There are pros and cons to working on the same floor as the Canadian Living magazine’s Test Kitchen. Although it means the Style At Home crew are often well-fed — they kindly let us indulge when sampling new recipes (Or maybe we’re their guinea pigs… Haven’t worked that out yet…) — it also means that the aromas of their latest concoctions inevitably waft through our office. Not necessarily a bad thing in itself, but sometimes you just don’t want to be engulfed in a cloud of garlic and onions at 8:30 in the morning.
Instead of kicking up a stink (sorry, couldn’t resist), I used the opportunity to test out a few home fragrance samples that just came by my desk. Dans Un Jardin is a Boucherville, Quebec-based company, originally founded in Paris in 1976, that specializes in the art of parfumerie for bath, body and home. A few hits of Dans Un Jardin’s “Buds & Leaves” home fragrance mist, and those cooking smells are replaced by the ambiance of an English garden: very clean, fresh notes of sun-ripening tomatoes, lemon zest, greenery and musk. Delightfully fresh, and surprisingly gentle — a number of my colleagues are extremely sensitive to smell, and they all commented on the subtlety of this spray. Love it!
7.5 oz Buds & Leaves home fragrance spray
Price: $6
To order online or find the closest retailer: Dans Un Jardin, Boucherville, Que., 450-449-2121
It goes without saying that I love magazines. I’ve got a ton of subscriptions and can barely afford each one a cursory flip-through before the next issues arrives. That’s why I’m almost ashamed to admit that one of the monthlies that I look forward to most is… A catalogue.
Anthropologie’s monthly mail-out catalogue is a showcase of truly atmospheric photography, and I love how each “issue” has an entirely different mood. February’s issue, for instance, was shot on location in the Slovakian countryside, and resulted in some moody, deliciously decrepit vignettes. The new papier machier Paperie Petting Zoo (the polychrome birdies in the image below) is an awesome new release — these birds are handcrafted from recycled cement bags!
Even if you aren’t on the Anthropologie mailing list, you can view an e-version of their catalogues in all their glory here!
Another reason to love Anthropologie? Even though it’s a U.S.-based company, online shopping’s easy for us north of the border, as the website provides up-to-date Canadian pricing for all products.
Images courtesy of Anthropologie
Silhouettes are showing no signs of slowing down! We first did a feature on the rising popularity of this age-old art form back in the February 2008 issue of STYLE AT HOME (check out my interview with world-renowned cut-paper silhouette artist Karl Johnson here!), and the market is now positively booming with ever-more innovative decorative applications. I particularly love small and sweet animal silhouettes that pop up in totally unexpected places, like at the bottom of this Limoges porcelain cake mould from Iddko — a fantastic Canadian e-tail site that you *must* check out!
Price: $75
Available at: Iddko
