Great Design Links From Randy

Each week, Randy Rubin, co-owner of Crypton, features articles or blogs that resonate with Crypton’s core goals: providing clean, beautiful design for everyday living. Everyday living means life with kids, pets, and anything else that finds a way into your home. Below are just a few thoughts and ideas we are inspired by this month.

This week’s featured link: Blue Ant Studio Blue Ant Studio:

A photography-centric blog from designer Joel Pirela that shares a wide variety of well-designed spaces and décor products. His “Flickr finder” series is particularly interesting; a regular post of found photos from Flickr that feature intriguing interior spaces.

World-renowned astrologer Susan Miller reads Crypton’s style profile

Don’t you just love astrology? We certainly do. There are so many different sources of zodiac information on the Web, each with its own particular blend of the practical and the poetic. But only one can be the best, as the saying goes, and we believe that the go-to astrologer is Susan Miller, the brilliant author and creator of Astrologyzone who is also Elle’s resident planet-reading power.

Susan is uncannily, astonishingly accurate in her forecasts, and her invaluable insights can help enormously when you’re planning important professional or personal initiations (especially when Mercury goes retrograde, as it’s getting ready to do now). But another one of Susan’s great strengths is her tremendous sense of style. Susan knows fashion and beauty, and she passed that gift on to her talented daughter Chrissie, the clothing designer whose hip label Sophomore is getting lots of buzz, and deservedly so. 

Style runs deep in the Miller family, and in Crypton’s family too. As it happens, Crypton was incorporated on January 21st, which falls under the sign of Aquarius. Did you know that everything on Earth has a zodiac sign – not just people, but cities, buildings, and works of art? It’s fun and informative to use astrology to learn more about a person, place, or thing, so when Susan shared this style profile of Aquarius, we sat up and took notice:

Individual, innovative, inventive, and interested in objective investigation into the unknown, Aquarians are hot-wired into the field of new technology and research… Even the fabrics that Aquarius rules are always the ones that are new – Lycra and Spandex, plastics, space-age materials we put on astronauts, or any and all materials that are yet to be discovered.

How appropriate that the Super Fabric, engineered to resist stains, moisture, odors, and bacteria, turns out to be… Aquarian! It’s written in the stars: the product of high technology and careful scientific research, Crypton is futuristic fabric that’s designed to perform.

Have to go now and … check out my horoscope!

Posted by Julia Szabo.

Great Design Links From Randy

Each week, Randy Rubin, co-owner of Crypton, features several articles or blogs that resonate with Crypton’s core goals: providing clean, beautiful design for everyday living.

Everyday living means life with kids, pets, and anything else that finds a way into your home. Below are just a few thoughts and ideas we are inspired by this month.

Trendir: A go-to source for the latest in high-end design trends, Trendir features a wide range of the luxury styles in home décor as chosen by interior designer Lillian Pikus. We were especially taken by the recent post on carved wooden wall paneling

Coochicoos: If you’ve ever felt as though children and modern design cannot co-exist in a home, Coochicoo should be the next blog on your list. A whirlwind of ideas, DIY projects, and products designed for parents and children alike, Robert Yang’s blog proves that “design” and “parent” belong in the same sentence.

Randy’s Picks: Great Design Links

Each week, Randy Rubin, co-owner of Crypton, features several articles or blogs that resonate with Crypton’s core goals: providing clean, beautiful design for everyday living. Everyday living means life with kids, pets, and anything else that finds a way into your home. Below are just a few thoughts and ideas we are inspired by this month.

Design Mom: Gabrielle Blair writes about the space where “design and motherhood intersect.” As a mother of five, she certainly knows the design challenges facing a home with children.
In addition to posts on décor (check out her thoughts on textures, she also explores fashion, photography and crafts.

Swag the Dog : With the tagline, “Cool stuff for Lucky Dogs,” this blog features all the best items to pamper your stylish pup. Our own Molly B. is quite pampered herself, and we always appreciate  designers who knowhow to spoil their pups.

Each week, Randy Rubin, co-owner of Crypton, features several articles or blogs that resonate with Crypton’s core goals: providing clean, beautiful design for everyday living.

Everyday living means life with kids, pets, and anything else that finds a way into your home. Below are just a few thoughts and ideas we are inspired by this month.

Material Girls: Like some of our featured reads last month, this blog is packed with photos to inspire contemporary design. Check out the post showcasing the many iterations of BarcelonaChairs (and Crypton’s version , while you’re at it)

How do I select beautiful furniture that will work with my pets?: The Denver Post Homegirls blog met with Tennille Wood to hand out tips on decorating with pets – including special tips for any “chewers or scratchers.” Wood, an interior designer, also blogs about luxury style at Beautiful Habitat.

Each week, Randy Rubin, co-owner of Crypton, features several articles or blogs that resonate with Crypton’s core goals: providing clean, beautiful design for everyday living.

Everyday living means life with kids, pets, and anything else that finds a way into your home. Below are just a few thoughts and ideas we are inspired by this month.

Making it Lovely : Nicole Bauch is the author of this décor blog and chronicles her journey to transform her “so-so house into a lovely home.” She does so with fun photos and a keen eye for style. Check out her post on installing a petdoor,where she shares a few musings on adapting the ideals of home design for the needs of everyday life.

Lonny Magazine: Packed to the brim with style and interior design, editor Michelle Adams and her team have created a truly innovative concept – an online magazine that feels like a printed one. Adams herself also blogs at M.A. Belle,where the topic of conversation often includes one of our favorite things – eco-friendly interior design.

Contest: Win a Kolcraft Infant-Toddler Crib Mattress with Crypton Technology

This week, Redbook is hosting a “Sleep Clean ‘n Green” contest on their homepage. Visit the Kolcraft-Crypton giveway for a chance to take home an Infant-Toddler Crib Mattress, made by Kolcraft with Crypton Green Technology, as well as a Crypton Travel Clean kit – including Crypton’s Disinfectant & Deodorizer, the first-ever disinfectant and deodorizer product to be approved by the EPA for fabric.

Kolcrafts’ new Contours Infant-Toddler Mattress features a bamboo cover treated with Crypton Green Technology, making it earth-friendly and resistant to bacteria, odors, liquids and stains. It’s perfect for moms who want to do everything possible to ensure that their children are surrounded by clean, pure environments. Be sure to share the link with other moms in the know – there will be FIVE lucky winners on Redbook.com this week. Simply fill in your e-mail address, and you’ll be entered for a chance to win!

Featured Etsy Designer: Studio Cherie

This week, Life on Crypton is showcasing Etsy.com (see our post from yesterday). Today we bring you an interview with Cherie, the designer-sewer extraordinaire who is behind StudioCherie. Selling duffels, bags, pillows and other fabric goods, Cherie’s bright colors and unique designs (she is happy to do custom items) have kept her busy creating since April 2008.

Recently, Cherie has come out with a brand new line of products containing Crypton Suede in the cathedral quilt-style. In addition to table-runners, she now has tote bags and pillows to complement the line. Interested crafters can also purchase PDFs of many of Cherie’s designs to create at home on their own.

In addition to running her online shop full-time, Cherie is also a mother of three, and a regular blogger (you can read her blog at http://studiocherie.blogspot.com. Enjoy!

Q. How did you originally get started with designing and creating items for sale?
Cherie: I created the baby changing bag I had always wanted for myself (and no one ever made while I had babies in diapers.) Everyone at a friend’s baby shower got excited about it. One of the gals suggested I apply for a patent. It just snowballed from there.

 Q. Describe the sort of things you enjoy making– what are your favorite items to create?
Cherie: Furniture, doing upholstery and slip-covering are my favorites, but I ran out of room at my house. Bags are great too. A bit of portable creativity that still has high function value.

Q. Where do you get inspiration for new ideas?
Cherie: Usually my creations grow out of something I need myself. The duffle bag came out of my own need, and its popularity tells me I am not alone. Sometimes it’s more of an invention thing – like frame purses, I was always curious about how those are made, so I took some apart, learned from them, and redesigned from there. There are also times when an idea will simmer in the back of my mind for a long time, and when the right materials or tools appear, I just have to move forward.

Q. How would you describe your design style?
Cherie: Practical and fun.

Q. We’ve noticed you often work with Crypton in your shop what draws you to Crypton Fabrics?
Cherie: Did I just say practical and fun? I love how Crypton stays clean, which is a huge plus for home décor and for bags. The color range of Crypton makes it fun and easy to pair with the popular designer quilting fabrics which are my other favorite material.

Q. How has Etsy changed the way you do business?
Cherie: Etsy is a vibrant community of crafters and artisans, collectors and socially conscious consumers. Within that community I am able to tailor my offerings to the needs I see. There is a real satisfaction for me in connecting with the people who use my sewing patterns or buy the things I have made. Etsy is engaging from both the buyer and seller perspective.

Q. What are the challenges for your business?
Cherie: I am itching to expand my line like crazy right now. I have so many practical and fun ideas. I want to keep selling both patterns and finished products, but I am going to need to get help to do that if I expand my offerings.

Q. What’s next for StudioCherie?
Cherie: One or two helpers. More patterns more products.

What fun to have my new book, Pretty Pet-Friendly: Easy Ways to Keep Spot’s Digs Stylish and Spotless, featured in Katie Knorovsky’s great Washington Post Express article about high-style pet accessories, including the Crypton Throver! The book was also featured in Jill Sell’s terrific story on pet-friendly decor for the Cleveland Plain Dealer!

I had one goal when authoring Pretty Pet-Friendly: to encourage shelter-animal adoption by helping animal lovers with simple, easy-to-follow tips to keep a neat, orderly, and above all, chic “animal house.”

Of course, Crypton figures prominently in the book. And to drive my point home, when styling the cover shoot, I arranged to have an icon of chair design custom-upholstered in Crypton Suede “Icing”:  Milo Baughman’s 989 Lounge Chair, originally designed in the 1960s, is still manufactured by Thayer Coggin, renowned furniture makers in North Carolina, USA.

Besides sporting a stylish, sumptuous fabric cover that’s pretty impervious to stains, moisture, odors, and bacteria (thank you, Crypton), this pretty, pet-friendly chair sits on a metal frame – which makes it claw- and jaw-proof to boot. As for Icing’s pale purplish-periwinkle-blue hue, it’s so chic that my publisher’s graphic-design team chose it as the accent color of the inside pages!

How do you keep your “animal house” chic and clean? Tell us in the comments.