All about the bird...

Hello! Time to show off the work of my wonderfully talented husband..whoohhoo!! So, I have always fancied the Eames black bird...

"Charles and Ray Eames collected numerous objects from their travels. The figure of a black wooden bird, an object of American folk art from the Appalachian Mountains, has stood in the centre of their living room for over fifty years. The bird is also seen in many of the Eameses’ photographs. Based on the original artifact and in cooperation with the Eames Family, Vitra is now producing the first series of this figure."

from the Eames Gallery website

Anyway, Vitra slap a whacking 200 dollar plus charge on this little bird so my lovely husband decided to carve one for me...much more special and priceless really :)

He had a block of lime wood (which is a lovely soft wood) in his "studio" (read "shed"..heehee) and he finely hand carved and honed this beautiful bird for me for our fifth wedding anniversary. He used coat hanger wire for the legs and finished it off with a high gloss black lacquer spray.

I love him so much and love my black bird too! (my photos don't really do it justice)...I hope you like it just as much as I do! Here she is...







Oh yes...her name is Harriet :)

Pocket Calendars

I really like Sandra Juto's work (remember that granny square blanket!!)...I see she has a new addition to her store - these pocket calendars...lovely illustrations I think :)

Blacks and greys...

Now that it's Autumn and heading towards Winter, I like to introduce darker, more muted shades to my home, all of which, I think, conjure up a sense of cosiness but with an understated elegance too...liking all the images below..a lot!











Hope you liked these images...all from Tinek. I am enjoying a day off today - hurray!! Got my hair cut and did a spot of shopping :) I have a nice family weekend to look forward to now...my Mam turned 70 last weekend and we are all getting together to celebrate! Whatever you are doing, I hope you enjoy your weekend. Martina xx

A must share...

Don't know if anybody out there is feeling a bit "out of sorts" these days...if you are, (and actually, even if you are not) these two little clips will make you smile and laugh out loud...enjoy :)






Aren't they just hilarious...so sweet and that little girl in the second clip just kills me with her gesticulations and eye contact!!

Anniversary weekend...

We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary this weekend and boy what a weekend it was! The weather was utterly glorious…just like what summer should have been…warm and sunny all day Saturday and Sunday…people couldn’t believe their luck! We got up early on Saturday and drove out to Dun Laoghaire harbour where there is a lovely walk along the pier…it was beautiful and really calm, people were out in their shorts and tees…everybody smiling. We bought a couple of 99s and then stopped off to buy some pink champagne on our way home!! We had a light lunch and then headed out early for a lovely, romantic dinner (Indian again – but why not, it’s our favourite restaurant and it is very nice, white linen tablecloths, nice tableware, great service – they always give us a complementary Irish Coffee too!). It was a lovely evening and what with the wine at dinner and champagne afterwards, we retired just a bit sozzled!

Still managed to get up early on Sunday and went for another walk by the sea, bought some nice food for lunch and lounged around in the garden reading the newspapers and our books. In the cool of the evening we headed out for another walk, this time to Pearse Park (closer to the mountains rather than on the coast) and enjoyed a nice stroll. Of course, I only remembered my camera when we went to Dun Laoghaire - I must be more diligent about that!

Oh, and we went to see Julie & Julia on Friday night with some friends…the boys weren’t too impressed but the girls liked it lots! All in all a great weekend!

Little people...

Check this project out here..love it :)

Weekend, etc...

Have had a pretty crazy and stressful week…work related stuff…all a big fuzzy nightmare! This country is really winding me up right now and I would love to pack up and head to the South of France but hey, that’s not going to happen any time soon, so just have to keep the old chin up and try to stay positive!

I did have a lovely weekend however, very busy indeed…we were out with friends for yummilicious Indian food on Friday night, invited to dinner on Saturday night and then cooked dinner for my mother-in-law’s birthday on Sunday evening. Phew…

I’m really tired…actually, I haven’t really slept in about 3 months…any suggestions for getting rid of my insomnia? I go through phases and thankfully the last phase was about a year ago but it’s back with a vengeance and it makes me feel overallawful!

Anyway, moving on...here’s some Toast loveliness from the A/W 09 home collection…would love to be wrapped up and surrounded in all that cosiness!