About half the items in my home are from Ikea.  I can’t help myself – their pieces offer such good value.  But as much as I love my desks and dressers and various things, I don’t want it to feel like I live in an Ikea showroom.  I’m always trying to mix it up, and integrate the Ikea pieces in with the other stuff in my home.

Enter Livet Hemma, a Swedish blog by Ikea, that roughly translates to “Life at Home” in English.  Open the site in Google Chrome and it will translate it for you.  The blog is all about showing Ikea products in real homes, and has some inspiring ideas. [via Decor8]

And do you know about Ikea Hacker?  It’s a blog which features Ikea products, used in new and unexpected ways.  I love this post about re-purposing spice racks into children’s bookshelves (pictured above) – I think I’ll do this in Clara’s room.

I found the blog Hither and Thither through Cup of Jo, and immediately added it to my Google Reader (where I keep track of the blogs I follow via RSS feed).

Hither and Thither is the blog of Ashley and Aron, a young professional married couple in Manhattan.  They’re expecting a baby, they like cool design, and they love to travel.  Sounds kind of like Ian and me, non?  I think of them as a cooler version of us.

One of my favourite parts of their blog is their travelogue section, where they write long, journal-like entries about trips they’ve taken.  And they have taken a LOT of trips (India, Croatia, Ireland, Costa Rica, Italy, and all over the States).  I love to read their travelogues for inspiration.  Just last week I read their Montreal travelogue for last-minute ideas for our trip this past weekend (photos to come soon, I promise).

50 States, 50 Designers – each one creates an illustration around their state’s motto.  See the gallery here.  More are posted every day.

My favourite is the one for Florida designed by Two Arms Inc, above.  Sidenote – who knew that was Florida’s state motto?  I guess they couldn’t find an original one, so they copied the motto for the entire country.

[via DesignWorkLife]

I love Uppercase Magazine, and look forward to each issue.  But I’m really looking forward to Issue 8, which is set to arrive any day now.  Uppercase asked a bunch of letterpress shops and artists to donate samples of their work to share with Uppercase subscribers.  Each copy will feature a small letterpress sampler, and a few lucky lucky people will get all of the samples (over 50 items).

Have a look at Uppercase’s Flickr page for images of the letterpress samples.  Check the Uppercase blog during the month of February for updates on the giveaway.

You know I love me some gorgeous fonts.  But sometimes when I look at my (giant) collection of typefaces, I’m not sure which one to use for a project.  Or I need some inspiration on how to use the type well.

Lately I’ve been turning to two websites for help – Beautiful Type and Fonts in Use.  Both feature photos and screen shots of type being used well in the real world.  Beautiful Type will often credit the designer, but Fonts in Use takes it one step further – they’ll tell you exactly which typefaces are being used, and how, via a well-written editorial on each piece.  So helpful!

The design blog world is all a-flutter with Matchbook Magazine – the latest in a steady stream of shelter/lifestyle mags (seems everyone’s still trying to fill the void left by Domino).

I’ll admit, I was a bit skeptical about Matchbook.  I only have so many hours in the day, and as much as I love wasting time online, a magazine has to be really great to hold my attention.  So I checked it out, thinking I’d give up after reading a few pages.

But then I stumbled on this page:

I want just about EVERYTHING here.  Look, there’s a bookplate that says “This book belongs to Avery”!

And then I kept reading, and saw articles about Anna Bond (of Rifle Paper Co), Peggy Guggenheim, Princess Margaret (who knew she was an “it girl”?), Burberry, Jemma Kidd, Warby Parker… and that’s just in the first half of the magazine.

Matchbook Magazine, you’ve won me over.

Don’t you just love Kate Spade?  Lately I find that Ms. Spade and Jonathan Adler are my biggest sources of design inspiration.  Both are so good at working with bright colours in a way that looks chic and stylish, and not childish or sloppy.

Check out Kate Spade’s Living Colorfully/The Year of Color project.  She’s choosing 12 signature shades, and unveiling a new colour each month (with accompanying limited edition prints, short films, and products, of course).  First up – red.  Just what we all need for the January blahs!

Lately I’ve been really enjoying the blog from Eight Hour Day.  Eight Hour Day is the name of the design studio run by husband and wife team Nathan Strandberg and Katie Kirk.  They do really cool design and illustration, and their projects include websites, posters, branding, and even a children’s book.  Oh yeah, and of course their own website is as gorgeous as everything else they do.

And as if that wasn’t already cool enough, they decided to take a year to travel across the States, setting up camp and working along the way.  More on that here.

But anyway, back to the blog.  They do a regular thing called “The Best Thing I Saw Today” and both Strandberg and Kirk post an image of something they saw and liked.  It’s inspiring.

The Selby has posted a roundup of his favourite images from 2010.  That’s Karl Lagerfeld’s book room up there at the top.  Swoon.

I love Marc Johns.  He’s an illustrator based in Victoria, BC and I just can’t seem to get enough of his work.  I have his illustrations on my business cards (which always elicit a response from prospective clients), I love flipping through his book, and I follow his work on his website/blog.

So I was pretty thrilled to see his contribution to the Twitter/Etsy Artist Series.  Entitled “The Pursuit of Radness”, Johns’ piece is available as a free download to save as wallpaper for your computer screen, iPhone, iPod, or iPad.  Apparently Johns thinks that’s what 2011 should be all about – the pursuit of the rad.  I like it.

[via DesignWorkLife]