Nifty Living

Entries in Portland OR (4)

Tuesday

Mar292011

Relish the Sale

Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 12:58PM

Relish is the "go to" store for modern furnishings and decorating advice here in Portland. They are moving to the space next to their current location at NW Lovejoy and 17th and lucky for us they are having a sale! If you don't live in PDX than you're probably not losing your mind from 28 days of rain, but you are also lucky enough to buy off their website.

I like just about everything on their home furnishings sale page, but here are a few that made me drool so much I just had to write about it:

100% New Zealand Wool Hand-Tufted Rug- Blocks Earth. Was $1600, now $900	Perpetual Wall Calendar. Was $60, now $28
48x40 Marimekko Stretched Fabric - Moments Pattern. Was $150 now $75	Laukkusetti Set of Hat Boxes. Was $56, now $39

Relish's items home:
http://www.shoprelish.com/Store/pc/SALE-c42.htm

Relish's sale items jewelry:
http://www.shoprelish.com/Store/pc/Jewelry-Sale-c59.htm

Stacey K |

Voo Doo Doughnut Birthday Cake

Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 1:47PM

If you only have ten minutes to make a birthday cake, you're lucky enough to live in Portland, and you're even luckier to have a line a mere sixteen people deep to stand on, why not pile a bunch of Voo Doo Doughnuts into a tower?

They have two locations but it's much more adventurous to go to the downtown location and pretend you're in an episode of Portlandia. Although.... the Sandy location has an awesome vintage Bubble Hockey game.

You could argue that Voo Doo Doughnuts is over publicized, but they are delicious, and from what I understand, completely calorie-free! Plus, I know people who know these people and I hear they are really nice people. (And that matters in a place like Portland.)

Stacey K |

The prettiest bag lady in Portland

Friday, September 18, 2009 at 2:39PM

Jane's showing off her new fall/winter collection which is a darker palette than her typically vibrant bags you see over the shoulders of Portland's hippest gals. If you're lucky enough to live in Portland, Jane Raymond has a trunk show tomorrow at Soho Boutique on Broadway from noon to 3 pm. Jane Raymond's bags are so popular in Portland that she can't keep up. I don't eat red meat so I tend to go crazy for bags that aren't made of leather. Jane's bags are made of vinyl and I love them because you can clean them easily and they are rain and kid resistant.
I met Jane maybe two years ago when I asked if I could sell her stuff in the now defunct Hello store and we struck up a friendship when she moved to my neighborhood.
I can't talk her into a website because she can't make these babies fast enough. She sells pocket-size purses, coin pouches and eyeglass cases for as little as $20 and her more sophisticated bags rarely cost more than $80 and average around $60. To keep her prices low, she has to sew these herself so if you are lucky enough to get one of her bags (I have 6), consider it a bargain and a treasure.

I started my first post promising not to blow sunshine up anyone's ass, and this particular entry reeks of sunshine because Jane is so talented and her house and her bags are so fabulous. But I am happy to report it's all authentic and this is not the gal you might expect to snub you at the playground. Jane is a down-to-earth, thrifty and nifty creative goddess, and she deserves some kudos for putting it all together with so much style.

Here's Jane's house, and the reason I am featuring it is two-fold. The nexus of this article was inspired by an amazing inquiry from a famous national magazine. After blogging only two weeks, I was surprised to see anything in my blog's inbox from anyone besides the IRS. The unnamed magazine asked me if I knew anyone cool they could feature, and if so, there might be some work in it for me. Jane was my first stop (out of a few more to come.)

Jane's house is a bit of a paradox for niftyliving readers. It doesn't look "nifty" or "thrifty", it just looks just too damn good! But it is. Jane is an artisan, and like myself dabbles in just about every art and craft you can think of. The more we talked about the details of the house that were too intimidating to analyze in the past, the more I realized that her amazing decor was about 30% retail expense, 30% thrift and ingenuity and 40% elbow grease. Surprisingly, Jane was not a cover girl in her youth, she was painting houses with her sister in Michigan and she painted her house (here in Portland) all by herself with the same techniques she invented in the past. On top of that, I think she made every beautiful lamp downstairs herself. And her most remarkable furniture pieces were pieces that she painted herself! I knew that a lot of the artwork on the walls was hers, but she explained a lot of the art was her kids (it doesn't get more affordable than that!)

I promised Jane I wouldn't take her picture too often because for some bizarre reason she doesn't love to have her picture taken but if I looked like Jane I'd pose naked on the internet every day.

Family photos are displayed on two peices of sheet meatl she picked up at the hardware store

Family photos are displayed on two pieces of sheet metal she picked up at the hardware store.

2 girls and 2 boys. Surprise! They're good-looking too!

Dining room features luminous curtains she made from $3 a yard sale fabric.

Jane's bag matches the room (entirely by accident)

But the pieces I like best are the furniture pieces she painted herself.

And the ceramic lamps she made herself.

And the harloquin textured walls she painted herself

And the harlequin textured walls she painted herself.

Funky lime entryway is juxtaposed with traditional, preppy paintings...

with a sculptured lamp (that Jane made, uhg) that throws the prettiest reflections

with a sculptured lamp that throws the prettiest reflections.

Going upstairs...

Her daughter's room was a cross between a girlie-gasm and a DIY masterpeice

Her daughter's room was a cross between a girlie-gasm and a DIY masterpiece.

Dresser hand painted by Jane.

And the art was created by her daughter (some cool hybrid of ceramics and sharpie markers.) Jane painted the walls with pretty blue swirls over a lavender background.

I have always wanted one of these "Summer Lights" by Artecnica (an old and very cool vendor of mine). Artecnica

Jane's sister hand painted their comforter covers (which means she has a lot of extra time on her hands.)

I snuck a picture of the bathroom with another great handmade lamp by Jane.

On the 3rd floor we quickly redecorated to make the space look enviously cool.the

On the 3rd floor we quickly redecorated to make the space look enviously cool. Oh shit, I also promised Jane I wouldn't show her rear.

I can't wait for Jane to go on vacation d=so i can break in and steal this cool sign.

I can't wait for Jane to go on vacation so I can break in and steal this cool sign.

Jane's childhood dollhouse had deteriorated into a guineapig pen. She cleaned it up and repainted every detail herself for her daughters.

Jane's childhood dollhouse had deteriorated into a guinea pig pen by the time she was a rebellious teenager. She cleaned it up and repainted every detail herself for her daughters.

Hand painted cabinet that I made look fuzzy because it was a crappy shot.

The side of her extremely patriotic garage came like this...

The side of her extremely patriotic garage was already like this when she moved in.

I love these vintage chairs and franly her rear patio was pretty cool.

I love these vintage chairs and frankly her back yard was pretty cool.

Jane showed me the grapes growing between the house and her neighbor's driveway.

Jane showed me the grapes growing between her house and her neighbor's driveway.

They were freakin' delicious.

And jane took an opportunity to show off the damn bracelt she made herself! Is there anythign this woman doesn't make? I thougtht she was going to tel

And Jane took an opportunity to show off the damn, I mean gorgeous, bracelet she made herself! Is there anything this woman doesn't make? Do you think she made those fabulous boots too?

Don't forget, if you're lucky enough to live in Portland, Jane Raymond has a trunk show tomorrow at Soho Boutique on Broadway from noon to 3 pm. If you live outside of Portland, www.tillyjane.net usually carries some of her bags but I noticed the site is temporarily down (Jane says she is replenishing tonight.) Otherwise, politely ask her if she'll mail you one herself at stylesisterstudio@yahoo.com.

Stacey K |

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Monday

Aug242009

Getting back to school and saving the world at the same time

Monday, August 24, 2009 at 5:57PM

An extremely hip gal here at my studio space showed me these sandwich/snack bags last week. They looked so cool I immediately wanted to start sewing my own (with pretty embroidered messages on them like "hugs not drugs", or "finish this f@$#*ing sandwich because it cost me $1.37 and they don't grow on trees"!)

But I also recommend buying them if you have the scratch and love Mother Earth (you do love Mother Earth don't you?). The Grasshopper blog says 20 million plastic bags get thrown out everyday (my puppy just can't poop that much every day for me to personally recycle these) so lets do what we can and look like fancy people who shop at Oilily at the same time.

These are dishwasher safe, moisture and grease proof, and made in the USA by real people with real lives. So I also encourage you to buy this brand before one the big box stores rips them off (think of a big red circle with a little circle inside it; in six months masses of people who don't read my blog will think some corporation invented these themselves).

I found these at one of my favorite kid's store here in Portland, Grasshopper but you can find them where you live at the 3greenmoms.com website.

A little less trendy is something our house has been using for years. A neighbor back on Martha's Vineyard picked them up for us and we have been using them for 5 years. I just found them for sale at wrap-n-mat.com and the company looks pretty wholesome and "buying on the net" worthy (vs. the always encouraged "shopping local".)

Hey - while I'm here and thinking about school lunches which takes up about .0001% of my time, let me encourage you this year to reduce lunch costs and help battle the enormous plague of "over-packaging". Instead of buying six-packs of applesauce or yogurt, or whatever your fancy, buy a large container of your lunch accoutrement and some small mason jars to pour it into. You can even put a cute piece of fabric inbetween the jar top and the ring to make it look cool if you have nothing else to do in the morning.