My beautiful friend Kaspia has opened her pop up store Kaspia’s Caravan this year at the old Garden Life shop in Surry Hills. Having dressed it up in the most glorious of colours, motifs and jewels, it’s the perfect location for her incredible collection of wares from around the world, take a look…

…Laly, where are you?…

I wrote about Kaspia’s Caravan earlier this year, click here to read my post with more info about Kaspia, and here to visit her website.

The shop is open 7 days a week – Monday to Saturday from 10-5pm, and Sunday’s from 11-4pm. Kaspia’s there herself from Wednesday to Saturday if you want to pop in to see her and say hi.

It will be open for 3 months, until the end of January, with new treasures arriving weekly.

357 Cleveland St, Surry Hills.

Congratulations Kaspia on creating another amazing place for people to get lost and found in, a true treasure trove.

With Love,

Pia xx

What a beginning to 2015, for all of us… much energy moving around, can you feel it? Old energy moving out, new energy moving in, big changes in the air. I have many thoughts on it that I’d love to share with you and I’d love to hear your thoughts, to see how we are shifting and changing as a collective. I haven’t been blogging much this past year, as many of you know who follow my instragram, there are a number of personal reasons for that. But I miss being here. I miss this space, I miss you.  And this year I have some ideas on how I can be here some more, with your help. Because I’ve come to see this is a special place, a creative passage I need in my life – a place in the past where I’ve been able to thrive, to create freely, to move forward. And it feels really important to keep it going, keep it alive and fresh, for all of us. It’s not something I take for granted, and I’m very grateful for it, for you, both silent and spoken readers – we share something together, something we can’t really see, or pinpoint. But it’s there, it’s present and strong and it needs to grow…

Today though, I wanted to share with you a creative endeavour of a dear friend of mine. Her name is Kaspia, and for years she has been dreaming of opening her very own pop-up shop, filled with incredible treasures she has collected from her exotic travels around the globe over the years. Kaspia has an incredible, unique style. I’ve long admired her sense of colour, wonder and energy, and I’ve been so excited for her, to see her dream become a reality and be shared with the world. You guys know how I feel about taking risks and following your heart!  Kaspia opened her pop up shop last month in the heart of Sydney in Potts Point, in the stunning artist’s space known as The Yellow House…

There are rugs, cushions, quilts and throws from the most remote parts of the world. There are necklaces, bags, boxes and bracelets, tables, day beds, lamps and baskets from Mexico, the Far East, the Himalayas and beyond.

The collection is out of this world and I urge you to go and visit before it closes on February 1st, 2015, that’s only two weeks away.

A big warm, all encompassing hug to Kaspia for making her dream come true and sharing it with all of us… If you’d like to learn more about her wild and wonderful life, read her interview on Daily Imprint, and for more information about the pieces in her store, you can read her blog, there is lots to learn about the collection, where each piece came from and how they are made.

To celebrate I’ve put a few copies of My Heart Wanders and Little Treasures: Made by Hand in her store as a package for $65 (instead of the normal retail price of $85) so that means you basically get Little Treasures: Made by Hand for just $5 when you buy both books together. I know that’s crazy, but I want to! It’s only for this two weeks, so I hope it will encourage you to get down to Kaspia’s shop pronto. Someone commented the other day that they received My Heart Wanders as a graduation gift from a relative and I thought that was a wonderful idea.

Looking forward to hanging out here in my blog house this year, in between working on my next book. Here’s to the new year, to celebrating our connections, and to being who we are meant to be, with our hearts open…

Pia xx

all photographs by Pia Jane Bijkerk

Little Treasures: Made by Hand is now available for purchase at Paper Boat Press

I’m so pleased to let you know that there are now a number of beautiful stockists around the country who are selling Little Treasures: Made by Hand. I’m very grateful to these independent bookstores and boutiques for supporting my latest creation, I hope you can help me to support them in return by visiting them because they really are magical places. All these stockists mentioned in this post are in Australia, but I am still hopeful that some stores around the world will become stockists.

Queensland:
Riverbend Bookstore, Bulimba
Rosetta Books, Maleny
Paper Boat Press, Ashgrove
Cathy Penton Atelier, Highfields

New South Wales:
Better Read than Dead, Newtown
Hill of Content, Balmain
Oscar and Friends, Double Bay
Oscar and Friends, Surry Hills
Little Paper Lane, Mona Vale
Bookocino, Avalon
The Design Hunter, Waverley
Megalong Books, Leura

Victoria:
Hill of Content, Melbourne
The Avenue Bookstore, Albert Park, Melbourne
Readings, Hawthorn

South Australia:
Council of Objects, Adelaide, SA

If you’d like to become a stockist or international distributor of Little Treasures: Made by Hand, please email my sales assistant Penny with your inquiry and she will get back to you with the details.

Thank you again to all of you for your continued support and sales, without it I know I would not be able to continue creating.

Love & gratitude,

Pia xx

shelf / life, photography by daniel shipp, styling by kam huckins

There is a beautiful store here in Sydney called Shelf / Life, tucked away in the creative enclave of Surry Hills. It’s one of my favourite shops. Owner Jess has incredible taste, but she also takes great care to handpick items that are kind to the Earth. I asked Jess if she would consider creating a holiday gift guide for you, my readers. She has come up with a fabulous guide, separated into three categories: “homebody”, “pamper” and “entertainer”. Most of the items are available online in her store or directly from the artisan themselves. Thank you dear Jess!

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Hello, I’m Jess, owner of Surry Hills store, shelf / life, and today Pia has been kind enough to let me share my festive gift guide with you. The weeks leading up to Christmas are my favourite time in the shop. The weather is warming up, people are happy to be out and about, and every day we receive a new and exciting parcel in the mail filled with fresh products for our shelves. It’s a vibrant and happy time of year and, although busy, it’s really rewarding to see customers excited about giving our products as gifts.

Born from a desire to showcase works from my favourite designers and increase conscious consumerism, shelf / life was established in late 2009 and continues today with an ever-evolving range of home wares, stationery and gifts handpicked for their considered design. The little gift guide below features some of my favourite products from shelf / life as well as my top picks from a few other independent designers that I admire. I hope you enjoy it!

(Click here to read more…)

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.