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January has been one busy month for the ladies of DFM! With the New Year came new clients, new projects, and a few new faces around the DFM office, but it ALSO brought a brand new office space along with it! No, we're not moving - we just happened to secure the lease on the office across the hall, which means plenty of new SPACE for us to spread out our ever expanding team, project materials, and equipment! Our new office functions as a meeting room, photo studio, workspace, and place to display all sorts of goodies from our completed and in-progress projects. The acquisition of a new space has really brought out our inner interior designer and organization-maniac personalities... it's cleaning, building, and decorating time! We won't be complete with our renovations for at least another month or so (because we have, well, important client work to attend to), but our inspiration is - surprise - white, tan, and hints of black. Love. Can't wait until it's all done!

Images via: 1. TOAST  2. Pinterest  3. Emmas DesignBlogg  4. Design Inspiration  5. French By Design  6. Pinterest

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This week's design blog of the week goes to This is Paper. This is Paper curates a well rounded collection of architecture, product design, fashion design, interior design, fine art, graphic design, and photography. The blog features works that reflects an elegant and delicate design aesthetic full of soft pastels and neutrals complemented by clean lines and a touch of wood here and there. Aside from This is Paper's impeccable taste, we want to highlight that the blog often showcases student work. It is nice to see young artists and designers with fresh new ideas and even nicer to see well-known blogs recognizing the importance of supporting the up and coming not just the established. 

All Images via This is Paper

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Last week we were lucky enough to have an out of town client, Stephanie Bradshaw, come visit us in LA for a two-day intense design collaboration. Stephanie is the creative force behind Stephanie Bradshaw Events & Interiors based out of Baltimore, and she's also quite the up-and-coming fashion/interior/lifestyle blogger for her fantastic daily blog. While she was here, we put our heads together to choose a color palette for her own SB Inspired line - the next chapter of Stephanie's exciting career. We ended up with soft white, champagne, gold, and lavender for the main palette, and we're loving every minute of it. Visit Stephanie's blog by clicking here to see what she's up to in her studio!

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Today, our Marketing Strategist (Kelly) is headed back home to Minneapolis to help her sister with a daunting task that was bestowed upon her back in April: Wedding Planning. Kelly's sister got engaged a few months ago, and has absolutely no idea what she's doing. Naturally, she called on Kelly to help her - by far the most creative in their family, who also happens to be surrounded daily by the other creative women of DFM. Although the wedding isn't until June, Kelly's been mood boarding like crazy to try to give her sister exactly what she's looking for. After MUCH debate (and let's not kid ourselves, probably many more changes will be made to the design direction in the near future), here is the somewhat final moodboard that the wedding will be designed around. Late spring in Minnesota is amazingly beautiful, and these pale neutrals with pops of bright color, rustic wood accents, and polaroid photos should be the perfect compliment to the season. Cheers!

Images via: 1. Style Me Pretty  2. Style Me Pretty  3. Martha Stewart Weddings  4. With Style & Grace  5. Style Me Pretty  6. Style Me Pretty  7. Style Me Pretty  8. Style Me Pretty

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Flipping through a recent issue of InStyle, an article about British painter James Nares caught our eye. We've been working with calligraphy and brushstrokes for a client of ours, and his work looks very similar to a lot of the inspirational photos we've been pulling. Most of Nares' canvases measure at least 7 feet across and start at $65,000 (wow), but Coach was quick to jump on the Nares bandwagon and is offering a limited edition tote bag (175 pieces per color) featuring the signature brushstroke for about $800 a pop. We like!

Images via: 1. ...etc  2. Lucky Magazine  3. Interview Magazine  4. Delta Hunter Gallery  5. Suzanne Randolph Fine Arts  6. Durham Press  7. Senior & Shopmaker  8. Design in Bloom

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Over the last few years, online magazines have exploded in popularity while many of our beloved print magazines have taken a major hit. Prompted by this new trend of magazines choosing to focus mostly on digital editions, Casasugar is taking a poll of its readers to determine: which online design magazine was everyone's favorite in 2011? We voted for Australian magazine Adore Home - what did you choose?

Click here to see descriptions of each magazine and cast your vote.

Images via casasugar

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This week's "site" is actually a boutique in Los Angeles that sells antiques and art from various dealers: The Melrose Project. The store, which opened just over a year ago, has received a lot of buzz in the relatively short time it's been open. With stories in magazines from Architectural Digest to Elle Decor, Angeleno magazine calls The Melrose Project " a breath of fresh air for antiques. (...) It's like seeing old pieces within a new context for a new generation." We agree - and we want absolutely everything. To visit their website, click here. To read more about The Melrose Project and see more pictures of the interior, click here to visit the Velvet & Linen blog.

All images via The Melrose Project

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It seems like Thanksgiving was just yesterday, so we can hardly believe Christmas is just about two weeks away already! We're so not prepared... but now we've got gifts on the mind. Our website of the week, the Lawson-Fenning online shop (www.lawsonfenning.com/shop), is a great place to look for just about anyone who appreciates gifts for the home that are both beautiful and functional. (And who doesn't love that, right?). For those of you in the LA area, Lawson-Fenning's shop in Silver Lake is an absolute must visit. With an eclectic and always changing collection of books, baskets, art, pillows, candles, throws, and various odds & ends - pretty much everything in the store catches our eye. But if, like us, you're way too busy to actually take the time to go out and shop, or if you live too far away - no worries. Lawson-Fenning offers free shipping on orders of $100+ and after looking at what they have to offer, we know we can spend that easily. Spending only $100 would be showing major restraint, we think. After a preliminary browse, we're thinking linen dishtowels for mom, agate bookends for the sister, and an iron bottle opener for the brother-in-law. Merry Christmas everyone! 

(Oh, and I almost forgot - yes, we designed the site. Not that we're biased or anything... but we love this place!)

All images via Lawson-Fenning

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It may be 65 degrees in LA, but that's not stopping us from making our office a little warmer (and cuter!) We're pretty sure this is the cutest little white stove we've ever seen. We can't stop staring at it! And how perfect is this for the holidays? I think we're in love...

Photo © JW

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This week, we're loving the South of Market blog (www.southofmarket.biz/blog). South of Market, headed by interior designer Kay Douglass, is an eclectic interior design shop with stores in Atlanta and Charleston, as well as an e-commerce store online. The blog is mostly interior design inspiration with a little fashion, style, and art thrown in. We love the clean look and the amazing amount of photos - they really do speak for themselves.

We also enjoy their attention to detail, like on the post below. The addition of the paper behind the photos adds a delicate, vintage touch that we adore. We'll definitely keep South of Market on our favorite blogs list!

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