Hey All! I’m out of town, and thus today’s Flickr Faves on Fridays are all cruddy quality pictures taken from my phone, because I don’t really have a fast enough connection to browse flickr today. These are all charming container gardens I’ve snapped after lunches this week, the first in Atlanta and the rest in Maine.

After lunch at Adkin’s Park the other day, I felt compelled to take a picture of the awesome Clawfoot Container garden in front of The Key Lime Pie Salon in my neighborhood:

I don’t know what it is about where I choose to eat lunch, but after lunch at Red’s Eats in Wiscasset Maine two days ago, I came upon glorious windowbox after glorious windowbox. These container gardens have a lot to do with why Wiscasset is “the prettiest little town in Maine”! The one below is at a beautiful home store called smitten (same talented owner as rock paper scissors shown above). I was so impressed with the owner’s taste and merchandising skills; I highly recommend a visit if you are on Coastal Route 1!

I never thought I would say this, but thanks to designers like Susie Mendive of SUM I am actually ecstatic wallpaper has made such a solid comeback. This is gen-u-ine excitement. My parents coated our home with wallpaper in the early 80’s, and it wasn’t pretty. It was so bad I remember as a little girl trying to peel it off to hint to my parents that they needed to do something with the walls. Now, times are different and I want to paper my walls myself!

Wallpaper actually gets me all riled up so I apologize in advice for my lengthy list of questions with Susie Mendive. Enjoy!

I know a bit about your background…a graphic designer with a graduate degree from North Carolina then to LA then to NY as art director with stila cosmetics…but I think there are some holes, especially in how you transitioned from branding cosmetics to designing modern wallpaper. Tell us more! How did SUM come together?

It happened very organically. I very much wanted to design and produce my own product and call all the shots. It just made sense at that point in my career. There is a lot of hard work involved and it can be consuming but I like taking it one step at the time.

Tell us about the name, SUM. How did you come up with this?

My husband and I were in Tokyo and it just hit me, Su is from Susie and M from Mendive but more than that it was the idea of a total home concept…SUM of all parts. A total approach to design and living.

The female silhouettes of your Floral Femme Fatale prints are an amazing graphic. They have a significant presence let alone bring Read the rest of this entry »