Project Ombre

Sooooo, I know I have been missing for months and yes I have some excuses but not good enough. It has been crazy busy with house hunting, then house moving, then house nesting etc etc. Since the last post, there was some travelling done as well. We were in London for 12 days and spent it mostly at home with family showing off the young boy.

Anyway, I am now armed with a new computer and things are settling to a sane speed so I am back with my first post in months.

The new house is looking great but still, finishing touches required. Pictures and shelves need hanging but that will be done quickly enough. We shipped in our own from KL because we were tired of living in rented furniture. Besides, they were bile. I was convinced the couch had lice and felt itchy each time I got close.

So now, with that stuff out, and my plush cream couch in place, I went in search of decorating projects. The first on the list, is a cheap armchair with a cream cotton cover. The cover was looking ragged and I had some dyes in my box. A packet of Ocean Blue and Bahama Blue. Perfect for my first experiment with ombre, a technique of creating graduation of colours on dye jobs.

Here are some stunning examples.

Ombre curtains from Anthro.

What about these dresses!

I watched a few youtube tutorials and was ready to have a go.

The ends were dunked in the different colours but for the middle portion, I shuffled between the two dyes to achieve a gradient. Well I tried.

 

I must have left the cover in for too long or perhaps the buckets were too tall as you can see the line across the mid section. 

 

The end result was splotchy but I can live with it. Might try it again but with a lighter fabric this time.

Welcoming M's Number Two

This week, M in Brisbane, my old friend and fantastic ex-housemate welcomed number two into the family. Congratulations M and you still haven't told us her name yet.

No pressure, names are really tough. We didn't have a name til days before the event and even then after deciding on Z, we were unsure for at least a week.

So congrats to you and take care of yourself.

Your days ahead will be Cloudy with a chance of rainbows. Cloudy only for a couple of weeks anyway, it gets easier once you hit 10 weeks, that's my experience anyway.

 via here

Things I heart

Been meaning to blog about some amazing things I came across but had no time. We are shopping for a new place to move to and have seen more than 10 houses but each has something niggling about it so the final decision has yet to be made.

In the meantime, here are some of the creative innovations I was talking about.

Like this shower octopus caddy from swedish design from Formverket. Forget rubbish suction cup- shelves that never stay on.

And this definitely has the wow factor. A swing necklace. Sigh divine.

What about this fantastical cafe for moms and bubs ?

The underside of tables even has pictures for toddlers to enjoy during their crawling adventures. This Tokyo cafe thought of it all.

( via handmade charlotte)

Write Stuff Designs

Got a nice email this morning, about Write Stuff being featured on a Catch My Party. R's party design for a farewell party made it to their website and with it, she gave me credit to, with a link to my website on the bottom right of the page. Very exciting, first time for me.

The party was for a little girl Rachel and I drew out some cute luggage and planes in a browns, pinks and blues and the overall effect was quite adorable.

Here are some of the photos.

If you want to see the rest of the pics, go here.

Serendip Road Trip

We just got back from our roadtrip to Srilanka and it was the first real family holiday just the 3 of us. The trip was short, only 6 but packed with activities and new firsts for the little boy.

First elephant at a temple in Colombo;
First picnic
First picnic at sunset on the Galle Fort ramparts;
First time sleeping in his travel cot and soundly too (Thanks to Aunty Z);
First visit to the site of Lanka Project yay !

Looking back, I haven't actually been back to SL for more than a year now and noticed plenty of change. Since the war ended, the military presence on the streets of Colombo has diminished almost entirely. The city is undergoing a major makeover and new roads have sprung up. The highway that cuts through the island will be completed in a few months which will reduce our driving time by 50%.

An air taxi service has started to the highlands and down south and J who tried it for the first time said it was definitely worth it. He flew from Colombo to Dickwella lake which would normally take 5 hours on the road but only took 45 minutes.

Here are his photos.

J was the only guy on the flight and when he tried to sit in the front row, he was told to sit in the middle of the plane to even the weight distribution. Hmmmm. The plane is only little, and will take no more than 15 passengers at any go.

Here's the plane approaching Tangalle and it landed about 5 minutes after he took this pic.

We spent the first couple of nights at a house nearby called Kurumba and it was very sweet. We had a Srilankan mother and daughter team who made delicious meals and made our stay very comfortable.

We spent most of our time at the site, surveying the work and talking to the contractors. T and J had plenty of questions while I took Z around for a stroll.

I don't have the photo but there was a local farmer who brought his herd of water buffalos to graze on the land every Monday. Quite wonderful.

Anyway, the brick walls are only 30% done and we are another 6 months away from completion which is much longer than we anticipated. Still, we are hoping it will be done before Christmas. Fingers crossed.

For a smile

I saw this today on Design Fetish and need to repost it. Made me smile.

The originals came from a blog called Little Things and was created just for that purpose. Nice eh?

New Rule

It's time for the inner child in me to break free once we move house. I fully intend to spend time designing and decorating a playroom cum bedroom for my little Z.

Time to leave this tiny apartment and find somewhere with more space especially storage. I am getting tired of stuffing things in corners of the house or under beds. My living room looks like a childcare center and that has got to change.

My little bunny is turning 7 months and by the summer when we move, he should be crawling and need more space. I plan to make a playroom just for that purpose so I am seeking inspiration on the blogspheres and getting rather excited at the prospects.

Wouldn't this be a scream ?

( via swiss-miss)

A Legowall ! Of course it is excessive but I could do a small section of the wall up to a metre high. 

Or this totally unreal and gorgeous Floating bench by satoshi itasaka and takuto usami via here.

Just dreaming of course.

Peter Bristol's Training Dresser is insanely cute.

Or these skyscraper dressers from Kast Van Een Huis, so darling.

When I was a kid and I am sure many of you did too, drape blankets over our parents furniture to build secret alcoves or tents for play. I think Z would love a teepee for the same reason and when he gets older, sleep in it.

These one are quite classy without being too kiddy.

I found someone in Doha who will make one for me at QR500, personalized too so I get to pick fabrics and decide on design appliques for each panel.

These cardboard toys are amazing and would be so much fun to put together and decorate.

Too bad it's quite heavy so shipping costs will kill me. The toys alone are not expensive, this rocket is only GBP 33.

Party Favours

The Write Stuff designs are being used in some of the children's parties Doha. I did a simple dots and stripes theme for a birthday party recently and here are some photos.

Here are more photos from the party.

Old New Look

Saw this photo on Apartment Therapy today and it grabbed me.

A persian rug in the kitchen? Yet it is really a rug, only that it is synthetic. Liore Manne's LAMONTAGE rug is woven with polyester fibers and so is water resistant. Perfect for a kitchen or outdoors and even the bathroom.

I prefer the rug in the top photo because it looks like the persian rug in our living room but I would never waste a good rug in a place like the kitchen but a beautiful lookalike that is durable would be perfect for an outdoor dining room for example.

On a different but similar note, I found these Arabesque-inspired tablewares at a mall in Dubai recently. Made with PVC, they marry practicality with style. The designer Peggy Raphael Dabar puts a contemporary spin on the traditional.

Images D'Orient

I was tempted by the whole range and there were so many but bought just the one bottle coaster for now.

 

The soap dishes are stunning.

And even these tea boxes.

How does one decide?!

The hunt for bread

The hunt for good bread is officially over. A few months ago after we moved to Doha, I complained that there was no place to get a decent loaf and so made some home loaves from watching videos online.

Results were good but I soon got lazy. Then just one day, while having brunch in La Cigale Hotel, we chanced upon giant loaves of bread that were baked fresh that day. Since then, we always went back there whenever we ran out.

Two days ago, I found yet another bread heaven and this time, it was in a Belgium cafe Le Pain Quotidien. A chain with numerous outlets scattered across the globe unfortunately nowhere in Southeast Asia.

Rows of crusty brown goodness stacked high behind the counters. Yeast free, explained the manager. Arrives in Doha frozen and baked on site.

We ordered some open sandwiches to try and they brought us a platter of some warm breads to try.
I had the cold tartine of egg and T had the hot steak sandwich with melted cheese.
 

My humble egg sarnie had a sprinkle of capers and a hint of sweet cucumber relish with hardly any mayo, it was a perfect lunch. Will try to make it at home, I brought a boule of brown bread home too.

Snake oil salesman or just old school?

Now that the bikes are in Doha, we now face a new challenge of getting a bike license and registration plates. Getting the bike license was simple enough but it involved paying a small fee of QR 200. The registration of the bikes was a lot more comical.

All the forms were in arabic so in the past, we got someone from T's office to fill them in for us as a favour. Only recently, we found out that there was a simpler way of getting things done. Whenever we went to the traffic police, we were always swamped by men offering "help" with our forms. These guys operate out of a small building outside the traffic police. With a couple of old typewriters and a photocopier machine, you could get them to fill out the forms for a small fee about QR50 negotiable of course.

 This kind looking old man started working on our forms. Who knows what he actually filled in the forms but that's the risk one takes I guess.

Then came the question of getting insurance as the police said we needed to buy some before we could get the bikes registered. This old man finished typing, looked up and offered us some insurance! How handy!

He was serious apparently.

His mate had a stash of insurance policies in his rickety drawer and would sell us some for QR 400.

This is his mate with the insurance. During the conversation with T, he was rocking back and forth on his plastic chair, with his bare feet tapping on the floor. When we commented that 400 sounds awfully expensive for insurance from who again? He slammed shut his drawer, sneered and said that it was the same everywhere.

T shrugged his shoulders and dutifully paid the 400. Insurance from the back streets of Doha.

Life cannot get funnier.