Designers Guide to Sydney – Easter Weekend

What can one do if they are in Sydney this weekend over Easter? This is the first Easter I can remember in a very long time that I haven’t battled the Thursday afternoon traffic to snail my way along the highway to some relaxing holiday destination, usually to get rained out and return a few days later in even worse traffic.
Instead, I have chosen to hang in my city and explore. So my favourite design and style guide weekend picks for those lingering in Sydney…

CarriageARTworks – one of my favourite venues with great markets (growers and artisan) and performance space, but this weekend a free art exhibition celebrating art from the city’s fringe.

Potter through Surry Hills and meander through some of the great stores… including the Surry Hills Neighbourhood market on Saturday 3rd April with all sorts of antiques and collectibles, international foods, plants, vintage clothing…
 
I quick wander through I Ran the Wrong Way store for some interesting ethical, sustainable and local goods:

Must have a quick stop at the Bourke Street Bakery cnr Bourke and Devonshire streets for the yummiest cakes, breads and pastries in town:

Try not to miss the Eliasson exhibition at the MCA in the Rocks – it ends April 11th and is a must see – imagine a circular room ten metres in diameter illuminated by a soft purple light or a two-storey moss covered wall, or a sparkling white metropolis made from Lego.

China Town Night market – open every Friday night:

Fringe Bar Markets – squashed into the Fringe Bar on a Saturday full of vintage, retro and hand made goods.
 
Dr Sketchy’s at the Arthouse Hotel – Burlesque drawing classes on Tuesday night – have a glass of wine and a scribble:

Madhatter’s Tea Party on Easter Sunday in the Victoria Rooms – a stunning venue in an old garage on Victoria Street Darlinghurst.

There’s lots to do this weekend – wander the streets, lots of markets, Bondi to Bronte walk, buy local produce for dinner with friends…. why go away at all!

Ideas for using blackboard paint at home

A friend of mine Adrian recently renovated his unit in Bondi and painted a blackboard wall in his kitchen. It is really effective and a great way to keep track of shopping lists, leave messages for the family etc. It really warms up the room and creates a feature of this corner of the kitchen.

I asked Adrian how he went about painting the wall and here are some of his tips – thanks Adrian!

Qu. How hard was it to paint the wall? [Adrian] At first I tried with a brush - big mistake, it was like working with glue. Because the wall is quite narrow I switched to a mini-roller with a short pile. This made the job more bearable and provided a much better finish.

Qu. Did you have to prepare the surface in any way?[Adrian] Not really, as it is a 'novelty' wall I'm not too concerned about the finish (plus it's matt black so imperfections are not reflected). I just painted directly over old acrylic paint that was washed down with sugar soap.

Qu. What brand of paint did you use? [Adrian] White Knight Paints

Qu. Any tips for others? [Adrian] The short piled roller, good ventilation and always allow to cover less than what the state of the coverage section of the directions.

Check out these other blackboard articles and blogposts:

Style-files – Netherlands:

Have a look at this post by Jennifer at madebygirl:

How about this dry erase writing surface from IdeaPaint

Other tips:

Make it magnetic – paint a magnetic primer underneath to make it a magnetic blackboard! http://www.abcstuff.com/magnetic_paint.php

What about a whiteboard? use IdeaPaint to create your own whiteboards – check out this article on notemaker’s blog: http://notemaker.com.au/products/idea-paint

Kids fun wall – read this article from real living to create a reversible activity board for kids: http://realliving.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=772405

Some suppliers in Australia:

• Resene Blackboard Paint
• White Knight Chalkboard Paint
• Resene Magnetic Paint
• Derivan Blackboard Paint
• Dulux Wonder Walls Magicote and Magicolor

Too Cute Cloud Umbrella

I need me one of these little Cloud Umbrellas from Joonsoo Kim! With a little more investigation I discovered the duo Korean design team who studies in the Netherlands Joon & Jung. You carry it around in a little stick which also acts as a pump and then inflate into mini-cumulus clouds of protection when the rain starts to pour!

I’m not 100% sure how protective it would be, no word on price or even if they are manufactured yet and reading a few blogs they drip a little, but hey – they are still tres cute.

In addition to the crazy little inflatable cloud umbrella, Joon & Jung have also made a range of other very sweet designs like the Pillow Blanket, a snug, cloudy blanket made of pillows you can lie on or throw around you. Or the Cloudmon toy/sculpture, again influences by clouds and rain (I don’t know if you have tried to make polyhedra before, but they are damn hard) and try the melting cup.

 

On the topic of umbrellas though, there are some xrazy ideas out there – that I just had to throw these ones in for good measure from The Coolist – and my personal favourites are:

The Multi-Unit Superbrella

The home made electric umbrella

The Contracting Polite Umbrella

The Eco Brolly

The Tandem

The Handsfree Numbrella

Crazy little designer people are so funny!!!  Which is your favourite? Mine is still the cloud umbrella.

Ode to Irresistible Fabrics

Don’t you just love textiles? Browsing in stores picking up odds and ends of pieces of hand printed fabric, a bolt here a scrap there. I love to touch them, look at them, stack them. Well, thanks to the internet and my visit to Life in Style, I have discovered so many talented designers making wonderful fabrics, so this post is dedicated to them.
Bird Textiles – thinks about the environment from her Byron Bay studio and creates stylish fabrics, homewares, stationery, umbrellas and more. Shibori in Chippendale – creates a range of handmade, Japanese inspired silk fabrics as well as screen printed and digitally created fabrics and homewares.

 

Stylish fabrics from Surface Art – produced into garments and homewares and all Australian made and printed. They sell fabric by the metre for up to $88 and even little packs of offcuts. What home is complete without some Scandinavian retro print from my Bondi neighbour Funkis. Their fabrics are quite expensive, anything from $90 - $250 per metre, but they are quite sturdy so can be used for many decorating purposes.

Of course my favourite most inspirational read ever was the story of Bholu designer Jodie Freid who not only designed her own fabrics and homewares which are hand emboidered by women in India, but she has also set up her own not for profit building pre-schools for disadvantaged children in India, called the Anganwadi Project. Read this article on Dynamic Business to see what a great entrepreneur she is and to be inspired.

A feature of fabric would be incomplete without a reference to Marimekko from Finland. I do love those northern Europeans, with their clean, crisp distinctive style that is both modern and retro at the same time.

I’ve found it hard to find their fabrics in Australia. If you are lucky enough to be in Finland, Sweden, Germany or the UK, you can visit a Marimekko shop. There are a whole bunch of suppliers of the products in Australia but I have not personally stumbled across a place to buy fabric by the metre. If you know where to buy fabrics in Australia, let me know. But check out their cool 2009 Christmas catalogue.
I could prattle on forever, but if you want to see a whole bunch of great fabrics in one place, checkout Funky Fabrix. They have a whole bunch of fabrics from designers all over. Check out some of my faves: Monaluna, Joel Dewberry, Saffron Craig, Michael Miller…
And they have a 10% discount right now on all orders over $100.
I could go on… but I will save it for some other time.
Drop me a note about your favourite textiles designer or fabric haunt.

Rajasthani Style – Mandawa Havelli

We recently returned from a trip to Rajasthan – an amazing place to go if you want an injection of creative inspiration. We had the good fortune of staying in some wonderful ‘boutique hotels’ called Havelis. These buildings are usually family homes which have been handed down through generations. They are often still family managed which makes them very homely and comfortable. Very few Indians can afford to renovate or convert them and they just disintegrate with time into the dust. 

We stayed in Mandawa Haveli in the heart of Shekawati, a small region north of Jaipur full of artisans and small villages full of crumbling havelis over 200 years old.

For budding architects out there who would like a challenging renovation project, head to Shekawati. This region has loads of towns with deteriorating havelis out in the desert – a really magical place, worthy of a visit.

Swedish Design

Great post on Decor8 about Swedish Design which then led me to Emma's blog from Stockholm - also full of great inspirational homes and images. I am going retro furniture hunting today. I haven't pottered around the Bondi furniture store lately. They often have some good stuff if you really poke around. Check out this hus & hem photo stream. My favourite is the blue one 2nd down - not so much the colour, though I like that it is bold, but more the way the room is styled.

Karen M. Andersen: Studio Tour - part 1

OK well I am reasonably new to this blogging thing so I am sniffing around looking for interesting bits and bites. One thing led to another and I ended up here on Karen Anderson's blog checking out her studio. It feels a little like cyber spying and I guess it is. Its a very cool looking little studio might I add. I love the personality and home made bits and bobs. Quite retro yet modern style with the aqua and red colour palette. Very cool. A few snaps that I particularly liked are below. Nice one karen. (not sure if you know that I am out here but hey, that's newbie bloggers for you!

Karen M. Andersen: Studio Tour - part 1

Check your Interior Style Personality @ ISCD

ISCD - my old interior design school - has released a dinky little interior style personality tool. Its quite fun just for a laugh. Apparently I am New York Loft (I think I got a different result once before, so clearly I am fickle). It says I am a trendsetter!!! I like a high ceiling (true), and an open plan (depends) and my style is distinctive and ever evolving (hmm - have to think about both of those). I believe the built environment is more spectacular than the natural one (FALSE).

Makes for a good magazine cover though. Check it out!! Or visit the ISCD blog.