House Beautiful Magazine has a great series of tips from top decorators all about how to take your home from good to great. We particularly like their tips for hanging art (above). See all of the tips - 101 in all - here. And, in case you're wondering, all ArtStar mats are 8 ply Hahnemuhle paper with a lovely beveled edge. For a great example of a gallery-style wall see below from Young House Love, and of course, you don't have to follow these (or any) decorating tips to the letter. The important this is to make your space your own!

Here at ArtStar HQ we've had lots of projects on the go this spring - from AAF to our inaugural outing to the Architectural Digest Home Design Show to the many new artists we're bringing on board. In between we're also been working on a super fun project with one of our favorite artists Lisa Levy at the stylishly purple hotel called Yotel near Times Square in NYC. Levy has been involved with a large-scale installation, curated by ArtStar's Director Chrissy Crawford, to cover the Yobot and other parts of the hotel with her text-based work and the results, if we do say so ourselves, are brilliant! Enjoy a sneak peek of the installation above, including Lisa's chat with the Yobot and, even if you can't make it by Yotel, enjoy her work on ArtStar (did we mention is nearly all sold out at AAF?).

Well that went well! A big thank you to everyone who stopped by the ArtStar booth at the Architectural Digest Home Design Show at Pier 94. We loved meeting so many art lovers and talented interior designers. Everyone loved our new facemounting to Plexi option for framing and it really stood out on the large Richard Silver photographs that were prominently displayed. Above and below we've got some snaps of what it takes to get a booth from bare walls and a concrete floor to looking fabulous (thanks in large part to Benjamin Moore's Gunmetal paint) in less than 24 hours - basically it requires a lot of endurance, a sturdy level and drill, hardworking colleagues and several Diet Cokes. Enjoy!

Art is a great wedding gift, and in urban centers where space is at a premium there is nothing better than a gift that doesn't take up precious closet, kitchen or bathroom space. As Annie notes in the MSN article below,  "while cabinet space was hard to come by, the walls were free reign!" Read more about offbeat wedding in this adorable article on GLO including a profile of Annie & Pierre who used ArtStar for their registry. From eco conscious registries to those that help you buy a house, the process of registering for a wedding is no longer confined to towels and candlesticks. Read the full article here.

Modern Gifting by Martine Bury

"About 60 percent of today's couples live together before getting married—which means that by the time they're engaged, they're well-stocked with dinnerware, linens and small kitchen appliances. As a result, alternative wedding registries that offer everything from far-flung adventures to cold hard cash are booming. See what these six couples put on their wedding wish lists.

Whether trying new restaurants or exploring museums and galleries, newlyweds Annie and Pierre-Antoine love city living. "Space inside our tiny one bedroom is limited and it physically wasn't possible to fit new dishes, china, bed linens and towels into our little apartment," says Annie. Instead of registering for the usual wares, Guill and Bollet opted to deck their walls with personally inspiring, limited-edition art pieces from the registry ArtStar. "While cabinet space was hard to come by, the walls were free reign!" Annie says." Read the rest of the article HERE and see Annie & Pierre's picks by Irene Suchocki, Cheryl Maeder, Noel Kerns and Kim Holtermand.

Yesterday we braved the wind (and today, the snow) to hike over to Pier 94 in New York for the VIP opening of the Armory Show, New York's blue chip contemporary art fair. The show as ever, was a mix of the expected blue chip names with a few interesting corners. Likewise, the curated USA focused section was excellent and we were pleased to see one of our favorite galleries, Samson Projects from Boston represented. Below are some of our highlights, as well as our picks from the Armory Show's sister fair, VOLTA - an always excellent solo projects invitational which has finally found a true home at 82 Mercer. To see the full range of highlights, click HERE and be sure to stop by the fairs which are on until Sunday.

Peter Liversidge at Ingleby Gallery #armory

Glenn Kaino "A perfect circle" at  Honor Fraser #armory

Julia Dault at Bob Van Orsouw Gallery #armory

Michael Zelehoski at Ethan Cohen - gorgeous 3d structures collapsed onto a flat picture plane. #volta

huber.huber at Widmer + Theodoridis #voltashow

Congratulations to our friends at Dagny + Barsow who are called "the next Opening Ceremony" by New York Magazine. And that part about "rotating art exhibits" that "drive home the O.C. vibe"? That's US!  We always love a good collaboration and this one with one of NYC's most up and coming stores definitely fills us with joy.  Oh, and can we mention how much we love this necklace? Perfect for Armory week, no?

As an annual right of passage, nothing compares to the Armory Show for signaling the official start of the art fair season in New York. From the parties to the private tours to the ancillary fairs, Armory Week is the main time when we recharge our visual batteries and feat our eyes on the incredible selection of art that comes to New York.  Beyond the main Armory Show at Pier 94 which hosts the top blue chip galleries there are many ancillary fairs around the city that are well worth exploring including Scope, Independent, SPRING/BREAK, Volta, Fountain and more. Finally, since this Armory Show celebrates its centenary in 2013, be on the looking out for special anniversary features and events celebrating 100 years of the art fair that changed New York.

For a full rundown and preview slideshow check out ARTINFO's coverage.

Our Picks:

Fountain Art Fair - Held at the Lexington Avenue Armory from March 8-10th, the Fountain Art fair is both manageable and youthful with a focus on alternative galleries and younger exhibitors. We're looking forward to our friends at Uprise Art's booth who will be showing the work of Robert Otto Epstein.

Volta - Focused on invitational solo artist's projects Volta is always near the front of the pack of the ancillary shows. This year they head to a new venue at 82 Mercer in Soho, much airier than their former midtown digs, and we're interested to see what they'll do in the new space. Their website could also use a bit of an upgrade to lighten up the dark graphics but we like that you can search by Artist or Gallery. We're looking forward to the Kadar Brock piece (above) at The Hole. DCKT and other cool downtown galleries show here.

Moving Image Art Fair - Now into it's 3rd year this fair wins for coolest venue, taking place at the Waterfront Tunnel at 269 11th Ave in Chelsea which proves to be a great venue for showing contemporary video. In past years we've been been pleasantly surprised by the calibre of video art on display and the narrow tunnel lined with suspended video screens actually draws the viewer along the length of the hall, unlike booths which are difficult to nagivate between in the space. Screen shot above from Shopping Heads by Michel Auder from Newman Popiashvili gallery.

Ok, so this post isn't really about our Oscar picks per se (Lincoln was great but soooo long), but rather about one of our favorite Oscar pics of all time. Taken by iconic British photographer Terry O'Neill, who was dating Faye Dunaway at the time, O'Neill captured Dunaway sitting by the pool the morning after the 1977 Oscars during which she had won a statue for Network. Equally languorous and anti-climactic, the photograph stands as one of the most realistic portraits of Hollywood life and O'Neill's unstaged photo is surely as great as any of the films that one that year. O'Neill and Dunaway married in 1984.

If you're out in Chelsea tonight, don't miss Firelei Baez at Morgan Lehmann in the Study: Project Space. We've been fortunate enough to work with Firelei on a special artists' studio project at the Affordable Art Fair and to represent two pieces from her Natural Grooming Series and her work is always multi-layered and fascinating. Her interest in anthropology, post-colonialism & women's studies is expressed in her use of color, texture and pattern leads to a complex and ever changing body of work. Opening tonight at Morgan Lehmann, 6-8 pm, through March 23rd.

If you're in New York's Midtown, fear not that you're in a cultural wasteland - there's a wonderful show on at Pop Gallery in the Atrium that is absolutely not to be missed. "Madiba, Images of Nelson Mandela by Benny Gool" is a moving exhibition of Gool's documentary portraits of one of this (and last) century's most enduring faces. From a blind South African boy feeling Mandela's face to Mandela peering through jail bars upon his return to Robbin Island Gool documented Mandela's life over 3 decades and the results are remarkable. By simply witnessing the passage of one man's incredible life with his camera, Gool has captured more than the man but a force of history and change.