It seems like every Aussie I come across on the web has a style sensibility I envy. The latest is Fiona, a.k.a. fede shop on flickr. Check out this lovely booth that is already getting a lot of use:

Fiona also has an Etsy shop full of adorable baby toys. I love the rattle shaped like tools and covered in lovely textiles:

I’ve been cleaning my office like crazy this week (it seems like I say that every week) but it’s true. I cannot put this killer 1966 issue of House Beautiful’s Home Decorating away until I get my favorite pictures scanned. Here are a few fun ones to liven up your day!

I was cruising around on tumblr yesterday (it had been awhile) and I found this gorgeous office in my favorites. I am not sure where credit is due, but it seems the first person to blog it was gigimelo. NEW NOTE: Thank you to Victoria, who knew exactly whose office this is! It is where the creative magic of Tif Fussell happens. Check out Tif’s work at dottie angel. Buy it on Etsy!

So, Organization Point #1: A Gorgeous & Neat Work Environment. This is a beautifully organized workspace. I am not quite sure what’s going on in that bottom shelf on the right, but I like that there is one little messy element. That magazine file on the desktop can hide a multitude of sins and serve as an inbox without messing things up. I can’t quite tell what is in the Catherine Holm casserole dish, but it sure looks neat and organized. I would not have thought to use a casserole dish that way. I’m sure it would get a lot more use on my desk than in my kitchen. The drawers in the vintage desk provide plenty of space for everything to be tucked away. Also, check out how organized the art arrangement is. With everything lined up neatly like this in a similar color palette, you could hang pages from a lovely glossy and it would look fantastic!

Organization Point #2: Using tumblr. Does anyone out there use tumblr? What do you use it for? For those of you who don’t know or don’t care to blog, you may find you really enjoy tumblr. It’s kind of like tweeting but with photos, at least for me. It is also a very simple way to dip your toes into blogging, as it certainly isn’t all about photos. That’s just what I use it for. Anyway, you can peruse everyone’s blogs right on the site in one easy feed, and mark your favorite posts. You can also re-post those that you like.

So, how does this help you get organized? The result is that you can create style files of your favorite images. You can also tag them. For example, when I want to look at inspiring black and white designs I’ve been collecting, I can go into my own tumblr blog and search “black and white” and they’ll all come up in a wonderful stream (here is mine if you want to see what I mean). The catch is that you have to be an obsessive compulsive tagger to make this work. Overall, it’s the perfect spot to store all kinds of inspiration and ideas. If you do post to tumblr, please remember to give credit to publications/websites/blogs/photographers if you are using their images.

Here are just a few of my favorite design people to follow on tumblr (tumblr has even informed me that they are among my “tumblr crushes” because I mark their images as favorites the most often!):

The Brick House

Yvestown

Design Evolution (this post Michelle wrote is how I found out just what the heck tumblr was in the first place – seriously, how does everyone keep up with the latest and greatest web tool? It’s ridiculously overwhelming!)

The Beautiful Soup

My Farmhouse

P.S. Doesn’t this office fit the color palette from yesterday? It does a much better job than I did, and it wasn’t even trying!

O.K., this was my first time using Polyvore. I am so bad at it that I had to take a screen shot of my collage as I have yet to figure out how to import it directly into the blog beyond making some sort of badge down the side. So, I barely scratched the surface and couldn’t figure out how to get the blue color on at least one wall, which is a must. I have also been trying to play around with Pantone softward, but so far the only thing I can do is make a palette. So, without further excuses, here’s the postcard again:

Here’s the Pantone Palette:

Here’s the collage:

It needs a lot of work and editing, but I told you I’d give it a shot, and I don’t have all day . Oh, I think if you go to this link, you can see where to buy everything. I didn’t stray too far from Design Public, West Elm, and Circa Lighting. In fact, I think those might be the final three places where you can find everything above.

By the way, I’m an idiot at technical stuff, and Polyvore was super easy to get the hang of. Obviously, I’m still learning, but you should try it – it’s a great way to collect all the stuff you want in one place and check out what it all looks like together.

Remember when Domino used to do “Can this outfit be turned into a room?” I find myself thinking that way now about so many things, especially postcards. I find this Charlie Harper postcard so inspiring. Besides the charming figures and shapes and perfect composition, the color palette really struck me: Baby blue, light-medium gray, army green, white, light brown with a little bit of definition from a brown so dark it’s almost black. Wouldn’t it be great to plan a room around this? I think I’m going to give it a shot. I’m already so far behind today I’ll post this first and add it to the blog later. If you’d like to submit one, post it to flickr and send me a link in the comments section – I’d love to see what you come up with!

Oops, upon quick perusal of our site before I launched off elsewhere, I found that Area has already got this palette down: