A wonderful website for the creative traveler.  With the informative writing and great design, what’s not to love? Enjoy!

So this weekend I decided we needed a new system of organizing our mail situation.  Our former system was haphazardly stacking everything on the table or the counter,  in no real order, and moving the pile back and forth between the two whenever it was in the way.   We have tried different types of organizers, but what it boils down to is that I am lazy.  Unless something is super simple, I will probably eventually stop using it.   Or if it doesn’t keep things in plain sight, I will forget about them.   When I found these clipboards I knew that was the system for me, because it was about as simple as it gets.   I could only foresee one problem, and that was the possibility of my wife and I forgetting which board was which and mixing things up again.  We would need boards for three categories: things that need attention right away, things waiting to be dealt with later, and mail ready to go to the mailbox.    I decided just painting big numbers on each board was the way to go.

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This is a great idea for a very simple DIY stacked wall shelf system.  Use PRÄNT magazine and paper boxes from Ikea, combined with some painted accent colors and large Binder Clips to hold the boxes in place.  Simple and inexpensive.  However in our house, with tiny hands grabbing and pulling on everything we would probably go with a little sturdier connection strategy like screws or at least some industrial clamps, and it would need to be firmly attached to the wall so as to not be pulled over.

Via Livet Hemma (Life at Home)

Sculpture by Claire and Sean, 2006, customized pulp fiction, Ikea Lack shelving

Images via Remodelista,  Apartment Therapy

I would love this blog to be a place you could come to check on a product, and see if it really works.  For the first real product review/comparison I decided on something I have seen and heard a lot about lately.  In fact, I have three of these in my living room.  If you have picked up a design magazine of any kind, then you have seen some version of a cantilevered shelf.  These shelves show up almost everywhere – and with good reason.  They are practical and functional, attractive, easy to install (in most cases), and generally inexpensive.  Overall a great design solution with an ever widening array of uses.   End to end, stacked, staggered, painted, wallpapered, repainted, as furniture… just Google the ways to use one and see all that comes up.   Recently though, I have run across way to many knock-offs that are pretty poor quality, and I thought it might be worth a post to show the difference.
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Winter has had a death grip this year, and maybe you need something to lighten your creative spirits.  Everywhere you look, there is end of winter/beginning of spring sales with great deals on some amazing and random things.  Take advantage and find some thing to either use or make something great out of.  I have seen some pretty good prices on some very interesting things from Pedlars, Three Potato Four, & West Elm.

Some sites may not be selling anything, but offer daily inspiration of all kinds.  Convoy and Cavalier Essentials are a couple of my favorites.

I am not sure what it is, maybe the solid simplicity, but I absolutely love the wood block end tables that stand bedside in some of the Ace’s unique rooms.  These tables are solid, clean, simple, and make whatever sits atop them seem on display.  If you are missing the necessary tools to produce one of your own, here are a few good sources and alternatives.
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