Monday, January 31, 2011

Clever DIY Artwork


I love seeing what intersting artwork other people come up with for their own houses, and Chair Up's hallway was no exception! I saw it in a post, and loved the texture of it, thinking it would have cost her a mint for something so clever and interesting. Then I read that she made it herself with some plumbing parts she found in Bunnings!

GENIUS!!!
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Friday, January 28, 2011

Gray & Yellow








I love the elephant artwork that was made for Erin by a caring friend, so cute!
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Thursday, January 27, 2011

Sunshine on my window. Makes me (un)happy

Hmph, I had a huge post written, but seems Blogger decided to eat it.

As you well know, when we renovated our kitchen we put in a glass sliding door as our back door. Whilst it lets in lots of lovely natural sunlight, it has a bad side - it lets in lots of lovely natural sunlight.

A blind was in order. But what kind of blind was best suited to our needs? It needed to block out light, be reasonably slimline, and match our interior theme of being neutral. I originally planned timber venetians, but they would be terrible impracticable. Mesh roller blinds were within our budget, but didn't block out enough light.

Enter blockout drapes from Freedom

Best part was that we got them on sale post Christmas. The entire job came in at less than $150, the most expensive part being the curtain rod! Another job off the list :D

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Happy Australia Day

Today is Australia Day, the day where I really am thankful to live in this big, vast land of both wet and dry (and sometimes both at the same time).

Recently I was amazed at the generosity of many Australians, as they helped strangers clean their places in Brisbane after the floods. Strangers giving a helping hand to strangers. Then I saw it with my own eyes as Victoria started to flood too. The amount of people that rang my work to volunteer to help anyone who was affected by the floods. People who probably had a million better things to do on their summer holidays. It was tear-worthy to watch (hey, I am pregnant, my hormones make me cry at Oprah for Pete's sake!)

So on this Wednesday the 26th January, otherwise known as Australia Day, I plan to spend my day listening to an inspirational Australian (Fr Bob McGuire) at my local Australia Day celebration, eat a snag or two, pick up some bargains in the city, and take a trip the most un-Australian place ever (Ikea). All whilst being thankful for the land I call home.

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Monday, January 24, 2011

Indian Inspired Bed Linen

I love bedlinen, often wishing we had a bigger house so I could buy more (bigger house = more beds).

I would so buy this Rickshaw Designs set, in green, for our house. If it was available in red I would have already brought it for our current house!
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Sunday, January 23, 2011

We're Halfway There...

(sorry, am singing some random song that was on the radio the other morning and is still in my head!)

So, we have officially made it past the halfway mark. It is all starting to seem real now...and very scary!
After my surgery in December, I was freaked out by everyone asking me how the baby was. Oddly enough, despite asking about my baby as soon as I came through from the anesthetic, I wasn't overly concerned as I was still feeling movement quickening. But then I let everyone get into my head and freaked out.

Luckily my Obstetrician booked me in for my scan a little bit earlier than normal, just to settle my nerves. Everything was perfect. Our dates are spot on, and it looks like we will be having a tall baby going by the size of his/her legs. I was a little disappointed with the quality of the ultrasound, I would have liked to have seen the baby in 3D like a number of my friends have, but I can always have that done later on.

And now that we are half way, it means there is a deadline for when things need to be brought by - which in my world means shopping :D Yay!!!

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Friday, January 21, 2011

Quilts

As I have mentioned previously, my mum is a quilter and said that she will make as many quilts as I like for the baby or myself. The only thing is I have to go through all the pattern books, a task I have been avoiding doing for the last 6 years that she has been quilting.

So every now and then I save random pictures I find on the internet of quilts that I have fallen in love with.

Here is a few that have caught my fancy.
A simple block quilt in shades of pink, blue and green for a little girl.

A beautiful red toille quilt with a checker pattern through it.

A simple seems exposed block quilt. I love this one, as it is in flannel from Riley Blake's Love Birds series. The exposed seems make the quilt so soft and snuggly, as well as adding visual interest to the quilt.
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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Beautiful Artwork


I was browsing Project Nursery recently, and found this nursery that I thought was adorable. However I didn't pay a great deal of attention to the artwork above the crib until later that night when I wondered if it came in other colours. So I found the seller, and the listing for the artwork, and it does! I originally was going to put it in the nursery, but I think I have changed my mind and decided it would look better in our bedroom on the wall near our built in robe.




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Monday, January 17, 2011

Shades of Light

With the exception of two lights in our house, everything is ceiling mounted downlights. I prefer how unobtrusive they are in a room. However, when we renovated our hallway we decided to keep the hanging pendant light, mainly because it helped the 3.3m high ceilings not seem so high. I was never a fan of the light shade in the hallway, but never quite got around to changing it either.

I spotted the Fuji Pendant shade in Freedom recently, and although I thought it was lovely, I left it in the store as I wasn't sure it would suit our house. It took me a good month of thinking before I decided to go back and buy it.

Unfortunately it didn't suit our hallway, it was too modern in a fairly old room, and it was too high for anyone to admire its beauty. Major disappointment. My frown soon turned upside down when I realised I could put it in our office, which has regular 2.4m ceilings, and it would suit.

Ignore that our light is hanging from the ceiling by the light cable and isn't actually screwed in place - we managed to break the light fitting quite some time ago and still haven't got around to replacing the batten fitting. Must do that when I go to collect the rest of the electrical goods for the spare room

Close up of the cutout detail on the side of the shade.

My favourite part is the underside of the shade though. It hides the bulb and leaves a soothing patern on everything

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Friday, January 14, 2011

Quick - Someone make a decision for me

Quick, someone make a decision for me, I can't decide on a nursery colour.

The nursery will look much the same as our bedroom, only with white furniture rather than timber.
Same paint. Same carpet. Same curtains.

I was set on red, but then couldn't find the co-ordinating fabric that I wanted. Everything was either stripes, dots or floral. If we have a boy, the husband might not be overly approving of florals.

Then I was going through my fabric stash, and found my Joel Dewberry Avery range, and remembered it came in orange. Unfortunately it is now discontinued and buying yards of fabric is as rare as Mr Burns being friendly on an episodes of the Simpsons.

I had a brief affair with yellow, as I do like yellow, but feared it would look washed out in the room.


Then came green. I have always been a green fan, even though I rid my house of being painted it, I still like it. (yes, I know there is floral, it could be replaced with spots or something).

I want something that I can mix another colour with when we find out the babies gender in June, but I don't really want to have to redecorate when the baby is here. What do you think?

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Thursday, January 13, 2011

Printed Artwork







I can't quite remember how I managed to find Winterberry Cottage, it could have been from someone elses blog, but I am oddly drawn to them, loving that they use old dictionary pages as the background, and then print an image on the front.

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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

A Sophisticated Girls Room

A friend recently directed me to Project Nursery where I spent most of my Sunday browsing some very beautiful nurseries.


One of my favourites was this little girls nursery, which the owner amkbrown describes as being "A sweet, simple & sophisticated nursery for our baby girl".







How sweet are the subtle touches of pink in an otherwise gender neutral nursery. I love that it doesn't scream 'nursery' however it clearly belongs to a little girl. If you replace the pink with red, you have what I want to achieve in my own nursery eventually.

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Monday, January 10, 2011

Mobiles - Planes


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Friday, January 7, 2011

Apprently I am Stylish?

Clearly Kel and Cat are delusional LOL!!!


The lovely Cat from Life in Cat's Pyjamas, and Kel from Natsukashii, have both awarded me a Stylish Blogger. Delusional as they may be, I am touched they think of me like that.

My requested tasks to receive this award are:
* Thank and link back to the person(s) who gave me this award.
* Share 7 things about myself.
* Pay it forward to 15 recently discovered great bloggers.
* Contact those bloggers and tell them about the award.

7 Things About Me That I Haven't Already Told You:
1. I have an unhealthy addiction to trashy TV shows. Shows directed at teenagers are my favourite (think Dawsons Creek, Greek, The Secret Life etc)
2. I can't use a battery drill to save my life. 
3. I class walking around the shops as exercise. Same with the mailbox.
4. I will only wear Bonds Hipster undies. Fancy undies freak me out.
5. I remember the most random things. I can tell you what I wore on my first proper date with the husband 7 years ago (Sportsgirl wide leg jeans, a tan coloured singlet and a dark brown cardigan with brown boots).
6. I have started 2 degrees and one diploma and finished none.
7. Speaking of degrees, I actively avoid having to pay my HECS debt. I was shattered when I was given a payrise last year as it meant I had to start paying it back.


15 Blogs I Think Are Great, in no particular order:
A View on Design
My Town Cottage
Airing My Dirty Laundry...
At Play
Boots and Totty
Life In The Country Lane
Russet Street Reno
So Frenchy So Chic
Stuff That I Brought
Undomestic Mumma
Things That I Never Knew
Ninja Tales
Blondie
Cupkates
Project Nursery

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Thursday, January 6, 2011

Bathroom - FINISHED

Oh. My. God. Stop the press. The husband and I have finally finished renovating a room! You have no idea how excited I am about this!

Whilst off work between Christmas and New Years, I opened every door and window in the house, found myself a face mask, and painted the skirting boards in the bathroom with some low odour paint (Dulux Aquaenamel in Semi Gloss for those interested - has the appearance of enamel with the ease of use of water based paint).

A couple of hours later I pulled off a mountain of blue tape, to be left with lovely painted skirting boards in crisp Hogs Bristle Quarter.

Oh how lovely it is to sit on the loo and not look at a 'must do' task. Not that you needed to know that. Pin It