I want to talk about picture frames, really I do. But first let me tell you how this comes to mind. See, last night I went to visit my friend Betty, interior designer extraordinaire. And whenever I visit her, I get all excited by the many and varied trapeze lights that she’s used in her chalet-style home. Those airy wire and metal structures seem to fly across the open spaces, yet are so unobstrusive! — and a surprising choice against all the natural wood.

Since I’m living in This Old Farmhouse, however, something as modern as a trapeze style fixture doesn’t seem quite appropriate here.

So, much as I love the almost-not-there look of trapeze style fixtures, I’ll likely stick with my early-1040s ceiling lights until something perfect comes along.

But what about flying a few sleek wires on the walls?

Ah, that’s a different story!

If you’re anything like me, you’ve got about fifty kabillion photographs to display and not nearly enough wall space! (Who isn’t always on the look-out for a nifty solution?)

I keep coming back to these Umbra Trapeze Frames that I’d first spotted some time ago at Amaroni — that’s a UK-based site, but the exact same Umbra frames are closer to home and considerably lower in price at Amazon.

And the reason why I keep coming back to this style is because they combine simplicity with elegance — and very practical, too. You can show a wide variety of sizes and types of photographs or drawings or whatever art needs hanging, and put the whole bunch up together as one graceful unit. I think it has a great uncluttered look that could work anywhere — in a ski chalet or cosy farmhouse just as beautifully as in a suburban bungalow or hip urban loft.

Be still, my heart –
and never mind all the glamorous dangling crystals of your conventional high-toned chandeliers.

I have a sudden desperate yearning to dine beneath a glowing octopus.

This nautical beauty (“Dixie LaRue in Green”) is just one of a series of octopus chandliers by Adam Wallacavage.

It was originally spotted at the Jonathan Levine gallery online by the wistful yokiddo.

And dammit, it’s been sold.

Clearly, the Italian design firm Kartell has something special going on with see-through furniture — it keeps turning up in my favourite home decor sites, all sparkling and spooky.

Just recently, Will of Furniture Fashion wrote about the disturbingly beautiful Kartell Louis Ghost chair, and he explains it all thus:

Kartell is probably the only company that has a specific division that researches raw materials like polypropylene, polystyrene and polyethylene for use in not only the world market, but their own dining chairs and other furniture lines.

The piece that caught my eye in Kartell’s current product line, however, is this baroque table lamp designed by Ferruccio Laviani.

Both ornate and streamlined, the Bourgie lamp is traditional in form but achingly modern in its execution, with all that poly-transparency to catch the light beams and sparkle like an earth-bound chandelier…

Sure, all this transparent furniture and accessories has a disorienting effect — it gives me a strange sense of double-vision, as if my depth perception is just a bit off — but yet, the attraction is there… I think I could even convince myself that it’s intensely practical, too. After all, the lamp can be assembled at any one of three different heights, then adjusted to another height later on if your lighting needs change… so… that’s very practical, right?

It’s official — Elsewares is running moonshine. Not to worry, though, this kind of moonshine is perfectly legal…

The Moon Jar looks a lot like a traditional Mason jar used for canning preserves (or stashing hillbilly hooch) but look! It’s really a clever bit of lighting.

Wouldn’t this be great for the cottage or camp?

Equipped with a solar-powered cell and rechargeable battery, it soaks up the sunshine for 5 hours of energy-efficient LED glow. The light will come on automatically when it gets dark, but you can turn it off to conserve the power when it’s not needed.

Whenever I start to feel even remotely content with my own creative capabilities, I like to browse at The Artful Home, just to indulge in a semi-masochistic spate of envy and avarice.

Today’s objet of shameless desire is the mixed media table lamp known as “Alexandra,” created by Carin Kinzig and Susan Kinzig.

First off, there’s the shimmering opalescence of the blown glass base… but really, it’s the graceful confidence of the asymmetrical shade that really gets to me…

This lamp is just like that woman (that woman!) who can toss on a Victorian piano shawl and a scrap of cargo netting over her yoga gear, and knock ‘em dead at a posh gallery opening. Only, you know, with a 60-watt bulb…

The Swedish design team of Lisa Widén and Anna Irinarchos — Wis Design — may possibly have come up with the perfect blend of home organization and home decor.

Instead of letting jewelleries get tangled on hooks, or hiding them in boxes, we literally want to bring them into the light.

When the jewelleries are not decorating you, they are decorating your own personally styled lamp.

Practical and playful, the Jewellery Lamp changes from day to day, and is totally unique for every one of us who can sling a string of beads or hang an earring collection!

Enchanted by eggs? There’s something so satisfying about that solid form, it’s no wonder the egg is showing up everywhere in home decor and accessories.

Clockwise from left:

• Egg-shaped ceramic Nyokki Grass Pets are handmade in Japan. Filled with growing medium and rye grass seeds, they’ll grow a lovely head of green hair in less than two weeks. They come in various animal characters, from this pretty yellow kitty-cat or the classic yellow chick, to a pink pig or bright blue bear, and more.
• Faberge, of course, practically invented the egg as a decorative objet. This hand-painted porcelain Coronet Flower Limoges Egg opens up to reveal a 24k gold-plated flower basket as a surprise gift hidden inside.
• Edesse Design’s fried egg table puts any room sunny-side-up with its whimsical top in painted MDF, perched on slim chrome legs.
• Squirrel-proof birdhouses are hard to find, but the glossy ceramic Egg Bird House is said to be just that. Handmade exclusively by J Schatz in New York, the earthenware-and-aluminum eggs are durable enough to hang outside year-round, beautiful enough — in 8 shiny colours — to make an unusual decoration in a modern room.
• Tiny pinprick holes in the handcrafted ceramic Star Egg Nightlight let out just enough light to scatter a starry-night illusion on a bedroom ceiling. Lovely! The base is brushed stainless steel, and it comes with a clear electrical cord so as not to detract from the elegant simplicity of the egg form.

I haven’t quite decided whether I think this is cool or just plain weird… but I just had to share — Tiffany Parrot Accent Lamp at Barnes & Wagner.

• Measures: 12-1/2″h x 5″w
• Lamping: 1 x 7w Candelabra
• Finish: Dark Bronze Gold
• Crafted By Dale Tiffany

Be still, my heart! The “Da Vinci” crystal chandelier by Schonbek is a dream-come-true for Decorating Divas who adore the way sparkling crystal can light up a room, but destest the hours of polishing each tiny piece… This is the world’s first dishwasher-safe crystal chandelier!

I found it reviewed on Trendir, thus:

When it lights up it looks like a fireball as it sparkles with fine crystals producing “an otherworldly luminosity”. Dishwashability is not the only aspect of the inventiveness of Da Vinci — a round crystal chandelier is a new idea by itself.

Da Vinci is available in four standard diameters: 10, 12, 18 and 24 inches, but it can be custom-ordered in 4-foot or 6-foot sizes if your budget can handle that much Swarovski crystal.

So, how does it fit in your dishwasher?

Schonbek designed the chandelier to come apart in sections that would fit into a standard dishwashing machine,” say the manufacturers. “The smallest Da Vinci can be cleaned in one cycle. Larger sizes will take several loads.”

There you have it — crystal and convenience!

Your domestic staff will thank you, and will can use all the crystal-cleaning time they’ll save to pick crumbs out of the vintage Aubusson in the conservatory.

Sometimes one key piece is all it takes to lift a room from the bland to the extraordinary. One big trend is toward the considered and dramatic use of light in home decor, and a bigger focus on the lighting fixture or lamp as a result. I’ve been stockpiling so many notes of creative — illuminating! — lighting ideas lately, this seems like a good time to give a little sample. Look, and be inspired!

First, here’s a whimsical handmade paper lamp with a claystone base and plastic leaves, by multi-media artist Johart, who has a little shop on Etsy.com.

Johart’s tulip lamp shade reminds me somewhat of the little artificial flowers that ladies of the 1920s used to make from discarded (dyed) silk stockings and very fine wire. My great-aunt Sophie always had a basket of these materials at hand and would work away at her flower-making whenever the minister came to visit. “He’s just a lovely man,” she used to say, “but I really must have something else to do while he’s talking!”

In a completely different mood and media, 1178 Designs silkscreens in black glass enamels on ivory color glass to make this stunning shade. What I particularly like here is the blend of Michelango’s masterful and emotional drawing with the angular modern (almost industrial) design of the lamp itself. It comes in different colours, but the sepia look feels just right.

I’d be inspired to try a similar idea with fabric or perhaps a heavy parchment, except that silk-screen printing is not (yet) one of my crafty skills!

Annie Sherburne has been incorporating environmentally friendly materials into her design work for 10 years, and winning awards for her work all over the place. I’ve long coveted her rugs, of course, but her Mexican Line Dancing Lamp totally blew me away! Indeed, “using recycled polypropelene, passementarie and recycled discs of reclaimed textiles, this standard lamp is anything but standard!” (You’ll want to see a close-up picture of this one — look down at the bottom of her page of rugs to find it.)

Or how about a set of three logs that light up? Not real birch wood, of course, but tubes of printed silk — designed by Nicolette Brunklaus for Lekker.

Speaking of wild and crazy lamps, my friend’s husband has been making a whole series of light fixtures from pipes and plumbing fixtures. Some of his creations, frankly, are nothing less than butt-ugly! But every so often, he comes up with something that’s beautiful and functional as well as merely amusing. I really wish I had a photograph of a lamp he made out of a vintage bath faucet for the bar in their ski lodge!

Or how about this for lighting the Big Boy’s den? ELK Lighting’s jet-shaped lamp is retro slick, in a 1960s sci-fi aren’t-we-so-scientific way — it reminds me of my best friend’s geeky brother’s bedroom, back when we were kids. Not that Steve (the brother’s name was Steve) had a lamp anything as cool as this, but he would have, if he’d only thought of slipping a small light into the belly of one of those ten thousand model airplanes he had lying around…

Feeling all creative and crafty, now? Lowe’s How-To Library includes a little online tutorial on how to make a lamp.

It’s easy, truly — quite often I find myself making a lamp out of one object of my client’s or another (like an outgrown horse-riding boot, or an old tennis trophy), to get the perfect accessory for a teenager’s themed bedroom. I’m also interested in using old architectural elements in lighting fixtures — sort of like this wall sconce light from Justice Design, only recycling an actual “found object” as a base…

All the necessary DIY electrical and lamp kit supplies can be found at your friendly neighbourhood hardware store or a home improvement centre. As for the artsy imaginative decorative bits? I’ve tossed around a few ideas here — now the design will be up to you!