Behind The Scenes: A Sneak Peek at Jenn's Space

This week was a busy one for the Covet Garden team. Not only are we assembling the words and images for our amazing May and June issues, we were working ahead on July,  shooting the cool and colourful space of our frequent guest blogger Jenn.

It's our mission to share spaces that are styled by the home owners alone, but this is the first time we've taken a tour of an abode owned by a decorator. It's pretty amazing to see the process a designer goes through to create rooms that work for her own family. We're also envious of the objects she's collected over the years and how she's able to mix them up to make her rooms more flexible.

We always love working with photographer Jodi Pudge who always manages to capture all the beautiful details in a room — from fine wood grains to woven rugs.

It was a great day and Jodi got so many great shots. In fact, we can't wait to show you our next three issues!

[Images, Jessica Reid]

We Covet: Lilly Pulitzer

We were saddened to hear of the passing of Lilly Pulitzer earlier this week. Her Palm Beach-inspired patterns  always brought us great joy—especially because she came up with her colourful and bold prints as a way to cover up orange juice stains on her work clothes.

For those who aren't familiar with the Lilly look, think of a simple cotton shift dress covered in ultra bright blue, green, yellow, pink and orange flowers or fruits. Pair it with a strand of pearls and a pair of sandals and you have what has become an iconic preppy uniform.

Pulitzer herself was born into privilege. Her father was an heir to the Standard Oil fortune. Her first husband was one of the publishing Pulitzers. But Lilly herself always wanted to do useful things, so she and a friend opened a fruit stand in Florida in the 1960s. It was the aforementioned citrus spills that gave her the idea to create a busy print to camouflage stains. Customers remarked on how much they liked her designs, so she had a dressmaker whip up a few more shifts that she could sell at the stand.

While her designs are deceptively simple, Lilly paid special attention to small details such as hiding her signature in her patterns or finishing dresses with a hem lace bearing her name. And wearing that signature soon became a secret handshake in the waspy world. She soon built an empire grew to include accessores and housewares.

Lilly retired in 1984, at the height of Preppymania. In 1993, she agreed to reopen her business, which is still going strong today. In fact, her pink and green asthetic now transcends preppiness. For example, you can see her influence in the recent home décor chinoiserie revival. If you want a Pulitzer prize for you home, Garnet Hill offers rugs and bedding. Lee Jofa produces a line of Lilly Pulitzer licensed fabrics.

[Lilly Pulitzer for Lee Jofa]

[Piper from Issue 12 of Covet Garden shows off her favourite Lilly Pulitzer dresses]

Sponsor Love: Camp Tech

We welcome Camp Tech as a Covet Garden sponsor because they love technology as much as we love interiors. Founder and lead instructor Avery Swartz wants to bring that love of knowledge to anybody who has every been flummoxed or just plain initimidated by tech speak.

While most classes are designed for beginners, you will leave with skills that you can apply right away. But you'll learn theory to help you understand how computers and the internet work so that you can feel in control of your website, blog or social media stream. Instruction is intensive—most classes are only one day long (and include a delicious lunch!)—making Camp Tech perfect for small business owners who can't invest the time and travel in going to a class once a week.

[Avery in action and the lovely classroom space at the Centre for Social Innovation at 215 Spadina Ave.]

Camp Tech classes are taught by working professionals who are up-to-date on the latest trends and developments in their fields. And, as the name suggests, it's not fluffy, but it's not a stuffy classroom setting either: Our Jessica attended a Camp Tech WordPress seminar last weekend and found the whole experience to be affordable, fun, friendly and very informative. Instructor Avery even scored discount coupons and free themes for some of the best WordPress theme sites out there and provided links to all kinds of amazing resources for the the attendees. It was also great meeting other students and learning about how they planned to harness the power of blogging.

Upcoming classes include Twitter, Email Marketing and Facebook for Small Business and the aforementioned WordPress for Beginners.

Blog Break

The Covet Garden team have lots of big plans for the future of our magazine. While we're so very fortunate to have had the support of an incredibly talented circle of photographers, illiustrators and interns, at the end of the day there is only so much that the Covey G three can do in a day.

In order for us to grow creatively (and to hopefully reach even more readers), we need to channel our creative into some new projects. But because we have a limited amount of time, we need to cut back in other areas. Which is a long way of saying that we are reducing the number of blog posts to once a week. We will still be keeping the online conversation going via our Facebook page, at @CovetGarden on Twitter or on Pinterest boards.

What are our secret plans? We'll let you know here in a couple of weeks. So stay tuned!

Issue 33 Is Now Live!

[cover illustration by Alanna Cavanagh]

We've been asking readers to recommend cool spaces for Covet Garden to feature and Michelle and Glen's Leslieville home kept coming up in the conversation. It's easy to see why, what with the clean white palette, the wide open spaces and the sense of playfulness and colour that abounds throughout the rooms. Our only regret is that we didn't get a good picture of their bathroom. It was dreamy. The sink was literally the porcelain equivalent of a smile. Unfortunately, we ran out of light. But every cloud has a silver lining and capturing this wonder bathroom gives us an excuse to go back one day.

Of course, if we hadn't mentioned it, you wouldn't have noticed. That's just how jam-packed with wonder this issue is. Not only do we feature the couple's to-die-for space, Michelle has also provided a cool 3-D card making project and we've used duo's unique look (and outlook) to provide the point of view for our Style and Inspiration pages.

So come on in and enjoy the April issue of Covet Garden. And remember, if you like it, share it with your friends and sign up to subscribe to our free newsletter so you'll never miss an issue!