Merry & Bright Oh & Happy Weekend!

I've had a lovely day today creating our Christmas windows and rearranging the shop for our Christmas look. I really love having the entire day free of appointments to spend in the shop pottering around and being creative. I am so happy with our Christmas look this year. It is very fresh and of course very colourful!! I've posted lots of pictures above for you all to see. We made the wreaths ourselves using fabric remnants, tuile and a few pretty ornaments. I'll try to take a few more night time shots of the windows next week to show you as the day time pics don't really show up very well. I am getting my sign writer to sign write "Merry & Bright" on each of the large front windows of the shop early next week as our Christmas slogan which I think is very fitting.

Hope you all have a great weekend and don't forget to look back on Sunday night to see this week's Absolutely Beautiful Christmas Competition entries!!

xo

Anna

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRINCESS

Have you ever met someone and felt like you have known them in a past life?
When my best friend married I got re-acquainted with her sister-in-law Sally. Sal is quite a bit younger than I am - although how much I will keep to myself - and I swear that in another time we may have been sisters. I see a lot of myself in her which I'm sure will horrify her.
It's Sally's birthday today and like me she loves an enormous fuss made of her on her special day hence an entire post devoted to my 'could have been' sister. She would never have been satisfied with with anything less.

Have a fabulous day you old bag and look after my boy!!

Australian Christmas Inspiration

I love these Australian Gumnut Christmas Greeting cards by Tsk Tsk @ Etsy. So lovely to see a modern take on Australiana!!

Making A Statement

I was recently asked to select some fabrics for some chairs which needed recovering at the new Emporium Hotel in Brisbane. Previously these chairs were covered in a matt silver pvc which I personally didn't think made much of an impact. The hotel's signature colour is red so I selected this gorgeous red zig zag fabric and what a statement it makes as you walk into the bar. I have now been asked to also select a new fabric for the curtain in the background which I am currently in the process of doing and there is possibly some very exciting things hapenning in the pipeline which I can't talk about at the moment but I should be able to announce something within the next month or so!!! Shh for now though!!

Black & Spiro Christmas Preparations

Friday this week we are installing our Black & Spiro 2007 Christmas windows. My assistants, Avril and Tess are working hard like little busy elves preparing for the installation. I'll post pictures once everything is up for you all to see.

On another note, thanks so much for the wonderful response to my Christmas Competition. I've already received some lovely entries and I can't wait to receive some more. I'll be posting the first batch this Sunday night.

Too Excited to Speak!

This arrived in the mail from Amazon about 5 minutes ago.

The seventh and final series of Gilmore Girls!

Need I say more?

Please do not try to call, drop in or contact me in any way for at least a fortnight.

I'm going to Stars Hollow.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Aren't these fabulous!

They are just a few of the family Christmas snaps that may be in CHALK's Christmas windows this week.

I'd love to share them all with you but there are just so many.

By the way - last night was fantastic! Buggered today but a huge thankyou to the gorgeous Wilbur and HAPPY 40th my dear.

A Christmas Competition

Last weekend I received these two beautiful Christmas images from Jill, a reader in Illinois which made me start to think how nice it would be to see more of people's images of Christmas in their home and or town/city. Then I came up with the idea for an "Absolutely Beautiful" Christmas Competition as below;

The Absolutely Beautiful Christmas Competition

To enter, please email me anna@blackandspiro.com.au some pictures of Christmas in your home or home town/city with a brief description of what Christmas means to you. Depending on how many submissions I receive I will post each one in a once a week posting which will contain all of the submissions I have received that week. I will be asking readers to vote each week on which one they like best and then 4 days before Christmas I will post the finalists and then ask readers to again vote on the one which they feel should win the competition. I will announce the winner on Christmas Eve.

The winner will receive one of my custom made one off Black & Spiro Couture cushions. I will email the winner some of the cushions currently available and they will be able to select which one they want. The cushion will be posted out to the winner.

I can't wait to see what happens at Christmas in your town/home. Please don't be shy about sending in your submissions - I think we will all love seeing what other people around the world get up to at this beautiful time of year!!

xoAnna


Oh, and by the way I will be treating Jill's images above as my first submission. I will post her images again at the end of this week with the beautiful email she sent me.

Saturday Night.

Surfer Boy and I are off to a party tonight!!! The reason I'm whipping off a quick post about it is because it has been so long since we last did something non-kid related on a Saturday night. In fact I actually can't recall the last time. Oh my God how sad is that.
We're off to the 40th of a boy I met in 1983 at Dancing Class! I'm so thrilled that I still can count people I met so long ago as dear friends.
I might try and scare up some then and now photos to show you tomorrow.
Best go and put on my party frock, brush my hair, and put on my dancing shoes....

Happy Weekend!!

I finish this week with this undeniably beautiful white house via Habitually Chic. Oh to have a home like this perched on the water and surrounded by a mote of lush green grass!

I must say a huge thanks for your beautiful comments this week - you are all so very kind!! I was pleased to hear that I'm not boring you all!!

Just a reminder to check back on Sunday night as I will be announcing my very exciting 2007 Christmas Competition!! Until then, have a lovely weekend!!

Decorating Annie's New House - Part 1

Over the last couple of months I have been helping my dear friend Annie decorate her absolutely beautiful new home. I thought I would show you a little sneak peak of the house with more pictures to follow within the next couple of weeks.

An Early Christmas Delivery

I was very excited to receive an early Christmas package in the mail today from a special friend in the U.S. Inside the gorgeously wrapped gift (and yes that is a Kate Spade Christmas card) was the very last edition of American House & Garden - what a treat! Thank you Courtney!!

It's starting to look alot like Christmas....

Christmas seems to be creeping up on us again and I am so excited as this is by far my favourite time of year. To start the season I am posting these gorgeous ornaments and wreaths by "Nest Pretty Things." I am also very excited about an Absolutely Beautiful Things Christmas competition which I will be announcing this Sunday night 25th November so do stay tuned as there is a beautiful prize to be won!!

THANKYOU

This is a huge thank you to Jodie at Ric Rac who quite amazingly read my blog, has the cowboy and Indian fabric I need, (see down 2 posts) and is willing to part with it!!!! You ripper!! I am constantly amazed at the generosity and support Blogging girls show each other and here is another perfect example. So 'YEAH JODIE!'

Here is the bunch of flowers I would send you if you weren't one of my 'imaginary friends' (as Surfer Boy refers to all I meet through Blogging.)

My Dining Room

I know you are all probably getting really, really bored of seeing the pictures of my new house so I promise this post will be the last one for a while but I had to show you my dining room. As we have moved into a smaller house due to moving into the city the one concern I originally had was where I was going to hang all of my paintings. After much thought, I decided to hang alot of them wall to wall and ceiling to floor in my dining room and I am so happy with the outcome even though it did take alot of planning as to the layout. It has created a very interesting look and feel in the room. I can't wait to have my first dinner party in there.

Find of the Week

I found this gorgeous vintage oil painting over the weekend which I absolutely love. It wasn't as cheap as the other vintage painting I purchased last week but I was still happy to pay $70.00 for it. I am trying to collect a few of these old paintings to hang in a cluster on a wall in my "Anna Room" at home.

Restful & Beautiful

Do you crave a restful, serene, simple, stylish, luxurious bedroom? This bedroom by Thomas O'brien via Studio Annetta is all those things. I love the mirror front wardrobe doors and the all white colour scheme is so restrained and simply beautiful!

Quilting like a maniac

It's been a busy week of patching. I have a blister the size of a five cent piece on my cutting thumb and a very sore back from leaning over the dining table to slice up 100s of patchwork squares. Loved every minute though.

This is the finished single bed quilt that I made for a friend. Usually I make then into doona covers for a bit more versatility but this is an actual quilt and for the first time I tried actually quilting it. Worked out pretty well I think. She chose all the fabrics and delivered them all to me which was fabulous and cut out at least one trip around Melbourne's fabric shops.

When Gidget turned two and moved into a 'big bed' I made her a patchwork doona. The Little Fella is now 31/2 years old and I still haven't got around to making his so that is this weeks project. The squares are all cut, and as of this afternoon I have finished 11 of 15 rows! He may actually get it sooner rather than later! He helped me choose the fabrics and even holds the material while I sew 'cause he's 'helping Mummy'. (By the way only the cut squares are his, not the lovely pink florals!!)

This is the work in progress as of 9.45 Monday night.

I've got orders waiting on a few more but I am determined to finish this one first - fingers crossed.

Free People

A couple of gorgeous things from Free People above. I think the fabric covered stool is particularly cute and would look gorgeous in a little girl's bedroom. The luggage tag at the bottom is very sweet too. Unfortunately for us Aussies they don't ship to Australia but if you have a US postal address you can access these very cute wares.