Things on Tables

You may wonder why I seem to have an obsession with lovely things placed on tables and chests and mantels.  I think it stems back to watching my mother arranging flowers and shells and paintings and books and bits on tables around our house and our beach house growing up.  I remember thoughts going through my head whilst she was playing around arranging things like - 'What on earth is she doing that for?  What's the point?  She is weird.'

But it seems that for some very strange reason I too now love moving things around on tables.  There is something so therapeutic about it.  I love it.  I love seeing a table in a house against a wall or behind a sofa which has so much stuff on it.  It is so interesting and really shows personality and a love of beautiful things. 

I recently came across this painting above on Pinterest by Elizabeth Cummings via Brabourne Farm blog.  It is so beautiful.  That's how I want my tablescapes at home to look.  Filled with interest and imperfection and love.

 

Talking about tablescapes I thought I would post this one above which sits in our front window at Black & Spiro at the moment.  With all that has been going on with the online store I feel like Black & Spiro has been a bit neglected of late.  Gosh it's hard juggling everything!

Oh well, all you can do is try I suppose! 
xx
Anna

Pretty Table Vignette

I love a good table vignette and this one by Kim Ficaro certainly ticks all the boxes for me. So pretty! Have a great weekend. See you next week.

Image - Kim Ficaro Stylist via Aubrey Road

Today I Love...

I adore the photos Julie posted of her home today. I have posted a couple of photos above but you must visit Julie's blog, Shelter to see more!! It is stunning!

Friday Flowers

Here are some beautiful fresh pink peonies which I just arranged and placed on our entrance table at Black & Spiro along with a collection of other lovely things. Have a great weekend!

xo
Anna

Friday Flowers

Here are some pretty fresh Freesias in an old bottle vase which I have placed on a table in the shop to end this week. See you next week...

It was meant to be...

Well, it goes like this....

Yesterday I posted an image in my 'Muted Coastal Palette' post which unbeknown to me at the time belongs to Nanette over at Rummage blog. I found the image on a tumblr site and didn't have the correct source on the image back to Nanette. Nanette actually left me a lovely note in my comments section of that post letting me know that it was her hallway. I have since fixed this up and all is fine however, I think in this mishap I have found a blog I am very much going to enjoy following.

After obsessively going back through Nanette's archives last night I must say I am very impressed. Her photos of her home, flowers, fruit, children, vignettes are all so very inspiring and in a way I feel they very much represent true Australian style. I was only thinking about Australian style yesterday and then to fall upon Nanette's blog last night was almost serendipitous.

Her images make me feel at home. I feel like I have seen them before. I look at her flowers and I think they look just like the bush natives my mother used to arrange at our family holiday house. I even look at that last image and it reminds me of my grandmother's house. Is this the same for any of my Australian readers? Do these images of Nanette's evoke a sense of Australian style?

I found it very hard to select only a few of Nanette's beautiful images to share here in this post so I have gone a bit wild and posted my favourites from her blog and her flickr.

I asked Nanette to share a little bit about herself and this is what she had to say....

"I am a crafter and keen amateur stylist and photographer living in our nation's capital with an odd frenchman, two Highly Excitable young daughters and an ADD whippet called Kipper. We like to live a slow life with an emphasis on creativity. I'm currently designing a small range of homewares and children's clothes between reading my youngest 'Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus' twenty times a day and wrestling Kipper for my favourite boots."

I hope you enjoy Nanette's photos as much as I did.

A Beautiful Vignette

I am in-love with this beautiful vignette in the home of Melbourne based artist John Young which was featured in the July/August 2009 issue of Inside Out Magazine. I think the composition of the simple, natural tones of the objects with the divine, earthy coloured portrait is very beautiful.

Friday Flowers

I was very lucky to be given these pretty mottled roses from a friend today. I arranged them in a pretty yellow vase we have at Black & Spiro. I placed them next to our beautiful vintage lamp and shade {note the beautiful embroidery on the shade} on a table in the shop and then a very lucky young lady came into the shop with her mum and her sister and they took the lamp home for her bedroom. I am sad to see this beautiful one-off vintage lamp go but I know it will be loved and cherished by it's next owner...

Happy Weekend. See you next time.

xx

Anna

Deborah's Vignette

I love receiving emails from readers. This photo which Deborah emailed me a while ago really grabbed me. I love the colours and the combination of her beautiful things...so pretty!

Pretty Yellow Roses

Nothing like some fresh bright yellow roses to start the week!! I just picked them up at the supermarket on the way home. Gosh they make me happy!!

Friday Flowers

I just arranged these pretty flowers in a little blue and white delftware vase which was recently given to me by a lovely reader who came to Brisbane to visit Black & Spiro. What a lovely surprise it was to have received such a beautiful gift! Happy Weekend Everyone!!

xx
Anna

Gage d'amour

Image - Anna Spiro

Here's a little Valentines tablescape I created today. Gage d'amour {meaning pledge of love}.

Today I Love...

Hello again. How was your weekend?? Mine was lovely thank you...very quite and restful...just what I needed after a hectic week last week. This week we have Felicity back on Wednesday with a lovely post so stay tuned for that. Thank you so much for welcoming her at ABT with all of your lovely comments last week!!

Today I love these three images which I recently added to my I Love Files. What do I love about these images you may ask? In the top image I love all the colourful pretty plates and of course I love the flowers. In the middle image I love the round buttoned ottoman with the box pleated skirt and I love the concept of that bed for a child's room. In the last image I love the natural linen tablecloth and the piles of books and the blue and white jar with the fresh flowers. Actually just looking back at these images now - do you notice something else?? Yes, they all have a little bit of blue and white...mmm I am turning into my mother!!

I hope your week has started with lots of happy thoughts!! See you tomorrow.

Image 1 - Jane Roarty Stylist

Image 2 - Architectural Digest via Decorology

Image 3 - House Beautiful

Happy Week!!

One of my lovely friends reminded me that I had forgotten to do a 'Happy Weekend' post last week so to make up for it I thought I would do a special little 'Happy Week' post! This week I've decided to stop reading the newspaper, stop reading CNN News on the Internet and stop watching the news on the t.v.!! Instead I am going to focus on the happy things in my life. I hope you will all join me this week in focusing on being HAPPY!! Look at this beautiful image Abbey posted last week of some fresh flowers she arranged in her apartment! This picture makes me happy!! What makes you feel happy??


Image - Abbey Goes Design Scouting

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)

Pia's Absolutely Favourite Things

Beautiful, talented and super kind Pia Jane Bijkerk is an inspiring Australian stylist, photographer, writer and blogger {wow she's one busy girl} currently based in Amsterdam with her 'French boy' {French for lover}. Pia and French boy live on a houseboat in one of the beautiful canals in Amsterdam - how exotic!! I was recently lucky enough to meet this talented multi-tasking woman and her French Boy in a city we both love, Paris. I'm sure our blogging friendship will endure for a very long time and I hope she finally fulfills her dream of one day returning home to Australia to live!! Let's see what Pia is absolutely crazy about!!

"I was very inspired by your request for a few of my favourite things and found myself collecting little treasures from my various travels ever since you asked me. As a stylist, I find I have phases of 'object love' and at the moment I am finding so much inspiration in handmade ceramics. As it turns out, all these pieces come from the three cities that hold my heart (and that I call home) - Paris, Amsterdam, and Sydney. And as wonderful luck would have it, today was a gorgeous sunny day here in Amsterdam,casting a lovely soft haze across my vignette and making it the perfect opportunity to capture 'a few of my absolutely favourite things'. I think it looks a bit like Polaroid which I love!

Anna, do you remember when we met in Paris a couple of months ago, I had a little parcel of handmade ceramics that I had just purchased? I found them in the quaintest little boutique in the backstreets of Le Marais, and ever since then I have had a penchant for little ceramic vessels to add to my new collection. So last week when I was in Sydney I had a chance to take a quick trip to Paddington Markets, one of my favourite market places in the world (I have a few favourite market places, but this one is definitely in my top 5!) - I spotted the stall of ceramicist Samantha Robinson. I used to use her pieces as props when I was styling in Sydney, and it was great to stumble upon her work again, I couldn't resist taking a few pieces home with me (they are the little hand printed espresso cups in the front right of the photo). And back in Amsterdam this morning I visited one of my most treasured ceramic stores, Vivian Hann's on the Harlemmerdijk. Everything here is from these special boutiques. Each piece brings a smile to my face, and I love picking them up every now and then and feeling their rough and smooth textures. And yes, every now and then, for special occasions and when we have guests, we use them. But for now, this is where they sit, on a shelf, in 'le petit bateau' in Amsterdam."

I must say I love the simplicity of these pieces so much and I do love the story behind them too! Thank you for sharing your collection of things with us Pia!

'Absolutely Favourite Things' will appear here every Thursday so stay tuned.

Michelle's Absolutely Favourite Things

I'm so excited to share with you today some of Michelle Adams' 'Absolutely Favourite Things'. Michelle is certainly a very talented young woman and is the founder of Rubie Green an eco-friendly textile company based in New York. Michelle's fabrics are fast becoming a favourite by designers both here and in America. I absolutely adore her fabrics and currently have two chairs covered in her East Village {raspberry chevron design} in my front window at Black & Spiro. Some of my other favourites are Tillinghurst and Portobello. Her fabrics have been seen in Domino Magazine and featured on blogs worldwide. I certainly think this inspiring woman is someone to watch and I am just so thrilled to be able to share with you today some of her most favourite things!!

"While rounding up my favorite things to shoot, I realized that many things make me very happy! So I thought it might be fun to show them both laid out flat, and also as a tablescape. I started with my favorite piece of art, which is a vintage Czech movie poster of The Knack (1966). I spotted this beauty on Kate Spade's 'Behind the Curtain' website, and hunted it down at a local vintage movie poster shop! To the right is a framed photo of my grandparents shortly after they got married. It's literally such a great photo that people always ask me whether I left the fake photo insert in my frame! (I have to laugh and explain "no, I do in fact know these people!" haha.) The rest of the pieces all have some significance in my life, such as my Rubie Green fabrics, an issue of Domino where I used to work, a subway map of New York, a small bottle of Stella McCartney perfume (I never leave home without it!), a special note from a friend, etc."

Oh my goodness, I LOVE all of her favourite things too and in actual fact I have some very similar favourite pieces of my own!! Thank you so much for showing us your beautiful things Michelle. If you want to see more you must go and check out her gorgeous blog, M.A. Belle.

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

Happy Spring!!

Oh, I am so glad Spring is here. The cold weather has certainly been taking its toll on our little family with the dreaded flu!! I took this pretty photo over at mum's yesterday. I purchased the little hand made blue and white owl in Aix-en-Provence for mum when I was away recently. She absolutely loves him!! He fits in so well with all her other blue and white things! Happy Spring Everyone!!

My Pretty Flowers

As I have been posting lots of pretty flowers this week I thought I'd post these pretty flowers which were given to me by one of my Black & Spiro girls on Monday. They are sitting very happily on my desk at work with my glass paper weights which I recently purchased in Venice. Thanks for brightening up my week Kelly!!

More Pretty Flowers

Zinnias Boutique

Country Living

I must be ready for Spring as I seem to be craving vases full of beautiful flowers this week. Here are some more pretty flowers to whet your appetite!