Check out these great textile designs by Richard Saja. Richard is a successful textile designer, who re-writes the narratives of traditional French toile de jouy patterns. He transposes embroidered imagery over the standard toile characters, making colorful, cheeky and humors new scenes. Recently he has teamed up with Keds to create one of a kind, toile de jouy inspired kicks. Check him out!

Interior design is a dynamic undertaking and often requires the wherewithal to visualize a functional and aesthetically pleasing space. This predisposition to design can manifest itself in many shapes, colors, and forms. Take this image for example. . .Requiring minimal color and utilizing dramatic textures and patterns draws the viewers eye in. The warmth of the golden, tiger pattern balances the cool elegance of the silver leafed textile. At the same time, the simplicity of the white walls and ceiling highlight the effectiveness of the minimalist color palette. In addition, the sleek and clean lined architecture, intermingled with pops of color brings an ornate yet comfortable richness to the space.

Can you imagine yourself in this space? Conceptualize yourself sinking into the velvet upholstered chair and allow yourself to fully take in your surroundings. Run your palms over the sleek, white leather and nestle your toes in the cushioned, snow-like rug. As your gaze examines the room, envision yourself tracing your finger over the aluminum etched letters as its silver tongue whispers a sweet melody. After a long, hard day, the heaviness of your eyes becomes too strong and you succumb to the warmth and comfort of the chair, while the mirage of color and patterns sings you off to sleep.

We’ve been back stateside for almost 48 hours now and life is getting back to normal. It’s hard to believe all we saw, did, and experienced in just over a week of our lives. Katy, Stephen, and I tried to take time daily to document in writing everything we did but some of it was blurry (lack of sleep, jet lag, alcohol consumption, resulting dehydration, the list of reasons of blurriness can go on). I’m going to try to go back and capture our trip…but no promises.

My husband drove me and Katy to the airport on Sunday 10.23.11 and we were PUMPED. The trip we had planned and dreamed about was upon us. We were so excited that we got to the airport 3 hours before our flight. We dined on some delicious McD’s, and waited for our plane. The flight was smooth as was the transfer in Philly until Katy was attacked with motion sickness. I luckily captured it on film (or memory card as the case may be). This would not be Katy’s first experience with the barf bag (but we’ll get to that later).

Once we arrived in Madrid we picked up our rental car and waited to meet our third travelling amigo (Stephen) at the Hertz rental car booth. We waited and waited and realized there were more terminals with Hertz booths so we located Stephen and drove to his terminal. This was our first experience with miscommunication; we had the Hertz agent call the other terminal booth and they found Stephen and told him we were looking for him in terminal 1. We told the agent to have Stephen wait there, but by the time we drove to his terminal in our Opal, he was waiting for us in our terminal! So we circled back yet again and scooped up our boy.

We found our hotel, The Artistic B & B (http://www.artisticbandb.com/) just across from the Prado Museum (http://www.museodelprado.es/en) rather easily and checked in. The hostess, Paola was simply lovely and we left our bags with her to find parking. We realized we were hungry so we found a cute restaurant off the square where we parked hoping it was time for tapas, but much to our chagrin tapas time was still a few hours away so we settled on an American breakfast, veggie sandwich, and ham and cheese sandwich melt with fries. The veggie sandwich came with a surprise fish bone in it which was a treat, and the fries tasted like dirty fish. Everything was so sub par we were worried that our culinary experience wouldn’t be as we had hoped, but we put on a smiley face and decided it was our tired brains ready for a nap that was making the food not delicious.

There was a really cute pastry shop near our hotel so Katy and Stephen got some sweet treats, and we returned to the Artistic and crashed for a couple of hours. The view from our room was so romantic and picturesque that we once again felt inspired about our trip!

We awoke refreshed and ready to conquer the Madrid streets (it was still raining, but nothing could dampen our spirits). We walked around our neighborhood and saw some amazing architecture and design. The Caixa Forum, designed by the legendary architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron (http://www.arcspace.com/architects/herzog_meuron/caixa/caixa.html)  was within a 4 minute walk from our place, as was an amazing example of a ‘living green wall’.

Hunger set in again so we began a search in earnest for some tapas. Our second attempt was yet another disappointment (not terrible, but decidedly not delicious) so we finished our drinks and hurried on to the next place that looked promising. Third time was the charm and we were psyched. We found a really cute little alley with restaurants and outdoor covered seating and enjoyed some sangria, ham and cheese empanadas, and some sort of savory cheese tortilla/pastry. Magical unicorns were dancing in our mouths!

We worked our way to the Latina neighborhood as well as Mayor’s Square where we stopped for yet more tapas. There were some bizarre bird callers propelling toy helicopters in the air in front of where we ate (yes, for the 4th time in the afternoon), as well as a Flemenco guitarist that played, then made us pay him. In all a successful first day with many adventures ahead…

It has been a true adventure! We saw Tangiers, Morrocco yesterday, and though it was a holy-moly-rocky-rolly trip we arrived (but not without going through a number of vomit bags). We were stuck on the boat for not understanding that we were to have our passports stamped prior to deboarding, but much like the rest of this trip we realized serendipity had a hand in our fate. We tucked and rolled through a swarm of cab drivers and tour guides (as the tour book advised) but realized we needed a taxi so we succumbed. We were willing to pay the 30 Euro since we already wasted precious time stuck on the boat. We scored with an honest knowledgable (and brave) driver who showed us the sites then dropped us off with a walking tour guide who showed us the market in Madina, meat/veggie market, Kaspah, spice market, and hand made goods market.  Ate some delicious Morroccan pastries, bargained with some merchants and were returned to our cab driver who dropped us off in plenty of time to catch our returnferry. We arrived back in Spain around 11 and had an hour drive ahead of us but were hungry from our adventure and stopped for Mediterranean inspired Italian cuisine. We’ve taken pics of every meal and I will post those once I upload them. Tomorrow is our last full day but we have no regrets, and have many tales to share! Back to Madrid tomorrow for one last hurrah…I can’t wait to see what is in store.

We made it to Madrid and it is magical! The view from our B&B is so charming and inviting not to mention all of the good eats we are barraged with as we navigate the streets. We arrived to a dark rainy day but nothing could put a damper on our spirits.  We picked up our rental car and met our third adventurer and were off like explorers. We checked in to our b&b near the Prado Museum called the Artistic, dropped our bags, parked our car and walked around the city. Our first meal was lackluster; a plate of eggs with bacon and potatoes was the only mediocre success, the ham and cheese sandwhich was ok but the potatoes tasted fishy, and the veggie sandwich was half way eaten after discovering a fish bone…weird. We headed back to the hotel for nap and woke up refreshed 3 hours later. The sun made her first appearance and it was glorious. We explored for hours stopping along the way for tapas. The first was a lot of pickled items (eggplant, a sardine riding a pickle and dressed in a coat of marinated red pepper). The second stop was the best ; outdoor seating an an old narrow street covered by awnings and wrapped in the smell of deliciousness. This time we avoided the pickled fare and went straight for the big guns: ham empanadas and meet and cheese croquettes. Magical! We walked for hours and saw many beautiful sites including the Plaza Mayor, Centre de Arte Reina Sophia, the exterior of the Prada etc.

The architecture and design is truly remarkable. The excessive amount of graffiti is disappointing and saddening to see on such architectural works of art. Everywhere I turn there is a detail I a want to sketch. Tomorrow will be a big day so stay tuned!