Photo Shoot at Pigeon Point Lighthouse

Alex at Half Moon Bay

A few weeks ago, my son Alex came out to stay for a few days of beach adventures along our Northern California coast.  Including a sunny (but very windy!) afternoon photo shoot at Pigeon Point Lighthouse, just a tiny bit south of Pescadero and north of Santa Cruz.  He's a pretty darn good photo-website assistant!

Here he is helping me find purple sea urchins for my "Sea Urchin Fascination" post...

Alex and I stuffed the mini-cooper with piles of our new tangerine orange and deep navy blue sea pillows. Not sure how we got them all in there! (greatest car EVER)  Packed up our ham and cheese sandwiches in our beach picnic backpack and we were off, down Coastal Hwy 1.

Pigeon Point is one of my favorite spots on our coast - I could go there every single day and see something different; pelicans, sea gulls, sea lions and of course, chubby harbor seals soaking up the sun.

Just a week before Alex arrived, Tom and I were out on a Sunday drive to Santa Cruz, we stopped here for
a quick lunch break.  SO lucky that day -  we were treated to a display of water spouts, breaching whales, and tails from spring grey whale migration!  Moms and babies traveling very close to shore on their way north to Alaska  for the summer.  Unfortunately, the water was so wild that day that it was impossible to get any good images to share.

At the Las Vegas market in January, we discovered a bright summer collection of pillows from a small manufacturer in the Midwest. I like supporting American made products, and I really liked the care and attention to detail that the owners have put into selecting fabrics and creating the finished pillows.  Bonus - they are affordable at $56-$68.00, depending on the design and size of the pillow.  Many other pillow companies that we looked at put the retail price of similar pillows beyond $90.00 +.   Our online coastal home decor store is the first website that this family-owned company has worked with.  I am very excited about our new partnership.

There is a wonderful circle of benches at the Lighthouse park overlooking Prisoner Rocks -  a perfect spot out of the wind to take the photos.   

For a complete selection and pricing check  "Caron's Collection - Coastal Pillows".  We hope you like them too!

Have a great Tuesday.  Thanks so much for stopping by.

Fabulous design - Liora Manne's LAMONTAGE™ Pillows

As part of our March Pillow Palooza promotion, we wanted to profile some of our favorite coastal pillow designers.  Meet Liora Manne'; she has created an unique process of textile design resulting in affordable, fabulous indoor-outdoor pillows  - perfect for life at the beach!  Tom and I discovered her bright colors and durable, soft cushions at the Las Vegas trade show, and  we were absolutely thrilled about making them available to our customers.  

Born in Israel, educated in the United States and now a true New Yorker, lifestyle products designer Liora Manné has been a study in breaking the rules from early in her career.

After graduating from Georgia State University with a degree in journalism and drama, Liora was anticipating a life in theatre. A textile design class at North Carolina State University changed the course of her career. Intrigued by the dependency of design on cutting edge technology in order to make ground-breaking advances, she pursued a master’s degree in both textile design and textile engineering.

Armed with her dual credentials in art and engineering, and sparked by an insatiable curiosity she headed to New York City to test her creativity. Her first stop was to design textiles for the fashion industry, but she soon found herself challenged to explore something more creative and non-traditional within the textile industry. Liora gravitated toward home fashions, and rugs in particular. Her entry into the area rug business truly changed the directions of the industry. Bold, contemporary colors sparked a revolution in a category dominated by traditions. Today, Liora Manne's LAMONTAGE™ products are featured worldwide.

Liora continues to travel the world to unearth inspiration from sites off the beaten path and to develop both product and technology before it hits the mainstream. The versatility of the products coupled with their international design appeal make them at home in institutions such as the Rubin Museum and Radio City Music Hall in New York City, the Mondrian Hotel in California, Brown University in Rhode Island, and some of the most exclusive nightclubs around the world. They are also in the permanent collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Each one of her pillows is hand crafted using modern technology of 100% antimicrobial polyester - made to be low maintenance and durable. 

We love the brilliant pops of color and the details!  All come in either 14 x 20  lumbar or 20 x 20 square sizes.  These are only a few of the designs that we carry - all can be found in our new and improved Liora Manne collection.