealth of inspiration for crafty thinkers. Some of these projects are suitable for older children who want to make their own gifts or lend a hand with Christmas decorating.

Paper Made! shows how to work with everything from candy wrappers to ticket stubs.

Small pieces of folded graph paper are pasted onto a round Chinese paper lantern. Light shining through this fixture makes a complex interplay of shadow and texture.

Old maps are snipped into birds with lacy wings and tails and assembled into a charming mobile. Maps also wrap the mats of framed travel photos.

What to do with a partial deck? Leftover playing cards are sewn together with zigzag stitch and attached to wire rings to create an imaginative lampshade.

Frank Gehry built iconic furniture from cardboard. Now, it’s your turn. Transform used cardboard into an end table, picture frame or curio shelf.

Book Art offers some fabulous projects which include clever Christmas decorations. The winter village scene which you see pictured on the cover has a fairytale quality when displayed with candles or cut crystal.

From an old book come curvy, sculptural ornaments. The spine of the book forms the core of the ornament with the cut pages fanning out from the central spine.

Strips of thicker paper are shaped into delicate, tasseled baubles. Circles cut from the colourful pages of a brochure create a spiky decoration. Silver leaf is rubbed onto the pages of a book from which oak leaves and acorns are formed. They can be tied with pretty ribbon to wrap a gift or dangle from a tree.

-Jane

Design students and groupies will enjoy the lavish new title from design writer Dominic Bradbury. The Iconic Interior: Private Spaces of Leading Artists, Architects, and Designers takes you on an extravagant international tour of famous personal digs.

These are interiors that have been widely photographed and shown in other sources. The charm is in finding them all together between the same hard covers. For each place, Bradbury offers a tidy essay about the designer’s work and what makes the place so special. Here is a sampling:

In London, UK, visit Nancy Lancaster’s lavish, traditional, butter-yellow living room or Jasper Conran’s handsome sitting room. In Conran’s home traditional style is filtered through contemporary restraint.

Step into the free-spirited, bohemian world of artists Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell at their renowned Charleston farmhouse in East Sussex.

In Belgium, Axel Vervoordt’s home is his castle – literally. This antiques dealer/ designer/entrepreneur is known for his unique combination of classicism and rusticity. He moved with his company into the castle after four years of renovation work.

Have a look at Vicente Wolf’s bright and airy New York loft which is the perfect stage for his photography and then check out Frederic Mechiche’s book-lined Paris apartment.

Todd Oldham owns a quirky country house in rural Pennsylvania filled with furnishings that speak of his creativity and success as a fashion designer.

And you get to explore Jonathan Adler’s exuberant and surreal surroundings. His playful home appears on the cover of the book.

- Jane

Shabby Chic Interiors: My Rooms, Treasures, and Trinkets is a new edition of a title published first in 2009 by Rachel Ashwell, a designer with all the moves. She is a serial home dweller whose philosophy is “wherever I am, I make my nest, even in a rented home or hotel.” And of course, each move provides fodder for a new book. I have the theory that, when it comes to home decorating, doing it is more fun than having it. (I could certainly be accused of this myself.) And it’s easy to see that Ashwell loves the process.

The book takes you to her latest house purchase that occurred when her nest emptied. You have to get past the line that says, “So I then I began the curious mission of “unrestoring”; heaving out brand-new cabinets and deluxe whirlpool baths until I got back to the authentic and real.”

You got it. She ripped out all the improvements recently made by the previous owner who also wasn’t happy with them and so moved along. The sleek new kitchen cabinets made way for ones that are wonky and worn. And she tells you that her construction team cheered her on.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the pretty rooms she creates and the homes of others that she takes you to. Some of them, like the Milches’ house in the chapter “Dogs, Art & Literature”, might be properly labeled authentic.

This is one very stylish woman who has made a career out of being a very stylish woman. I’m just hoping that her style inspires you to live and work well with the comfortable old things you already own or discover.

On the other hand, you could just enjoy the pictures without reading the text and then you won’t have to think of it all as cultural commentary.

- Jane

Forgive the C-word, but Christmas is almost upon us. For workers in retail, the season arrived many weeks ago. However, no need to panic; it’s still not too late to work up a few gifts from the heart and give retail Christmas a rest.

Geek Chic Crochet shows you how to create 35 retro-inspired projects. You could whip up a bright red crocheted tie for the cool man in your life and cute colourful hair bows for your best girlfriends. The book tackles peter pan collars and neckerchiefs. And you could also channel Madonna with vintage lace gloves. (Is Madonna vintage yet?)

Warm Little Knits is another new title that provides patterns for classic Norwegian knitwear. Cozy socks and mittens feature a lively combo of stylized birds, flowers and geometric patterns. I'm thinking that it might be easier to embrace outdoor winter life with the stylish accessories of hardy Nordic people.

I browsed through the collection of crochet books and found a couple of older titles filled with many projects that appeal to me.

Super Cute: 25 Amigurumi Animals shows you how to make delightful stuffed toys. The designs are influenced by traditional Japanese doll culture crossed with the Japanese “kawaii” culture that produced Hello Kitty and manga. There are bears and bunnies, puppies with berets and fish with googly eyes.

Cool Crocheted Hats offers instructions to make a retro Rasta hat for both men and women. You could choose the Festival Olé pillbox hat with a zigzag brim and a variegated crown or an exotic Kufi-styled crown cap reminiscent of 1920s Morocco. All very Boho chic.

- Jane

The photo of delectable Greek food in a traditional blue-and-white setting in my last blog made me think about this wonderful colour scheme and all the delicious ways it is applied. If you search our catalogue with the phrase “blue in interior decoration”, the results reveal its ongoing popularity. Here are a few of my favourite titles.

Decorating with Blue and White shows the colour scheme applied to every style of décor, including Mediterranean. In a country kitchen, soft blue and white appears in checks on comfy armchairs with large striped ottomans. It is echoed in kitchen accessories like polka-dot mugs and enameled cookware.

Bathroom blues are expressed in glass tiles and pretty towels. Outdoor blues include the deep cobalt painted on a Moroccan door and traditional tiles around a pool.

350 Inspiring Ways to Decorate with Blue is a 2011 title from House Beautiful in a convenient paper-back size which makes it easy to browse on the C-train. Designers share their favourite paint colours and sources and talk about why the colour resonates with them.

You see blues from the sea and sky, as well as dusky navy and indigo. Sometimes blue dominates the room; in other spaces, it is used as an accent. As you would expect from House Beautiful, most of the décor is traditional or contemporary classic.

Although Blue & White Living by Stephanie Hoppen was published in 1998, many of the classic blue-and-white combinations remain fresh today. A large living room by John Stefanidis features furniture slip covered in blue-and-white ticking. Blue ikat cushions line a long bench in this light-filled room.

These books are bound to leave you singing the blues.

-Jane

Zesty eggplant stew, a dish of olives and fresh lemons against a backdrop of cobalt blue. That’s the delectable cover of The Country Cooking of Greece by Diane Kochilas. She is a chef and owner of a cooking school in Ikaria who also writes a weekly food column for Greece’s largest newspaper.

Kochilas provides more than just recipes; she takes you for a tour of the culture and people. You meet the mussel man who owns a popular taverna and cultivates mussels in “the rich, sweet-salty waters of the Thermaikos Gulf”. You learn about Greek oregano, the kalamata olive harvest and Santorini tomatoes that flourish unexpectedly in the chalky, volcanic soil of the island.

She writes an ode to the classic Greek salad which melds the amazing flavours of simple fresh ingredients. I can’t wait to try the Cretan beet salad with yogurt and walnuts. Pistachio-crusted feta and ouzo-glazed duck breast are calling my name.

I like that the recipes are as much about method as ingredients and that many of the recipes have an uncomplicated list of ingredients consistent with country home cooking.

The cover lured me in with a visual feast and the book lived up to its cover.

- Jane

Next blog:This beautiful blue-and-white tablescape reminds me of all the lovely decorating books that embrace the blues.