ode to summer

my parents at the beach in 1972.
note the handmade quality of the outfits

and the overflowing ashtray. gotta love the 70's.

this photo is always in a frame i love it so much.

JUNE: school lets out and summer vacation, for some, begins and what better place to go than the ocean, the lake, the river or even the backyard, for that matter. just outside, if at all possible, before it is so hot we all we want to be in ac and take a nap (i may have spoken to soon as we we are under a heat advisory this weekend). i am a beach gal at heart but live surrounded by mountains and trees, go figure, in a log home estimated at well over 200 years old with no watering holes of any kind in sight. needless to say my beach house does live but only in my dreams at this point, so in the summer i try to be beachy wherever possible, enjoying my many years of collected shells and photos all over the house. i love to transform my living room into a watery beach palette with aquas, greens, grays and whites (the sofa cover from ikea gets switched to white much to my huband's disbelief and terror). my rug of choice lately has been an angela adams number that i believe, sad to say, is discontinued. it's super long shag with a wavy pattern that goes by the name of "spike," and it brightens up our log living room like no other could. (we sell angela's cotton rugs if you want the next best thing to her wool ones.) oh and how i love pillows. i have a closet full, almost all from my days of retail, and switch them out constantly. many of the them are sea inspired, so these definitely make an appearance in the summer months. i especially love my linen cushions by dermond peterson. she does corals and various shells, seahorses, octopi, crabs, and fish. i love them so much i have given them as gifts to my mom and staff. we can all attest to how cool they are. she also puts these images on napkins, guest towels and cocktail napkins, all of which we sell at o'suz.

cushions by dermond peterson, snail decoupage by macbeth ,

books all from o'suz, adrienne jennings photograph lamp
(no longer made) from o'suz years ago.

cushions by dermond peterson,

conch shell from belize (contraband, don't tell)
red's first sun suit and wrv beach t-shirt.

and lastly i scatter beachy photos in dryads frames all around. we have sold dryads for eons and though i tend to like them all (that's why i sell them), i do have some favs, and here they arecontaining old and new beach snapshots.


wherever you are i hope you are beatin' the heat by the watering hole of your choice, or in the ac takin' a nap! xo, suz.