My home in Real Living

I've been a little hush hush about this but I'm so excited to now tell you that my home has been featured in the November issue of Real Living which is out in stores now! If you'd like to see it check out pages 132-138 but I'll see if I can post some images of it to show you.

The photo shoot took place last month. Jason Grant worked his magic styling up my home, Nick Scott photographed the story and Natalie Walton wrote the article. It was such a fun experience!

A big thank you to the Real Living team and to Belinda for making this happen. I'm still pinching myself.

Also, apologies to anyone who might live near me - I may have bought every copy at the local newsagency.

New giveaway winner

Aww, the weekend is over. I hope yours was a fun one though.

Unfortunately I haven't received the previous winner's address details over the last 2 weeks and I really want to see this cushion cover go to a reader's home. I have therefore randomly selected a new winner via random.org and the winner is.....

*** Lydia Lobb ***

Congratulations Lydia! Please contact me at viv [at] ishandchi [dot] com with your address details and I will forward them onto Hettle to send you out your gift.

Planning a party for a 1 year old

I cannot believe my little boy will be turning 1 soon. Wow. We are celebrating by throwing a party for him - circus style. No surprise there considering all the circus themed posts over the last year.

The invitations have been sent out. Party is not for a few weeks. The ideas for the invitations are a combination of these circus party invitations by Caroline Drake of the blog Armelle and this wedding invitation found here. I swapped the invitation fonts for circus style fonts and wrote a little story about my son's first year of life.

I'm pretty sure there are spelling or grammatical errors in the invitation wording so please don't look too closely.

Along with the invitation, each guest also received an 'admission ticket' similar to Caroline's party invitations. I was a little worried I would insert the incorrect amount of tickets into each envelope so I enlisted my husband to help me count and re-count the number of tickets per family. Imagine a family of 4 receiving 3 tickets!

So tell me, have you found any ideas in the big wide blog world that have inspired you to try them out too? Feel free to share in the comments below.

See you next week! I'm off to plan activities for the party.

(Images by me. Ideas by the super creative bloggers mentioned above.)

More of Helena's home

While I was browsing through Helena Schaeder Söderberg photos of her daughter Elin's room for yesterday's post I found myself falling in love with her daughter Annie's room too. Is this not the most perfect little girl's room?




Now before I run off to show my husband these photos and try to convince him that white floorboards and children can live in the same house, I also wanted to share with you one of my favourite corners of Helena's home.

The bookcase was built using pineboard and houses the families collection of children's books. I'm so inspired!

You can see more photos of Helena's beautiful home here.

I just love new fabrics

Especially pretty, girly ones. I think I'll make some butterflies or hearts with these.


They remind me of the wallpaper used in this beautiful nursery.

(First two photos of Tanya Whelan Darla fabrics taken by me. Nursery photos by Helena Schaeder Söderberg via decor8)

Laundry progress extra

I couldn't resist. I had some leftover wallpaper and paint so I used it here.

I'm probably the only person that would consider using wallpaper in a laundry room cupboard but it sure beats the way it looked before. It gave me a reason to clean it out too and store things away properly.

And I still have paper leftover not to mention the other roll I bought - ahh! I must step away from the wallpaper paste...

Laundry progress

The laundry is almost there. See the original plans here.

I also picked up a new bed for our cat from Ikea. She likes to sleep here up high and look out the window to the left of this photo.

How I wish I could replace the apricot toilet. Never mind. The side table was a market find a while back that I painted white. I also painted the blue horizontal stripes on the wall.

The sink skirt also posted here.

Baskets picked up from Ikea and I printed the labels. I'm not usually this organised!

Cabinet knobs replaced with these crystal ones.

Below is the before shot to compare to. The changes are small but we have added additional storage and the bathroom doesn't make me cringe as it did before.

Still to do:

- Install a hanging light fitting in the bathroom
- Decide whether or not to paint the laundry walls or leave as is
- Hang a blind in the bathroom
- Maybe paint floor tiles white (I know I shouldn't as it won't last long but I have the tile paint and it is tempting me)

See the original plans here. I have a little decorating extra in this room which I'll share with you tomorrow.

Spring Festival

(My son will be very embarrassed of his mother one day...)

I couldn't have asked for a more perfect weekend. We celebrated my dad's birthday, met our friend's little newborn boy (I can't believe my son was that small once!), had dinner with friends and visited the local Spring Festival. I just love this time of the year. These photos were taken from the festival with my digital camera. I also have some photos which were taken with my new Polaroid camera. I'll share those with you another time.

Hope you had a fun weekend. I'll be back tomorrow to show you progress photos of the laundry.

Bright pink and white

Images via Asos and Kelley Interior Design

This home has a circus history hence the bold colour scheme. I think it works well here. Read more about this home at Material Girls

Images via Roxxn.com

This isn't a colour I would normally consider for my home but I suppose the warmer weather has me attracted to it lately. I can see it looking great in an all white interior with just a touch of bright pink.

I'm enjoying these images today.

A pretty wall

The colours. The birds. The butterflies. So sweet. I'm inspired.

PS: Thank you for your kind comments on my blog birthday post! I'm loving the suggestions already posted. Please keep your suggestions coming!

(Image via here)

I'm 1 today

I made it through my first year of blogging! This time last year I was 7 months pregnant, always hungry and looking for inspiration for my son's nursery which inspired the start up of this blog. And what a ride it has been since then. I'm so grateful for your supportive comments and for giving me the courage to share photos of my home. I've had so much fun and made some lovely blogging friends.

Here is a snapshot of images from the last year:


And here's to another year ahead! If there is anything you particularly like or want to see more of, please feel free to share in the comments below. I would LOVE your feedback. But please keep it positive. I'm a sensitive soul.

Hehe, cheers!

(Images all by me except for middle of third row. Embroidery hoops by ComTradição via Flickr)

Giveaway winner

Goodmorning! What a great way to start the week - announcing the winner of this beautiful cushion. I'm a little late this morning announcing the winner so I won't delay it any further. The winner of the giveaway is... Audra of Green Meadow Lane!

Congratulations! Please contact me at viv [at] ishandchi [dot] com with your address details and I will forward them onto Hettle to send you out your gift.

Pink front door

I knew there was no way my husband would agree to painting our front door pink but it was still priceless to see his reaction. He may have uttered the words "Not in this lifetime". Haha...

Oh well. I still like it.

(Image via pink wallpaper - a lovely blog full of incredible inspiration!)

Looking for something to do this weekend?

Why not take an old dresser and paint it pink.


Or purple.


Or blue.

Or maybe make a dress? I hope you don't mind if I share with you the one I finished making today using the Spotlight fabric I bought. It's more of a sack than a dress but I tried.

It still needed to be hemmed here. I'm happy with it and all its (many) imperfections and it only cost $20! Now to find the confidence to wear it out...

Or simply put your feet up and relax. Have a wonderful weekend whatever you choose to do (or not do) and see you on Monday when I'll announce the winner of the giveaway.

(Images Restyled Home, Desire to Inspire, James Merrell, mermerings, me)

A little reminder

For your chance to win this cushion by Hettle.

All you need to do is follow this blog by clicking on the 'Follow' button at the top left. If you already do - merci!

Winner will be announced next Monday 14 September, 9am EST. Good luck!

But I only wanted craft glue

I knew there was a reason why I avoided Spotlight. I walked in looking for craft glue and left with this.


I shouldn't have walked in there with an empty stomach. Oh wait, that's grocery shopping.

Here's the plan:

- Store my prints etc in the Martha Stewart paper box. I wasn't going to buy it (I originally baulked at the price) but my fingers were super glued to the box so I had to get it.

- Make a dress with the purple dot fabric and elastic. Mummmmm help!

- Use the red dot fabric for my son's upcoming birthday party. Here's a hint of what I plan to do with it.

- The embroidery hoops are a secret. I'm making a gift for a friend.

- And the thin paintbrush and glue are for my craft projects.

The garden

The garden survived winter. Hooray!

There is still a lot to do but the garden is coming along nicely. We recently planted a fig tree, orange trees and a dwarf pink lady apple tree. We also planted a small vegie patch - lettuce, spinach, tomatoes and strawberries. Mmm...

The mulberry tree has its leaves back, the big ol' tree out back has a pretty vine growing up the trunk, the hydrangeas are no longer tiny and our lemon tree finally has lemons. Happy days.