Designalogue

Remember these?:

& these:

Quite possibly thats why you are here in the first place! (the traffic I get to this blog still from when I posted about these back in June 2010 is huge!)

Well the UK-ian hottie responsible for such clever up-cycling has just launched his new of lighting which includes these crystal globes.

So pretty.

And these too

And this

I predict a Pintrest Melt down!

And before you ask:

No, I dont know how to get the bottoms off or how to get the globes in. I leave it to the people who do!

Lee Broom is the dude in the know!

Enjoy!

A few months back Modern Home Magazine asked my tips on working with art in interiors.

This is the outcome of that chat:

Thanks Modern Home for featuring my work!

Say WHAT?!

Thats right!

That IS my project on the COVER of the new House & Garden Bathroom lookbook! and then some more on the inside!

and in case you thought I was fibbing, thats my name just there. SEE!!

Photography by Armelle Habib who did an amazing job!

Look see here if you would like to see some more of that project – before & afters.

A lovely person over on my facebook page (ahem… go like me, um it!!) commented that she was glad she didnt have to do the layout of the tiles! It was a bit fiddly & different than a usual tile layout, so I thought I would share some of the pictures I took while working it out!

Originally the plan was to place these tiles in an organised random pattern. I admit, there was some procrastination on my part when it came to working out this organised chaos! I’m sure a computer program would’ve been simpler, but I am a bit old school and like to draw things out, so I made a life sized template on my living room floor & started to play! (cant accuse me of not being hands on!!)

Starting to get a feel for the layout… this picture shows half most of layout as random, and starting to play with graduating colour stripe layout.

I feel hard in love with the graduated stripe. It meant we had to order a few more tiles & delay the install a week while they were hand made! But I think it was well worth waiting on.

See, it HAD to be striped.

I had the easy part! Bruce the tiler had a very difficult job but did it beautifully! These tiles are hard enough to keep straight just placed on the floor. I dont want to think about hard it would’ve been adding gravity to the mix!

Anyway, its not quite mid day, but the champagne is cooling ready to celebrate my first ever magazine cover! CHEERS!

In my world, it is so exciting seeing things come to life that have been rattling around in my head for a while!

I  liken it to having babies all over town and I’m the surrogate. (Is that weird?! Did I just gross you out?!)

Moooooving on….

These are some of my recent project happenings:

This morning I finally got to see these delicious Patricia Urquiloa tiles that I was so excited to use, laid on the bathroom floor of a project I am working on.

I love them so much. SO SO much.

Also this morning in the same house we installed some gorgeous Roman blinds.

This is the best picture I took with my crappy camera, so you will just have to imagine, or take my word for it on how good they look!

psst: The sconce on the wall in real life isn’t as tiny as it appears to be in this picture!

Still a fair bit to get done on this house when time & budgets allow! (real life ruins all the best laid plans!) but its all coming along so beautifully.

Meanwhile, over on the other side of town:   This renovation project is really starting to take shape.

The en-suite bathroom is being slowly installed.

The tiles are also in a dark grey, but very different from those above!  just in case you sensed a theme!

I cant wait to see this done, I’m really excited about this design!

The paint colour has been confirmed  & after lots of tests my original choice was given the go ahead – phew!!

So now you have an insight into some of my current ‘babies’!

One life lesson I had to learn early on in my career – patience is a virtue!

Here in my part of the world -Melbourne town, the foods & wine festival is a happening or, maybe just happened?!  Foodie peoples get very excited by this. Just to be clear, I am no foodie.  I can cook – and even make food both edible AND tasty! But I’m no fancy pants cook nor have a real desire to be. To be honest the only time I’m dine in linen clothed restaurants its on someone else’s dime! Its just not my thang to drop a few hundy & then some on a meal. Sure its tasty, but I’m not going to appreciate it enough to drop my precious coin on it. I’d rather spend it on my furniture fetish -something house pretty that I can love long time. (psst, I reserve the right to change my mind about this at any time!)

Geez I can ramble on… So to the point of this post!:

Local chef Matt Wilkinson has released a beauitful new cook book titled: Mr Wilkinson’s Favourite Vegetables. I think from the title you can guess its about cooking with vegetables!

Its been photographed by one of my favourite ladies Jacqui Melville & chock full of tasty eye candy & belly goodness!

The photographs & styling are amazing. Its truly beautiful so chops goes to Caroline Velik for an amazing styling job done!

Im sure its all tasty too!

YUM!

YUM!!  (think I need some lunch!)

Cute cover illustrated by Miso

Here is a pic of the fabulous Jacqui hard at work shooting my bathroom for my website!

Oh & re this bathroom project, I have some VERY exciting news to share about this very soon!!

Domestic goddess I am not.  I’ve only just come to terms with the fact that I dont have a fairy god mother who is going to clean up after me. (For an all too brief & fabulous time I did have a house cleaner who would clean those things you don’t even think about like light switches, door knobs  & ovens! (or is that just me?) But then I got de-facto divorced & couldnt keep her any more. I think her loss saddened me the most. I kid…but do I?!) So domestic products & wot nots were just not something I wouldn’t really spend much time thinking about. That was until on one of my exotic travels to the local IGA supermarket, I came accross something that made me really question ‘who am I?’

Until then I didn’t know I was the kinda girl to be excited -genuinely excited by something so domestic like a dish brush!

But I did. And after a lot of soul searching  it turns out I am!

In my defence, I think you would be too. You see its not a plastic dish thingy – it’s bamboo & kinda pretty as far as dish thingys go!

Maybe my love for this is more about the feel than the look. The bamboo handle feels so nice to hold & being a tactile lass, I just loves its feelin! Literally & figuratively (hmm…is that the right word?eh..) as it’s one of those feel good sustainable guilt free AND useful products!

The important sustainable credentials:

• The handle is made from bamboo which is uber sustainable product as it grows at the speed of light -Fact* & finished with natural oils. Not toxic nasties.
• The bristles & brush head are made of recycled plastic

Oh & it also works pretty well at cleaning stuff.  Fancy that – kinda pretty AND practical!

So my domestic goddess tip for you – spend the 7 ish bucks on a Full circle dish brush. When you have, get back to me & confirm your love of it- maybe we can form a club or something?!

Please note:

This is not a sponsored post. Bizarrely I do have a genuine love for these.

*Bamboo does not grow at the speed of light. But if you thought it did – even for a second, then I don’t think you can join my club.

The first time I ever saw a house that had been ‘done’ by a designer it bothered me. I would have been a youngen of about 14.

What bothered me then, is still the same as what bothers me today in the design world.

My friends family had engaged an ‘it’ designer of the era in Melbourne town. He had designed her bedroom in pretty pretty blue and white florals with ruffled cushions. All tasteful girly, nice and sweet.  Yes, it was the early 90′s.

Her 15 year old brothers room bothered me even more. It was decked out in terracotta and a lot of check pattern.  It was more fitting for a smoking jacket wearing 45 year old man, than for a teenage boy.

What bothered me about these rooms was that they did not reflect my friends personalities in the slightest. She was not & never would be a floral or ruffle kinda girl and as I got to know her hot brother (yep -some snogging might have happened!) he was not a smoking jacket kinda suave dude.

Perhaps they weren’t given much of an option by their parents, or given access to the the designer, but the fact that these rooms reflected absolutely none of the personalities of my friends has always bothered me. Years later as I embarked on my own design career I have often thought of these rooms to be absolute anti of my own design ethos.

To me the greatest challenge of my work and what keeps me inspired is getting to know the personalities of my clients. By getting to know them we can collaboratively a space that truly reflects their personalities & lifestyles. They are the ones living in the space, not me.

So as I start work on a project of 3 teen & tweenage girls bedrooms, I am taking up the challenge to create rooms for them that they can feel proud of as being a representation of themselves. With this particular project, I consider a good design to be creating rooms that will grow with them as their tastes change & develop through the next few years not just what they are now. I’m sure the 10 year olds current passion for purple will be dramatically different in 2 years time!

So there you have it, my rant for the day! Possibly not much point to it rather than getting it off my chest.

And now just to up the eye candy quota, here are some images of a very talented designer who I  have a designer crush on – Martyn Lawrence-Bullard He is an ‘it’ designer of the moment, & with very good reason!

His work oozes personality, & his portfolio is diverse & beautiful. He is not recreating the same thing over & over. Instead just really beautiful & individual work.

ah, now for the eye candy…

I’ve been spending a fair bit of time this last week thinking about knobs.

Oh no not that kind of knob you filthy minx… I’m thinking about cabinetry knobs.

Searching for some decent looking knobs (hey, stop it!) led me to these little numbers. They will look pretty special on some custom cabinetry I’ve got in the works.

For real, they will!

Still thinking about knobs.  This time  door knobs.

Did you know that the majority of door knobs on the market nowadays are pretty ugly?

Fact. (well opinion, but its my blog – so my way!)

Just when you thought I was solely thinking about knobs.  (don’t go there!) I also thought about towel rails.

This squared and simple number will fit perfectly into the bathroom project currently being installed.

As well as all the thinking,  I’ve also been wondering just what was on the mind of the creator of this stained glass window in my clients bathroom?

Hmm. Refer to pic 1?

To break up all the thinking, and all that wondering I do a fair bit of day dreaming too about schemes  I am working on…

So  day dreaming about just how awesome this wallpaper will look on the cathedral shaped ceiling in my clients bedroom. awesome!

And also day dreaming and about this scheme for a living room in an art deco house. so pretty!

So that’s it. Thats what is on my mind of late.

I’ve told you before that I am deep!

I just made a bunch of coat racks into gum trees.  You know, as you do!

I’ll go on shall I!

I was invited to be a part of the first South Melbourne Scout festival, and as I seem to be saying YES! to random things that come my way these days, I said  yeah, OK! But, only if i could be pared with a local biz that I really like being Southwood Home & luckily Catherine from Southwood was really happy to have me too & so it was!

The creative challenge was to make an environmentally friendly window display from the products sold in the shop  and with a theme of a nursery rhymes, stories or myths.

We chose our theme to be that old song  Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree! (sorry if it now gets stuck in your head!)

So what I did:

• Turned coat racks into gum trees
• I made the gum leaves out of felt – some of which are felt coasters as sold in the store
• ‘Grass’ floor is a shaggy green rug as sold in store
• ‘Birds’ are Tea towels with Kookaburras strung up between the trees

These are the coat racks pre treeing! Very cute and a Southwood home’s own design

Close up of my gum leaves: I’ve gone with the ‘less is more’ approach!

The end result is a little forest of gum trees! – it looks simple, but effective and eye catching in the window! And with basically zero dollars spent on it, I am happy with the end result!

& just incase no one gets the theme, I popped this is the window to make it just that bit more obvious to the passes by!

I wonder if we will be called on for the last line in the song. Bring it on I say!

If you feel so inclined, you can vote for my window here. Just scroll down & select Southwood Home installation by Camilla Molders. You could win dinner to a naffy little cafe near by!! (those elsewhere in the world – you can still vote & we can deal with how once you’ve won!!)

& if you are in the area the festival is on THIS SUNDAY 19th Feb & mainly in Clarendon Street. There are lots of activities for one & all and performances by rock stars that were big in the 80′s & 90′s. hmm.

Either way, I’ll be around!

And so this happened:

As found in the March 2012 issue of Home Beautiful Magazine .

I’ll admit it: I cant help but do a little happy dance and squeal with excitement when I see my name & work in glossy print!

Thank you HB for featuring my project and a HUGE thank you to my very lovely client for opening her home and allowing this to happen! I wont name you – but I know you silently lurk around this blog!