Bountiful Style

Eve and I decided to make a journey to Venice Beach yesterday. One of our all time favorite places to visit is there on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. It is a store named Bountiful, owned by interior designer Sue Balmforth.


Before heading to Bountiful we met Ben at the new Tlapazola Grill for a fun lunch, the legendary icon artist of Los Angeles, Ed Ruscha, was also there having lunch.


When we arrived at Bountiful they were away at lunch, thus, we decided to walk Abbot Kinney and hit some of our other destinations like the Vintage stores.


Most of the photos in this post were taken by Eve, she was on a role. I am particularly found of this self portrait she did of herself in a few mirrors on the street.


And of course what is a day to Venice without Jin Patisse!


Bountiful was inspiring, as we suspected. Soon our little wooded house will begin looking like this. That is our intention, a cross between Anthropology and Bountiful. I found this article to get us started. We will also be creating an inspiration board in the kitchen to keep our idea fresh in our minds eye.





The beeswax candles smelled amazing. These were the only botanical aromas in the store. All the perfumes and scented candles were created with synthetic aroma chemicals. Botanical perfume has not yet arrived at Bountiful.






There is a quality to Bountiful that reminds Eve and I of the Estella's home in the film Great Expectations.







Between the fluffy pillows and the crystal chandeliers I am reminded of my grandmother's apartment on Avenida Libertador in Buenos Aires. Wonder what happened to those chandeliers? I sure do miss that apartment and my grandmother.



Next time you need to go on an Artist's Date I recommend Abbot Kinney in Venice, lots of inspiration to be found.

A whimsical notion

According to Dictionary.com one of the definitions of crochet as a noun is "an odd fancy or whimsical notion." Rather nice don't you think? Here are some new and old photos of the beautiful, crochet pouches which have been made exclusively for our illuminated perfumes, in keeping with a sophisticated handmade aesthetic.



Reading further, in the Encyclopedia we find: crochet

"craft that developed in the 19th century out of a form of chain-stitch embroidery done with a hook instead of a needle. In crochet work the hook is used, without a foundation material, to make a texture of looped and interlinked chains of thread. In the late 1840s crochet was introduced into Ireland as a famine relief measure. In southern Ireland the industry centered in Cork, in northern Ireland at Clones in County Monaghan. As it became more sophisticated, crochet work approximated lace, antique laces such as gros point de Venise, or Venetian raised lace, being successfully imitated."

Although my mother, Martha, and I were born in Buenos Aires our ancestry goes back to Ireland. The cuffs in the first photo are available for purchase from my mother's shop on Etsy where you can see a variety of her very fine crochet and knitted work.


The idea for the pouches came out of a yearning to have the packaging for my perfumes be different, since the bottles are compacts are not.


Each perfume has a color from my palette assigned to it. My mother has a copy of my palette and is the one who seeks out the yarn. She just brought me a sample of the green we may be utilizing for the botanical perfume GreenWitch. Unfortunately it may be a bit too close to the green we use for Q.


The perfume devoted to Peace has a red pouch, similar to the burgundy tones of Vespertina but a bit brighter. Page 47 currently has an antique gold and off white as her color tone.


I'll take some photos of the soon to be debuted perfume for Peace in a few days. Thank you to all those who voted for your favorite pouch and bead design back in July. The official date for the release of this new fragrance in both liquid and solid format will be September 21st, the International Day of Peace.

The REAL Dirt

“A healthy social life is found only,
when in the mirror of each soul the whole community finds its reflection,
and when in the whole community the virtue of each one is living.”

~ Rudolf Steiner

I have a dirt accord, it was created for a bespoke (custom) perfume. The notes include those associated with the scent of the earth as well as a bit of REAL dirt, Mitti Attar from India.

For the last couple nights my husband Greg has been trying to get me to watch a documentary. He loves documentaries. I love long, epic, period films, ideally with romance. The idea of watching a documentary on what I thought was a sausage farmer didn't interest me one bit. Boy, I was wrong!


The film is The Real Dirt on Farmer John. John Peterson is an organic farmer and artist from Caledonia, Illinois. I am completely smitten with the film and John, so much so that I don't want to send it back to Netflix. Guess I will be getting my own copy and most likely purchasing it for everyone for Christmas. I am giving it my thumbs up and highly recommend seeing it. It's fun, wacky, historical, made me sob with inspiration and sorrow, wonderfully shot and informational. The film also ties into what I am doing as a botanical perfume artist and want to support. There is even a Steiner / Anthroposophy connection! From a critical point of view it follows all those good story arcs that McKee speaks of.


I found myself clapping during the film, I have never done that here at home. This story obviously taps into my heart virtue Authentic Self Expression. Cheers to John for honoring his Art Spirit and sharing his inspirational story with all of us. A real gem.



Angelic Organics

Interview with John Peterson on NPR