Babesta blog

Off the Wall - Fun Wallpapers by Isak and Aimee Wilder

I am tempted to eschew our plain painted walls for wallpaper in our playroom and small bathroom. There are so many great designs - contemporary and cheerful. My perennial favorite wallpaper designer is Aimee Wilder (her pigeons are city cool and her boomboxes and robots are amazing!), and I just discovered (through designspongeonline) Isak's Harvest print which I just love. The color and graphic design will definitely give rise to a happy place.

Aimee Wilder's prints

Wilder's Robot print

Isak's Harvest print

Amazing playspaces via The Coolhunter

The Coolhunter always aggregates the BEST examples of playspaces. I can imagine kids going crazy for any of the spaces they showed on the July 16 post. And a great point they bring up to: our communities should invest in artistic, interesting, compelling and appropriate community playspaces - we spend mucho dinero on adult playgrounds - so should we for our children. 

Photog Phenoms! Babesta Faves - Christopher Auger-Dominguez and Sarah Sloboda

Just going thru some of our material over here and reveling at the beautiful kids photographs by local photog Christopher Auger-Dominguez from Studio 4B. He shot our Superhero event last year and sends us updates of his amazing kids work. Always creative and interesting, his work is currently being shown at the NoMa group Photo Exhibit "Economy" at The City College of New York's Compton-Goethals Gallery (Amsterdam Ave btwn 139th and 140th.) It ends tomorrow and with the forecast of rain, it might be a fun indoor activity. If you miss it check out his work at Studiofourb.com.

Another fab photog we have our eye on, is Sarah Sloboda. First of all, we well appreciate a photographer "optimist" as she calls herself! Glass half full, hooray! Her children's work speaks for itself and she has been touted by many mags and media as one to watch!  find her at sarahsloboda.com

Moomah in Tribeca

I was really stoked reading in Design Sponge this morning that creative arts cafe Moomah was moving into the hood. The pics on DS look Amazing - a really well designed, fun, whimsical space to indulge in creativity and get a nutritious snack. Check out on DS here and Moomah's website here.  This will be a great addition to Tribeca!

Paint the town red with the Philips Light Drawing kit

This cool drawing kit was shown at the Philips Simplicity event in London.It takes the Painting with Light Shopping Mall art to the literal. Your kids can use the Philips kit to draw all over the walls (or any surface) with no messy clean up. We can't wait to get our hands on this one!

As seen on The Coolhunter.

Some of my favorite computer designs

Adios impersonal, run of the mill computers- - Enter Brooklyn based tattoo artist, illustrator and creative visionary Scott Campbell from Saved Tattoo. His tattoo like laser etchings done on a replacement back for  laptops are so detailed and awesome (check em out on Campbell's creative collective Mama Tried), it turns a plain jane computer into a timeless piece of art - paradoxically on an ephemeral technology. [KAWS laptop below as seen on Gizmodo some time ago..)

If the whole permanence thing has you down, Artist Lyle Owerko, a photographer (known for the 9/11 Time Magazine cover) and film maker, created a series of Gelaskins, in the image of a boom box. You can jazz up your computer while protecting it in a decidedly cool way. Read about them on Coolhunting today.I was psyched to be reminded of his work - I had purchased one of his photographs in a silent auction years ago, which hangs in my daughter's room. 

Joe Ledbetter Show at CoproGallery Saturday June 6th

Oh how I wish I was going to be in Santa Monica tomorrow. But alas, I will remain in NY. The lucky Californians in the area can pop over to CoproGallery to see an artshow of one of our favorite artists - Joe Ledbetter. Ever since his Finders Keepers series (and more recently his awesome Endangered Species Dunnys), we've been smitten. The show, Death and Taxes, features some of his newest work, and he'll debut his book, Creatures of Habit that looks awesome. If you don't make it to the opening (8-11:30pm), the show will run until June 27th. 

Copro Gallery 

2525 Michigan Avenue T5

Santa Monica CA 90404

310 829 2156

www.coprogallery.com

www.joeledbetter.com

Etch-A-Sketch Artist Jeff Gagliardi, Fabulously Childish

Jeff Gagliardi is a force to be reckoned with on the Etch-A-Sketch. Turning those dials as skillfully as a old master wields the brush, he's been at it since the 70s. Although a bit kitschy to say the least, his art is impressive. it's been shown at the Denver Art Museum and the Berkshire Museum in Massachusetts.  He calls the Etch-A-Sketch "a quintessential American art form, where the medium truly is the message."

Check out his work here.

Google's Doodle4Google "Wish for the World" Logo Contest

Doodle 4 Google is a pretty cool contest going on that I read about on Boing Boing!. Kids all around the US doodle new logos for Google, one of which will be chosen and featured for a day on Google's home page.  Voting is on til May 18. The theme: "What I wish for the world!" 

Current entries range from themes of peace, unity and green.  Pictured below: entry A Brighter Earth by Emma Hawkins; Nanotechnology in Space by Henry Jordan Shield;  Save The Animals by Jackie Tian and Gavin's Google Respect and Renwal by Gavin Riatt Hughes.

 

Kidlandia Maps via Coolhunting

This is where childhood fantasy and geography meet. With Kidlandia you can create your child's own customized map online and populate it with fantastical lands named after your child, their family and friends. Who says the world doesn't revolve around little Kimmy?

Print outs of this magical ego-land start at $40. Via Coolhunting.

www.kidlandia.com