I've been bad!...

... about blogging lately. So sorry for the continued limited posting. I think I've hit maximum overdrive with building and always think I'll have more time but run out everyday. Just to tie you over, but if you like cute things, take a look at these darlings. Matt and I may be welcoming one into our family in November. Not 100% sure yet, but we're waiting to see how their personalities develop as they get a bit older. Eeeeeck! CUTE!!!! They make my heart melt.

I'm partial to the cute male on the left in the bottom photo. I grew up with an Alaskan husky and just love the wolk-esque look of them and their energy. Matt and I have been brainstorming names. It's tough! I just joke around with Matt, but every hour or so, I'll say, "Oh! I have a good one... how about Fluffy, or Poochie?! Wouldn't Wolfie be creative?" Hahaha... I like to tease him and emasculate everything. Some runners up for names that we both were okay with:
If we get a boy: Atlas, Indy
If we get a girl: Una, Leeloo
I had to sneak the geography inspired name into the mix. My other choice was Doppler. ;)

Vanessa's Italy

I'm loving the beautiful Polaroids Vanessa has been posting from her recent trip to Italy! Click HERE to see more.

Another Gorgeous Outdoor Shower

In addition to the outdoor showers I posted yesterday here's one which my Mum sent me tonight which she recently saved. Thanks for the inspiration Mum!!


Image via Garden Rooms

Outdoor Showers

After a long morning at the beach there's nothing quite like getting back to the house and having a cold shower to wash off all the salt and sand. I have these gorgeous outdoor showers saved in my files as inspiration for when we build our little outdoor shower over at Straddie one day...I'll just continue to dream and to collect more inspiration images for now as this little project certainly isn't on the priority list at the moment!! As my mum always says, good things come to those who wait...so wait I will.

Images 1,3,4 - Cottage Living Magazine

Image 2 - via Elements of Style

Today I Love...

Hello again. How was your weekend? Today I'm in Love with this gorgeous vintage inspired photo by Amy Dickerson.

This Is Australia

More reasons to love where I live...

Photographer - Jared Fowler

Photographer - Michael Wee

Photographer - Simon Griffiths

It's The Weekend...Phew!

Have a fun weekend!

Image - Christine Rudolph

Never Far From Our Thoughts

I just got sent these beautiful shots of Tas's Paddle and couldn't resist posting them. They were taken by Chris Carey via Blizzy.

I also love this shot I took of Gidget throwing Tas's flowers back after they'd washed up on shore.

Martha's Absolutely Favourite Things

"Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."- William Morris

Today I'd like to introduce you to Martha B. the writer of one of my favourite blogs, Nibsblog. Before having her son, Martha studied Anthropology, Art & Interior Design. She also worked for two major department stores doing window displays and fashion shows. Martha inspires me on a daily basis with her Vocabulary posts, her Then & Now posts and her Lil'Pix posts. I like her intelligent and witty approach to design and I definitely think she's a traditionalist at heart which I love. Overall, I love reading Martha's viewpoint and the pictures she posts are beautiful!! Let's see and hear all about Martha's favourite things...

"On our fireplace mantle are some of my favorite things:

Brass candle holders were a wedding gift. Look closely- the candles are in the shape of tree branches!

I love books and you'll find them all over our house. A small stack of them with a beach stone (found by my son) on top.

Polaroid of my father-in-law and his sail boat held in a vintage metal florist "frog."

Behind it is a starfish (a gift from my mom) and some old letters from my grandmother.

Antique pottery holds flowers from my garden.

For my 30th birthday my parents gave me the mantle clock- something I had always wanted.
Woven mirror was a sale item at Pottery Barn ten years ago.

Deer antlers (above the mirror) were from an antiques mall in upstate New York. At Christmas time I love hanging ornaments from them!"

Oh, Martha your favourite things are lovely. They are all obviously very special pieces which hold lots of special memories. I'm sure you will treasure them forever. Thank you so much for sharing them with us!!

Absolutely Favourite Things will appear here every Thursday so stay tuned!!

(Photo by Martha B. August 2008)

Flowers & Cake

What a glorious combination - flowers and cake! We had fresh flowers on our wedding cake and I often place fresh flowers on top of cakes I make but this one above takes the cake literally!!

Image - Vogue Living via Creature Comforts

New Fabric Obsession

I love this new fabric we have just received sampling for at Black & Spiro. It is an embroidered linen. I'm tying to find a little something to use it on...I'm thinking a little stool would be pretty. It actually reminds me of a very old piece of embroidery...gosh it's so beautiful and even more so in real life!! Email me for enquiries.

On a separate note...

My hubby is away on business this week. :*(
So sad...
I love you, honey!! Come home soon!

Twigs & honey bride featured in Southern Weddings blog

So sorry about the nonexistent posts this past week! It may seem like the wedding season is winding down, but it's actually picked up for me so I'm working harder and faster than ever to get all the time sensitive pieces finished (approximately 569 pieces to go!). As always, thank you so much to everyone for your patience!! I truly appreciate it! I often get asked if I have any hired help... Nope! Not yet! It's a 1 woman show at the moment. I sometimes get some help from my hubby to help with photos though. For the longest time, I took all the photos myself without a tripod/timer (yes, many outstretched arm poses). Can you believe it? ANYHOW, we finally got a tripod a couple weeks or so ago so that has helped tremendously. But for the most part, it's just me - emailing, convo'ing, building, photographing, listing, press, etc...

I'm hoping to do a few accessory posts this week or next and will try to get more general blogging in the schedule too, I promise!

Just to tie you over, hop on over to view a beautiful feature from Southern Weddings blog. It features the wedding of Amy & Andy. I actually got to meet Amy in person in early summer to handoff her hair piece. I don't get to do that often, so it was so nice and refreshing to meet a lovely bride face-to-face. Thank you so much, Amy! Congratulations!! See their wedding here.

My Picasso

FINALLY!!!

Moondoggie has never been a prolific drawer. His pictures are usually of the 'round and round scribble' variety.

While sitting across from me, enjoying our morning cafe break he asked for a pen so he could 'draw' on the napkin. Imagine my surprise when he actually drew something recognisable. Imagine my even greater surprise when he drew the whole thing upside down!! He drew it from my perspective, not his. Is that weird??

By the way - it's the Gingerbread Man with his gumdrop buttons, of course.

Pretty Pink

Oh, that lamp, that mirror frame, that wall colour - love it all!! But then again it is Ruthie Sommers...my favourite designer of all time!!

I have the perfect spot for this gorgeous Made By Girl Poster!! Loving the red and pink combo!! Wouldn't it look gorgeous in that beautiful white mirror frame in the top picture {mirror removed of course}!!


Tuile frills get me everytime!!

Here are a few pretty pink pictures I'm mad about!


Top - Ruthie Sommers via Stylecourt, Middle - Deeply Madly In Love Poster from Made By Girl, Bottom - Rachel Popo Photography via Oh Happy Day Blog.

More Straddie Pics...

This is the main bedroom - I used an old cane bed head I found which I painted blue and the shades on the lamps are made in a new floral fabric I love. I threw lots of patterned cushions on the bed which I dressed with a plain white quilt. The bedside tables are white painted timber with basket drawers - perfect of the beach.

Here is one of the flower arrangements I did in an old blue and white jug. I placed it into a vignette on the big old white sideboard I have in the dining area. Note the India Hicks candle - one of my favourite scented candles.


This is the little shelf Harry and I had fun filling with bits and pieces found from around the Island and some pretty jars from the back of a cupboard.

Harry and I went over to Straddie late last week to get the house ready for some tenants arriving. I also had my handyman come over to do some bits and pieces around the place which was SO great. He hung the little old printer's shelf I found at one of my favourite junk shops on the wall above the blue inlay chest on the back deck. Harry and I scouted around the Island looking for things to fill it with. We found shells, stones, bits of wood, dried fern leaves, dried seed pods and a few little jars I had hidden away in the cupboard.

When visitors/tenants are coming to stay at the house I love to fill it with fresh flowers & foliage which I pick from the middle of the island....usually I pick lots of pretty Banksia and other Australian natives which I place into big vases. I do it in the hope that it makes the people staying feel special. I also love to leave little luxuries around for the visitors to use. For example I leave lots of beautiful candles, a pretty set of place mats and napkins so that they can entertain their family & friends on the back deck, pretty soap in the bathroom etc. etc. I like to make it the way I would like it if I was renting the house. Anyway, I received a lovely text from the visitors staying in the house at the moment saying how lovely it all was and they particularly loved the fresh flowers. So all the hard work does pay off in the end!! Please email me anna@blackandspiro.com.au for enquiries about renting the house for a holiday.

I have posted some more images above as I have been asked by readers to share some more pics.

Rita's Gorgeous Apartment

This image is an older one of a vignette in Rita's apartment which I continue to love

I really love these new pictures of Rita Konig's chic apartment which is featured in this month's Domino. I particularly love the all-white walls with the pops of colour in the furnishings! It's just so pretty, lived-in and GORGEOUS!! I could move straight into this apartment without changing a thing!!

Listen To This!!

Do yourself a favour. Click HERE now and enjoy Pia playing the Piano!! Amazingly, Goose Bumpingly beautiful!

Thanks Martha!!

I was so thrilled to come back from Straddie to find that I had been included in Martha's Best of Blogs: Editor's Picks by Rebecca Robertson, Deputy Decorating Editor at Martha Stewart! How exciting! Thank you so much Rebecca for including ABT!! Also a big congrats to fellow bloggers This is Glamorous, Coco+Kelley and Design*Sponge for also making the list.....these three blogs are among my favourites too!!

Grace's Absolutely Favourite Things

Gracey Bonney from Design*Sponge is one of the original design bloggers and is believed to be one the very best by many readers worldwide. Based in Brooklyn Grace originally started Design*Sponge as a place where she could talk about her love of chairs with anyone who was interested. Today her site is HUGE with a worldwide readership and hits of more than 30,000 a day! How does she do it? I know that when I have had any email conversations with Grace she's very quick and always seems to be very organised and always so, so pleasant!! I was thrilled when she said she would send me some of her favourite things. Let's see what Grace has to say about her favourite things...

"This is our new "landing strip" in the living room. Our living room space is impossibly small and cut-up into odd alcoves with walls jutting out here and there. So without cutting into the room, we wanted to create a space where we could leave notes for each other (without paper clutter) and keep mail, keys and magazines that typically pile up pretty quickly in our house.

The chalkboard frame is a vintage piece from Blue Bell Bazaar at Etsy- I love the way Gosia (who runs the shop) thought to reuse found frames and give them new life with a little bit of chalkboard paint. The little hutch by the door is a fleamarket piece that our friend Carl from Repop NY found for us- it's got a drawer where I stash my laptop and houses a rotating collection of my favorite books of the moment. I bought some el-cheapo wire baskets at the hardware store and used some Benjamin Moore test pots to paint them a bright blue (which contrasts nicely with the grey and orange wallpaper we have on another wall in the room). I made the little pencil cup one afternoon with some of my favorite gift wrap from a local paper shop.

It's been rainy in Brooklyn lately so I've been getting a lot of use out of my favorite umbrella from Pare- it's so girly and I always get compliments on it when I walk to the coffee shop in the rain.The prints on the wall are favorites from Hammerpress, Camilla Engman, Sugarloop, Alice Stevenson and Little Doodles at Etsy. Most of all I love the Paul McCobb chair beneath it from Scout in Chicago. The plaid upholstery makes me wish for Fall to hurry up and come soon."

I'm in love with that chalk board and of course I love the art cluster wall!! Thanks so much Grace for taking the time to put this together for us!!

Absolutely Favourite Thing will appear here every Thursday so stay tuned!!

Happy Weekend!!

I'm heading off a little early this week as I have to pop over to Straddie again tonight to get the house ready for some more tenants arriving on Saturday! I hope you all have a great weekend and I'll be back next week!!

Image by Monika Elena

Trying To Convince...

I emailed this picture of this gorgeous fabric through to one of my lovely clients today as I thought it would be the perfect choice for her 2 old French chairs but she wasn't convinced. She is wanting a fabric which is bright and patterned with a bit of pink and some black and possibly some other colours as well. She already has some black and white stripe dining chairs and I was planning on putting it back with new white slip covered sofas with lots of colourful, mismatched, patterned scatter cushions and a few vintage furniture pieces thrown in....I'm going to keep trying as I think this fabric would be beautiful on her chairs. I'll let you know how I go!! And anyway she might just change her mind once she sees the fabric in the flesh....fingers crossed!!

Miniature Ottoman Boxes

Look at these cute miniature buttoned ottoman boxes by Kimberly Applegate {yes the same Kimberley Applegate who paints those gorgeous chair paintings}. They are available for purchase on her website Live a Plush Life. Wouldn't they look gorgeous on a desk or even in a coffee table vignette filled with little treasures! Love the styling of these photos too!!

Bedtime!

A Life's Design