polyvore – Rae Nudson

vampires in the lemon grove: decorating inspiration

I haven’t yet finished Vampires in the Lemon Grove: And Other Stories by Karen Russell (Kindle here), but what I’ve read so far has been imaginative and beautiful–but with underlying horror and sadness. In the story “Reeling for the Empire,” a group of girls are held captive to produce beautiful silk for their government.

In this case, “produce” is quite literal as these girls transform into human silkworms. They feel the silk form deep in their gut, like a physical embodiment of their regret and shame. They hold on to their humanity for as long as they can, but it’s only when they submit to what they have become that allows them to build a cocoon and transform from slaves into something else.

It’s not a happy story. But it is beautiful. I love the contrast of something so pretty and delicate in the setting of such a dark story. The silk these girls create is colorful, every color of the rainbow, and each girl produces a color unique to herself. So in my design inspiration I focused on bold, beautiful colors in materials like velvet, chrome, cashmere, and–of course–silk.

The bed is a canopy bed, where you can be warm and safe in a personal cocoon, and the drapes over the bed are dip-dyed, from a light, pure white to a dark, sinister blue-black. The mirrored bed frame reminds me of an industrial factory, but it also represents how these girls had no mirrors and could not see what they had morphed into. The gold table, rug, and mirror call back to a moth’s wings in this story, which are gold and ivory with an intricate design. The oval mirror is the same shape as their only window. The pillows remind me of loopy handwriting–the handwriting that signed the contracts to work in the factory.

And the tea cup, of course, is where their transformation began.

bedroom inspiration

I am still trying to get my life in order. (How long can I use moving as an excuse?) It feels like I’ll be catching up for weeks. My new neighborhood is delightful, as is my new premium cable. But I’m getting a little tired of stepping through boxes in the living room. (#Fatcat, however, is very much enjoying climbing up and around the mess.)

So when I’m not catching up on laundry or sleep, I’m dreaming of what my new place will look like once the dust settles. I feel like I change my mind every few minutes but I am into this blue and yellow.

bedroom inspiration from polyvore

And here’s a peek at a rug I bought completely on a whim.

What do you think? I hope my planning and scheming and impulse buying all comes together. For now, I’ll keep enjoying the neighborhood and learning about the city. I’m totally in love with the Jewel grocery store around the block. And tonight I’m going to a Cubs game! Wrigley Field is just down the street. So far, so good, Chicago.

I’ll be back to reading and crafting and outfitting as soon as I get my head back on straight. So…any day now.

decorating inspiration

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about reimagining my space. I love my apartment, but change is good and always fun to daydream about. When I was looking at inspiration this weekend on Polyvore, I focused on pushing my style a little bit and trying something new. I may not want to live with these styles in the end, but it sure is fun looking at them for a while.

The room with gray walls and pops of color is the most similar to how my apartment is now, but I think it’s the one I like the least out of these options. Which room would you pick? For more home decorating inspiration, follow me on Pinterest.

characters’ christmas trees

One year in college I left our Christmas tree up so long it became an Easter tree (complete with Easter egg lights). For a few years in New York I lived in a 400-square-foot apartment, but I always made sure I had room for my boxes of Christmas ornaments.

Right now I have a small fake Christmas tree that’s roughly three feet high. The lights built into it burned out last year–I might need to retire it soon. For now, I just added extra strands of lights (including the Easter egg ones).

I don’t know what I like more: the twinkling lights, the bulbs of bright colors, or the sparkly garland.

My tree is a Doctor Seuss tree. Its ornaments are too large, and too small, and the giant glitter star at the top makes it a little lopsided. I use (and save every year) the tackiest, most colorful garland I can find. I only wish I could fit more ornaments and lights on my tiny tree (and figure out how to take a better picture of my narrow tree in my tiny narrow living room).

I love my little Christmas tree, and I think it does a good job of representing my unique brand of Christmas cheer–more is more and the brighter the better.

After all, your tree is a reflection of your style. Are you traditional? Modern? Minimalist? Tell it to me in Christmas tree. I love seeing my friends’ (ok, and strangers’) trees. It’s a peek inside their holiday brain–and sometimes there’s a bit of personal history in the branches. I assume this is true for fictional people, too, so what would some characters I’ve met this year have on their Christmas trees?

Jon Snow from Game of Thrones. Jon Snow’s tree on the wall would be pretty sparse. They’d have crow decorations and black ornaments. Some books might be under the tree as a gift to Sam, and it would definitely be covered in snow.

Delirium from the Sandman. Delirium’s tree would be a delight–at least at first glance. It would be rainbow, like her speech bubbles, and it would have whimsical ornaments. I have a feeling Delirium decorated until something else came up, and then she promptly deserted her tree in favor of a new distraction. Or maybe she hit the eggnog a little too hard before she got started.

Bernadette from Where’d You Go Bernadette. Once Bernadette was a great architect. She used recycled materials and wasted nothing. Her tree would be made of materials found around her Seattle home, and the blue glass would be a tribute to her daughter Bee’s trip to Antarctica and the glaciers she saw there.

So how do you like your Christmas tree? Whimsical like Delirium’s? Or maybe upcycled like Bernadette’s?

what would death wear

Death is my favorite of Dream’s siblings.

Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series has me saying nonsensical things like that and meaning every word.

In Gaiman’s universe, our hero Dream has six siblings. I’ve met five of them: Death, Desire, Delirium, Despair, and Destiny.

Destiny is the oldest, and he seems like a little bit of a wet blanket. Delirium sounds like she’d be fun, but she’s gone a little mad since the days she was known as Delight. Desire is a tricky scoundrel who takes the male or female form as he or she feels fit. Desire’s twin is Despair–and she just sounds exhausting.

Which leaves us with Death. She is spunky and kind. And eventually we all belong to Death, no matter how much time we spend tangling with her brothers and sisters. I like Death’s attitude and I like her style. Here she is in formal wear, for a family meeting.

I’d like to pick up a lot of things from Death: how to be kind to people in a time of need, how to be dependable to your friends and family, and how to rock your own personal style.

If Death were in real life instead of comic book life, here’s what she might wear:

Death can dress up, when the situation calls for it. But I bet her personality still shines through and you know she has some fun jewelry.

If she’s heading out for a date night (does Death date??), I could see her throwing on some jeans and a cool blazer.

And of course, she knows how to keep it simple and true to herself. You can read what I thought about Sandman Vol. 1 here. I’m on volume 6 now and I can’t wait to keep reading.

(I bought this book on my own and am not being paid to write about it. But I am a part of the Amazon affiliate’s program, so if you buy through my links I’ll make a little bit of money off of it.)

saga-inspired interiors

I read Saga, vol. 1, for book club this month, and I just loved it. It’s so sharp and funny and beautifully drawn. My favorite character is Lying Cat, of course, but there are so many other great characters that it’s hard to choose: Izabel, a typical teenager who happens to be a ghost with exposed entrails; The Will, a freelancer getting over a bad break up; The Stalk, in her eight-legged bad ass glory; and of course, the new parents Marko and Alana.

Everyone in book club loved it, too. On top of the lovely characters, there is a lot of layers to the story. There’s politics, a war, racism, morality, friendship, adventure, you name it. I had never read a comic book or graphic novel before, but I thought this was a great introduction. It’s very readable, and though book club deemed it a bit choppy, we all thought the storytelling was great.

So I picked up volume two and devoured that as well. Lucky for me, the next issue comes out this month so I don’t have to wait too long for the next installment.

One of my favorite parts of diving into comic books was the drawings, obvs. I love the color story for each character and setting. And in the spirit of Saga, I created some interior design collages with a character and their home in mind.

The Will. His colors are light and airy, and we see a lot of blues, whites, and yellows. His spaceship seems pretty minimalist and modern. Ever the bachelor, I don’t expect he’d be into too may frills. I imagine Lying Cat would take over his chaise, and The Will would definitely have some catnip on hand.

Continue reading “saga-inspired interiors”

miss blue glass and miss green glass

In Boy’s Life, which I totally loved, two sisters named Sonia and Katherina Glass were almost perfect mirror images of each other–except one always wore blue and the other green.

Now that is style. They adopted a uniform, dressed as themselves, and went with it. Plus monochrome can really be a great look. I don’t own enough of one color (except black) to pull off monochrome looks very often–and I have a pretty strong aversion to matching. But in honor of Miss Blue Glass and Miss Green Glass, let’s take a look at some killer blue and green clothes and accessories we could wear in our own lives.

I’m really into blue. It’s one of my favorite colors and I just think it’s beautiful–like the ocean and sky. Plus blue jeans are blue, so you’ve got that going for you. But I was surprised at how much I liked these greens.

Gorgeous, right? Emerald and mint are really growing on me. Maybe soon I’ll give up mismatching for one day and pick a color and stick with it.

game of thrones outfit inspiration: sansa

Poor Sansa can’t catch a break. When we met Sansa she was a fool of a girl, and one of my least favorite characters. She preferred knights on white horses to sword fighting, unlike our hero Arya, and she dreamt of pretty dresses and a handsome princes. Sadly, she’s been dealt nothing but tragedy since her arrival in King’s Landing. She got a prince, and pretty dresses, but she’s lost her family and her innocence. This week, we saw Sansa forced to marry Tyrion. The best Lannister, sure, but still a Lannister. And no fate she would have chosen for herself.

I think Sansa would have embraced a girly, structured look if she were having more fun than we saw her have this week. I think this coloring would look lovely with her auburn hair.

And if she were feeling a little feistier? Like if someone forced her to get married again? Well her cape dress here shows some serious attitude and evokes her wedding cape. And with a rock on her hand like that, who needs a wedding ring.

I’ve also made outfits inspired by Jaime, Arya, Margaery, Daenerys, Brienne, and Jon Snow. Who’s your favorite?

game of thrones outfit inspiration: brienne

Last night was a round-up of sorts, and maybe even a let down from the action-packed past few weeks. But then Brienne fought a bear. A freaking bear. In a dress. So because she fought a bear and kept her composure under fear of death and humiliation, she definitely wins this episode. (Jaime comes in a close second solely for the line “half a million” when the maester pointedly asked how many people he’s saved in his lifetime.)

We know Brienne is more comfortable in armor than anything, but we can still pay homage to our friend and get dressed for the city streets instead of a medieval battle.

Metallic, of course. And she’d probably toughen up a sweet dress with a leather jacket. Brienne is no Cinderella and certainly needs no Prince Charming, so her slippers aren’t quite glass. Her earrings hint at her home, the Sapphire Island, where the water is a beautiful blue.

In a more casual setting, we can give a shout out to Brienne with a metallic sheen and a tough wrist cuff reminiscent of her armor. I’d like to think Brienne is coming to her own and would proudly be that tall girl wearing heels. She knows she’s a bad B.

I’ve also made outfits inspired by Jaime, Arya, Margaery, Daenerys, and Jon Snow. Who’s your favorite?

game of thrones outfit inspiration: jon snow

I think we can all agree mostly everyone on Game of Thrones right now is losing. The Lannisters are down a hand and up two unwanted fiances. The Starks are all over the map, losing battles and friends. So I think Jon wins this week because he made it up and over a 700-foot wall made out of ice. Did you guys see that climb? Holy wow.

Jon has joined the Night’s Watch, where the men are nicknamed crows and wear all black. They have to bundle up because, well, it’s cold up there and they live on a giant block of ice. If we were to take Jon’s style and apply it to now, I think it would look something like this.

A leather dress, feather coat, and a bracelet decorated with skulls? Seems like a pretty accurate representation of the Night’s Watch to me. But if you have to go out and not look like a super awesome, slightly trashy grunge heiress, maybe you’d try something like this.

Continue reading “game of thrones outfit inspiration: jon snow”

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: