Scented Candles

I love lighting scented tealight candles in my rooms on weekends and in the evenings because it creates such a cosy ambiance while making the room smell yummy. After trying many different types of candles, I've settled on the ones from IKEA as my favourite because they have a strong and lasting scent. My favourites are the apple and berry varieties, and I've also bought some purple tealight holders to match my room!

Walk In

After a long hiatus, I've decided to organise all the wonderful bits and pieces I've been hoarding over the past year!

First up, walk in wardrobes! It must almost certainly be every girl's dream to have one of these beautifully designed rooms in her house one day - as it is mine! Necessary features in my book? An ottoman, a window, and must be linked to the bathroom!

Island kitchens

I love searching for inspiration for my future dream kitchen. I would love one with lots of light, clean white cupboards, some with glass to display pretty kitchenware, and a large island bench perfect for cooking with friends and family for an alfresco dinner party. Chuck in a walk in pantry, stools for a bench top breakfast and a state of the art oven, gas stove top and fridge and you've got my favourite room in the house!

Flower jars

It's been way too long since my last post, but after the craziness of exams and catching up on work, I finally have a couple of weeks of holidays to get back into the swing of things and start documenting all the inspirational ideas that I've back logged over the last few months.

First of all, this is a cheap and easy idea for a quick table top decoration that you may need for any event you may have, whether it be a dinner party, a wedding or even a backyard barbecue. The idea of have a mix of blooming flowers and greens placed in assorted jars and decorated with some complementary ribbon is such a simple, delicate and rustic idea that I have completely fell in love with. It's so easy to collect jars in all different sizes - tall pasta jars, small sauce jars, round salsa jars - ever since I've found this idea, I've been consciously washing all the glass jars we use and storing them for future use. You can even use them for candles, drinks or lollies to add an extra dimension to the basic flower idea to create something really personal for you special event.

 

Hamptons Style

Something white, or light in hue, something stripey, something blue:

Transom Windows

Whenever I look at pictures of houses, I'm always in love with the idea of the extra flow of natural light into a room from windows above windows or doors. I googled this word for word to find out that they are called "transom windows" and not only give more light but can also function as ventilation devices to release hot air from the hottest part of the room. My favourite transom windows are the arched ones that highlight a central doorway or a window seat. Here are some images to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about - they're so versatile and are so much prettier than normal windows and doors!

Interior Design for Dummies

Another Christmas present opened early! Law got me an Interior Design and an Interior Decorating book to kick start my future career change! Foundations of Interior Design is basically a whole course on the history, concepts and principles of Interior design while Downtown Chic is more about redecoration and renovating your home. Can't wait to get into them and start playing around with the ideas. Law said he'd also get me a program to design on the computer so hopefully I'll show you some stuff when I get my head around it.

Christmas Decorations

Yay! It's finally that festive time of year again! I love seeing Christmas lights and decorations go up at the beginning of December - from the city to shopping centres to your neighbours across the street, there's nothing like the exciting feeling of preparing to entertain your family and friends at Christmas. This year has really flown by for me and before I knew it, there's only 3 weeks till Christmas! What better way to count down than to do a dedicated Christmas blog every week until Christmas? I hope these ideas inspire you in your own decoration adventures this Christmas! 

Make you tree look full and festive by hanging a variety of ornaments.

You can add different shaped ornaments, candy canes and home made decorations to the tree too!

http://www.myer.com.au/christmas_decorating-your-christmas-tree.aspx

Colour themed Christmas decorations lets you have a different tree every year.

Complete the look with matching gift wrapping and wall features - I love the bauble wreath!

http://www.coles.com.au/Products/Christmas-Magazine.aspx

Christmas tree wall feature made from Christmas lights can be a nice change.

A perfect idea for those who are short of space and still want some Christmas spirit in your home!

http://www.marthastewart.com/photogallery/christmas-lights

Book Worm

I love flicking through housing magazines and seeing all the creative ways people can integrate bookshelves into their homes. Bookshelves are rarely used for just books nowadays as people now accommodate for photo frames, pretty boxes, fine china, clocks, artworks and anything else you may have lying around.

Some of my favourite ideas are when bookshelves are built into the structure of the rooms themselves - such as under the stairs or in the walls. They also work well as entertainment units or as a decorative centrepiece. Here a few of the ones I will definitely keep in mind for my future home!

Colour Your World

I love looking at the colour wall in hardware shops and always manage to come home with a stack of paint samples. One of my many dream jobs is to be an interior designer and so I always browse for colour scheme ideas for every room in the house. Dulux is one of my favourite sites for visualising paint colours in a room. They also have lots of ideas on complementary colour schemes and types of paints to use which will come in very handy when I can finally decorate my own house one day!

Dulux Hues Gallery

http://www.dulux.com.au/colour/colour-gallery/hues-gallery

Noveau Lights

http://www.dulux.com.au/colour/colour-gallery/hues-gallery/greens

Sheer Elegance

http://www.dulux.com.au/colour/colour-gallery/hues-gallery/blues

Casual Fling

http://www.dulux.com.au/colour/colour-gallery/hues-gallery/purples

Out of Africa

http://www.dulux.com.au/colour/colour-gallery/hues-gallery/browns

Double Take

When I watch movies, I always notice the tiniest details in the set director's choice of room furnishings and decor as a medium for expressing the character's life and personality. Many of it goes unnoticed but as a whole, most scenes are complemented by the furniture and the colour scheme and the quirky little trinkets that purposefully reflect the director's vision of the character's world.

One of my favourite movie sets is Holly and Gerry's New York City apartment in PS. I Love You. In looking up ideas from this scene, I found my new favourite movie design blog, Bandelle, that has a series called Double Take which shows you how to recreate looks from your favourite movie interiors! They have other categories too - check out Fashionable Films.

Double Take: PS. I love you

Ideas on how to recreate Holly and Gerry's apartment

http://www.bandelle.com/blog/2008/07/02/double-take-ps-i-love-you/