Open Sky Announcement!!

Well friends, I have a big announcement: No, i'm not pregnant.  Unless 'pregnant' means 'I'm curating and selling a lot of my favorite things on Open Sky', which i'm pretty sure it doesn't.  But i was raised sheltered, so i could be wrong.  

So here's the story:  Open Sky  is a shopping site that has experts in all different fields—home, food, fashion, healthy living and kids. You choose the ones you want to "connect" with—like me—and they'll recommend products that they love and use.  

In this case, I, Emily Von Henderson am the 'Expert' and i have been working with Open Sky the last few months to pull together pieces for the home that i love.  No stores have paid me to sell their product, its all just stuff that i have handpicked because i love them and Open sky did the foot work to find the companies that make them, and subsequently get us a 20% discount.  It'll be small pieces of furniture, accessories, textiles and tabletop.  And its all 100% awesome stuff i use everyday. Like these pieces:

I'm psyched about the first collection which goes on sale on friday; above there is a sneak peek.  

Its all GOLD!!! And by 'Gold' i mean brass, gold painted and gold leafed -  anything that is glitzy in a sophisticated way.  I love it. I need it. It's pretty much a neutral to me. It's what i add to every room to add warmth and the feminine touch.  It warms up my cool blues and grays, and it reflects light to add texture and depth.  I wear it (my jewelry), I drink out of it, (my bareware), I accessorize it (1/4 of my furniture) and i eat it (i'm very rich so sometimes i just eat gold, when i'm bored.  its not good, but it makes me feel very important).  

So starting Friday you, too can own some of my favorite gold pieces - all on sale just for Open Sky followers. Click here to follow me, and then get your glamour on.  

Because you don't have to be rich to be glamourous.  

Shopping With Emily (Without Emily)

Dear Emily,

Remember that one time you were gone for like a month and I was left all alone in Los Angeles with nothing but my overwhelming sadness to keep me company? Yeah, that was lame. Thank goodness you're finally back! While you were gone I wandered around feeling sorry for myself and looking at furniture for our clients, ourselves, and your future baby. 

I found this at HD Buttercup. $1295. Rad, right?

This bench was also at Buttercup. Pretty simple and cute. Just like you!

Do you ever, like, take a picture of a sofa and then you're all "that's ugly why'd I take a picture of that?" and then you see a black leather sofa in the upper left corner of the photograph and you realize you should have just taken a picture of that instead? I have.

I like this sofa, I want it, and I'm not apologizing for it. I know everyone is starting to get super sick of mid-century inspired modern furniture, but I still like it. This piece was $1595.

So I'm not really a fan of black leather, but for some reason this does it for me. It's the chair equivalent of a little black dress. $575.

I've been looking for a loveseat for my apartment. This could do the trick but I'm not crazy about the color...

This is a sexy color for a chair, no?

I never met a wood-arm sofa I didn't love. $1495.

The following pieces were at Cisco Home.

We found this luxurious upholstered headboard for our French provincial client. $2750.

Cisco makes the most adorable poufs. This one is named Oliver and I decided to adopt him and make him my son. We are such a happy family.

These round hangy mirrors are all over the place, but I love them so. From Cisco.

This upholstered sleigh bed is appealing. 

This headboard was an interesting color, but I feel like it could go well in a room with some grey and aubergine... $2750.

I kind of love tufted ottomans. They make such fun, comfy coffee table/footrests. 

The following things we found at Lankershim, our favorite North Hollywood shopping destination. These cute little brass tables were $250. MINE!

Whenever Emily and I see anything that combines brass and birds, we think of our friend Corbett, who we love so much it hurts our hearts to think about her when she is not by our sides. 

This delightful sofa and chair family was at one of the shops on Lankershim as well. $550 for the pair. I'd love to reupholster this pair and put them ON MY FACE.

I like this piece for our French Provincial client. $250.

Friendly little pair of chairs, please come hang out with me. $250/pair.

A little trunk to, like, stick in a corner or something. Why not? $50. 

This happy brass mirror makes me feel so good inside. $350.

Don't these lucite "X" table bases make you feel, like, totally hip and trendy? Like a member of the band The XX. $100/pair.

How chic is this dining set? The upholstery needs to be updated but other than that it's the best thing in the whole entire world. $850/set.

It was, like, totally impossible to get a good picture of this shelving but that doesn't mean it isn't the coolest shelving in the whole world. $200.

This chair is from Pottery Barn. Not bad, eh? $799.

These little brass lamps were on sale for $38. So I bought both of them. Hoarder.

Emily finally got back last week. And it was such a relief. Here are some pictures of us when we were reunited:

Emily

MePhotos by Jill Greenberg Studio

Love,

Orlando

Happy Valentines Day

For someone as in love with 'love' as i am it seems totally weird that i'm not super into valentines day. I mean, i love LOVE so very, very much, you guys.  The fact that i self-ration my viewings of 'The Notebook' to once a year so i don't get sick of it should tell you something. 

In fact, you should not be surprised if i come out with a romanice novel in 20 years - i've always wanted to write one, i've read 100's of them and i think i could tell an epic love story.  

But Valentines day? meh.  Part of it is my inner rebel that doesn't like to be told what to do, but most of it is sheer laziness.  We normally think about it around 6pm and are like 'did you plan something, cause i didn't'? And then we'll go out to dinner and maybe watch a movie.  But while packing for our move the other night i found this card that Brian gave me 10 years ago that made me totally lose it.  I mean, just writing this again i'm losing it.  Not in the ugly face kinda crying, just the happy tears slowly streaming out of utter gratefulness and yes, love.     

Lets face it, there are a lot of drawbacks of finding your 'person' so young.  We knew it when we met.  We were like, 'ah shit this wasn't supposed to happen for years'.  We broke up twice to help up experience the things we should in our 20's.  

But the good thing about being with somebody since you were so young (21) is that you get to see eachother grow up.  You watch them become different, but the same.  Older but the same. And better, but the same. God this is getting so sappy already. 

Anyway, Brian made this card for me when i was 23 and totally lost career-wise. I was living in New York, bartending at night, walking dogs during the day and taking furniture design classes at Pratt.  I had no idea what i was going to do and i didn't feel like i had the right to identify myself as anything.  So he made this card out of labels, writing all of the things that he thought I already was on them. 

I'm not sure what 'nurse' meant. Or 'fashion model' but he was right with 'black sheep', 'krazy girl' and 'dancing queen'.  Guilty.  It was all my identities. 

On the inside was this:

A loose label with 'artist' written on it was inside, unstuck.  He wrote that he hoped someday I would 'allow' myself to put this on, too.  I remember when i got this card i started crying because i knew that i wanted to be an artist but i had no idea what that meant.  I didn't know how to paint, I didn't have the patience to be a sculptor and i literally can't draw a cube.  i wanted to believe him so very, very bad, but it seemed totally impossible and i refused to believe that I could be an artist.  God just thinking about how frustrated i was makes me cry again.  Today is apparently a crying day, that's cool.  

It's just so incredibly sweet. He was 23 when he wrote this.  He was in grad school for acting at NYU and he was 100% sure of what he wanted to do, and i was 100% lost.  

It's official. 

All grownsed  up.  Happy Valentines, Mr. Von Henderson.  

Thank you for knowing the things about me that i didn't.

And thanks for being hot and nice, funny, talented and smart.  Those all come in handy as well.  

And here come more tears.  :)