attention wallpaper commitment-phobes...

Velvet feature panel decal, $60, The Wall Sticker Company

...this one is for you: decal wallpaper! The Wall Sticker Company have come up with this ingenious idea. In panels of 1 metre long by 63cm wide, it makes a pretty feature panel that can be removed so easily when you tire of it, would rather it on another wall or wished it was 10 centimetres to the left of where it currently is! At the moment it's only available in this pattern above, but hopefully it'll take off and they'll come up with more varieties. Each panel is $60. Check it out here

EDIT: Have just heard from Fiona from The Wall Sticker Company who wanted to let me know this cool wallpaper panel is available in a STACK of colours and also custom design - so if there is a particular design you want, they can do it for you. How very awesome!

newsflash: real living is excellent

Winner of General Excellence for Home and Food

Us employees of the mag have thought it for some time - and we know a lot of our readers have too. And now it's official: real living is excellent! Last night, our little mag won the General Excellence Award for the Home and Food category at the Magazine Publisher's of Australia Magazine of the Year Awards. Yay for us! Sadly, we just missed out on Magazine of the Year, but no doubt we'll get there eventually. So congrats to the whole team and thanks to our loyal fan club of readers for whom we bust our butts every month to not disappoint! It's obviously paid off!

easy project: customised plywood letter

"L" is for Layla. And because I can do girlie things now I have a daughter, I cut out a few pretty pink paper butterflies and stuck them on the wall.

With my new addition to the family, I of course had to add her initial to the wall somewhere as everyone else in the house has one! But even I'm bored with the usual white or plywood letters out there, so thought I'd jazz it up a little with some paper. And being the nice person I am, I thought I'd go all Martha on you and show you step-by-step how to do it. However, it's so easy and pretty self-explanatory so I must apologise for making you feel five years old!

Your toolkit: letter, $4 and paper 80c, craft store. Spray glue, $8, hardware. Also required: newspaper

Step 1: Place the plywood letter on top of the paper right-side up and cut roughly around the shape of the letter, leaving a margin of around a centimetre. You don't have to do this, but it does make it easier to work with and also if you're tight like me, you can keep the leftover paper for other projects!

Step 2: Turn over paper cut out, pop onto newspaper and spray glue adhesive all over. Follow the instructions on the can, but it'll usually tell you to wait until it's a bit tacky before sticking

Step 3: Apply to the front of the letter and press firmly all over so the glue sticks nicely

Step 4: Turn letter over, hold firmly with one hand and use the other to cut the excess paper off. Use the letter itself like you would a ruler to cut it perfectly around the shape

Step 5: Hang wherever you like!

For more customised-letters ideas that don't actually involve you doing anything harder than spelling a name for someone else to create, check these out here. Don't you love how I keep sending you between the two blogs? How very sneaky of me!

virtual moodboard: decor8/amy butler moodboard contest

How much work has gone into this? I love, love the tiny little ballet shoes!! Moodboard by Elaine Lee

Sometimes a collection of inspiring images is inspiration in itself. I love looking at people's moodboards - it's like peeking into their world and getting a feel for their style and taste through things they find pretty, they covet or have collected over time. So I was very happy to see Decor8 and Amy Butler's moodboard contest again this year. The finalists have just been announced and some of them are just beautiful. A lot of work has gone into them. Entrants had to design a room around a print from Amy's collection. You can vote online for your fave finalists here or check out all the entries here. Here are my two votes!

I can totally see this as a real room! Moodboard by Kathryn Louise who happens to have a very lovely blog and Etsy shop too!

my new rug

A beige cow hide and white architraves lighten the room up a little

My combined birthday/mother's day gift arrived the other day - a beige cow hide. I've been searching for the right rug for the living room for what seems like forever. I did buy my Ezibuy zebra rug, but it was always a temporary solution until I found The One and then it would call Zak's room home. So the search was on: the ones I liked were ridiculously expensive. Or from overseas. Or just didn't seem to exist. So after being bombarded by light-coloured cow hides in pretty much every single issue of Real Living for the past year, I jumped on the bandwagon. And I love it. It's lightened up the room, along with the freshly painted white architraves (I made Steve redo them from the brown.)

The other side - a sheepskin, erm, keeps with the animal theme...

And now for the good news. If you're after one yourself and are a little horrified by the $700 price tags they seem to start at, visit Leffler and get a quote from them. Their hides are $99 per square metre, so mine cost a grand total of $350 - including shipping and GST. A bargain me thinks! And the staff are very lovely, answering all my hundreds of emails and questions with patience and grace. Now I just have to get the curtains back up - that window and door area really lets in the freezing cold night air. Brrr.
x

I heart this photo wall

Loving this lovely love heart. Pic from Cookie mag

This is hardly a new pic, but in case you're one of the five people who haven't seen it, I thought I'd share. How simple and effective is it? No frames, no holes in the wall... just print out and stick on the wall in a gorgeously graphic heart shape. I think it's the best idea for candid pics - usually you don't display the funny or the odd because you'd rather reserve wall space for the arty, posed or pretty. But putting the ones you love but would normally hide away in a box or pin on a noticeboard into a cool shape like this means you get to see your faves all day every day, but others will really only notice the heart and your amazing styling skills!

eye candy: a house by the seaside

How comes my clashing fabrics never look this good?!?

I know nothing about this place or the people who live there, but I love the look of it! While I don't have it in my own home, I like the look of vintage furniture, especially when paired with modern pieces. I think this homeowner has done a great job giving each room personality through cool furniture and what looks to be her own handiwork such as the striped wall in her daughter's room, wall murals and a photo collage on a cupboard. Thought you might like the house tour too. Have a great weekend.
Bx
PS: I posted a couple of new pics of Zak and Layla on my new blog, Mini Meez

All pics from Inside Photo

thing #372 to do with wallpaper that doesn't involve a wall

I think I prefer wallpaper on everything but walls!

Poor work must be bored of me emailing them wallpaper ideas - you should see the awesome bedhead in a house story coming out next month - but really, some people are so clever. Case in point? Our deputy, Nat, who I just featured below in the shared spaces. In an effort to bring some homemade style to her Ikea Expedit bookcase and make it stand out from, well, everyone else's house, she bought the clear plastic storage containers that fit it and painstakingly cut out squares of wallpaper to fit the front of them, not only hiding the contents, but doing so stylishly. She even did the holes! How good does it look? A+ for effort! I love all these ideas with wallpaper - doors, parts of walls, silhouettes, decoupage, canvases, bedheads, frames - it's such a simple way to bring pattern and colour into a space without overpowering the room. It's also cheaper, changeable and very cool. Holly at Decor8 recently blogged about a similar thing - that the trend seems to be partially covering a wall with wallpaper or framing it on there like a large artwork rather than doing an entire wall. Have you seen any other ideas? I'm all eyes and ears...
x

my new blog

Etsy find: Lil Sock Baby Rattle, $US16, Chickabiddybaby

For some silly reason I've decided to create more work for myself! In an effort not to alienate those not interested in baby things, I've set up a new blog - Mini Meez - to talk about all things related to babies and pregnancy. I've been thinking about doing it for a while, but since I know that's all I'll want to talk about at the moment, now seemed a good time to do it! So pop on over if you want things like birth stories, labour-pain techniques, cool gifts, product reviews, nursery ideas and inspiration and just general baby/motherhood info. I'll try not to go overboard with proud parent pics and actually post some (hopefully) helpful info as well. And I'll do my best to not neglect this blog at the same time. I just might not post as regularly - not only because I'll have two blogs, but because I have two babies!!
Bx

shared spaces

Making combined rooms work takes work!

Just like in our everyday life, multitasking is becoming the norm of our homes - there never seems to be enough space for all our... stuff... so we have to double up. Guest room and study, home office in the living room, garage slash rumpus room, craft room and laundry... My own home has a combined guest room/living area/Steve's study; cabin and junk room; and as you all well know, combined master bedroom/nursery. It's sometimes hard to figure out how to make these rooms look decent when they're home to sometimes two entirely different things. And I don't even really have a solution for you - just some inspiration from two clever women I know who've combined their rooms. One tip I do have: keep the decor scheme relatively simple so as not to clutter an already busy room.

Natalie's nursery and office
First up, congrats to Nat, real living's deputy editor and author of Daily Imprint blog, and her hubby Daniel on the birth of their son Charles on Monday! Here is a sneak peak of his stylish nursery - Nat has a real knack for combining modern and vintage pieces. I wish I could do that!

Little Charles' corner of the room

Amy's bedroom, living room and office
Amy is real living's intern and we featured her rather large room at her family home on our website this month. Living at home, she managed to cram sleeping, working and relaxing zones into the one room through clever furniture placement and a simple, soothing colour palette. You can also see more pics on Deb's blog.

Amy's "bedroom" is separated from her office and living area with an open shelving unit that acts as a room divider. The openess of it allows the light to flow through.

My bedroom and nursery
Just in case you haven't seen it enough (!), Ohdeedoh featured my room as a nursery tour the day I went into labour! You can read the feature about how I did it and see a few more pics here.

So weird seeing your own home on someone else's website!!

and so it begins...

It's been a week since I've given birth to Layla (who, by the way, is still an angel and is getting more beautiful every day) and I've become all shopping obsessed again. This happened with Zak - my love for internet shopping in the weeks after he was born almost overtook my love for him. Oh ok it got nowhere close, but I did spend way too much time online when I probably should have been sleeping. And I've already started planning how I'd redecorate Zak's room to accomodate a girl and a boy when Layla eventually moves in with him. Much more challenging but much more fun, I think! Anyway, here's my new shopping list - so far. I can already cross the first two things off - they arrived this morning!

Giddy Giddy hair clip (I got it in red), $11.95, Baby's Got Style

Britt Design Ballerina Cuddle Booties, $32.95, Baby's Got Style

DwellBaby Pig Cushion, $59.95, Kidostore

Flensted Butterflies Mobile, $48, Kidostore

And now thanks (and also slight curses for making me spend more money!) to the following commenters who I snooped on, fell in love with their talent and will be buying from as soon as it's payday...

Leslie @ Onegirl
Is this the cutest little guy ever? It's called an Oobee. She says on her Etsy site: "What is an oobee, you ask? Is it a bear, a dear, a dog, a monkey? You decide, that's part of the fun. I like to think they're a little of each." I think give it antlers and it'd be a deer. This is her newest style - called "merle le well dressed oobee". Check out the skinny pants - very well-dressed indeed!

merle le well dressed oobee, onegirl

Rachel @ Grandy & Baa
I love little handmade touches to kids clothes - in fact, I just made something similar to these little shirts as gifts to a couple of friends who've just had babies (it's a baby boom!) - although nowhere near as good as these! This rhino is so cute - I'm going to get this in a bodysuit version. Love, love the fabrics.

Rosie Rhino Onesie, $US21, Grandy & Baa

Chantal @ Styled Baby
Not her own work, but Chantal alerted me to some great Etsy sellers on her cool site, Styled Baby, such as these adorable rattle toys. I think Layla will love them (although Zak will no doubt steal the ball - might have to get him one too!). Thanks also Chantal for your sweet words about Layla and for this gorgeous gift guide - some great ideas for pressies for new mums.

Carnival Bloom - Large Jingle Bell Cloth Ball, $US12, AppleBlossomBaby

Zoo Creatures Teething Rattle - Mendhi Elephant, $US6,
AppleBlossomBaby

Can't Beat The Boss

The most beautiful of all Munstangs, the '69 and '70 represent the pinacle of Ford design. The angles, proportions and overall stance of this car are absolutely striking. Soon, they would butcher the original pony car, expanding it's proportions, packing on the plastic, and just generally slathering it in 70's boredom. My appologies to 1970's Mustang fans out there, butElanor has nothing on the '69 and '70.

This 1969 Boss Mustang shot was taken at a car show in Simi. I cut out the background, fixed up the grass, and dropped in a view of the hills by my house. I'm glad that the near-noon sun didn't kill this shot, as it's harsh light and shadows have a tendency to do. A nice low angle close to the car helps to give this shot some strong perspective and interest. I've always been pretty surprised at how well the Photoshop work payed off on this one to yeild a pretty believable fake. One of these days I need to go in and finish it up by cleaning up the reflections from the side of the car, so that it looks even more like it's on some plateau all by itself.

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2007 Ford Mustang

This generation of the Ford Mustang is great, from a design perspective at least. I really think the designers at Ford did a phenominal job updating a classic into a car that is both incredibly cool and retro, but also relevant in the automotive market today. The proportions are well balanced, it's clearly a throwback to the classic Mustangs, but it has plenty of interesting angles and touches that make it a truly unique and cool pony. The crease that goes back from the front fender and swoops up behind the door is one of the strongest homage details of the car and my favorite part. The interior is great, if you get the metallic dash face. The design here is clean and distinctly retro without being either boring or cliché. The ride is nice, though in the V6 Mustang I drove, it's not terribly exciting. It feels big and heavy, a little light on the HPs, and has a bunch of body roll. Mechanically it's simply acceptable, nothing bad, but very little excitement factor. From a performance standpoint it falls short of what the wonderful design promises.


This shot was taken behind the mall in Simi in front of a pretty cool red wall I found. Unfortunately, I feel that the car gets a little too much red/orange cast from the red wall on the OTHER side of the car(not visible in the shot). All in all, I'm really happy with this snap; nice, interesting angle, a little distortion from the wide angle lens but not too much, nice action line at the base of the wall that leads the eye to the front of the car, and good overall lighting without distracting reflections.

This is the 2007 convertible V6 Mustang with the Pony Package that adds the "Mustang" side rocker decal and the horizontal chrome line in the grille with the smaller, less-ridiculous-than-the-GT "fog" lights. This is my favorite look for the Mustang. It looks the most retro to me and really finishes off the retro exterior design perfectly.


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Introducing... Layla Belle Graham

Layla Belle Graham
Born: Wednesday June 11, 2008 at 3.42pm
Weight: 3.92kg or 8lb 10
Length: 54cm

Little Pud has finally arrived! And it's a girl, so my theory was wrong! She came into the world rather swiftly on Wednesday and was very good to her mum - five hours of mildish contractions and a couple of pushes later, we got to meet her (am sooo glad I didn't go home as was offered as would have had her there! Eek!) She's a little sweetheart and so far, has been an angel baby, sleeping all the time! Zak is rather pleased he has a little playmate - poor thing has already been high-fived, kissed, headbutted and tickled! All the important things. I said next time you see me it'd be a cheesy family pic, but, well it's an almost family pic. Poor Steve was playing photographer and I didn't realise till just before we have none altogether yet. So stay tuned cause I'll no doubt bore you all to tears with updates. Oh and apologies for the lack of clothes (and info), but she kinda caught me by surprise in the shower!

A rare glimpse of her eyes!

Zakky meeting his little sister. He calls her "La la la"

My perfect pink bundle

I'm off to wake her so I can feed and change her - it sounds wrong, doesn't it? But seriously, I've seen her eyes open for a grand total of about 20 minutes each day! Back soon
Bx

Tiny Screamer, the 2008 Lotus Elise

My friend has wanted one since they debuted, so when he found out he could rent a 2008 Lotus Elise from a local Enterprise Rent-a-Car, he was ecstatic. For a sticker of around $50k, and interior space just slightly over that of a go-kart, the Elise is a seriously tough sell. It's cumbersome to get in and out of, but once you shoehorn yourself into one...it's on.

Extremely easy to drive, the Elise offers very few creature comforts, in fact, looking back, I'm almost surprised it even had a radio. The foot rest for the passenger is merely a bent piece of aluminum sitting loose on the floor for Pete's sake! Even it's powerplant is skimpy, a Toyota 4-cylinder eeking out about 200 horsepower. As wholly unimpressive as that sounds for a sports car, the Elise's feather-light body makes it more than enough.

When launching the Elise off the line, it's practically impossible to tell if the guy in the next lane is racing you. You simply blast off like a well-aimed bottle rocket, and everyone else simply vanishes into the rearview with a blip. It's so empowering. The engine's variable valve set-up gives you a strange, sudden boost of power at about 4500 RPMs, as if the blue log just ignited in the steam-engine furnace. It's a bit unsettling and strange, but the only odd characteristic of the taught and agile little coupe. The ride is a little rough, as the suspension of the ground-hugging Elise is tuned for cornering and agility. And let me tell you it handles like the rail-bound bobsleds on the Matterhorn at Disneyland. The seats are only slightly more padded than the bobsled too, ensuring that this won't be your commuter car. No, this car is built for speed, cornering, and mad-scientist-cackle inducing fun.

I really can't say enough about this rad little racer. My friend keeps a vigil eye out for any Elise that dips into the low $30,000's, and I can't wait for the day when he gets one, cause that is one fun little ride!!!

top trend: deer antlers

Freedom's antler chandelier, $399: hot or not?

I've suddenly noticed a whole heap of deers and and their antlers used in decor at the moment. In fact, I even have some in my house - artwork, flat-pack wood deer head... But the real trend is in the antler lamps and chandeliers. Freedom have jumped on the bandwagon and have no less than three versions of antler lighting.

Freedom's antler table lamp, $169. A floor lamp and pack of two antler decorations ($89) are also available.

I personally quite like the sculptural element of them and the fact they're not REAL antlers (well, I really hope so anyway), but wonder if they'd overpower a room a little too much. What I do like, is how random (again, hopefully fake) antlers as decoration have sprung up, replacing driftwood as the coffee-table nature display of choice.

Antler, $85, from Cotton Love

I've considered buying a nice white one like the one above to pop against the brown wall in my living room. But my question is: would this, along with a real cow hide (which should be arriving any day) and numerous animal-print fabrics throughout my house and, um, deer stuff as mentioned above make me look like a crazy wildlife hunter? Or do I already look like one? Because I most certainly am not one of those... I just happen to like these items from nature in a home environment. And aside from the hide - which, well, let's just say will come from a multi-purpose cow - none are real. But I'm curious, what do you think about these animal trends that keep popping up?

still no bloody baby!!!!!!!!

Pud is obviously having a blast in there. Pic from Getty

Grrr. I'm now five days overdue. It feels like five weeks. The last few weeks have gone s-o-o-o s-l-o-w-l-y. I have put the fact I can barely move to good use by sleeping a lot - might as well while I can!
In baby-related news: Ohdeedoh will apparently feature my non-existent child's nursery/combined bedroom as their nursery tour tomorrow, so look out for that. Hopefully I won't get to see it. Only because this will mean I'll be in hospital in a whole lot of GOOD pain.

A Sports Car Bargain, the 2006 Pontiac GTO

With gas prices going stratospheric recently, last week in particular, I'm sure I'll be hard pressed to find anyone who cares, but the 2005 and 2006 Pontiac GTO may be one of the best sports car bargains out there.


Sometime in the '05 model year they started selling them with the 6.0 litre Corvette LS2 V8 that pounds out 400 horses and 400 ridiculous lb/ft of torque, and for around $25k you can find them with 30,000 miles or less. It's crucial to find one with this engine because along with the bigger powerhouse and more impressive numbers, this version of the GTO gets the serious looking hood scoops and dual tail pipes in the back. Without these details, the car just does not look like a sports car.


The C6 Corvette which debuted in 2005, a car that I cross-shopped with the GTO, is still about $10,000 more expensive with the same mileage. Granted, the GTO's 3700 lb weigh-in is pretty hefty and about 700 lbs heavier than the Vette. But when you consider that you still get a ton of power, an impressive exhaust sound, absurd 0-60 blasts, along with an actual back seat that allows you to cart 4 adults very comfortably in an all leather interior, the Vette loses a bit of it's luster.



I've had mine for a little over two months, and I still get giddy when I fire it up. Giving it some gas and letting the revs spool up to 4 or 5000 RPMs is enough to give you chills. I find myself driving with the windows down more often than not so I can listen to the sweet sounds of pure American muscle. That said, with gas prices reaching brutal levels, I usually try to cruise it, and with it's bountiful torque and six speed manual, it's actually pretty easy to do. My current commute is 4 miles, I know, poor me. But what that means is that all of my driving is stop and go, so my MPG suffers. So I try to watch the instant MPG readout that shows you what you're currently getting, and keep the number above 20. Last I checked I had my average MPG up to 17, which is pretty impressive all things considered.

So, if you're like me; still not ready to be rational about the gas crunch/environment and you've always wanted a sports car, you can't go wrong with the 2005 or 2006 Pontiac GTO, but stay away from Brazen Orange, cause that one's mine.

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Too Many Cars

For a long time I've felt that the US car market was headed for a major fallout. The problem I see in the automotive market is the incessant manufacturing and purchasing of cars. As the world has sped up, and as people have become more selfish and engrained in consumerism, so has the automotive market increased it's speed. I read a statistic the other day, I'll source it and be more specific once I find it again, stating that people who used to buy cars on a 10 year cycle are now buying them at 5 and people who used to be on a 5 year cycle, now buy a new car every 3 years. Again, this is a major generalization of a somewhat generalized survey, but you get the point. Buying and selling of goods as expensive as cars (and with their shelf life)
at this rate is not sustainable and just plain isn't good for anyone.

The raw materials, the amount of money wasted on marketing, producing and shipping these cars it doesn't take a lot of complicated math to figure out it can neither be sustained by the earth or by car manufacturers themselves. And we've seen it in recent years, in order to entice buyers out of their new cars and into newer cars, they have to constantly add features, cut prices, and cut costs. Luckily that hasn't resulted in a bunch of rolling death traps thanks to safety regulations and the high quality of the overseas product coming in to compete.

What's happening though is that they are squeezing all of the profit out of the cars, so they are suffering, and putting pressure on their suppliers (partner companies that supply most of the parts for the manufacturing process) to cut costs, so much so that they are suffering and dying off one by one. This threatens car production as parts are simply not available, and will mean layoffs when the car companies can't produce cars. The REALLY bad thing about this is that car companies love to cut jobs in the 10s of thousands...all at once. Which has bankrupted entire towns in the past.

So, we'll see where this all leads as the big 3; Ford, Chevrolet, and Chrysler, continue their downhill slides, as gas prices continue on their express elevator to infinity, and people continue to be motivated by the selfish need to have the biggest, newest, bestest of everything, unless of course it starts to affect their pocketbook negatively, then they're suddenly into green living.

July issue out now!

July 2008 issue is out today

Wow the months go quickly in magland - July is on the stands today, August will be put to bed next week, September content is filing into the office, October is being shot and we're talking about features for the summer issues and Christmas already. Scary! No wonder we get confused about what month we're in! Anyway, here is the current issue - filled with ways to decorate with recycled items, a home bar shopping guide, great kitchen and bathroom ideas, house tours and offices that don't look like offices, yummy food, gorgeous gardens... Pick it up, have a read and let us know what you think! And don't forget the website and Deb's blog for all the behind the scenes stuff.
Bx