happy end of year mes amis.

xx

(“today I am still finding home” title quote from My Heart Wanders)

A while ago I mentioned in this post about our houseboat in Amsterdam that I’d show you my new flower wall installation. Well, here it is. It’s been established for a while now, and evolves with newly deceased blooms, ferns, and whatever catches my eye when I wander…

It’s also become a bit of a sweet memories collection from friends – the peonies are from Kylie who sent a lovely bunch when I was ill last year, the gum nut branches and ferns are from dear Tracey Deep,  and in the first photo at the very top right you can see a bloom made from paper by Natalie.  Although these photos were taken for a shoot many months ago, the wall hasn’t changed much since then, but the books have been moved to a less precarious ‘baby safe’ place. Here’s another corner of my new home…

There are some great flower walls being created out there, I particularly love this one from rubi-jones , found on instagram. Have you tried creating one in your home? If so I’d love to see.

xx

Last month Country Style launched their very own blog on the beautifully redesigned Homelife website, and I’m thrilled to have been invited to be one of the contributors. So far on the blog fellow contributor Louise Marshall has taken readers to the Sydney Flower Market, Samantha van Egmond guides us through the fabulous Agrarian Kitchen in Tasmania, and gives us all a tour of Hobart, Country Style’s editor Victoria Carey takes us behind the scenes of some wonderful shoots and shares an inspiring video of basket weaver Harriet Goodall made by Annette Cohen, while Lara Hutton takes us to The Mornington Peninsula.

My posts featured on Country Style so far include:

some of my favourite country living blogs, as seen below…

Marte Marie Forsberg’s beautiful Le Voyage Créatif.
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Rohan’s delicious Whole Larder Love.
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Nadia’s ever-delightful La Porte Rouge.
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…my flower wall in Amsterdam which you may recall featured in Anthology Magazine some months back…

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… and a trip through Lamington National Park in Queensland.

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It’s been fun writing for their blog, I love that magazines and fellow stylists and photographers here in Australia are now getting into blogging, it makes our virtual community all the more rich and layered.

I have an upcoming post which features some behind the scenes shots from a story I styled that is in this month’s issue of Country Style. The article is about historical Hill End in NSW, photographed by Sharyn Cairns. I had such a blast styling the artist’s cottage featured in the story, and I adore Sharyn’s photographs. Look out of the May issue which is on sale now, and also my blog post about it which will go live on the Country Style blog some time next week.

In the meantime, enjoy perusing the new Country Style blog and be sure to leave comments on posts you like to encourage the contributors along.

Bon weekend

xx

Do you remember some time ago now, I wrote about an architecture & design firm called tacklebox? It is an innovative company based in New York, founded by my friend & architect Jeremy Barbour. If you recall, he designed the saipua showroom in Brooklyn, NY, creating a fabulous space made from recycled silver barn wood (read my post and view the gorgeous photos of the space here).

Last year, Jeremy came out to Australia for a special secretive research mission for melbourne-based skin care range aesop, and over a lovely lunch in Paddington, here in Sydney, he revealed to me a little about what he was up to and what he wanted to create. I was captivated, and could not wait to see the project unfold and revealed to the public. A few months ago, the spaces in New York were opened: one in grand central station, another on Elizabeth St in the Nolita, and the other in Greenwich Village, University Place. Take a look…

Aesop Nolita, Elizabeth St, New York, photos by Gianluca Fellini.

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Aesop Grand Central Kiosk, in Grand Central station, photos by Juliana Sohn.

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Aesop University Place, Greenwich Village, photos by Juliana Sohn. (particularly loving the store’s sink which was salvaged from Bethlehem Steel’s 140-year-old plant in Pennsylvania).

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The concept was to use the New York Times newsprint as a material within the foundations. The aesop Grand Central Kiosk for example, is constructed of 1,800 reclaimed newspapers from the New York Times. The aesop range sit on a tiered mass of stacked and bound newsprint while loosely hanging papers form a canopy above. For the Nolita store, 2800 New York Times newspapers were hand-torn into 400,000 strips which were then stacked to create “a soft, felt-like surface held within a continuous oak wrapper”.

“Just as oak is commonly used to store and age wine and spirits, so too will the newspaper age, turning a light tan, thus marking the passing of time. In this way, the history of Aesop North America will be recorded within the very walls of this first store.”

The newsprint, stacked and pressed, ready to be used.

As you know, I’ve been loving the use of recycled paper as a material lately, perhaps it has something to do with the onslaught of technology, and the growing, ill feeling of living within a paperless society. Preserving and maintaining the use of paper in our world seems imperative, and I love how imaginative people are toward its many uses these days.

Congratulations Jeremy on completing yet another stunning set of spaces using recycled material and furnishings – you’re an inspiration to us all, I can’t wait to see what you create next! And a big thank you for sharing your projects here in the (blog)house.

Thank you for all the support & well wishes that have poured in over the weekend, you guys are truly wonderful. Something else I’ve wanted to share for some time are these 3 lovely features in 3 of my new favourite independent magazines. First off is the beautiful spread in the latest Anthology magazine. It features never-before-seen photographs of our petit bateau vert (little green houseboat) in Amsterdam. I took these images last year and saved them especially for this article. Above is an image of our tiny boat loungeroom. Last year, Romain spent the year composing his first guitar album, and that exact setting was his office! Meanwhile, I sat at the desk just 2 metres away writing and editing images for My Heart Wanders – it was a special year that we will always cherish, and was the perfect ending to our 3 years of life in Amsterdam on the houseboat.

Below is an image of the bed, covered in a mosquito net during summer, and a view of the living room space, looking down from the kitchen…

It’s a really special feature written by Anh-Minh Le, with lots of info about what life was like living on the boat. This image below is also from the article, and is one of my all-time favourite photographs from inside the boat. Over the course of a year or so I’d taped flower stems to one of the walls and watched them strike their natural, deceased pose. The muted shades, textures and unique characteristics captured my imagination each time I gazed at the wall. The little Dutch sailing boat I found at a market that Leslie and I visited, and I made the sail from scraps of linen, tea stained cotton and lace…

I’m in the midst of recreating another wall like this here in my new home in Sydney, I’ll be sure to show you once it’s complete.

The next sweet feature is in the latest issue (issue 10) of Canadian-based magazine, Uppercase. This one is written by lovely Christine Chitnis, who you may recall was also a recent guest in the (blog)house (here are her fab posts on life in New England). In this article Christine captured my thoughts, ideas, ideals, and ambitions in the most elegant of ways, and included one of my intimate poems from My Heart Wanders . I hope you can find yourself a copy of this issue, there are loads more great articles “for the creative and curious”…

And the third sweet piece is in the newest issue of peppermint magazine, an Australian-based publication focused on sustainable style. It’s a terrific mag filled with eco-minded articles, products and fashion trends. In this article, written by Frances Frangenheim, I talk about my ‘natural’ tendencies, all that inspires me, and my sustainable goals in life and work…

Just before My Heart Wanders was launched here in Australia in April, I decided to get some publicity portraits done by Olga Bennett. Although I was nervous and awkward in front of the camera, Olga managed to grab some great, relaxed images, many of which have since been featured in editorial pieces around the world. I want to thank Olga especially for letting me use these images for publicity. Please visit her fab blog here, and to see more of her photography, please click here.

In other news, I’ve managed to update the stockists page for my books, click here to view. My friend Heidi said she saw big stacks of both Paris: Made by Hand and Amsterdam: Made by Hand in the Seattle Anthropologie store, which is wonderful news. So from what I’ve heard, Anthropologie now stock both these books throughout their USA stores  – thanks Anthro!

I also heard that My Heart Wanders was nowhere to be seen for a while in Europe and the UK, and apparently it was because there was no stock left, which is also terrific news. But even better is that another print run has been completed and sent to stores in Europe, the UK, and restocked throughout Australia.

As many of you have become aware, the book won’t officially be released in the US until Spring (April/May) 2012. But I have something special in mind for those of you who would love to receive the book for Christmas – I’ll post about this next week.

Have a beautiful week mes amis.