Pinteresting - from my Elegant Living board

I’ve blogged about Pinterest before (see here), but if you haven’t heard of it by know, you’re probably also not familiar with that great thing called the internet! Just joking, I am sure you’ve heard about the internet! :-)

Since I spend a lot of time at night feeding my little girl, I have a lot of time available to surf the internet, and believe me, I spend A LOT of that time on Pinterest. I pin all the things that inspire me and that I’m passionate about, so my boards include a fantasy wardrobe, ideas for my dream house, travel destinations and even concepts for my shop.

Today I’ve reached 540 followers on Pinterest (wow, thanks to everyone!), and it seems the two most popular boards are “When can I go”, a board with beautiful pics of travel destinations from all around the world and “Elegant Living”. Today I would like to share with you a few of the photos I’ve pinned to my “Elegant Living” board. If you want to follow me, click here.

 Image credits: Pinterest

Mud Studio

I’ll never forget the feeling I felt when, working in London just after university, I saw a queue outside a theatre and realised it was for a Hugh Masekela jazz concert. You just can’t help it – feeling patriotic and proud when you see excellence from South Africa being exported. Sometimes, it’s also mixed with a kind of sadness that what is good enough to proudly display overseas is not well known at home… A few years ago I walked into a Conran shop in Tokyo, only to be stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the beautiful ceramics made by Mud Studio, a South African company. Back home, I sourced the products to sell it in my own shop. Inevitably, some of them found their way into my home as well.

Werner and Philippa du Toit, owners of the now well-known Mud Studio, are not only responsible for the handmade ceramics (mostly organic shapes and neutral colours), but their rural-empowerment clay-bead project makes the most striking chandeliers. They have set up shop at 3 Desmond Road in Kramerville, a beautiful, expansive showroom designed to make you drool over every item. My visit to the shop instantly conjured up that wonderful sense of pride I felt, the one which made me try to explain to a Japanese shop assistant what the words “local is lekker” mean…

 

 

You can visit their website here or like their Facebook page.

Real Beauty

Last week, Daniel asked me when my post pregnancy tummy would be flat again. Ouch! I would also love to know, since getting dressed in the mornings is a huge challenge at the moment. I do not fit into my normal winter wardrobe yet and all my maternity clothes are too big and too summery. It is a first world pain, I know, to complain with a cupboard full of clothes, but sometimes the self-image does not want to listen to reason. 

Maybe that is why I find the new Dove ad so inspiring. It went viral after being posted the first time in April 2013 and is now one of the most viewed online video ads ever. I do not want to give away the plot. Watch it. It makes a powerful point.

Image credit: Dove

Postcard Revival

One of the shops that we saw at Collective (see here) over the weekend was Postcard Revival. This spectacular project approached some of Johannesburg’s most talented artists, illustrators and photographers, asking them to depict Johannesburg in just one image. These artworks were then transformed into limited edition postcards. 

With email and social networking, we do not write letters anymore and postcards have become a tourist souvenir. But looking at these cards, I was reminded that the joy of receiving a postcard or sending a postcard, especially such a beautiful piece of art, makes finding postage stamps worth all the trouble!

The project started with Johannesburg but they plan to show off other great cities. You can watch a video they made showing the journey of a postcard through Johannesburg here. Visit their website or like their Facebook page.

Collective

Yesterday I managed to slip away for a couple of hours to visit Collective in Kramerville with my friend Celeste. It is a monthly pop-up shop/smallish market on the rooftop of 3 Desmond Road, boasting a wide veranda with great views over the lush suburbs around Sandton. So, each with a glass of bubbly in hand, we perused the products on offer. The market’s focus is on clothes and jewellery, but you will also find fabrics, ceramics and furniture from young designers.

 

 

You can visit their website here or like their Facebook page.

Drizzle and Dip

I recently purchased a new cookbook (hey, you do not have to be a good cook, or even a bad cook for that matter to have a compulsion to buy new ones before you even tried a recipe from your previous purchase!) The book is called Drizzle and Dip and is based on Cape Townian Samantha Linsells’ popular food blog of the same name. The recipes in the book are divided into three chapters based on food eaten at particular times of the day: Morning, Noon and Night. Samantha is a food stylist, so the images in the book are all very enticing. I am a huge fan of the dark backgrounds with vintage props that she uses for her food photography. Her blog is lovely! 

Our first meal from the book was her Zucchini & Prawn pizza. What made the recipe interesting is that you soak the buffalo mozzarella in cream overnight before using it on the base of the pizza. Trust me, it tastes as good as it sounds.

You can follow her blog here or like her Facebook page.

Warm & Glad

Over the weekend, on our way to Hyde Park for a wee bit of shopping, we stopped at a coffee shop located on Jan Smuts Avenue for lunch. The location struck me as a bit odd – on the first floor of a very non-descript building on a busy street. But as soon as we walked into the large space, I knew that the owner made a brilliant choice. With large glass windows (with seating), the light streams into the space creating a very cosy, yet funky room. I love the décor. It is cement screed floors covered with Persian rugs, wooden chairs and tables, a sofa in the corner and fantastic weird turquoise walls. Add to that the imported and local newspapers, books, vinyl records and art prints on display (and for sale) and you can see why it attracts the hip crowd. 

They serve breakfasts all day and lunch every weekday from 7:30am till 4:30pm and Saturdays from 8:30am till 1pm. By the way, my salad (pulled roast chicken with peas, onions, goat’s cheese and a honey and mustard vinaigrette) was just fabulous!

Alban's Square, 357 Jan Smuts Avenue, Craighall Park

You can visit their website here or like their Facebook page.