Seen and loved

Oh how I love this stunning wall!

The colours are to die for and the triangle pattern is the motif of the moment.
In fact I totally adore the whole photo.

Love.

Image Source: Dos Family

I also love the idea of having gym-style rings in children's bedrooms. Awesome. Isabelle from Dos Family bought these at Ikea in Sweden. Unfortunately it doesn't look like they stock them in Aus.
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Inspiration :: Natural Dyes

Have you ever experimented with using natural dyes? You can achieve some beautiful rich colours and have lots of fun trying things out.

My friend Kasia from Laikonik painted these paper lights with vegetable dyes. They're beautiful aren't they?

Image Source: Laikonik

 Martha Stewart's blog featured these glorious coloured eggs for Easter.

Image Source: The Crafts Dept

A couple of years ago I tried my hand at dying goose eggs with natural dyes and then I painted my designs in white. I was aiming for soft colours, but Martha's inspired me with her rich dense palette.

Margie at Resurrection Fern is constantly creating amazing art and craft based on her love of and interaction with nature, so it's no surprise she often experiments with natural dyes. She has even started a dyeing journal to document it. So lovely.

Image Source: Resurrection Fern

 Are you inspired? Have you ever tried this? Wouldn't it be a lovely rainy day activity with kids using spices, fruit and vegies from your kitchen or garden and scraps of fabric, twine, paper, etc.
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Attempting to quilt

I've been telling Roxy for ages that I am going to make a quilt for her bed, and on the long Easter weekend I finally made a start.

My finished block is a bit wonky - not all the squares line up - and it still needs a good press, but I'm happy with how it turned out. At least it will have a handmade feel. I keep telling myself to embrace the wonky and let go of perfectionism. I wanted to do a heart and the way I designed it means that my finished quilt block measures 16 inches. As far as I know (and I know nothing about quilting) blocks are supposed to measure 12 inches? Not to worry! 

So that's one down and 23 to go! Then I have to figure out backing, binding and lots of other things I know even less about. Ask me in a year if it's finished...
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Inspiration :: living small

I'm loving this great use of otherwise wasted space as book shelves.

Image Source: Apartment Therapy

When I saw this photo it got me thinking about small living spaces and reminded me of the smallest apartment I've ever seen. Take a look at the clip below. Measuring just 12 x 7 feet this Manhattan studio really is tiny. But with a rent of just $700 a month it makes for affordable living in an expensive city.





While the idea of trying to live a more streamlined existence with less 'stuff' appeals to me, I think I'd go insane living somewhere like that. I have seen larger (read: normal) size studio apartments that have been very cleverly designed to maximise space with clever storage solutions, so although small, the spaces don't have a cramped or cluttered feel.

At the other end of the spectrum, I'm I just can't figure out the McMansion trend of recent years which is all about bigger being better: huge characterless 2 story homes built with the maximum allowable footprint, double garages out front and an excessive amount of huge rooms. It's sad to see our suburb losing it's lovely character when the older homes are bulldozed and replaced my these monoliths.

I love our perfectly comfortable and cosy single story 1940's house. After all, the bigger your house the more space there is to keep clean and tidy! Even if I could afford a huge home I honestly don't think I'd want one... unless I had 4 or 5 children of course. We are lucky to have a lot of built in storage as well as a big attic space which I couldn't do without. I do have a lot of 'stuff' but it's well stored, organised and arranged so that our space doesn't look cluttered (I hope!).

Do you like to live in a streamlined way, or is clutter or controlled chaos more the order of the day? What about living space, could you live in the tiny Manhattan studio? Or would you like to have a sprawling home with more rooms than you could use? Do you think bigger = better? Or possibly, like me, just somewhere comfortable that's in between...
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online shop discount

I've been meaning to direct you over to Make It Perfect, where Toni made an Ooshka and an Ooshka Boy wrote a lovely review of them. She also featured some of my other products in her blog post.

Image Source: Make It Perfect

I'm offering Make It Perfect readers a special discount in my online shop for the next week. So if you've been thinking about buying anything from the red thread, now's the time!
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