Friday Favorites 8/5/2011

Paula M. Bodah, Senior Editor
I have a totally funky hand-blown bright-pink glass vase with a green base and lip and green raised-glass polka dots that I got for making the winning bid at a fundraising auction. The vase is from Peàn Doubulyu Glass, a Providence company named for its owners, RISD grads Elizabeth Pannell and James Watkins (P&W). I love keeping it filled all summer with flowers from my garden. Everything Peàn Doubulyu makes looks like it was great fun to create; their vases, pitchers, bowls and glasses are bright, whimsical and spirited. They’re also completely functional (many pieces are even dishwasher safe).

Pannell and Watkins use a 500-year-old technique called incalmo, in which blown rings of colored glass are fused together, then blown again, to make these bowls and vases. This collection ranges from 4 to 14 inches tall with prices from $200 to $700.

The artists roll the glasses, pitchers and carafes in glass “jimmies†to get the mottled coloring. The pieces in this collection range from 5.5 inches to 12 inches tall and range in price from $44 to $290.

Cheryl Katz, Contributing Editor
It’s been said–or in the case of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, sung–that there ain’t nothing like the real thing. And, in most cases that’s true. Sweet’N Low will never take the place of sugar; Julia Ormond’s Sabrina doesn’t hold a candle to Audrey Hepburn’s. But lately there’s been a spate of faux wood that can go head to head with the real thing. Chilewich‘s faux bois placemats take the ho-humness out of setting the table while 14 Ora Italiana‘s uonuon ceramic tiles, for use on the floor or on the wall, mimic hardwood–knots and all.

Or Piet Hein Eek Scrapwood wallpaper–mentioned here a few weeks back by my colleague, associate editor Kara Lashley–can transform an urban loft into a rustic barn. If this were 1968, Gaye and Terrell just might have changed their tune.