Meet my new best friend

Two of my favourite things in life: simplicity and speed!  Any task that can be done quickly and simply will always be first on (and off) my list and any tool, trick, method, software, app or system that makes my life simpler and moves me onto the next thing faster - I'm buying!

So no secret I already LOVE my iPad for this exact reason, and not (just) because I can play Words for Friends and Draw Something on a much bigger screen!  I'm generally not too fast on the uptake with apps though, and it's taking me a while to discover the full potential of my little buddy in his folding orange jacket. 

But for all you iPad users out there who also - like me - love throwing together the odd design scheme or two and - most importantly - changing it a gazillion times, then you simply MUST meet my new bestie ....

It's called Moodboard and for a mere $10.49 US, you can create as many boards as you like by grabbing photos from your camera roll or from the internet, creating colour swatches, adding text and moving everything around to your heart's content.

This is me playing around with some ideas for my lounge room - there's a small wall behind the Tessa chair & ottoman just crying out for a bit of wallpaper, but I want to work with what's already in the room, i.e. the Ikea rug & sofa, and the Tessa.

You can create and change schemes with this app in the blink of an eye, and just screenshot your board as you go to keep track of the options as your ideas progress.  Here's what happened to the scheme when I:  1. received a delicious red orange throw from a lovely & generous visitor (aka M the Masterchef) and 2. realised I wanted to keep my yummy teal side table in the room as well ....

Any ideas which is my favourite?
Which is yours?

Nothing quite like technology when it just works!  This has made a massive difference to the way I put schemes together, and it works a treat for clients too - pretty impressive to be able to build a scheme right there in front of their eyes!

Hope all is well in your worlds and wishing you a hassle-free weekend that moves at whatever pace you want it to.


Til next time,
Nx

And another thing ....

... that made me go ooh recently were these bugs I found huddled on the leaf of a cotton bush at my local organic market. 

How I wish I'd had my camera with me so I could use the macro -  the iPhone doesn't quite cut in that department yet, but here's a not-quite-in-focus close up anyway.  How beautiful are the markings and the colours of these little cotton-loving critters ....

I am always inspired by nature and am constantly amazed by the palettes on show around me here in Australia ....

Gorgeous. 
Have a great week, everyone!

Til next time,
Nx

Things that made me go 'oooh' this week (well, one anyway!)

It's Friday 6.30pm and I've run out of time to fit in my weekly post!  So all the splendid and terribly interesting things that made me go ooooh this week - that I had planned to tell you all about - will have to wait until next week.

What I will say is that my trip to Brett's hardware was rewarded with ooohs AND ahhhs when I just happened to catch sight of Wattyl's new colour collection - Pop Culture.

Holy Guacamole, these are good enough to eat!

Yum!  And I want to dive right into this gorgeous melting pot of colour ....

Makes me smile from ear to ear to see paint companies embracing colour and encouraging us punters to make bold choices - more please!  (If you want more please, check out Miami Brights in the Global Fusion collection too - oooh my.)

That's all I got time for this week, folks.  Last week's pleas for a return to summer weather have paid off big time - it's been a scorcher today here in Brisbane, so it's time for a cold one and a dip in the pool.

Have a fun & colourful weekend, lovely peeps.


Til next time,
Nx

Try a night on these tiles ....

Happy Friday one and all.  How's your week been? 

I've been here and there and around and about this week, and on my travels, both virtual and otherwise, I've been sourcing all sorts of essential items for the impending (and I say that with a suitable amount of dread) bathroom renovation.

One of the fun parts for me though (what do you mean you don't find cisterns and associated plumbing fun, I hear you say) is looking at tiles.  You may have noticed, I'd pretty much put colour and pattern on anything, and everything, and oh my goodness, are there some STUNNING tiles out there to get my creative juices flowing. 

Little Diamond Mix in Tropics Blue from the Dwell Patterns collection - a superb collaboration between Heath Ceramics and Dwell Media

This one is slap bang in the middle of my inspiration board for the bathroom.  I love it's mid-century feel and the colour is exactly the same as the pool that you can see from the bathroom window, so it's perfect.  A real classic from the ever splendid Heath Ceramics.

Not quite bathroom material (I wouldn't want to try and keep it clean), but what about this slice of loveliness from the prolific and amazing Patricia Urquiola ....

Bas Relief brilliance from Patricia Urquiola - buy Patchwork Cipria here

Is there anything this woman can't design beautifully?  This tile is even better in real life - it's totally touchable and looks amazing as a wall feature.

Fired Earth are always worth a look for some inspiration - Kevin McCloud does paint colours for them, so they must be awesome.  Here's one of my fave tile shots from their website ....

Granada by Fired Earth

I love the Moroccan feel of these tiles, but they're sharp and modern enough to go anywhere without feeling too ethnic. 

There's even a tile out there for art lovers - check out these baby mosaics from Via Arkadia and see if you can spot the Pop Art pics ....

MultiColor Mosaic from Via Arkadia

Yes, that's Andy Warhol you've spotted.  I saw these in a magazine a few years ago now and fell instantly in lust.  Outrageously expensive, but if you had the cash, why wouldn't you?  And of course I can't leave the outrageously expensive mosaic topic without a Bisazza shot ....

Shaded blends by Bisazza - buy here

There's a lot more experimentation with texture happening in the tile world right now, which I'm really liking the look (and feel) of ....

Klolo - seen at Academy Tiles, Sydney

And when is a tile not a tile?  When it's a screen, of course ....

Bamboo Screen - also Academy Tiles

To finish off our tile tour, let's go out and out glam, shall we?  These Karim Rashid tiles are just crazy beautiful ....

Revolution ceramic tiles by Karim Rashid - buy here - photo via here

And finally let's add some glitz to the glam ....

Rumi - also Academy Tiles

And that pretty much covers the sheer loveliness I've been stumbling across on my search for the perfect tile.

Ah no, not quite, I nearly forgot!  Too much effort to tile?  Worried you'll get tired of your tile?  Not to worry, just wallpaper instead ....

Paper Tiles wallpaper by Louise Body

That's it from me this week.  May your weekend be delicious and may it please please please stop raining .... !


Til next time,
Nx

My picks from Decoration & Design show - Sydney Feb 2012

Happy Wednesday everyone! 

As promised, though a little later than planned, here are some snapshots and thoughts from the recent Decoration & Design show down in Sydney in early Feb.  Being new to this interiors game, I wasn't sure what to expect from this show, but what I hoped for was to wander about in my own little world - as I can often be found doing when there are lovely and interesting design-y things to be found - being inspired at every turn. 

Hmmm, as Yoda would say, "Blown away was I not" .... Look, it was good and I learnt some things (one of which is to save my money for the flight to Sydney and go to Designex instead - drats).  And I did see some pretty cool and colourful stuff.  But just not enough of it and I have to say I didn't see anything I hadn't already seen before.  So if you haven't stopped reading yet, here's what I saw/picked up on/liked so much I bought ...

No secret that Tangerine Tango is Pantone's colour of the year for 2012 (welcome back, oranges - we've missed you!), but it's looking HOT teamed up with pink.  The wallpaper is Flot by Intrade according to this website, but I'm not 100% on that.  Stumbled across the combo again in Vogue Living's ad for Designex (pure coincidence of course), and the lovely and interesting Genty Marshall of New Black Global Trends flicked up a pic of a coat something like this (and sorry, don't know whose it is) during her trend seminar, The Collector, The Creator and The Connoisseur.  This combo is hot, bold and loads of fun (hmmm, remind me of anyone ....?)  Wherever I see it, I'm loving it!

The Tribal trend is nothing new, but it was out in force at the show -  plenty of colour & texture, with my pick being the amazing range of things made from beads, like the kooky animals on the top left (I mean right, of course - does anyone else do that thing where you mean to say one and always say the other?)  These animals are from my out-and-out fave stand, Emily Ziz Style Studio.

I've been coveting the amazing array of patterns and colours that can be found in wax block fabrics for a good while now, so I finally got my hands on some from the folks at (Byron Bay's) Inside Africa ....

Gorgeous!  There are so many different colours and patterns of Dutch Wax fabric, it makes your head spin - just check out Vlisco for a sneek peak at a few.  Of course these are normally made into clothing, but they look fantastic as cushions, or even as an upholstery fabric.  I'm a huge fan.

Also from the Emily Ziz Style Studio and just a little bit clever, here's a cool recycling option for all you soft-drinkers out there ....

On the craftsmanship front, I loved these stools from the student exhibition (will have to trawl through my brochures to find out who did these, but shout out if you need the name) ..... 

And I am ever so thrilled to see so many new, yet respectful, interpretations of an old standard, the Windsor chair, so much so I could write a post just about the Windsor revival - maybe I will!

Finally, I stumbled across some outrageously covetable fabrics - again at Emily Ziz - from a previously unknown (to me) designer from South Africa called Sarah Ord.  Stunning, stunning, stunning ...

I've fallen in love with this Ravello Campari fabric (towards the top right), part of Sarah's Tesserae range.  I now have samples of all 3 colourways in my hot little hand and they are even more gorgeous in reality.  Check out her site - it's just bloomin' lovely.

So that's my report of my first design trade show - how did I do?  Designex beckons (May 14-16), so I might just shake the dust off my stovetop coffee maker and save up my $4.50 a day (coffee with soy milk is SO expensive in Brisbane ...) to get myself on that plane!

Til next time, Nx

What I did in my holidays, by Nicola Duncan

Happy 2012, everyone!  I can't believe it's the end of January and this is my first post of the year (thanks for the nudge, AJ!).  I wondered where the time had gone, what had I been doing with myself all this time - as it turns out, quite a lot!

Eating, drinking and being merry was really easy these holidays, thanks to a house guest who really should have made it onto Master Chef.  The only downside was having to get used to doing all the cooking again after she left! 

I went lantern crazy decorating the garden and the deck for my New Year's party, thanks to the Lantern Shop.  Don't you love it when you leave a purchase to the last minute, then panic because your online order probably won't arrive in time, only to realise the shop is in your own city - yay!

Apart from that, I read like my life depended on it, devouring the autobiography Open by Andre Agassi in just 3 days.  I admired him so much as a player, and now even more so as a man. 

Love the fact that I bought this for iPad for a fraction of the price of a hard copy

While reading Open, I watched hour upon hour of the Australian Open.  I watched every hit of every ball of the Murray/Djokovic semi-final and could watch it all over again - if only the outcome was different!

Buy this print on Etsy

Check this out for a hilarious Andy Murray poster - couldn't bring myself to post it!

Thank goodness I finished reading Tim Ferriss' The 4 Hour Work Week before the tennis started - the 5 day media 'fast' he puts you on (well worth doing) would never have worked otherwise!  You gotta admire the guy for coming up with one of the simplest, yet most enticing titles I've ever come across and overall this book is very, very interesting ..... and it might just work, so watch this space!

It's Keep Calm and Carry On all over again - the 4 Hour Work Week mug, courtesy of Zazzle

Then I jumped with joy to discover this, something I've been looking for for a very long time (i.e. show me the quick way to do what I want to do, so I can get cracking before I lose interest and move onto something else!)

Laurie's book is a real find - I'll dig into this in more detail in a later post. 

It wasn't all relaxation - the decision is made, the bathroom is going!  I can style it all I like but damp asbestos and rotten timbers are a whole other story.  So the floor plan is drawn and the inspiration is building ....

A colour scheme emerging perhaps?  It will be the budget buster of 2012, so it's just as well I also built DIY flyscreens for the whole house during the holidays - I saved $1100!

It's amazing what you find when you search DIY on Google images!  This 1979 album cover was designed by Barney Bubbles and was printed in 12 different versions onto real sheets of wallpaper - courtesy of John Coulthart at feuilleton

Finally, I played Words with Friends (the app version of Scrabble) until I could hardly focus ....

Photo by sharisse florendo

And ate large quantities of popcorn at the movies watching TinTin, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Muppets - no one can accuse me of not having varied tastes!  

So welcome to 2012 everyone.  I hope you're settling in nicely. 

I hope you had a chance to do some things in the holidays that made you happy and that you can see some good things coming your way this year.

I've got loads to share over the coming weeks, starting with a visit to the Design & Decoration Fair in Sydney later this week, so keep reading and maybe even pass make space on to a friend! 


Til next time, Nx

A merry little xmas

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Let your heart be light

From now on

Our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Make the Yule-tide gay

From now on

Our troubles will be far away

Here we are as in olden days

Happy golden days of yore

Faithful friends who are dear to us

Gather near to us once more

Through the years

We all will be together

If the fates allow

So hang a shining star upon the highest bough ....

And have yourself

A Merry Little Christmas now

I wish you joy, peace, laughter and good health

This Xmas and always

Nx