What’s your favourite colour?  I have two… brown and orange (on their own, definitely NOT together).  I love a rich, deep, chocolately brown, and a bright, vivacious, happy orange.

I have lots of brown in my home, but other than a few accents, I mostly shy away from using orange, since it can be overwhelming.  But this “best of orange” roundup over on Design*Sponge has me rethinking.  Don’t you just love that orange sofa?

[image of Polly Alexandre's sofa via Design*Sponge]

I have a bit of a problem with magazines.  I’m kind of obsessed.  I have subscriptions to 8 magazines that are delivered to the house (Oprah, Chatelaine, Toronto Life, Fashion, Wired, Spacing, Canadian House & Home, and Uppercase), and when I’m out, I’ll often pick up others on the newsstand (The New Yorker, Budget Travel, Vanity Fair, Ready Made, Dwell, Style at Home and New York Magazine are often found lying around here).  Oh, and don’t even get me started on the online magazines I read.

But without a doubt, my favourite magazine right now is Uppercase.  Uppercase is a gorgeous, award-winning, proudly Canadian magazine about design, illustration, and a bunch of other creative stuff.  I love the content of most magazines, but the design is also very important to me.  Uppercase is a perfect mix of gorgeous layout and design.  Even the paper it’s printed on is spectacular.

I used to get HOW magazine (subject: print design) for creative inspiration, but Uppercase inspires me more.  And I used to get Domino magazine (before it went under), and Uppercase has interviews and showcases of quirky people and their interiors, filling the void left by Domino.

Uppercase Issue 7 just came out (there are 4 annually) and I should get my copy in the mail any day now.  I’m really excited…

Today I’m out at my cottage with friends, enjoying the fine Canadian tradition of lounging in the lake-side hammock, reading, drinking beer, and enjoying the sunshine.  Okay, maybe those aren’t strictly Canadian activities, but I’ll let it slide.

Kind of Canada related – check out Modern Karibou, an online shop for modern stuff that you can actually get in Canada.  It’s so frustrating to read about a cool product for your house in an American magazine, only to find out they don’t ship to Canada, or the product isn’t available here.

Or, for the ultimate in Canadian interiors, check out the iconic Umbra.  Maybe treat yourself to my favourite Umbra product – the Aquala Bathub Caddy.  With a book holder and spot for your wine glass, it takes a bubble bath to the next level.

If you haven’t already noticed, I love Scotland and all-things-Scottish.  Since I have no plans to return to the Highlands anytime soon, I get my Scottish fix by listening to BBC Radio 1 Scotland online.  I like to tune in throughout the day, but you can pretty much guarantee that I’ll be listening weekdays between 9-11am (Toronto time).  That’s when the Tom Morton show is on – an excellent mix of pop music (new and old), witty Scottish banter, and Scottish news. If you can’t listen live, you can download podcasts of the show here.

You can listen to all the BBC radio stations online here.  And if you want BBC Radio 1 Scotland, click here.

Picnics are way cool right now.  Lots of hipster blogs are encouraging picnics, detailing picnic style, and swooning over photographs of picnics.  So, being the rad person she is, The King suggested we start a picnic club in Toronto, where we invite all our friends to bring food and eat it together in various parks around the city.  Last night we hit up Riverdale Park (on the Cabbagetown side, by the farm).  Those are some shots up there.  If you look closely at the picture in the middle, to the left, you can see bubbles!  I picked up a bubble blowing kit at the dollar store.  Super fun.

Okay folks, watch your gag reflex, it’s gonna get a bit mushy here.

Today’s post is for my husband, Ian, on his 32nd birthday.  Back when I didn’t have a blog, and I just had a “favourite things” page on my website, Ian would ask “how come I’m not on your favourite things page?”  I told him it was because I was trying to keep my personal and professional lives a little bit separated.  But that’s just BS.  Anyone who knows me knows that I have almost no distinction between my personal and professional lives, and I like it that way.

So Ian, here you are, out in the open, as one of my Favourite Things.  We’ve been together over 5 years (cue the Colin James), and I’m still crazy about you.  I love your intellect, your sensitivity and understanding, your cooking (Ian is the chef in our house), your shared love of our dog, and I especially love your sense of curiosity and wonder (like how you were willing to drive 6 hours just to see some architecture, and you always go with me to art galleries and museums, just to learn something new).

And you look ridiculously good in your MacNaughtan tartan scarf.  Happy Birthday.

I love pretty paper.  I love fancy pens.  I love all things written.  But I’m pretty predictable when it comes to my notebooks of choice – I go old-school with Moleskine.  I’ve tried other brands, but I keep coming back to Moleskine because of the paper texture and the different shapes and sizes available (and available without lined paper – I don’t like lines).  I use this one for my notes on my biggest client (there are a lot of notes), and I use the smaller cahiers (available in three packs) for everything else.

I’m working on a web design right now that features a moleskine notebook as the background for the site.  More on that later.

Also, check out these laser-etched Moleskines – cool!

What an amazing concept – everyone in a city (or town) gets to share a huge collection of books (and albums, and DVDs, and magazines… and soon, video games).  I’m glad that libraries have been around for a while, because if someone tried to introduce that idea now, it probably wouldn’t work.  Kind of like public health care in the States.  I digress.

Anyway, I love the Toronto library.  The individual branches aren’t so great (except for a few, and I’m talking about you, S. Walter Stewart branch).  But the whole system is amazing.  With the beta launch of the Toronto Library’s new website, it’s even easier to find items, place them on hold, and then go pick them up at my local branch.  Rarely have I thought of a book that I can’t find at the library.  Including new releases.  And often, I’ve “tested” a library book, found I liked it, and bought a copy of my own (because some books are so good, you don’t want to return them after 3 weeks).

Little known fact – the Toronto Library website has a “downloads” section.  eBooks, audio books, and a little bit of music.  Check there next time you’re going on a road trip and need something to listen to.  Or heck, download some audio books for your daily commute.  Beats listening to morning radio (except the CBC morning radio.  Love the CBC).

Remember when I said I was ordering new business cards from Moo?  I got some full size business cards featuring the artwork of various illustrators, and also 100 ready-made mini cards, all featuring illustrations by Marc Johns.

Well, they arrived this afternoon. As always, they look lovely.

Moo sent me a little promo code to pass on – 15% off your first pack of 50 Business Cards.  That would normally cost you $21.99 (which is already a crazy deal), but with 15% off, that’s only $18.69.  That’s a seriously good deal.

If you wanna take advantage of it, go to Moo and enter code G2MSCG at the checkout.

Note: I am not paid in any way to give this info to you.  I just seriously love Moo.

I heart Design*Sponge.  I’ve been reading this blog for years – long before I was a designer.  I have always been drawn to owner/blogger Grace Bonney’s excellent sense of style (usually on a budget no-less), and her candid, friendly writing.  It’s been so cool to watch this blog grow over the years.  At first, Grace would write about a whole bunch of topics (all relating to interior design), and throw them all together in one place (hmmm… kind of like the blog you’re reading right now).  But over time, Grace developed clearly recognizable categories for her blog posts – “Before and After”, “DIY”, “In the Kitchen”, “City Guides”, and my favourite: “Sneak Peeks” (where she gets interesting people to post photos and descriptions of their homes.  Kind of like The Selby, but not so weird).  She even has a schedule for the categories: Mondays are for Sneak Peeks, Tuesdays are for Guides, etc.

I recently launched some blog design services, and when I work with my blogger clients, I always use Design*Sponge as an example of what an excellent blog can be.  Have a strong, clear, interesting voice in your writing, and give your blog some structure.  It’s a formula that has worked very well for Grace (she has 60,000 daily readers, over 10 contributing writers, and is coming out with a book).  I think her daily schedule for her blog categories is brilliant – it keeps things interesting, and most importantly, it gives the reader a reason to come back to the blog every day.  Oh yeah, and don’t you love the look of the blog itself?  It was custom designed for Design*Sponge.  Gives the site a completely original look.  Love it.