Happy Spring!

Love this time of year. Happy Spring to everyone in the Southern Hemisphere.

Image via Australian Country Style Sept 09

Summer fun

I think this necklace would be super fun to wear in summer. What do you think?

Can be found here

In the Garden

I thought I'd share some photos I took this afternoon whilst in the garden. We've had a busy week re-mulching the gardens in preparation for a hot summer. Also, we had about 700m2 of turf laid today. Living on acreage is wonderful, but it's expensive too. Everything you do is on a LARGE scale.

As you can imagine, they smell divine .....

Our family of meerkats (all the way from Africa)

My feathered friend

He was asking so nicely for his mince

Two mates

Something that gives me so much joy is being able to walk into my own garden and select flowers and foliage to arrange in the house. Here is what is in our home this week.

I have absolutely no idea what this is called, so if you could help me out, I'd appreciate it.

Azelia's

Wishing you a wonderful weekend.

Orange & Aqua

These fun and fresh colours scream summer. Love, love, love them!

All images David Crane Photography and Sean Twomey Photography via SMP. Wedding designed an styled by Your Bash.

Friendship

Image via my BFF Keren. And you're so welcome. xox

We are all dreaming of Africa

Hmmm .... hopefully we'll make a decision this week.

All images courtesy of CC Africa, our safari company of choice when wanting to view the Big Five!

More blog thanks

A quick but heartfelt thanks to the super talented Kate from Sambellina for featuring Olivia's party this week.

If you haven't seen her gorgeous range of kids partyware, do yourself a favour and check it out.

I used the pink and white and red and white for Olivia's party. I'm also planning of using thr preppy blue, red and white colour way for William's birthday in January. We are planning a Hampton's themed BBQ at twilight.

Thank you Kate for the mention!

Friday favourites

Thought I'd share some images that have captured my imagination this week. Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Image 1 - Anna Spiro's home via In My House via Content Agency Image 2 - Among the Hedgerows flickr, Image 3 - Mandy Lynne flickr, Image 5 - unknown, Image 4 - Windsor Smith via HB via Oliveaux, Image 6 - Rebecca Tabor Armstrong via Mary Ruffle, Image 7 - unknown, Image 8 - Photography by james waddell for domino magazine november 2008 via This is Glamorous

Memories

A few weeks back we headed up the Sunshine Coast to spend some quality time with my Dad. We had a wonderful time and it gave Dad a reason to get out of the house and visit the beach each day.

Dad gave us some wonderful news while we were there. Two of his tumours have reduced considerably in size and in a very short time frame. To say we were thrilled is an understatement!

Love you Dad.

Wonder filled weekend

Here's to a great weekend. We have a 5th birthday party to go to, so I've been busy today making a lego cake, a treasure chest cake and a heap of cupcakes!

For those of you who liked my last post with that gorgeous house that sparked my love affair with all things Hamptons, here is our home as it stands today. Looking forward to living through a few more spring and summer seasons, to help the garden on it's way. None the less, we love it all the same. It's a joy to come home to each day.

If you would like to see more of our home click here. Black & Spiro have just launched their website and we are proud to featured as one of their clients.

Image courtesy of Black & Spiro

The beginning

This is the image that started my love affair with American New England Architecture. If I remember correctly, this was in an O at Home magazine. Isn't this home just perfect?

House tour :: Part 2 :: Guest Bedroom and Ensuite

Welcome to my second home tour :: guest bedroom and ensuite. Thank you for the warm response you gave my first home tour post. Your comments were very much appreciated.

At little background about this room. Being the guest room, this was one of the rooms I decided we could scale back with regards to budget. We reused our master bedroom furniture in this room and added a wing back chair, side table, new lamps, new bedding and cushions and gorgeous ticking drapes. All of these items where selected by Anna at Black & Spiro. The lovely original oil paintings on the bedsides are by Canadian artist Janet Hill. I love her work and have my fair share of her work hanging here.

I've moved on from the style of furniture we reused and will most likely paint the bedside tables and might have an upholstered bedhead made down the track. But in saying that, I am very pleased with the result and it certainly has proven popular with our overnight guests.

The light that streams into this room is just beautiful. It is on the ground level and just to the right of the front door. It is our kitties favourite place to lay in the sun. There is also a little landing off the french doors which I'm searching for an old chair and table set to place there.

I adore the powder room. It houses a larger shower & WC. When selecting pieces for this room, Anna certainly converted me into being a "furniture in bathroom" lover. I find all too often that bathrooms are stark and not warm and welcoming. We visited the New Farm Antique together and purchased the wot not stand. I wasn't entirely convinced at first, but after it was painted I was in heaven. I just love it!

I also think the old display cabinet Anna found on eBay is a gem. We had a piece of mirrored glass placed in the front door and painted it white. It's the perfect medicine cabinet. It has loads of character and charm.

I found the little old barley twist stool on eBay and had it upholstered in a fabric Anna selected. There was just enough fabric left over to make two little scatter cushions that now sit on the guest bed.

And last but not least, I always 'try' to have a little posy of flowers in the powder room. It certainly makes you feel cheery when you walk in!

Hope you have enjoyed my second home tour.

More thanks

Just like to say thank you to both Rachel at Black Eiffel and With this Ring for their posts on Olivia's birthday party. It's so nice to see other's enjoying what I created for Olivia's special day! I would also like to thank Leanne again for photographing the day. You are the sweetest! xx

Holiday snaps

Both images Sharnel Dollar