Scalamandre Zanzibar

I love love love this pattern by Scalamandre.

I love the yellow with the zebra stripes, even though it comes in some other stunning colours, I still love the yellow best.

It can really pack a punch in a small space. It is pretty overwhelming and not for the faint hearted. I am a fan of yellow, and zebra's too. So it gets the tick from me.

Funny though, the only one I am not mad for is that beige colourway, I think if you do the Zebra's you must use one of those jewel colours.

http://www.houzz.com/scalamandre

It looks amazing in a bathroom or powder room. How gorgeous is that marble sink too!

This is by Diane Bergeron, stunning!

http://www.bgcustomwindows.blogspot.com.au/

This is combining two of my loves......Yellow Zebras and blinds with a Greek key trim. Ahhhhhh......

I would love to do it one day, but I have a feeling my husband would not be able to live with it, way too bright for him!

Here it is in The Royal Tenambaums. Margot's bathroom is just too cool in the red colourway.






http://www.villa-bisono.com/2011/04/hunting-for-zebras.html

This black room with loads of pattern somehow comes together.







http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/garden/kips-bay-show-house-reinvented-in-a-high-rise.html

The Kips Bay designer show house for 2012 shows us all how it's done. The red gives a sumptuous and luxurious feel.






http://indulgy.com/post/HYMyQa8fN1/kate-spades-guest-bath-green-scalamandre-zebr

Kate Spade's guest bathroom.

Lovely with some black and white for contrast.







http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2012/03/south-coast-collection-oc-mart-mix-.html

If you can't afford a whole wall of zebras, you could make do with a cushion to bring that amazing pattern and colour in to your home.

It is so gorgeous......



Lots of other beautiful fabrics and wallpapers on their website.

http://www.scalamandre.com/

I am warning you now......If you click, you will loose a lot of time due to drooling.

Weekend

I have been flat out on our weekend......

Painting verandahs, mount Everest pile of washing  to do, kids stuff.....

We went to a swimming carnival on the weekend too. That was a big day, the little one is one tired boy going to Preschool today, but he insisted on going.

Lots of good swimming times. A third in backstroke and a fun day out was the order of the day.

We caught some yabbies too in our nets at our dam.

After we got them out of the nets we purged them of the dam water by placing them in my laundry sink with some fresh water. (So you don't get a muddy taste).

This one was a feisty one.

After about 8 hours I put them into a container and placed them in the freezer to put them to sleep.

Once they have about 20 minutes in the freezer, they are good to chuck into the pot. Once red, they were ready.

Sorry no pics of the result, but you can imagine it!

They have tough claws too, so to break into them I use a meat cleaver to crack them open to get the meat out. You just shell them like a prawn and eat them while hot.

Even H ate them. I told him he is now officially allowed to eat lobster as I know he will appreciate it.

And I know Jamie Oliver says no to freezing lobsters and to just chuck them in the pot, but I like to do it the humane way putting them to sleep first.

I thought this was apt.

Hope your weekend was good! x

Happenings

 



 

 

 Loving the Hippeastrums in my garden....

So bright and vibrant!

We have been busy selling cattle too!

Excuse the crappy picture with clothesline in foreground. I shot this through my window as the truck drove past. These truckies are really good, best drivers in Australia! They know to drive past your house really slowly so they don't create a massive amount of dust for me to get cross about!

Three decks of cattle going to the abattoirs in Qld. Not a huge amount, but we are getting ready to sell more in the next few weeks. Lots more ready to go in trucks. busy times!

Then we will be into our harvest after that is done.

And we are getting a few little fellows from all over the place, as they get cheaper as it gets hotter and drier. Lots of cattle to mark once we get them off the truck.

Will post some verandah progress tomorrow.

Nova Scotia Interiors

My closest regional town is Dubbo, so I probably make the trip about once every two months. I haven't been for ages, due to online shopping being so convenient and hassle free.

My air-con in my car broke down and we suffered the heat for two weeks until I could lock it in for a service. This usually requires an early morning dash to Dubbo to leave it at the mechanics as early as possible. The worst thing about it is leaving my car is
a.  not having anywhere to put my stuff.
b. lugging it around with a cranky toddler all day until it is fixed.

I have used taxis in the past when I had important appointments, but it was a pain as Dubbo is a really spread out town.

This time, I asked for a courtesy car.

I thought it would be money well spent, as the pain of only doing a quarter of my jobs and rushing once I got my car back is just not worth it.

It was a little hybrid Camry.

Yeah, you wouldn't miss me hooning around Dubbo in this thing with the many advertising stickers.

When I turned it on I couldn't even hear it, and this one had a button start too. Excuse my lameness, but I had to get a quick lesson on how to turn the car on!

So once we figured out the car, I got on with buying cricket gear, joggers, special swimming gear. (Who knew swimming was such as expensive sport )!

Anyway, I found this lovely shop downtown.

Nova Scotia Interiors

There is an absolute drought of beautiful homewares and furniture shops in Dubbo, so this is a treasure!

Lets take a look inside.....

Love this mirror, can see it hanging over my fireplace.

Gorgeous furniture, great homewares.

Lots of black and white with touches of silver. Love it all!

The lights are to die for.

Christmas display in the window, lovely!

Plenty of Villa Maison furniture. This cabinet is awesome!

Love a black library with ladder. The styling in this shop is really well done too.

Squishy comfy lounge.

Loving the white wicker furniture. I think it would look great on my verandah when it is done!

Sigh.......


I think I love everything in this shop. I did buy some choice items too, I will post that later. I think I know what I want for Christmas..... Everything in this shop!

Pineapple lamp!

I love it, but there was only one in store and it didn't have a shade yet.

As I was lapping the shop while the little Grub was happy in the playroom, I spotted my accountant coming in from out the back. She is a part owner. I told her how awesome I thought it was, and how Dubbo was in desperate need of a beautiful shop like this.

There is a website...

http://www.novascotiainteriors.com.au/

I think I might be popping in again next time I go that way again!

Progress and procrastination

Things are pretty busy here at the moment with kid things taking a lot of my time.

I spent most of Saturday prepping and priming the bits and pieces on my enclosed verandah. I am going to paint the strips before we put them up over the top of the gauze now, because I realised what a painful job it would be if I managed to get paint on the new gauze.

I will paint as much as I can, and then I can touch up later.

Also I realised that I should paint the insides of the frames too, so I don't have the paint-on-gauze problem again.

So off I went to the hardware shop to choose a paint colour.

I went with my gut, I have been agonising over a colour for the verandah interior for ages. But, in the shop I picked the colour in 5 minutes, so I hope my gut is right on the money now!

The interior is going to be a Taubmans paint "London Fog". On the fan deck it is a bit lighter than "Iron Gate" which is my exterior colour.

I am pretty much in love with the Taubmans endure paints. (And this is not sponsored). I love the feel of it, and it is super top quality. Beautiful to paint with and it is so silky and thick too. Their primer is textured like custard and I love it too!

Yeah, heaps to do and lots of fiddly stuff.


I am taking my boys swimming most days now. Older boy trains 3-4 days a week and younger one does twice a week. Older boy is in the hardcore group and he will probably be doing 5-6 days once it gets hotter.

The little one will be learning how to swim once the pool warms up a bit too. I can't stress how important is is to get your kids swimming while they are young. And you do have to put the hours in, otherwise they lose it and find it hard when they want to keep up with their mates.

If you have kids, do yourself a massive favour and get your kids swimming early - it is so important for us, when there are dams and rivers and so much danger on the farm.

Enough of that rant..... On to the procrastination part of the post.

The garden is pretty at the moment.

Love my avenue of Chinese Elms (trampoline in the middle).

I transplanted these Hippeastrums from my old garden. Only planted them in Feb and I thought they were dead. They were my grandmothers, and she was a champion gardener. She gave me 6 bulbs and they have multiplied lots over the years. Love them!

Ignore the weeds!

Tidied up my arch so you can actually walk under it. It is a white potato vine.

The Cattleman decided to mow the yard for me, it makes everything look awesome! This plumbago is in desperate need of a trim too. The aggies need some weeding love, but the thing I am most surprised at is the lawn.

The whole yard had a bobcat levelling it all last year and I didn't plant a single runner. It is the toughest lawn in the world as it braved 6 years of total neglect when no one was living in my house. Amazing!

This is what one fat spring lamb look like in esky form.

We did one yesterday and one today, I feel like the luckiest woman in the world that we have the yummiest lamb on tap whenever we want. And I feel so lucky that the Cattleman is such a good butcher too, it's a real dying art too - not many people know how to do their own animals.

I keep telling the boys how lucky they are to have yummy lamb to eat whenever we want it. I know how much everyone else pays for it, so we are lucky, lucky, lucky........


Hopefully more progress soon as I stop procrastinating so much on the mammoth painting task.

Laura Ashley Home 2013

I just discovered the Laura Ashley Home magazine for 2013 is out now.

I do love to flip through the pages online, but I prefer the hard copy you get in store. It really is a beautiful thick book, and I always find some inspiration in it. The mag is available in store or you can buy it online. I find that the ladies in store usually give me a copy for free, which is great.

Lets take a peek at some stuff inside...

This is classic Laura Ashley. A pale shade of blue with cream is a staple in their collection year after year.

I love a neutral look. This is divine!

I know that I would get sick of it though! If I didn't change the cushions around to some colour once in a while.

Still, a very peaceful room.

This is a bit more "On trend". I love the geometric curtains. I really love that pattern. Laura funks it up!

Still so restful.

They are the kings (or Queens) of homewares that won't date quickly.

Gorgeous blues - love that wallpaper in the arches.

This is spectacular too!

I really love that paisley on the curtains and the wall. Matching perfection at it's best.


There is plenty more images in the catalogue. Here's the link.

http://www.laura-ashley.com.au/Magazine/Magazine-Detail.aspx


Shabby Chic still goes strong for L A.

Personally, I am a bit over pink cabbage roses on everything. I am so glad I didn't go nuts decorating everything Shabby Chic when I was over the moon for it. Especially with a male household, my boys aren't fans of pink and white rooms. I really love neutrals with elements of Shabby Chic though if you know what I mean.


The only thing about the catalogue that I am not really mad about is the fact that there are NO PRICES in there. So if you want to find out how much that gorgeous chandelier is, you must ring them up for a quote. 




I could spend a fortune just on blinds and curtains there.. Sigh.


Are you over Shabby Chic, or is it still your favourite and your best?

Do you love any of these rooms?

Let me know, I love to know how people feel about trends.

Verandah

We have been looking into some blinds or awnings to put on our verandah on the western side. The sun beats down through the end of our enclosed verandah and heats up our lounge room in the summer. I am pretty keen on some side channel awnings that are sort of like blinds in the way they work. They have a side channel (duh, that's why they got their name). Which keeps the blind in place without flapping about too much. You twist the bottom of the blind to release it to whatever length you would like.

Here's a pic of it.

Ok, the blind won't go right to the floor of my verandah and it will go on the outside of the house instead of the interior. I am going to have to choose a colour and a fabric. I am thinking black and white or grey and white stripes.

So, husband likes to fiddle around when he is measuring up. And he decided to replace the gauze on the verandah while we are going, as there are some tiny holes that are getting bigger for the mozzies to make their way inside.

He was only going to re-gauze the corner, it turned into the whole thing. Story of my life. The smallest jobs become huge tasks around here!

This is the Western side that we will put the blinds on and we will wrap it around the corner. Eventually we may put awnings around the whole house. But that may be some time away yet.

I am still plodding along with the house painting. It seems like I have a million weatherboards to prep and paint. I am doing this myself, so it is a really slow process.

Still going.

We removed the timber holding the gauze in place, some of it split - so it will be replaced. We bought some heavy duty gauze, and my job is to prep, prime and paint this baby quickly so the gauze can go in. I can't open my doors and if we want a breeze it won't happen with the millions of flies coming in!

My old trellis is in the background of this pic behind the barbecue. It was in pretty bad shape and rotten so it had to go. I don't know if I want to put another one there, or if I will leave the space alone.

It opens it right up!

I am still plodding along painting the pergola with the Palm Beach Black, it is a massive task that I didn't realise would take me so long to do. I love it, but it has been a massive labour of love, and I always laugh when family members have asked me why I painted my pergola with sump oil!

Most bloody expensive sump oil in Australia!

My favourite tree in the whole garden is coming into leaf.

And my favourite dog is looking really cute all the time!

Ted is still a baby, and a real softy.

Hope your week is going well!

I am off to paint this thing now, may be away for a while. Will post progress pics.