Love

Just having a moment with this Peter Max/Genuine China by Iroquois ashtray. There is perhaps nothing I love more than mixing our beautiful SoulMakes creations with special vintage pieces. Genuine China by Iroquois was a pottery and ceramics company founded in the early 1900s in Syracuse, New York. Their factory closed down in the late 60's, but not before doing a run of ashtrays and dishware featuring original Peter Max artwork. I'm a huge fan of Peter Max's early work, it has such an iconic look, totally defining a generation past. A generation of long hair, peace, love and flowers. It kind of epitomizes the free love era in my mind.

I saw this stunning ashtray at an antique mall near my house and instantly knew I had to have it. I'm a bit particular with my vintage and thrift finds, I like them to be authentic and inexpensive ;) These days, there is a huge resurgence of furniture and home decor from the mid century period. A lot of styles are being brought back to life, which I think is amazing. But I personally prefer relics of the past. So the first thing I do is flip over the ashtray to see where it's made and what kind of branding it may have. I was happy to find the "genuine china by iroquois syracuse new york" stamp!

A quick tip: when trying to date an item or generally verify it's authenticity, it's good to note that during the 60's and 70's much of our glassware, ceramics, etc was made in Japan. So if it says "Made in Japan" that's a good sign that it's as old as it looks. Also, branding as we know it today was not all too common in those days. Most items did not boast the company's name on the product or packaging. That didn't start till 80's and really the 90's. How do I know all this? I am in a constant state of wandering through antique malls and thrift stores. I don't buy nearly as much as I see. I take it all in like a sponge and make simple observations. In doing so, I'll notice what items are more rare and what items were mass produced back in the day. Simply by their presence in these places, some things I see a hundred times over from antique shop to antique shop, obviously this means it's not so rare. Also, google.

Styled with:
Loads of beautiful crystals
White Sage Smudge Wand
Agate Slab Candle
Sodalite Therapy Stone

The Dressing Room - Low Country Remix

You've probably figured out by now that we've relocated to sunny South Carolina! We're tucked into the barrier islands that make up the Charleston area, a small pocket of the state that happens to be a subtropical climate, otherwise known as paradise. We're currently in the middle of an extra long summer! Here's a little about the big move..

Trevor and I love to road trip, so it's no surprise that for our first wedding anniversary we celebrated by going somewhere we'd never been before. We arrived in the middle of the night on a Friday Charleston. Having completely forgotten that it was holiday weekend, we had nowhere to stay, all hotels within a reasonable distance were booked solid. So we slept in our car in a Wal Mart parking lot. Honestly, this is kind of the epitome of our relationship. "Going on a date" to us has always meant going on some wild and crazy adventure, not so much dinner and a movie. Anyways, we stayed in Charleston for two nights, fell madly in love, rented a home on our way out and went right back to Virginia where we quickly packed up everything important and sold the rest. We made the move two weeks later. It may sound quick, but there was much thought that went into the big move. Finding a new home was something we'd long discussed and prayed about. Living in the DC area is quite pricey and with a budding small business to care for, we needed to find somewhere that offered comfort and of course, a cheaper cost of living. We'd always planned on Colorado, but it seemed that the road of happy destiny was unequivocally leading us to the low country. Admittedly, the beach helped make the decision easy!

So here we are, living easy in the low country. Having visited only once and briefly at that, we decided to start by renting, while we got the lay of the land. We're in a beautiful four bedroom home, with about a quarter acre of land. It's the first time we've ever lived in a completely detached house. It's a rambler, no stairs and a pretty open layout. The pictures above are of my new dressing room! Naturally, the first room to feel "finished." If you've been following along, you've gathered by now, there's not a single white wall in the entire house. My dressing room is the most neutral color in the house, it's a sort of light blue/grey. Which luckily provides a good backdrop for lot's of SoulMakes wall hangings!

We left a good majority of our furniture behind. So I've had the great pleasure of thrifting around town and I must say, this is some of the best thrifting I've seen in all of the 24 states I've visited. Well kept vintage finds at really good prices, I'm in heaven! There's rattan and mid-century modern everywhere, my two favorites! Oh and don't forget, shell chandeliers a'plenty. As per usual, my little dressing room has provided much inspiration! It's my place to arrange and rearrange, which I find a good habit to help open up my creative channels. It leaves blank spaces on the walls or floor, begging the question, "what should go here?" Which almost always leads to new SoulMakes creations! Naturally, this room has already been rearranged a dozen times since these photos were taken ;)

Much of what you see pictured above can be found in the shop

Stop by and see what's new in the House and Home section!

Love,
MacK Mars

Mars Family Home - Yellow

Welcome to the Mars Family Home, low country remix style. In case you don't know, the "low country" refers to a geographic and cultural region along the coast of South Carolina, including the Sea Islands. This lovely little pocket of the state is a gorgeous subtropical paradise! Which means much warmer weather than we're used to and apparently, flowers bloom year round. Not to mention beautiful beaches. It's my guess that the close proximity to the beach is the inspiration behind the colorful walls inside seemingly every home around here. Let me be the first to say, yellow is NOT my favorite color, but we're currently renting and we're not allowed to paint (otherwise these walls would be whitewashed in a jiffy). Each room in this house offers a different bold color, some more neutral than others, as you can see our bedroom is anything but. By now, we've cycled through several different strategies of decorating to try and minimize and compliment this loud shade of yellow most effectively. Finally we've settled into something we like. Quite honestly, I've grown very fond of this bright sunshiney color, it's even become one of my favorite rooms to photograph, but it's certainly taken some adjustment.

The number one thing I've learned is, don't fight it. At first, I had myself convinced that the right mix of complimentary colors and decor pieces would somehow make the yellow magically disappear. Obviously, that's impossible. At last, I've surrendered to the yellow, by adding even more yellow to the room. That's right, more yellow, in varying shades, like our darker yellow accent chair. Mixed in with lot's of aquas and turquoise, like our closets, which have curtains instead of doors, made from SoulMakes vintage kantha blankets. We chose to add lots of this complimentary shade through out the room, in the form of blankets, pillows and the like. We went with a fuchsia duvet, which is so unlike us, but when you're stuck with this kind of yellow, you've really gotta go all the way! The deeper pink actually helps to balance out the colors of the room and it helps that it comes in a large dose.  I've also learned that larger pieces work best to decorate any brightly colored walls, instead of my usual collage of smaller pieces of art littering every inch of the walls. I went with my favorite painting by Hannah Chloe, a surfboard that I refinished and painted myself and of course a big selection of SoulMakes wall hangings. The large version of our Wonderland Wall Hanging looks perfect behind our bed and the Sugar Magnolia wall hangings add the perfect punchy colors in small doses. Lot's of little crystals scattered on every surface and candles too! We also went with more clean lines in our furniture selection, lots of ornate details in a bright room like this seemed to only add distraction and confusion. The midcentury modern look is very calming and simple, and we added a few rattan/wicker pieces (our head board and peacock chair) for a touch of texture.

The furniture is all thrifted. We aren't loaded, we can't just go out and buy a houseful of new furniture every time we need to decorate a crazy bright yellow room. We have some seriously AMAZING thrift spots in the area. We picked up a working record console, which in addition to the turntable, has AM/FM radio and 8track player, for well under $100, it also makes a great table top surface. Our awesome headboard was found at a habitat for humanity restore for a whopping $10. The dresser was a craigslist find, which I think was something like $10 as well. It was actually covered in a a really shotty painting job, so I restored it as best I could and I love the blonde wood. It is, however, missing a drawers, we plan to remedy that by making another drawer for it, one day when we have time. The key to thrifting is to find a few good spots that you like and check back frequently. It takes time and patience, but we love the hunt. Also, if you want cheap finds, be willing to do some work on the pieces, sanding, painting, staining etc.

Obviously, this isn't the only way to do a yellow room. I had to brush up on color theory a bit before attacking it and surprisingly the internet didn't offer me many "how to decorate a crazy yellow room if you're a renter and you can't change the paint color" articles.. So here, I've added my experience ;)

Stop by the shop and pick up a few pieces to make your place feel more like home!
Love,
MacK Mars