Literary Inspirations - Picture of Dorian Gray

This week's literary inspiration is  The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

Picture of Dorian Gray 

Elegance and opulence define this set. Evening gowns, opera glasses, playbills, gold, jewels, embroidery, riches of every kind. However there is a warning to be heeded, lest we look into the mirror and see only beauty and worldly riches while ignoring the corruption within that may end up destroying us.

The book did have a depressing ending, although not more than he deserved.

Plans for 2010

Source 

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. Things have been slow around here and will remain that way for a few more weeks while I move back to my hometown, start a new job, and attempt to get this business off the ground. These plans for the new year both terrify and excite me, and I find myself making a list, not of New Year's Resolutions, but of things that I hope will come in 2010.

• Get organized, both my stuff and my life 
• Moving into an apartment that has room for an office (or at least space for a decent desk)
• Create an office full of creativity that inspires me when I sit down and work
• Expand the variety of food that I cook. (I started doing that this year and I definitely want to continue) 
• Start dancing again
• Take yoga classes on a regular basis
• Take a photography class to actually learn how to work my camera

Those are the things I can think of now, I'm sure I'll be adding more as they come to me. Once I find some pretty stationary, I'm going to write these out and stick them on my wall to look at all year. Maybe it will even be the wall of my office!

Happy New Year everyone!

Literary Inspirations - A Christmas Carol

In honor of Christmas, this week's Literary Inspiration is A Christmas Carol  by Charles Dickens.

A Christmas Carol 

Items in this set:
John Lewis Women Fur Collar Single Breasted Coat, Chocolate, 14, 180 GBP
Born 'Kay' Short Boot, $220
Women's Powder Front Bow Leather Gloves - Francesco Biasia, $127
: : T A R I N A T A R A N T I N O : :
Faux Fur Muffler, $28

I'll be honest, I saw that muff at at Urban Outfitters and I basically created this whole set around it because I love it so much. If only I needed a muff in Southern California...

Winter coats with fur trim, feminine bows and gloves, vintage boots to walk through the slushy streets. Christmas decorations, street lamps, and turkey add to the feeling of the season. Ok, so the turkey is there because at the end Scrooge buys the Cratchit family a turkey and its more about charity and good will than food.... Ok? Good.

Literary Inspirations - Swiss Family Robinson

This week's Literary Inspiration collage is The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss.

Swiss Family Robinson

Items in this set:
ASOS Woven And Knit Dress, $31
Melissa Odabash Martinique twisted bandeau bikini, $170
Bamboo/Metal Stretch Bracelet, $60
Bamboo Hanging Lantern - Small :: Garden Trading Original Stylish..., 18 GBP
Nova Natural Toys & Crafts - baby's wooden bowl & moon spoon

Tree houses of all kinds, bamboo dishes and utensils, wooden and natural jewelry, easy linen and cotton dresses, and lots of fruit! And technically none of the characters every wore a swimsuit while laying in the sun by the beach, but I'm sure in their free time it was something they did! Hmm, perhaps I should have added Malibu rum to this collage...

Pretty Places to Read

Let it be known that I love reading and books, and that leads to my love of libraries. It's crazy, but I just get this feeling of excitement whenever I walk into a library - all the book options to read and knowledge to gain. So I when I was surfing the web and randomly came across a list of 20 of the world's most beautiful libraries I pretty much freaked out. Can you imagine wandering the halls of these places and studying or reading in such magnificent places?

Abbey Library St. Gallen, Switzerland 

Trinity College Library, Dublin, Ireland (I've actually been there!)

National Library, Belarus

See the whole list at oddee.com

Hidden Treasures

I came across quite an unexpected discovery this week. The company where I work was holding their annual sample sale, and the employees were able to shop the day before it opened to the public. Among the $3 shirts and $5 bottoms I discovered a sweater with a detachable fur stole which I picked up, thought was awesome, and promptly placed back in the pile. I continued pawing my way through the boxes but I couldn't stop thinking about that sweater. I knew it was ridiculous but my love of costume-y things was too strong so I went back and grabbed it. It wasn't until I got home and really started looking at it that I realized it was 100% cashmere, real fur, completely vintage, and absolutely fabulous. Which I just bought for $5 at a sample sale full of teenage girl clothing. I have no idea what it was doing there as our company certainly doesn't sell vintage or vintage inspired garments, but my coworker walked out with a giant green bird cage so perhaps marketing had bought it for something? I'm going to see if I can attempt to pull this off for Christmas...

Literary Inspirations - The Three Musketeers

Since this is the first post in this series I guess I better give a little bit of background. My current day job is extremely boring and revolves around mindless work. While this vexed me to no end in the beginning, I then discovered books on tape (er...mp3s) and since then have happily spent 9 hours a day listening to all the classic books I always meant to read but never got around to it. After getting through several books I started thinking about ways to incorporate some of their classical influences into modern life, and then I went on Polyvore and well, it all went downhill from there as far as my time was concerned. And this is what happened. I give to you Literary Inspirations - The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas:

3 musketeers 

Items in this set:
Military Patrol Jacket, $38
Fleur-de-Lis Stud Earrings, $19
Byzantine Ring, $2.80
bread
stock.xchng - Wine bottle (stock photo by Zela)

Military influenced jackets, fleur de lis, ornate jewelry, and delicious French bread and wine. You can't exactly wear a sword around town now, but I've always been a fan of hanging swords on the wall for decoration or part of a coat of arms.

Welcome

Picture from Rosie Hardy Flickr

I'll be honest, I hate these first posts. Well welcome, you've stumbled across my little section of the internet. This is the blog to my [future] online boutique Neroli Blossoms Boutique, which will be launching in fall 2010. But seeing as there's no content on the site yet as I'm still in the planning stages, in the meantime I'll be using this to post about fashion, design, various creativity and as it says on the top - random crap, as well as updates on the site and boutique itself.