Chipped China Jewelry

Now this is a fabulous idea I haven't seen before. Gorgeous jewelry from Shop Yarborough made from chipped china plates. Amazing!

Via Paper n Stitch

Collecting vintage

lottielulu's flickr

What a fabulous thing to collect - vintage patterns! Goodness, it makes me want to have a little girl so bad!!

I have started a couple of collections in my lifetime, but my current obsession is vintage plateware and teacups and old house-wife guides and cooking books. I just picked up a new batch of books today from the 1920s! One of the cooking books describes such things as -

pineapple pie

rhubarb fool

passion fruit butter

It even lists pages and pages of cleaning tips involving borax (I don't even know what that is). There's instructions on how to make a bath mat out of sugar bags and a recipe to "Make us happy and also agreeable to other people"

1 lb. of good temper

2 lbs. of forebearance

1 lb. of patience

1 1/2 lbs. of contentment

3 lbs. of unselfishness

1 lb. of fun

2 lbs. of cheerfulness

Mix well with 2 quarts of milk of human kindness.

Dose: 1 wine glassful first thing in the morning; to be repeated as soon as effect wears off.

Hilarious! Do you have any collections hiding in somewhere?

Exercise the french way

Ok. If I owned this delight of a bike, I would actually want to exercise. I can see it now, little basket on the back with my goodies from the farmer's market, white sandshoes, navy and white stripe singlet, some cute shorts,  maybe a scarf. I'd be getting fit and feeling parisian all at once. Perfect!

Pic from the cherry blossom girl

5 things that make me happy!

 mini trends and co. Not sure where originally from.

1. Bright and happy interiors

2. My husband

3. Slipping into bed with crispy clean white sheets

elle decor

4. A clean house all week long! (I wish)

 5. My puppies, Harry and Buster

Harry pictured on my new bedroom chair (which was picked up for only $100 from my fave vintage store and which my clever mother-in-law recovered).

What makes you happy?

Take a seat...

I could happily live with any of these rooms, but especially the second one!

All photo's from Living Etc.

A little corner of my home..

I need to take more 'before' pictures! This is our dining/breakfast part of our lounge room. We've put in a new windows, I painted the chairs white and recovered the cushions (they were dark timber with a tartan cover..), painted the walls very white and have started to put together a little art wall. It's very relaxing and I'm very excited to have one part of the house (albeit just a small part) somewhat finished. We've been renovating for five years on a budget, so it's nice to finally get to the decorating phase in some rooms!

Sunroom heaven

There's so much to love here. The white, the crochet, the twig art, the wallpapered wall, the lightshade..

Check out more here and here.

PS. The wedding was fabulous. Congratulations Amber and Pete!

A wedding weekend

It's Amber's (my sister in law) wedding tomorrow! Congratulations Amber and Pete!!!

That's a happy snap from my wedding. I love my mum (in purple on the left) in this photo - I wonder what someone just said to her??

If this was your bedroom...

Wouldn't you feel permanently on holiday?

So calming and relaxing with its muted tones and filtered light.

marie claire maison

My perfect craft space

country living

Yes, this is perfect. Not too neat, so I don't feel like I'll mess it up if I start something and with enough surrounding beautiful objects to play with so I'll be inspired.

By the way, have you seen this crafty website. I've spent hours and hours going through it. I'd love to do some crafty things right now, but I've got a job application to do....... :(
I really want the job, I'm just totally procrastinating doing the application.

Sunny Monday

How great is yellow?! I could see myself relaxing in this sunroom, especially during these warm spring days. If only I didn't have to go to work...

Image via countryliving.com

Amber's Bridal Shower

We suprised Amber (my sister in law) with a bridal shower today at a lovely tea house. We blind-folded her all the way from her house so she had no idea where we were going... it was fabulous. I had everyone fill out the note in the first photo and read it out just before present time. It was so touching, there were quite a few tears as everyone read out their favourite memory of Amber and why her and Pete (hubby to be) are perfect for each other.

I printed them out from a template I found on 100 Layer Cake. They came out so beautiful on some Christina Re linen paper.

I am totally coveting that china also!

Having a party?

What a great idea for placecards from Timeless Paper. So pretty and so very delicate. Kind of makes me want to have a party ... well it is the weekend!!

Via Housemartin

My gingham and jug love

from dreamhouse and isabella smith

So gorgeous. It just makes me want to get into the kitchen and whip up some cupcakes!

Madelines!

saidos da concha flickr stream

Goodness I'm tired. Is it too early to start the count down for the weekend? Lucky I found this picture of these gorgeous madelines to keep me motivated to make something lovely for dinner tonight!

Knitted tea towels

Knitted tea towels! Did you ever see anything so sweet?? And they are in my favourite kitchen accessory colours: red and white. Not sure how well they'd work though..

Via the Purl Bee

Isn't this a great idea?

Covering floating shelves with fabric?

Find instructions here.

Happy Monday!

How Fab Designs

the fab miss b

the love shop

Hi Friends,

Hope you had a great weekend! I woke up this morning and it so does not feel like a work day today... My sister in law is getting married next week (Oh my goodness Amber - we can now say "next week", so exciting). I digress... where was I. Oh yes, upcoming nupitals always making me feel the love. I literally feel my heart expand and I spend my days thinking about how lucky I am to have married Benny. Plus my second wedding anniversary is coming up and I would love to surprise him with a huge print professing my love for him. The second one would be cute because our first dance was to Harry Connick Jnr's It had to be you.

The first one made the cut because I'm writing this before 9am and I haven't had a coffee yet!

Candace xo

A weekend full of possibilities

Hi Lovely Friends,

I can't tell you how excited I was to receive so many comments on my last post!! I love blogging and I love all your blogs!! Thank you so much for stopping by - I really love having you visit!

How great is it to have a whole weekend ahead. I don't have too many plans, other than I'm still working on my curtains. There's a lot involved.. I didn't realise. Benny is going to a bachelor party, so I'm going to stay home and do things you can only do when you're by yourself - I'm going to watch An Affair to Remember, paint my nails and dance around the house to awesome (read: bad) music and have some red wine.

Have a good one!
Candace
xo

photo: we heart it

Seventeen, fifties style

I have a confession to make - there's something that fascinates me about the era when women stayed at home and were not expected to work. I always wonder how that dynamic worked in their marriages and how they felt in themselves.... anyway.. enough about me. Check out this Seventeen cover from 1957 that I found on weheart-it. How I would love to have a flick through one of these!