A little obsessed again, it started with this gorgeous grey cabinet and succulents and then moved to moody dark spaces with lots of contrast.  Makes me realise I want more of these colours in my home, layers of greys and greens.

A glimpse into an eclectic family home via a favourite blog of mine - The Pretty Blog.  I love the lime succulents and the subtle shades of gray.
| Photography by Yolande Marx for The Pretty Blog |
A dramatic dark bedroom full of textures I love: the rustic wood wall, black walls and ceiling and my favourite mud chandelier.  Succulents again, this one in a mini cork pot which is also a fridge magnet.  Cute idea but not sure the succulents would be happy for long.
| Bedroom source unknown |Alissa Rose om Etsy |

I love all these succulent tones and textures.  Silver, jade, quartz and gold in a wrap bracelet.
Echeveria wedding favours in turned spalted ivy pots.  I would love to take one of these home.  And a frosted glass door which mutes the colours of crockery and reminds me of sea glass.  
| Lovocracy | Tricia Newell on Etsy | House & Leisure |

A snippet of aloe peeks out of the vintage cutlery box on my kitchen counter.

| Eva of Build House Home|

Hmmm... think it might be time for things to move around a bit at my house...

We threw a BBQ for a small group of friends this past Saturday to celebrate Oscar's third birthday. I almost didn't throw the party as I was plagued with self doubt about what to do and overwhelmed with seeing really detailed parties online. I finally realized I didn't have to do anything - all Oscar wanted to do was play with his friends, and have some balloons. So I went with that.

My Mom had given me some advice a few years ago with regards to setting up traditions with children. Although I forget her exact phraseology, the underlying advice was to be careful at what you do for an event, as you'll have to keep that up year after year with kids. I think the advice was originally was a reference to Christmas traditions (and Santa) but I've applied that same philosophy to other traditions over here.

I decided to throw a super low key BBQ.  I think sometimes we all get intimidated because of the explosion of Pinterest and people show off these amazing parties - and the parties that are low key just get forgotten. Or maybe they aren't forgotten - they just aren't blogged about. ;) Read more after the jump.

Read more »

Happy Monday, friends! I don't know about you, but I had one of those too-much-to-do-and-not-enough-weekend, weekends. The weather was gorgeous all weekend long, so I shouldn't complain.

As you can see in the picture above, one project we made some time for was the digging of our future patio. We weren't able to devote as much time to it as I would've liked (that Hannah's a real attention hog) and all the rocks and roots meant it was slower going than I would have liked, too (apparently I wanted this to be one of those "quick and easy" patio digs). The finished patio will be around 15.5 ft. x 9.5 ft. - small, but just big enough for us.

Sadly, this is the best 'before' picture I have. Always clean your camera lens BEFORE you take photos, people. The pavers will end right before the row of cedars, but the pea stone will extend just beyond them (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can see the type of patio we're building here).

Our house is on a corner lot, so our backyard faces our neighbour's parking area. While we wait for our cedars to grow, my MIL suggested installing some outdoor curtains for privacy. Brilliant, right?

via Sunset

Instead of the heavy duty poles above, I want to DIY a few portable poles like the ones Dana made for her patio lights. Ours just need to be sturdy enough to hold curtains without toppling over.

But first, more digging.

So I went into Costco with my Mom two weeks ago and went in for salad and left with a monster sandbox. They get me every-time.

I had been on the lookout for a sandbox so it wasn't too much of an impromptu purchase. The fact that it was under $200, a really nice design, came with a cover (for sun protection) and an additional cover to protect the sand from rain, and animals, I did a happy dance at the find.  I was a bit worried that the cover - blue, green and red - would look circusy from the house but where we've have positioned the sandbox it's hidden from view because of the lilac tree. We now have a nice little nook in the backyard where Oscar and his friends can play with the sand and his playhouse (also from Costco). 

We went to Home Depot and loaded up 16 bags of play sand into our little itty bitty car and drove home really slowly because it was about 1,000 pounds worth of sand in our car - so we were riding realllllly low. But we managed to get the bags home without breaking our car.

We were in a bit of a rush to build it because Oscar was having some of his friends over for a birthday BBQ - and I'm so glad we did have it ready as the kids had so much fun with it. Anyhow, more pictures of his party tomorrow but I had to share this find!

*I unfortunately couldn't find the sandbox on the Costco website, however I did find it here (but it's more expensive than at Costco) The official name of the sandbox is Gorilla Playsets, Play-ZeeBo Children's Sandbox. It's also at Target in the US.

A collection of bright and lovely things - bright white, or just bright - to go with the lovely bright winters day we are having.  Have a happy and bright day!

 |Personalised monogrammed iphone cases |Guardia Table Lamp |Sunday Wash Line candle |

About a Chair | Telegram Clamp Lamp |Mermaid Lagoon iphone cases |

A little story about the candle, Sniff designs candle fragrances with strong memory connections, this one is from the cotton sheets drying in the hot sun, love the idea.
My favourite memory scents are epoxy resin and wood shavings, takes me straight back to my grandfathers workshop, and the dry dusty smell of parched winter grass on the highveldt.

What are your strongest memory scents?