Welcome Diane!

Jo and I would like to give a big shout out to Diane, who has kindly joined the DTI team as one of our sponsors. She's an artist, photographer, jewelry maker, and now blogger. We winked her art and we winked her blog in the past. She blogs about anything and everything, from tableware and chocolate to hotels and handbags. So head on over to Diane's blog and say hello! Here is a little peak at some items she has featured recently.

Art by Jo Bradford

Distinctive Homes store in Palm Springs

Dog house by Sustainable Pet

Oeuf, at 2Modern

My twin sister is graciously providing me with a second niece or nephew in November, and occasionally sends me links to baby furnishings and artwork for the nursery she's setting up in her former guest bedroom. When I came across the Oeuf line at 2Modern, I had to show my sister as I was smitten with the clean modern lines. "Like the contours of its namesake, Oeuf™ is about simple, clean design applied to the necessities of a well-equipped nursery. Oeuf's™ founders and designers, Sophie Demenge and Michael Ryan, are a French-American husband-and-wife team based in Brooklyn, New York. As part of a new generation of design-conscious and environmentally-aware parents, they realized they had to redesign everything themselves to merge their existing aesthetics with traditional nursery design. They believe strongly that while babies don't need many items, they do need some essential pieces. Oeuf's™ mission is to make those essentials practical and stylish, without compromising quality and safety - their top priority." I'm so amazed at how cool kid's furniture can be, thanks to the creativity of folks like those at Oeuf.

Welcome to a new sponsor

This is a quick welcome to our new sponsor, 2Furnish, a furniture company based in the UK that carries cane, wicker and rattan furnishings for conservatories (or wherever you'd like to use it). Furniture styles range from the very classic to modern eye catching contemporary designs all available with a choice of 32 luxurious fabrics. The cane, rattan and wicker used within their sofas, chairs and tables is of the highest grade, carefully selected and harvested from sustainable sources in South East Asia. Go have a looksie here.

News from Swank Lighting

Ed from Swank, one of our sponsors, emailed us with the following exciting news:
"In the short three years we have been in business we have sold hundreds of Vintage Murano Lamps from the finest glass houses in Venice. These lamps were imported by BALBOA in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. The response to our re-introduction of the remaining inventory of BALBOA has been phenomenal. One thing we have heard over and over from Designers and Collectors is that the look is fantastic and although our prices are lower than the high-end showrooms in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, etc. they still require an investment out of reach of many people. To address these concerns we set out to create a line of blown glass lamps with the same hot mid-century look, in a price range within reach of many more admirers. We first looked into having the glass components blown in Italy and importing them. Although there remains many wonderful glass artisans on the island of Murano, the cost to have the glass blown there and shipped to the U.S. was still too high to fit our model. Further much of what is being blown in Murano today is not the same high quality it was in the 20th Century and is more geared to the tourist "souvenir" market. So, we decided that we should really focus our efforts on promoting the beautiful work done by American glass artisans. In our search for the best America has to offer we found Joe Cariati. Joe's work is absolutely incredible. He sells his decorative pieces at some of the finest store including Barneys, Gumps, Belvedere, and Haven. You can see his collection online at www.joecariati.com. We contracted with Joe to blow the inaugural offerings in the new American Blown Glass Lamps from www.swanklighting.com. We are calling this line Hard Candy. The full line will be launched in September and priced around $800 per lamp. Unlike with our vintage line, we will sell singles as well as pairs of Hard Candy."

All I can say is STUNNING.

Bathrooms from Greentea Design

I have 2 bathrooms to completely renovate in my home eventually (kitchen is first on the list), so when we received an email from one of our sponsors, Greentea Design, about their new bathroom section on their website I was so excited. "Exciting news from Greentea Design. Customers are showing increased interest in our unique vanities so we have responded by launching a new Bathroom Furniture Section. It features beautiful antique pieces and exclusive Asian inspired contemporary designs, all in different settings. New suites have also been added, helping customers to "put the whole look together" with vanities, sinks, mirrors and shelving. The intrepid (and saucy) Design Guru Gib Dreffel has also written an article with many entertaining tips on Bathroom Design." I love it all!