Monday, February 28, 2011

spotted fabric

The talented lady Angela, from the painted house, DIY upholstered 2 chairs with spotted fabric, and they look so good!




before:


Lately I have spotted, spotted fabric many times. I like it a lot it gives swoon to the decor.
I have to admit that Angela´s vignette is lovely, the way everything is arranged.
The spotted fabric reminded me of the post I have read at little green notebook,
about the leopard pattern ¨les Touches¨ from Brunswig and fils.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Affordable art fair



Have you ever heard of the adfordable art fair? I didn´t untill now.
The fair was founded in 1999 and the aim was to make contemporary art accessible to everyone, and to show you don’t need to be an art expert or a millionaire to enjoy and buy art.They organize fairs in: Amsterdam, Bristol, Brussels, London, Melbourne, Milan, New York, Paris, Singapore, Sydney.
They promise to have a wide variety of art, a relaxed atmosphere and affordable prices, sounds great!







































Girl with the pearl earring - one of my favorite movies, this piece of art is made of buttons and other bits and pieces.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Antique market in Paris

Hello, sorry for posting so late, today was a very busy day at work and after that I decided to
spend some quality time with my Beau boyfriend´s grandmother.
My Beau boyfriend had to go to Paris for work, that gave me inspiration to post about a great antique market I discovered last time we were there.
It is probably the biggest antiques market I have ever visited in europe, and when you go, make sure you go early and don´t be in a hurry. They have around 350 dealers and they come from all over France.
You have to pay 8 euros entrance and it´s open from 11 till 7.
Take your wishlist with you, surely you will find all those things you are looking for, and be ready to bargain. Walk away if you find it too expensive, so most of the times they will call you back to lower the price. You will find expensive things inside the covered tents, and the cheaper thing outside in the open air. The next 2 antiques markets are:

From 6 till 15th of may 2011 - Paris 12 et 4/ Place de la Bastille - Antiquites Brocante

From 3 till 13th of November 2011 - Paris 12 et 4/ Place de la Bastille - Antiquites Brocante





I didn´t took pictures when I was there, and found there on the internet to gave you an idea of what is there to see.
If you go to Paris those days, good luck and happy hunting.
-luv-

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Candle holder Simon from Borek Sipek

I remembered that my parents bought themselves 2 of these SIMON Candele holders from Borek Sipek a few years ago, I have always been intrigued by it. My mum has hers candles in it and in the middle, there is a little vase, you can place flowers. I loved watching my father polishing the silver after dinner sometimes.
I was very happy, when my parents bought me one to have in my house.

from Elle Decor






I love the design of it, like it is without candles.

This is the designer Borek Sipek:
Borek Sipek

Some information about Borek Sipek:
The Czech architect, furniture designer, and glass artist Borek Sípek was born in Prague in 1949.
He studied furniture design at the Prague School for the Applied Arts and studied architecture at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg. Borek Sípek took his degree in architecture at Delft Technical University. Borek Sípek also opened an architecture and design practice in Amsterdam. He founded Alterego, a design business, with David Palterer. In the 1980s, Borek Sípek designed Postmodern furniture and glass objects, which brought him international renown. Borek Sípek's designs are formally distinctive, both ingeniously conceived and sumptuous, and are often executed in unconventional materials and combinations of materials.
Borek Sipek designed products for Alessi, Cleto Munari, Driade, Maletti, Vitra, Leitnerhas works in the permanent collections of various museums around the world, inlcuding MoMa, Museum for Decorative Arts in Lyon and Paris, France, Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Switzerland and Design Museum in London.

Other pretty designs:



Acate Coat hanger

I find his designs original, beautifull and quirky. They are statement pieces for in the house.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Colourful Art created

Hello, hope you had a wonderfull weekend. Saturday it was raining heavily and it was lovely to stay home fora day and make some art for on my empty wall. Since a while I wanted something for behind my sofa that adds colour to the decor as I have a lot of grey and white in my house. I bought a huge canvas 1.42m by 1.05m and used oil painting.
                                    It´s my first painting ever, wich I did in the kitchenfloor!

Well I hope you like it, It took me a few hours and there is a lot of paint on the canvas.
I didn´t knew that it takes so much time to dry, i can´t wait to hang it on the wall.
Inspired by these pictures:





mimi and meg

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Our doggies

DUKE during his recent visit

Our dog Duke needs a pillow to sleep, even if there is no pillow available, your arm or leg will do just fine.
sorry for the blurry picture, it was such a sweet moment.
We have two dogs, both found as stray puppies on the street during my travels here in Spain.
They are both the best doggies that I could ever imagine.
They both live in Holland right now, living like kings among my family.
Here is our other dog called BOY, he adores my mum

BOY with my mum

Boy need be covered with a trow, before bedtime.
They both come from the street yet they have such luxe demands...

Amazing table DIY

I am all in the DIY mood, we have good weather since a week and I have butterflies in my stomack to go and paint something. As I have to wait for the weekends, I fullfill my DIY hunger for now by reading other bloggers projects.
I was head over heels with what Mrs. DeVore , from Dellings By DeVore, has done with her diningtable.
She saw a very pretty nailhead trip white table at Zgallery and was inspired to make a similar one.
This is the result:

I like the zigzag fabric on the chairs, i think I got the same on my chairs. I like that you can see the rugs.


It´s such a pretty detail to see those nails under the glass.


It looks so fresh and inviting
 
This is what the table was before:

Huge change right, she did great job, sure it was a lot of work.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

before and after

I did find a before picture of my 2 found armchairs.It was taken in front of the place where I got them upholstered. As you can see I was choosing fabric, and I also liked the circle black one.
But I went for the black with the white piping as that can be used even in 10 years from now, it´s ageless.
So here is the before:
and after:

In yesterday´s post you can see more pictures.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Upholstery projects

The first post I placed on my blog a few months ago, was about two faux bamboo armchairs that I had and wanted to upholster with fabric cross section corcoal from Calicocorners, well it´s finally done!!!
                                                                This is the result:
i have 2 of these armchairs, They look fresh and clean. I do have to repair the
legs with white paint, during transport they got damaged.
                                                     I do love the way it is upholstered.

This is a picture of what it was before

Another project that I don´t have a before picture of ( I am such a quick DIY-er i always
hurry up to get it going that I forget to take pictures of it before)
Anyway try to imagine a chair with simple white fabric.
And look what it is now:
Ain´t it pretty, this upholstered Louis armchair with the nailhead trim?
This chair I bought when I was 18 for my first apartment and fabric at a market back in Amsterdam.
I have no idea where this goes, for now I will leave it it my office untill I find the perfect place for it.


Now rember my first upholstery project I did about a black wing back chair with white piping?
read about it here
When I bought that chair at the thriftshop, my mother in law found it silly and dirty, she
doesn´t understand that with upholstering you make it ´´new´´ again.
My mother in law throws away furniture, and she never ever had entered a thriftshop in her life.
When I got the wingbackchair delivered to my office, she changed opinion and told me she
wanted to have that chair for herself, so it went to her house.

I have found, YES FOUND 2 beautifull, heavy and superior quality armchairs a few weeks ago
on the street near my house!
(again, don´t have before pictures, the fabric was worn only)
and got them reupholstered in black with white piping again.
I did liked that look.
Now these stay in my office for when I have visitors.

Those legs are so detailed, they look like lion paws.
The upholsterer was so sweet to make me 2 matching pillows as a gift.

Ok this is not such a good picture, but I wanted to show you the height of my office, do you
see the curtain behind the chairs? Behind the curtain is where I keep stock and other stuff that I don´t want to see all the time. This curtain is another DIY project made on the sewing machine by my mother and my father
hang up the rod. The fabric was purchased at IKEA and it´s Gunvor.

I did all the chairs at one and got a discount, but even so my DIY budget decreased, now I have to
go get back to work, but will have a smile on my face seeing these pretty chairs.




Monday, February 14, 2011

Happy Valentines day

 mothers day gift love pillow Mothers Day Etsy Gift Roundup
 via etsy store honey pie design

Happy Valentines day today
-luv-
beaulifestyle

DIY bulletin board

This weekend I have made some inpiration boards for a good friend of mine.
She told me recently she felt that her office was lacking some girly chic stuff, i remebered she had
3 boring corch bulltin boards hanging on the wall behind her desk and I got the idea to DIY cover them in fabric with nails. I got inspiration from various bloggers who did this before.
Here is the inspiration:

                                This is the Bulletin board from Alaina  - Live creating yourself

                                 the estate of things chooses urban grace desk
                                                           Sara - The estate of things

This is what we needed besides the easy DIY bulletin board:
-nails/studs
-fabric (if wrinkeled, iron it before)
-fabric glue
-a stapler
-siccors
        
         Glue the fabric, staple it on the back ( you can see my red nails)

          
    push the pins in, we did them every 5 cm.

    Voila, here you can see one done, and one still to do.
P.s. picture were taken at night and with my iphone, excusez moi for the bad quality of the pictures.



Friday, February 11, 2011

Jewelry inspired by blue velvet sofa´s



    
Got across this pretty bracelet here and it´s called the Abena cuff.
It´s on sale right now, and its so pretty for a night out or to wow an casual outfit.

                      
It´s funny I am very drawn towards the blue colours as it isn´t really my kind of colour (more red, pink, coral, beige and earth tones) but I am changing my opinion right now, ever since I saw pictures of blue velvet sofa´s, I am smitten with blue.





so pretty...

Beau Entryway

This is the actual kind of look that I go for in my house.
But I do love/apreciate/want the next looks:

Gorgeous antiques, oh that lamp!

Such a sweet and grown up entryway

Love the blue shades matching the painting, zebra print, stick candles and the stools

Love.love, love this mixt of vintage, DIY and new
like the mirror on top of the console

So peacefull and clean

Vibrant and colourfull

Cool and collected, like the artwork and the 3 little owls
eat, pray love feel

These images I have had saved before I started blogging, I don´t remember where they came
from. Some of them came from Domino, ana shapiro.
Flowers make a great entryway and a great first impression.