The One Perfect Item Theory of Decorating: Valentine's Day

Plus: Phaidon's new book Defining Style should be on every design lover's coffee table.

One of the things I’ve been trying to do over here is make holiday decorating more sane and less of a burden on the environment. If you haven’t been here long, you can also check out my “ONE PERFECT THING” for Halloween and Thanksgiving.

Winter has everything going a bit sideways over here. I’m behind on everything from having the flu for three weeks and I haven’t been able to do any of the things I generally do to keep my mood up.

Last weekend I was in such a foul state that I pushed aside everything else and spent two mornings hand-painting taper candles to look like this “Loving You” Barbie I had as a 7-year-old.

This was time well spent.

Painting taper candles is not my idea of course. Apparently tiny-hearted taper candles are everywhere, from cheap awful ones at H&M to hand-painted ones from Italy like this lady has in her lifestyle store.

But I have to tell you… they are EASY to do.

Imagine — you’re the kind of person who likes to style a table or at least make things a little fancy as time continues its uncharitable slog and the only nod to the holiday you need is a hand-painted taper candle!

Questions?

White taper candles are cheap at Home Goods (I got them four for $4.50). I used a water-based acyrlic red and I didn’t do anything to space the hearts out properly beyond eying it. I found it easiest to hold the candle at the bottom until I reached that point, at which I held the top and leaned it diagonally away from me as I painted.

Then I told Adam I was starting a hand-painted taper candle business and he told me all the reasons it wouldn’t work and why I would grow to hate it and then I painted every leftover taper candle in the house to prove a point.

I also made some XOXO and big-heart designs, but none were as fun and delightful as the tiny hearts.

This is a very forgiving DIY, btw. If you mess up any of the shapes, you can just use your nail to scrape the paint away.

XOXO,

P.S. Thank you to everyone who reached out about my flu + parenting teens struggle. I got a lot of great wisdom and also had a nice 1-hr chat with a Grandma Who Remembers, possibly my favorite category of human.

I LOVE this new coffee table book about interior styles

A lot of people struggle to find the words to describe the styles they respond to, which, I think, is how we end up with a whole lot of everyone trying to get the look of celebrity designers.

That’s just one reason I’ve been appreciating this new Phaidon title by design journalist Joan Barzilay Freund and design editor Asad Syrkett — for its structure, the genius of its approach, its global perspective, and its pie-in-the-sky level of inspiration.

Defining Style takes the most prominent one or two-word design vernaculars and applies them to global projects from the past decade or so. The international approach is part of what makes it special (you likely haven’t seen these before), and way the projects are grouped gives a fuller picture of how design styles are expressed.

Here’s what styles the book includes:

• Biophilic

• Coastal

• Collected

• Contemporary

• Curated

• Deco-inspired

• Mountain

• Neutral

• Organic Modern

• Pattern

• Rustic

• Spirited

• Tailored

• Textured

• Timeless

• Tropical

• Vivid

• Wunderkammer

I haven’t seen much better from a design coffee table book, especially for someone who is learning.

Here’s my favorite page, two examples from the style, Wunderkammer, which refers to the cabinet-of-curiorities love of the 19th century age of exploration.

This one has earned a permanent spot on my shelf.