Look Familia?

Loving the charmingly chunky Familia series designed by Ole Jensen for Normann Copenhagen. It's just so cute, it makes me want to sew little clothes for it!

Check out all the other wonders at Normann Copenhagen if you've got a minute. It's a treat.

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Mini Moderns

Mini Moderns is a range of wallpapers, fabrics and tablewear, designed and produced by London-based design and branding agency, Absolute Zero Degrees.

Mini Moderns started out with wallpapers for kids, like this design called Six of One.

I rather like this Moo! wallpaper and the matching Pat the cow floor cushion.

For grownups (or for people who're not quite sure), there's the Tick Tock Snow wallpaper, which is designed to be coloured in!

But I'm sure you'd agree that no coloured pencils should be allowed anywhere near the gorgeous Sitting Comfortably? wallpaper. Love it!

Visit Mini Moderns to check out the rest of their fab products, and to hunt down a stockist near you.

More patchwork

Many thanks to one of our readers for the late addition to yesterday's post about Casamento's patchwork chairs. Jakaranda Prinses pointed me to this extraordinary work by Lebanese outfit Bokja (via Decor8).

Bokja's haute bohemian chic combines old and traditional textiles with modern furniture, to stunning effect.

Read more about them at Decor8, and also at the Bokja website.

Starry Eve

I was in Casamento again recently (see my previous post about this shop here), and saw these beautiful chairs which really deserve mention.

These reconditioned 60's oak chairs have been beautifully upholstered in a patchwork style, with bamboo silk embroidery detail, all by Starry Eve of Casamento.

Starry Eve works from Casamento's studio in Kommetjie, hunting out mid-century relics to renew, restore and re-create them into once-off accent pieces like these, using embroidery, tapestry, patchwork and crochet.

I've been seeing lots of other patchworky things around lately. Hella Jongerius's Polder sofa , and Squint's great patchwork chairs come to mind. Can you think of any others?

Giveaway - Euro Groove

Featuring leading musicians, producers and DJs from Europe, Euro Groove is the latest release from Putumayo World Music . Click here for a preview of these cool, contemporary grooves.

The first lucky reader to email to us at elledeco@elledecomag.co.za, naming one of the artists on the album gets their very own copy of Euro Groove . Please remember to include your name and address in your mail.

Issue 54 - Between Sand and Sky

Ten hours away from Buenos Aires is a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere, called Cabo Polonio. For the few in the know, "El Cabo" is a favourite Summertime getaway, and two young Buenos Aireans have built themselves a cottage to do just that.



Page 112 - 119 of Elle Deco SA show you some of the vast duned spaces around the tiny one-roomed cottage, but here on the blog we've got some of the more intimate landscapes to show you.

Top Tip - be your own stylist

Some people really are gifted with an eye that allows them to put things together in a way that simply works. All those little corners of the El Cabo house are put together just "right", aren't they? Of course, as with everything, practise improves your skills, and looking closely at the way in which things are styled in photographs will help to develop "the eye". Try some styling of your own things, using a digital camera, and you'll start looking at your little collections differently.

I always enjoy the way that Denise of the Freshly Found blog constantly uses the things around her to make lovely compositions in her Durban home. Look at what she's done with the autumn leaves picked up in her garden.

Try being your own stylist this weekend - look at the corners of your own home through a camera lens, and surprise yourself.

Issue 54 - National Geographic

Neil Stemmet of Koncept Design and Architecture has built himself an extraordinary beachside home at De Kelders on the Cape south coast. Mark Williams' pics on pages 94 -103 are already quite dizzying, but if you're ready for more, dive right in...

The interior is filled with a lifetime of collections, and also amazing textured surfaces, like the feature wall made of sections of branches.

Striking blocks of colour are a feature of the house. Just look at those amazing kitchen blue tiles and the deep red curtain and sofa in the living room.

My favourite colour statement is those blocks of well-thumbed National Geographic magazines on Neil's curiosity-filled shelves.

Outside, the house has been carefully designed to work with the natural environment, with a low-maintenance indigenous garden, and smart use of recycled and re-used materials wherever possible.

Along the sea-facing side of the house, a canal runs the length, cooling the house and bouncing reflections onto the interior walls.

The good news is theres still more to come from the marvellously Issue 54 before the week is up, so check in again soon.

PS: Neil also has a beautiful apartment right in the centre of Cape Town. Check it out here.

Top Tip - book colour

Neil Stemmet's use of the vibrant colour of National Geographics (see previous post) is such a simple and effective way to use a bookshelf as more than just a support structure.

A quick whip around the Web found me another example, this time from the Flickr page of dcfox...

...and this let me to hunt down a couple more clever ways to use books in your decor.

Happy Mundane posted about using the gold leaved pages of a book as decoration - something he spotted in an issue of Elle Decor last year.

His post about facing spines in rather than out attracted quite a lot of comment, so check it out, and see what you think.

And, of course, everyone's arranging their books according to the colours of rainbow these days. Here's the freshly-hued bookshelf of OneGoodBumblebee...

... and this is in the house of Chotda.
I imagine there's some smart lighting going on here, to make those colours stand out so brightly.

The pic below is not really decor, but it's so pretty, I just couldn't resist. Marcus Ramberg took a pic of the shelves of a printing company, where you can choose the colour of your book cover before printing.

There are heaps more of these at the Rainbow Bookshelf Flickr group, as well as an inspiring article on the subject at Colourlovers. I just wish we'd used this system when I was a school librarian - so much more fun than that pesky Dewey method.