If you haven’t noticed, HoneyTrek.com has become my new labor of love. Seeing Design was meant to be the aesthetic arm of our blog about our 4,685-day (and counting) honeymoon around the world, but the style and stories behind each of the 80 countries and 700+ places we visited can’t be separated from our journey to find them. HoneyTrek chronicles the twists and turns of our unconventional path and everything that inspired us along the way. Stunning architecture, charming homes, chic designs, talented artisans, exotic cuisine…these tenets of Seeing Design can all be found over on HoneyTrek…but within a context that means so much more than what meets the eye. We couldn’t be more proud of HoneyTrek (and all the press it’s been getting!) so we hope you check it out and join us for the adventures to come!
If you want to catch up on our past two years of world travel, watch this video, full of highlights from a trip that has truly changed our lives.
Even though we are back in the States we still have 12 more countries-worth of stories to share, so…
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With 2,900 exhibitors and hundreds of thousands of products displayed at the New York International Gift Fair, the trends can’t help but reveal themselves. If last season’s trend doesn’t make an appearance again, it means nobody was buying it. When the same look keeps turning up, it was a best seller. And when hundreds of manufacturers start exploring the same motif, together they are carving out a trend.
Hats have left the fashion category and are posing as home decor. These antique helmets from Bobo Intriguing Objects are purely decorative but I also saw top hats being used as champagne buckets and bowler caps electrified for pendant lamps.
At the last two markets, the bold running colors of Ikat seemed to cover every piece of upholstery available at the Gift Show. But at this market, this plate was all I found left of the trend. Here, Home James has freshened the over-played textile technique by applying the motif to a new medium, dishware.
Cutesy octopuses and seashells are still everywhere. However, I thought this take from Eloquent Ink brought the tried- and-true trend to a refreshing sophistication.
I admit these Thomas Paul plates are still charming; I would just love to see his graphic shapes and colors around something other than another dove.
Amazing enough there were a lot of gun designs at the show. If I’d only seen one, I might let it slide, but this glass piece in combination with the other manufacturers’ sculptural weaponry really disturbed me.
Though I’m not crazy about the look of these lamps, the flat pack design caught my eye. I hate packing peanuts and the Styrofoam that comes with product shipments, so I adore that this product from Wabnitz requires very little packaging and energy to ship.
It’s late January in New York City and to buyers, editors, and wholesalers that means Gift Show. It’s one of the largest accessory and home design fairs in the country and where I’ll be spending my weekend. I’ve been receiving promotional emails all week from manufacturers trying to lure us to their booths with sneak peeks of their wares for 2009. And it’s working.
Flash back to three weeks ago and 
This antique beveled mirror was originally a natural wood color, but we painted it poppy red to match the wallpapered accent wall in our guest bedroom.
We loved this 
Though the original paint job had a palette like a Greenbay Packer, the two-tone legs were really inspiring. We painted the piece plum but left the feet primer-white to match the tin top.
I still have dreams of having a tall chinoiserie china cabinet in my kitchen, but for $100 and a fun weekend project, this is a cute placeholder.
The greatest lesson I learned from Painted Furniture Weekend Part 1 was: NEVER strip furniture. It was the most disgusting, toxic, arduous yet deceptively easy project I’ve ever attempted for my home. The majority of the paint may gum up and peel off nicely, but the other 40% is a battle to get off the wood.
After stripping two sides of this piece, I abandoned ship and just went on to sand the front and top.