Online Shelter Magazines Are Huge This Month

The top three online shelter magazines, rue, House of Fifty, and Lonny, have all dropped their May issues. And each one put out huge issues with lots of pages and good content. It's really been a treat to spend time looking at them all.

Lots of reading to do this month in the online magazines - I spy Debra Shriver's book Stealing Magnolias in this picture in Lonny - Stealing Magnolias is the best book about New Orleans, to gift or to keep for yourself

Lonny focused on road trip to Morocco, and there is a huge feature on Maryam of the blog My Marrakesh. Her house is amazing. And I love the piece on Jamie Meares too.

Jamie Meares in  Lonny - I love this Jackie print - I had no wall space for it so I got a client to get it!

Of course I was so happy to be included in rue, and House of Fifty, and loved the rest of the content in both magazines.

So happy to be in rue - A corner in my bedroom

There are tons of take-way ideas in all three magazines, so hunker down and read them all.

I have had two sheets of the same handmade paper for two years, as  seen on the back wall in this room by Jamie Meares - The take away idea is how to frame them, shown here floating on linen with a pretty silver frame

And vote for Jenny today HERE

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Hit The Streets Now!

If you are in New Orleans and need some last minute gifts, take a look at these and hit the streets. I love to give gifts that say New Orleans, and these are my favorites.

The Preservation Resource Center,  has a great little gift shop, at their headquarters at 923 Tchoupitoulas Street (In the Warehouse District). My go-to gift from there, is a set of glasses etched with New Orleans houses on them. They are double old-fashioned glasses and hold a generous 13.5 ounces. Renowned designer Mignon Faget makes them for the PRC.  Alberto and I love to give this gift boxed set of four to both locals and visitors. The profits benefit the PRC when you buy them there.

PRC Creole Cottage double old fashion glass - Set of four comes in a gift box for $40. - Note the Absolut New Orleans, another great gift to give

Set of four Creole Cottage glasses - Get them at the Preservation Resource Center

Another gift I love to give, is Debra Shriver's fabulous coffee table book about New Orleans called "Stealing Magnolias". Locals and visitors alike love this beautifully written book, a Valentine to New Orleans, chock full of useful facts and information, and dozens and dozens of gorgeous photos.

Forget Amazon and go and buy it local. 

Get it at Tommy's Flowers in the French Quarter (533 Rue St. Louis (504 333-6822). It's so much fun to shop off line. George and Nancy Seegers at Tommy's will make you feel welcome.

Stealing Magnolias by Debra Shriver is on the coffee table of The Visual Vamp! Pick up a copy to give or keep

The days after Alberto and I returned to New Orleans from our Hurricane Katrina evacuation, I made my way to a jewelry shop called Sterling Silvia (4861 Magazine Street), and bought a small Fleur di lis necklace. We all wore the Fleur di lis to show solidarity, and I have not taken mine off since. Many people admire mine, and I have given several just like mine as gifts over the years. 

My Fleur di lis pendant necklace from Sterling Silvia

Sterling Silvia has the best selection of jewelry with New Orleans designs at really affordable prices. They have been in the French Quarter for years, but recently opened a new shop on Magazine Street.

My Fleur di lis necklace hangs on a lady Santos, but only for the photo! I haven't taken it off for the years since Katrina!

Candles are the prefect last minute gift. Who doesn't love a nice candle? I love to give the Orleans candle. It is very affordable, around $12., and it is just a nice as any luxury brand. I get mine at Gordon's, 725 Veterans, Metairie.

Orleans candles are as good as the luxury brands, but way more affordable

I love the black glass tumbler the Orleans candle comes in

So I'll see you on the street!!!!! Shop local when you can, wherever you live.

The Visual Vamp always wears a Fleur di lis necklace form Sterling Silvia

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Chair Audition

Dear Annechovie, You don't know me. I'm a little orange velvet chair, your biggest fan who loves all the portraits of chairs you do. Would you please do one of me? I will sit very still and not talk like Mary McDonald on Million Dollar Decorators.

Are you listening Anne? Can I be your muse?

The Vamp here....I just got a pair of these beauties.

I am inspired by this piece of art by Anne Harwell of Annechovie. So much so that I use it for my business card that she designed. I guess I have a thing for orange chairs!



I also love old French frames on chairs, upholstered in velvet. So the chairs in this perfect French Quarter dollhouse also tickled my fancy.

photo by Valorie Hart at the home Deb & Jerry Shriver HERE

And I love strong color on a traditional chair. And nobody does it better than Tobi Fairley.

Tobi Fairley's fab green chairs HERE

I also just got these cute cute cute boxes of matches from Annechovie! Treat yourself them!

Matches by Anne Harwell, Annchovie HERE

Pair of orange velvet chairs in the home of Visual Vamp Valorie Hart

Isn't my chair a good muse for Anne Harwell?

Stealing Magnolias

Here's the deal. I get an e-mail one morning asking me if I have read the new book Stealing Magnolias Tales From A New Orleans Courtyard, by Debra Shriver HERE
I answer, no, but I would love to.
The reply comes back: Where can we send you a book?

The French Quarter home of Debra Shriver
All the interior images are of her home via House Beautiful

Sometimes bloggers get asked to read and review books, and I just love to do this. So the next day via Fedex this lovely book appears on my doorstep. It's a luscious coffee table size book, with a retail price of $60. It is published by Glitterati and it's about New Orleans. I am in heaven.



As I leaf through the beautiful pages, I am sure I have seen some of these images before, and lo and behold they are different versions of an editorial in House Beautiful entitled "A Fabulously Feminine New Orleans home" HERE

The silhouettes on the shelves are of Debra and her husband
They had them made by a street artist in Paris

The interior design is by Hal Williamson, and the fabulously feminine owner of the home is described but never named. Now I know who she is! It's Debra Shriver the author of Stealing Magnolias.



As much as I love the editorial in House Beautiful, I love this book a zillion times more!


Debra and I share similarities. We are both New Yorkers who love New Orleans, and who now call it home. She lives in the French Quarter, and I lived in the French Quarter for the first fourteen months of my new life in New Orleans. She is a high powered business woman who has pretty much given up that life for New Orleans, and I was a high octane business woman who left New York and ended up finding my soul and self again in New Orleans. The back cover author photo shows a smiling blond, and ahem, I am a blond who smiles. Where does she end and where do I begin?



Seriously, Stealing Magnolias is a book I wish I had written about New Orleans, and perhaps it is the book I have been dreaming of doing. It is a wonderful gumbo of a book, combining interior design, cooking, New Orleans history, local customs, and all the wonderful things that make a powerful mojo voodoo charm that has made many a person move here and get lost in the layers that make up New Orleans.

image via Debra Shriver

Debra makes the Paris connection to New Orleans come alive in the most charming ways. She talks about day to day Parisian life style quirks commonly shared by the inhabitants of Nouvelle Orleans. Her home has trinkets and treasures brought back from Paris, fitting in perfectly in her French Quarter digs .

image via Debra Shriver

There is wonderful amount of information about the back stories and customs here in New Orleans that are just priceless. Debra's writing style is enticing and she draws you in with one heady description after another.

image via Debra Shriver

There is "Proust" style questionnaire like the one found at the back of Vanity Fair magazine that would be fun for you to take.

image via Debra Shriver

Here are my answers:

• Occupation: Stylist, decorator, blogger, writer, tango dancer and tango teacher
  

• The best thing about the city (New Orleans) is: The people, the music, the food, the style
  

• My favorite meal: Oysters

• My favorite (New Orleans) cocktail: Kumquat Champagne Cocktail

• New Orleans is the only place in the world where: People say hello to you on the street

• My favorite neighborhood: Every neighborhood in New Orleans, grand or humble has its beauty

• The city's most marked characteristics are: The pursuit of pleasure

• My favorite New Orleanian is: Miss Anne

• If I had one free hour (in New Orleans) I would spend it: At Galatoires

• My one New Orleans obsession is: Its beauty

• I knew the spell of the city had been cast upon me when: New Orleans chose me to live here, by making the choice and transition effortless.

image via Debra Shriver

Buy this book. For yourself. For a friend. It is just one of those stunning volumes that come along once in awhile. Debra uses the best of the best writers and photographers and artists to enhance her book.

image via Debra Shriver

I have about every pretty picture book ever written about New Orleans and Stealing Magnolias stands out and above them all.

image via Debra Shriver

I plan to get several copies to give out as gifts, especially to people who still sometimes ask me why on earth I would want to live in New Orleans.

image via Debra Shriver

Stealing Magnolias is the book I wanted Vicki Archer and Carla Coulson to do, a sort of My French Life In New Orleans HERE
I wanted to co-write it with them.
I thank Debra Shriver for putting her New Orleans book first on her to-do list.

image via Debra Shriver

Meet Debra Shriver at a book signing and reading of Stealing Magnolias on November 27, 1 - 3 PM, at Garden District Books, 2727 Prytania Street, New Orleans. Tell her the Vamp sent you.