Moving to Five Kinds of Happy

Hi everyone,

So nice of you to be following this blog or just to have dropped in for a look.

Just to let you know I won't be writing here anymore as I am moving my efforts over to a new site - Five Kinds of Happy.

I'm excited to start posting there about interior design, sweet treats, DIY... all kinds of pretty things and tips.
I'll also be hoping to feature guest posters and the like.

Please go check it out here!

Thanks
Amy

It's official - doilies are cool again

 All via Amy @ Kiwi Chic on Pinterest

The only rule is that you can't use them in the Grandma-ish way you thought they were meant to be used ;)

Paper Swan Sunday

3 tiny gifts from Japan arrived in New Zealand in a suitcase this morning.. amoungst other goodies. These 2 are my favourite patterns. Origami reminds me why I love colours and prints. And I think they look more like swans.

Happy Sunday
- Amyshka

Shabby chic Bunting

We've had study-break the last 2 weeks and I feel like I've been super productive with re-doing this room, this room, and designing my wedding invitations... (can't wait to share those!! ooo). And even a little bit of study.


While I was at it I found these scraps of my favourite fabrics and decided to chop them up into triangles for a shabby-chic bunting. I kinda have an idea of where to use these at our wedding in Feb, but really it was a spur-of-the-moment thing.

I chopped the fabric really roughly because I'm not a fan of the cookie-cutter bunting. Something about all the triangles looks all ...sharpy and... pokey. Plus they remind me of car-yards. (I don't know about you but coloured triangle flags = used cars around here). So I was really going for the soft tattered, shabby chic vintage look.

I also sewed a 'seam' really roughly across the top of each one, wide enough to let a piece of string or ribbon through.  I would like to say the roughness was because I wanted the shabby look, but really it's because I was too lazy to sew it neatly or to change the bobbin, plus sewing machines baffle me with their tension settings. What's with that? One minute it's all smooth and the next it's all bubbly.... which happened to look very shabby chic *cough*

Then strung in onto a simple piece of string. I had a crack at tying a bow to the end. With a different type of ribbon and some more time, it could work.

The colours in the bunting are loosely the colours I'm going for in the wedding. And the wedding 'colour theme' is extremely loose anyway... I don't want to limit the number of patterns and colours I can use.

See that yellow fabric on the right? It's from the bridesmaid's dress my mum wore to her friend's wedding back before I was born.
Wanna know something? That same friend's daughter is going to be one of MY bridesmaids at my wedding.
Wanna know something else? That same friend is my aunty and my middle name is after her... because Mum married that friend's brother.

Which means her daughter, my bridesmaid, is my cousin....
Confused? Hm never mind.

For now it's just hangin on my bedroom wall, awaiting better, more purposeful days. ;)

Who's with me on the shabby chic look?
I'm hoping to style a shabby-chic room verrrry soon and will show you how it comes together.


- Amyshka



Shared at:
Not so Simple Housewife 
Serenity Now
Addicted 2 decorating
Handy Man Crafty Woman

Student bedroom reveal

Recently I got the opportunity to go a little nuts in my parent's home. (Read: They went to Japan and I took decor matters into my own hands... redo-ing this disgusting bedroom and sticking up a few childhood paintings).

If you don't know, I am getting married in February, AND Big C has just bought an apartment that will be our home. (This means tonnnnes of redecorating opportunities woop!!)... it also means I won't have 'my room' in this house anymore. Which should be great because I always HATED the LILAC coloured walls:

You see what I'm talking about? Every single thing in that room glowed purple. I felt like I was living under a UV lamp.... even on warm days, it felt chilly in that COLD coloured room.

Plus the place was a dump. It didn't used to be, but somewhere inbetween becoming an architecture student and getting bombarded with engagement gifts (I'm not complaining), things got a little... confused.

 

Ouch! That last shot was nasty.  Gnnnnnnnnn.

Even tho I'm not going to be living here for long, I couldn't wait to get my mitts on a paintbrush. And there was a tonne of paint left over from my brother's bedroom, so.....

What do you think?
I have never gone near PINK before but it seems like all my highlights have come out pink. Or some other bright popping colour... I get a buzz out of piling colours together on a neutral base. The entire atmosphere in the room has changed drastically.... even tho it's much 'younger' than a 25 yr old should probably be existing in, I figured it's my last chance to go a little crazy in a student bedroom. (That's totally just an excuse. I'm so going crazy on our new bedroom too.) And this was on a ZERO budget so I'm quite happy.

When I move out I will tone this right down into a nice guest room. Until then I get to enjoy my pinkness.

Shared at:
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Addicted to decorating
Handy Man Crafty Woman

Mouse paintings

When I was little - like, really really little, we had these big colourful paintings in our house.

...of mice.
Mice doing cool stuff - like flying in a hot air balloon made of flowers.. uh, awesome.

 And today I unearthed them from a dusty old closet. They had some mould growing around the frames and are kinda falling apart, but the bright colours got me and I find myself wondering why I would have ever thought they were uncool......?

 

Ok so I CAN kinda see why they were uncool, but that didn't stop me hanging them in the hallway to my recently re-done brother's bedroom.

And I can't say that I don't get a weird buzz from walking down the hallway between those 2 old relics.
:)

Finally... a bedroom redo

It's finished!!





Our house has been home to a green monster. I'm guessing the previous owners' let their 11 year old son do the picking....?

Interestingly, the picture above is of the room on a really, really GOOD day.
On a bad day, you may have experienced it looking something more like this...

Mmm hmmmm. Does anyone smell a 19 year old male behind this???

This is an actual un-retouched photo of this bedroom the same day that my little brother moved to Japan. I'm pretty sure he literally set off a bomb and then fled to safety on another continent.

But did I mention he moved to Japan? Yep. So this DIY project was mine all mine.

See those little white patches all over the wall? They are my attempt at plastering over holes left from a BB GUN that SOMEHOW got blasted into every wall in the room. I think I missed one, but at least I got the other fifty...

It's not nessesarily finished, but here are the Afters.

The painting on the wall is one I did when I was 15 - it's the Waikato river with a hot air balloon in the sky, since we used to live there.
The chest of drawers was once a piece of junk painted black, but my Opa stripped the paint and I still remember helping sanding and varnish it in the garage to bring it up to how it is

And because everyone loves a snappy little comparison:

BEFORE:



AFTER:




He's moving back home to New Zealand in a few months so I tried to keep this room how he would like it.
It feels SO much lighter in there now I may have to hijack it.
I think I need my own wedding-planning room, right?


- Amyshka


Shared at:
Not So Simple Housewife
Fingerprints on the fridge
Serenity Now
Addicted2decorating

Wedding inspiration - vintage style in full sunlight

I love how weddings these days are so much more free from convention than in the past. Call me a rebel, but most of the time all that ettiquette seems kind of a headache to me. Mainly because the bulk of it doesn't actually serve ANY purpose except to follow what couples did centuries before you. Which doesn't seem like a good enough reason to me. (I think I get these stubborn ways from my Dad. We grew up with the motto "Who says we have to be like everybody else?")

Even the awkward stepping-around-the-issue way you have to phrase invitations with lines like "if you would like to help us celebrate our wedding by contributing a gift..." makes us laugh.

But those things will be. Here's some inspiration from 100 Layer Cake blog that I love. I especially love how it is shot in full sunlight - an issue our photographer was concerned about because our wedding is a day-time one. All photographers have their fingers crossed for overcast days because it makes for better photos... but there is nothing I love more than some full sunshine!

P.S totally on a side note - isn't it weird how American weddings have like, 10 bridesmaids and 10 groomsmen? Whereas over here you'd have between 2 and 4? Random!

Artsy + colourful

Source: ishandchi.blogspot.com via Amy @ Kiwi Chic on Pinterest

Source: houzz.com via Amy @ Kiwi Chic on Pinterest

Source: thefoundblog.com via Amy @ Kiwi Chic on Pinterest

I have been painting my little heart out the last 2 days... it would have been a much easier task if there weren't BB-GUN pock marks all over the walls that needed plastering. But more on that later. For now, some artsy+colourful inspiration photos.