Photo of the Week: Street Art in San Francisco

Hanging out at Twitter you're bound to come across other great artists/designers. One such inspiring person is Emily Chang of Ideacodes. As I was browsing Emily's photos at Flickr, I came across this photo of street art in San Francisco. I've been to San Francisco dozens of times, but for some reason never paid much attention to the street art... This one reminds me of that TV show, The Partridge Family!

Have street art to share? Email your pics to maria [at] salondemaria [dot] info and I'll post them here!

Designer Highlight: Holly Becker

Have you ever come across a blog that really, really inspired you? I mean really inspired you...

I felt this wave of creative energy as I browsed through Holly Becker's blog, decor8. Holly is an interior design consultant and a prolific writer whose writing has been featured in many of the leading magazines in the U.S., including the Boston Globe, Domino magazine, and Real Simple, just to name a few. You can also find her dishing out design tips and advice over at the Real Simple blog, Simply Stated. I discovered Holly's work while hanging around at Flickr. All I have to say is that when you're talented, everything artistic comes naturally!

Here is a mosaic of some of Holly's photography...



1. dress form in the window, 2. a certain tenderness, 3. sweet, 4. soaring

Easton Pearson: An Inspired Fashion Brand

Although we weren't able to jet-set to Australia to take part in Rosemount Australia Fashion Week, we love the power of our networks and being able to bring photos from the runway shows to you. The collection by Easton Pearson was particularly eye-catching because of the bold color and unique fashion design.

Lydia Pearson and Pamela Easton are the designers behind the Easton Pearson brand and many of their designs are inspired from their travels to the Indian subcontinent - which explains all the bright colors!

Visit our Beauty Is Within blog for more commentary on fashion and beauty...

"Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening." -- Coco Chanel

Happiness: The One Thing We All Want

If there's anything in life that each and every one of us has in common, it's the desire to be happy. Rich, poor, young, old, artist, or engineer - we all want the same thing. I can say that I'm probably the happiest that I've ever been in my life, but it took awhile to get to this place. And now it's my goal to help as many people as I can find happiness in their own lives.

One area where people are the most unhappy is with their current job occupation. I got this statistic from a recent Oprah show: 84% of people hate their jobs! I believe it came from a CareerBuilder.com poll or study. And we wonder why the level of customer service is declining around the world! Now more than ever it's a challenge to work for major corporations because it seems that all they want to do is cut, cut, cut - pay cuts, budget cuts, cuts on hours, benefit cuts, and the list goes on and on... That's why I always push people to start their own online business. What's better than being your own boss where you call all the shots?

"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."
-- Abraham Lincoln

A friend of mine called me the other day complaining about her job. She works for the airline industry - Yeah, it's tough nowadays! I told her that everything in life is a choice. You either choose to let the job get to you or you choose to let it drive you crazy. You always have the choice to be happy or not. That's the bottom line.

Just for fun I asked my followers at Twitter what their definition of happiness is. My friend Jeanette Fisher answered:

It's true - there are too many definitions of happiness. What's yours?

Get more tips on finding happiness...and make sure to read The 10 Steps to Happiness.

Earth Day Photography and Art Auction

In celebration of Earth Day, I communed with nature today and took photos of flowers around the neighborhood...


(From left to right: 1. Closeup of Purple Iris, 2. Very Pretty Pink Flowers, 3. Hot Pink Gazania, 4. Flowers Dancing in the Wind)

If you love to support kids' art, I recommend checking out the Earth Day Kid Art Auction over at Flickr. Proceeds from the auction will go to support We Can Solve It. Find out more about the rules for bidding over at Greeblemonkey.