A CHILDHOOD COLLECTION

I've been doing a little research for a project that I'm doing and it has made me very nostalgic for old childrens books. I love books and have been building up a little library for a while in the hope that one day my house will look like this! My favourites will always be Winnie-the-Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Peter Rabbit.

I also went to visit my Grandma this weekend and managed to raid her bookshelf for this great collection of Junior Deluxe Editions. So much to read and so little time!

AN ORGANISED MESS

This, my friends, is where I spend a lot of my time (when I'm not at work that is). My home office is a busy little station full of little nick knacks and crafts that I use frequently. It's an eclectic mess but I know just where everything is!

This microwave (above) is one of my favourite things... As odd as it sounds! It was our family microwave when I was growing up. It's really old and was just waiting to throw in the towel, so when it did, I ripped off the door and it's now a handy little shelf for my books. The clock on it still works too when I plug it in. Reduse, reuse, recycle!

What do your home offices look like?
On another note, head on over to Rustique Wedding Designs, the lovely Casey was kind enough to feature our wedding :) There is some seriously cool stuff there is you want to get inspired! xx

MR CLIVE STAPLES

Im afraid it has been quite a long time since I've done a drawing in my little brown notebook and it was about time I got it out again! For my next page I decided to do an ode to C.S. Lewis. I've been a fan of
his writting for a long time and thought it would be nice to sketch him. You can see my other notebook drawings here.

And like my drawing of Bethany Cosentino, I decided to have a play with photoshop and do something a bit more creative.

JUST PEACHY

Brendon and I will quite often go for a Sunday drive, exploring the Waikato, looking at houses and just general daydreaming. On this particular day we stumbled across a train track and even though we are in the middle of winter the day and the light were just beautiful. We couldn't help but stop and take a few shots. PS. loving geometric patterns!

A TABLE FOR MY COFFEE

One of the bonuses of having a builder for a husband is getting custom made furniture :) We've been in need of a coffee table for quite some time now and so we embarked on our first real "project" together. I drew up a picture of what I wanted, Brendon put it together and I painted it. We had a lot of fun doing it and already have a few more projects up our sleeves for a rainy day. Hopefully it will be good practice for one day (fingers crossed) renovating our own home.

Below are a few pics of the process (I've always been one who enjoys the process as much as the final product). We did most of it at night after work so the quality isn't great, but you get the gist. We recycled the wood from an old rimu cupboard as well as some sarking boards which we used for the top. We were wanting it to be a bit "rustic" so using recycled materials was great as the wood already had character.

 

For the faces of the draws I painted a mint coloured base coat followed by Elmers School Glue. Once the glue was tacky I painted a thick white coat on top, which then cracked as the glue dried. To prevent getting water marks/stains on the top of the table we used Briwax in clear. We didn't want the table to have a shine on it and we didn't want to alter the colour of the wood. The Briwax was perfect!

MR + MRS COATS

On April 14 my two lovely friends James and Cara May wed. Such a joyous occasion! I created their Order of Service to match their Invitations. And with my VERY amateur video making skills I've tried to show how it works. On the surface it looks like a double sided sheet, but it folds three times to reveal four different sides. A very similar design that I used for my own wedding.

The two of them had the most gorgeous outdoor wedding under a great big tree right beside the water. Magic! I couldn't be happier for the two of them :)

After the ceremony Brendon and I managed to find this rustic old mint coloured door which I loved! Naturally, we took a few snaps next to it :)

MINT.

I think it's safe to say that I have a small obsession with mint... And have done for a quite some time. I seem to alternate between peach and mint being my fav. My latest mint purchase are these jeans, which I adore. And it's pretty darn cold here at the moment so oversized cardigans have become a must. Thankfully its not all rain and clouds though and we have had some lovely crisp clear days :)