I'm still feeling a bit groggy from all the meds I'm on, but I can't stop thinking about you and your many emails and comments that continue to wish me a speedy recovery. Thank you so much for your caring words but it's just a virus, nothing major really! :) I thought that since I'm not up to blogging at my regular Holly speed, I will post a few things today and tomorrow to keep you inspired until I'm back on Monday. Since I have a few more posts from the What To Do When You Don't Know What To Do series, I think I'll start with these...


Today we'll hear from creative lady Paola Thomas who is a Seattle-based mother, wife, blogger, and online shop owner of MirrorMirror. She, alongside Velocity Art & Design, just recently launched a creative meet up in Seattle called The Lab, too. Busy lady! Let's talk to Paola, shall we?

How do you think a person can find their spot in the world of design?

Take a long hard look at yourself and what you can do and what you enjoy doing. What do you really LOVE to do? I guarantee the business you end up doing will not be the one you envisaged, so don?t wait for something fully formed to drop into your lap, start experimenting with something TODAY and then watch it unfurl and grow. Do a new thing to your baby business every day, and grab every opportunity with both hands. You can always stop and change direction if you?ve made a mistake.

Let's say a person found what they love to do, is there more to it than creating pretty things?

Oh yes! Be truly honest with yourself and also focus on what you CAN'T or don't want to do. emember if you want a real money-making business that there's an awful lot of selling and marketing and networking and finance that needs to be done. You can hire people to do some of those things if you've got the money, but you have to at least be able to manage those people. I happen to love that side of things, but if you don't, then I really would think long and hard about whether you want to turn your creative passion into your business. I've seen people end up hating their passions. Instead have a job that pays the bills and develop outlets for your creativity in your spare time.

One thing I've heard a million times over is to see if there's a market for your work. Just how important is this?

One should think seriously about whether there?s a market for what you do. Just doing what you love is not enough. Keep testing and experimenting to see what will get you an audience. If you make stuff, get an Etsy shop; if you take photos, get on Flickr; if you want to write, start a blog. If can get an audience in these challenging environments, then maybe you have the beginnings of a business.

Great advice. Speaking of blogging, I met you in 2005 long before you had a blog. Can you tell us how that came about?

I find my blog tremendously useful for exploring ideas. It started as a marketing tool for my shop, but has now become a way for me to experiment with ideas, practice my writing and photography, and act as a platform for the things I like doing such as cooking, knitting, decorating etc. I doubt very much I?m going to make money out of these things, but having that outlet for my personal creativity is enough. For example when I started my blog I didn?t possess a digital camera. Now photography is a huge part of the blog and of my life.

Do you feel that you've found your 'calling' as a web shop owner and blogger?

I'm definitely going in the right direction but I'm nowhere near where I want to end up. My background is in finance and business development ? I worked for many years as an investment banker and then management consultant, before losing my job at a small Internet company in the dotcom crash. I realised then that I liked cushions and colour more than spreadsheets and legal docs and started combining some freelance journalism with doing a home study course in interior design. I soon realised that I don?t think spatially enough to be a great designer (and I want to be great at what I do) and also really missed the commercial side ? I love marketing and I love the Internet. Which is why I decided to set up a business that's actually primarily all about selling and marketing and the Internet, but focused on a market I really understand (women like me) and brings me into daily contact with beautiful things and creative people. And along the way I've had to write a business plan, get a bank loan, manage the building of a complex e-commerce website, run a customer database and PR list and pay sales tax etc. It?s not all about cushions.

You mentioned you lost your job and launched your web shop, but how can one afford to do that?

The upside for me is that my husband's salary has been enough to support us in this ?experimental? phase ? every penny the business makes gets put straight back in - though we have far less money than we used to. The downside has been that I've been combining it with being at home with a baby/toddler, so am only doing this stuff very part time so far. But I love what I do, I have created myself a ?job? where reading design magazines counts as work, so therefore I'm happy.

Thank you Paola! If anyone has questions to ask Paola about running a web shop, etc. please use this as your opportunity and ask some questions in the comments section below...

Sister Parish loved handicrafts -- needlework, basketry, quilts, hand-printed textiles. Maybe this was because she enjoyed working with her own hands, doing decoupage and other crafts. Or perhaps she had seen her share of grand formal homes and longed to warm them up with homespun touches.


Working intuitively, and in collaboration with partner Albert Hadley, she often upholstered exquisite 18th century French furniture with "primitive" hand-waxed cotton batiks by Alan Campbell. The fresh and inviting bedroom of Brooke Astor, shown above, is one example.


Colorful patchwork quilts appealed to Sister too. She used them conventionally but also commissioned the Freedom Quilting Bee in Alabama to create a patchwork fabric that, according to her protege Bunny Williams, was used in a chic Georgetown dining room. In fact, Parish-Hadley became known for upholstering wing chairs and sofas with quilts.


During her famous refurbishing of the White House, Jackie Kennedy selected Morgantown glassware produced in West Virginia. A political gesture? Probably. But JBK seems to have had a genuine fondness for American crafts. The way she and Sister Parish mixed the ultra-refined with the rustic greatly influenced residential interior decorating in the U.S. for decades.


I couldn't help noticing that both Natalie "Alabama" Chanin and craft artist Nathalie Lete received coverage in the newest Vogue Living. Are arbiters of high style embracing craft again as they did in the 1980s when simple pine furniture was mixed with lavish florals?

Of course, in their own unique ways Jonathan Adler and Lulu de Kwiatkowski have been doing a 21st century mix of sleek with rustic. But it will be interesting to see if more contemporary designers -- those associated with modern glamour -- inject homespun elements into their interiors.


Above, Alan Campbell fabric currently available through Quadrille.

Reminder: Tradition/Innovation: American Masterpieces of Southern Craft and Traditional Art remains on view through May 18.

Photo of Sister Parish shown top is from Margaret Russell's 2001 book, Designing Women: Interiors By Leading Style-Makers; The Astor bedroom is from Albert Hadley: The Story of America's Preeminent Interior Designer; and Sister Parish's Maine bedroom is from Designers on Designers.

Have you ever driven around the city and seen furniture sitting on the parking or next to the street with a sign that says, "FREE". My husband does all the time from his big yellow bus. So many times it rains, then the furniture is of no use to anybody.

We recently donated a sleeper sofa to Oregon Community Warehouse. It was still in good shape, but we wanted a change in the den and with our remodel of the lower level, just didn't see the need for the sofa in the den.

We were interested to learn that the Community Warehouse has a need for lots of furniture and it's a shame to see it sit outside in the rain when there are so many in need.

I called Sharon and found out they don't need more sofas. They need beds and dresser drawers, and tables and chairs. They may drive by with one of their trucks and pick up your used items if you call. They may even take your sofa if you have additional furniture items items.

Won't you pick up the phone and call Sharon at 503-235-8786 or the other volunteers about your gently used items before putting it on the curb.

Their web site says

Clients include women escaping domestic violence, individuals and families who have been homeless, elderly persons on limited incomes, people with mental and physical disabilities, refugee families from all over the world, youth and adults recovering from substance abuse, and the working poor.

Community Warehouse
2267 N. Interstate Ave.
Portland, OR 97227

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

I got tagged last week by Megan of Beach Bungalow 8. It takes me awhile, but I eventually find the time (see "to do list"). Thanks Megan!

So here goes:
1) What did you do ten years ago?

I was living in Sacramento, CA here: