Bento Box

After seeing fabric wall hangings being offered by Inhabit I decided for sure that I would have a large stretched fabric wall hanging to display in my great room. Probably above the fireplace. I liked what Inhabit had to offer, particularly the wall slats, but their stretched fabric offerings were not big enough. So then I started looking into making my own, and stumbled upon this reseller of DIY kits. I especially liked their selection of trees, flowers, and leaves prints – but I want something more conversational; not just a piece that looks good, but something with some history. I found out about Marimekko from one of the many decorating blogs I frequent and liked the variety of looks by different designers.
From my research, I learned that Marimekko has been in the textile industry since 1951 and made a large impact on the fashion industry. Unfamiliar to the textile and fashion industry, all of this is mysterious and alluring. The wiki says “They are particularly noted for brightly-colored printed fabrics and simple styles.” I’m sold. I like patterns, prints, and simple styles.

Something keeps drawing me back to prints of nature. Particularly tree branches and simple flowers. I guess growing up around flowery decorations by my mom really did have an impact on me. Or maybe it’s because I moved to the Seattle area and really turned into an “outdoorsy,” person a big change from my Bay Area-self.

Marimekko prints are on all kinds of items and sold through tons of different channels. I am particularly fond of their Kaiku print, which I discovered off of tea towels on Ebay. This print can be bought as a repeating piece here – which I am still unsure if I want to do so or not. Considering the colors in my kitchen, I am not sure how green will look. Perhaps I can buy this piece and hang it in the spring time and have other accessories around to complete the “spring” look. Rotate out the stuff in the room to give it a different feeling. All these ideas are going to hurt the wallet if I follow through…