Pillow Love.

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We've had an incredibly busy start to the Christmas season, dividing our time between friends visiting from New Zealand, going to visit family in Brisbane and the big one, moving house! It's been a daunting but fun task unpacking our new home and decorating every room to match our style and taste.

One thing I think you can never have enough of, are throw pillows. You can swap and change, mix & match them between rooms to create fresh and interesting features. Christmas came early for me with these lovely animal throw pillows from Uncommon Goods. A quirky and adorable set that now live in our bedroom and add a little bit sunshine and joy to our room. Don't they just make you happy??

With only days to go before Christmas, Uncommon Goods has an incredible selection of, as the name suggests, uncommon, quirky and funny gifts for everyone. Definitely worth a look!

For Art's Sake.

I've always been in love with art ever since I was a young girl. What's not to love? There are as many styles of art than what there are music genres, and always something for everyone. So I have been on the hunt for art pieces that would suit our home and our style. Always a hard thing to do with the massive range available these days! Saatchi Online is an online collection of art which you can buy (or even sell if you are an artist yourself!). Above are featured some of my favourite Pop Art pieces that I've discovered on there, with many other prints available.
Make sure you head over to find some beautiful pieces for you own home!

Manchester Press.

Here in Melbourne, there is no lack of incredible breakfast spots to go and try. Neil and I have been making our way through a list of places that we've walked past, heard about or seen top rated on Urbanspoon. On the weekend, my dear friend, Soné from Polli, and I launched our Friday morning with girls' breakfast out. We made our way into the city to experience what so many others have loved and raved about, and that is Manchester Press.

Tucked in at the back of Rankins Lane, we were greeted with the rare sight of a giant disco ball hanging high above the entrance, and fantastic illustrations. Inside it was busy and bustling but we managed to find a table where we were again, surrounded with gorgeous illustrations covering the walls. At the first glance of the menu, we both knew we wouldn't be able to go past their bagels, and I'm so glad we didn't! I cannot emphasize how incredible and filling this breakfast was (apart from a few sneaky macarons, we didn't eat anything again till 4pm that afternoon!). And not to mention the coffee was an art in itself. I don't know how the barista knew that I have a slight bunny obsession, but it melted my heart when I received my coffee with the sweetest bunny art on there! 

I will most definitely be bringing friends and family we have visiting before the end of the year, back here! Top choice :)

Thanks Manchester Press!

Tomorrow.

My brain has a way of working itself into overdrive A LOT of the time.

So much unnecessary time gets spent making lists of uncompleted tasks, dreaming up scenarios of things that can go wrong with a job (which 90% of the time, they never happen anyway!), and always playing the  'what if' game. If I get woken up at night and my brain starts processing worries that I have for the future, I cannot shut it down and it's so hard to fall asleep again.

That's why sometimes I have to remind myself of this very simple concept.
Leave tomorrow's worries for tomorrow.

Simple.

There will always be time tomorrow to think about it, troubleshoot a solution and problem solve till you get the desired outcome.

May this be a reminder for you too.

The Weekly Update.

Lately I feel like I've been living on Instagram more than any other social media network. There's just something about being inspired by photos from other like minded individuals, designers and illustrators, that motivates me to start my own projects or collaborations. I cannot say that I've posted much of the design work I actually do, but keep an eye out, that's all about to change soon!

Here's a little update as to what's been happening in my world lately through the eyes of Instagram.
- Making the most of Spring time by brewing my own iced teas
- Fresh flowers. Need I say more?
- Exploring and revisiting some of our favourite local cafes (more on one of those later this week!)
- Always trying to get the trending coffee shot to post on Instagram, however sometimes the husband just flat out refuses and insists we actually spend some quality time hanging out ;) I guess he makes a fair point haha!

If I am a bit quiet on here at times, you will most surely be able to find me on Instagram ;) (@ilana_mcmorran)

A Geometric Affair

Geometric Dress / ASOS, Denim Jacket / Urban Outfitters, Leather Chucks / Converse, Bowler Hat / Dangerfield 

Well after a busy time with family visiting last week, we had a bit of a low key weekend just to relax, spending some time together and get the house in order for our next load of visitors next week (feeling very popular with so many of our friends managing a trip over the ditch to come visit us!!!! Yay!!!).

I've been meaning to get out and get some snaps of this dress. I would like to say it's a recent purchase, but no, I've had it for a few months now, just been putting it off getting dressed up for photos. Lately I've been enjoying jumping in my hoodie, old pair of jeans and my leather chucks and just be as comfortable and as warm as possible, but today felt like dressing up a bit :) I have a not-so-secret love affair with geometry and patterns, so this little number has become a favourite of mine for sure. Too bad it turned out to be a super windy and chilly today that I couldn't get much enjoyment out of it outside haha!

Oh the things we do to feel nice ;)

Love Locks.

Last week we had such fun hosting and entertaining our wonderful family that came to visit us for the week. It seriously brings out the tourist in me, and we planned trips all across Melbourne to make sure that our family could see all the wonderful 'touristy' spots.

One of my favourite events from last week, was discovering the Love Locks on the Yarra footbridge at Southgate. What a wonderful idea! Romantic couples are encourage to inscribe their intials and anniversaries on their 'love locks', lock it onto the footbridge and then throw away the keys. So equipped with our locks and keys, we headed over to the footbridge on Friday night. It was just our luck, but Friday also came with some pretty epic winds and rain but that didn't stop us! We were lucky to get a clear patch of weather when we snapped these photos, but you can tell that we've been rained on previously!

A cute novel idea to do if you're wandering the Southbank of Melbourne :)

Colour Your Home.

1. Eames Replica Coat Hanger from Click On Furniture. 

2. Replica Mattias Stahlblom Pendant Lights from Matt Blatt.
3. Tag Stool from Stylecraft.

4. Candlesticks from Wocolate.
5. Pictogram Wall Clock from Matt Blatt.

6. Rug from Fenton & Fenton.

I know I've been posting a lot lately about home, decor and interiors, I thought to clarify that I don't intend on turning my blog into an Interiors blog, but this is just what has interested me more in the last six months. So why not share what I'm currently inspired by! And now that we've settled into our home, it's been awesome to let our style and decor reflect our personalities.

So today I would love to show you some colour! I love colour. There's no denying it. And I've totally embraced that part of me, it's just appeals to me most! And there are some pretty incredible colourful pieces that I would absolutely love to have in our home (I don't care how old the Eames coat hanger is now, I'm still in love with it as much as I was when I first laid eyes on it). These are all on my home wish list ;)

Corners of Our Home: The Awkward Corner

No matter how much I would like to say that we have the perfect home, where everything fits like a puzzle, that's just not the case. There are a number of quaint and quirky layout aspects to our place which has just not been ideal to work with, but I've come to accept that it's those things that makes our place unique.

There's one particular corner in our lounge which I've labelled the awkward corner. It's just a random little corner right by our front door that's been bothering me. We have to run the silly television cable up and around this corner, as the antenna plug is on the other side of the room by the dining table (like I said, there are some odd layouts in our place!), and I've been wanting to add something to that corner to disguise that cable. That's where my handy husband comes in! He's been a complete genius with making us pieces of furniture to match our home, so it was easy for me to convince him to make a piece to fit in this corner.

The results, well, I'm a happy wifey! With a little bit of paint that I added afterwards and a few favourite books put on display, we've finally managed to use this corner to it's full potential. Moral of the story, why buy when you can build?? Customise or start from scratch to create pieces to fit your own little awkward corners. And if that fails, let me know, I might be able to convince Neil to make something for you too! ;)

The Woodsfolk.

Don't you just love weekends?? Silly question, I know, but I was especially looking forward to this weekend just been, as we had so many exciting plans, including dinner at friends, breakfast out at a quaint little cornershop, movies at the old restored Sun Theatre in Yarraville, and I finally managed to make my way to the awesome The Woodsfolk store.

After following the successful start and set up of their new store in Hawthorn on Instagram, I've been so anxious to visit The Woodsfolk myself. And what great timing to visit the cutest boutique of quirky homewares and accessories, than when there are upcoming birthday presents that needs buying! So Neil and I headed out there on Saturday, with ideas of what to buy for gifts. These ideas were scrapped as soon as we arrived...

The whole store is filled top to bottom with a range of stationary & books, homewares, kids gifts, jewellery and other accessories, that it soon became hard to decide what awesome products to buy our friends. In all honesty, I wish I was buying a few gifts for myself, but I am very pleased in knowing that at least the receivers of our gifts will be very happy indeed! With extremely lovely and helpful folk in store, I would definitely recommend everyone check out this little treasure for themselves!

Corners of our Home.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I will be taking the time to document and share little corners of my home with you all. It's a fun journey to set up home (not that I think we will ever 'finish' it as our taste and style is always developing and changing, there will always be something else we will want to do or add to our home) and I'm happy to be sharing corners in our kitchen today.

There's something I absolutely love about being in the kitchen. I don't call myself a chef or the worlds greatest baker, but I do love trying new meals, exploring different tastes and textures and learning new tricks when it comes to preparing food and baking. I love spending time baking, even if it's only something simple like cookies (this weekend I tried my first batch of sugarfree, glutenfree cookies!). There are a lot of things i love about my kitchen (include loads of cupboard space, yay!), but one thing I absolutely love is my recipe books. I've only got a small collection of recipe books to start off with, but it's great when you have your go-to books to rely on for a new and interesting meal! I must say though, Jamie Oliver and Donna Hay is a must buy for my next recipe book!

I'm also a big lover of spices (it's possibly the South African in me!) so for me, I always make sure to have enough supply in my spice pots. I obviously ran out of my gorgeous labelled canisters quite fast that I ended up hunting down little glass pots with mini-spoons to use other spices. Very handy!

One thing I do recommend spending cash on, is a nice kettle and toaster. It's amazing what a difference to your kitchen a nice set will make! I don't know why some people don't want to invest a little bit more on a nice set, when really these appliances are still probably the cheapest ones you will have in your kitchen! But keeping in mind, you use them everyday, so it's worth the investment :) When Neil and I came across this gorgeous yellow Morphy Richards set, we couldn't walk away from it! Plus it didn't help that I have an unhealthy obsessions with yellow too ;)

So welcome to my kitchen! This is where you will always find a nice cup of tea or coffee (Neil loves his coffee and I love my tea), a fresh batch of baking and little memories we love to put up on our fridge (especially if they are letters from our nieces and nephews!). If you've shared your home interiors before, I would love to take a peek, so feel free to drop your link in the comments!

Life Lately.

Yeow! What a great couple of weeks filled with adventures in the Yarra Ranges, new additions to our home, personal projects and of course new favorite eateries we've tried!

On Monday we celebrated the Queen's birthday with an awesome public holiday, so Neil and I decided to head for the hills and get out of town for the day. We headed out to the Yarra Ranges to find beautiful nature tracks. Everything about the day made me appreciate all the beauty that's in Victoria and very grateful for living in such a beautiful state! If you're familiar with any other awesome places around Victoria, do let me know so I can look them up and plan many more trips.

We've been looking at adding some new addition to our home every couple of weeks to fill up our house and we've been doing well so far! I'm absolutely loving the fact that our home finally has a bit of warmth in the form of a rug (despite the fact that wooden floors look super sexy, they aren't the greatest during the colder winter months....especially if you have high ceilings!) as well as some extra greenery around the place. And yes, I fully recommend succulents for those who can't look after plants too well (yeah...kinda preaching to myself over here!).

Oh and may I just add, if you've seen my recent Sugar Free recipe post last week, you will know that I'm on the road to killing sugar for good! It's been a rather good start to the week I must say (...with a few exceptions of course!) and I'm just praying that it will become easier to look away from the chocolate mint cookies left over at work, and resist the last slice of baklava left in the pantry from the weekend of entertaining (I managed to take them all into work and out of our house!!!! Phew!). 

Such an eventful and productive couple of weeks if I say so myself! And although this was a short week for us, can I just say... I'm so glad it's weekend!!!!! Happy weekend all x

Lanes & Alleys.

A year ago when Neil and I first landed in Melbourne, the places that really sold Melbourne for us was the incredible mix of urban lanes & alleys that are spread across the city. With an eclectic range of shops, services and eateries, there's so many places to explore and discover.

Degraves Street and Centre Place are two of those little lanes that I cannot love any more. There's just something about the range of people (tourists and locals) that makes that place so loveable. Despite the fact that winter is now upon is with rainy and crisp days, it doesn't seem to affect the flow of traffic through these lanes, as it's cosy seating and warm atmosphere makes it totally worth the visit.

DIY Coloured Pot Plants.

One thing I've come to realize these past couple of months setting up our house, is that home just doesn't feel like home unless there are some plants in it, adding bits of nature, life and bursts of colour. About 3 months ago I made the decision to add fresh flowers into our weekly budget and I'm quite happy to say, we have diligently been buying flowers weekly (except those weeks where my flowers just won't die, so manage to keep then for a couple) and what a difference it's made!

I'm still a little but scared of pot plants, as my track record with keeping plants alive have not always been the greatest. But I am determined and decided to start with something simple and easy maintenance...the succulent! What awesome little plants these babies are as you don't need to water them that much and they love the sun! So last weekend I bought myself a couple and thought to add a but if colour to the pot plants themselves.

Such an easy DIY project to do to add in your home colour scheme and individualise items that would seem somewhat generic. I've seen a few different ideas like this on the interwebs and decided to give it a go!

All you need is your pot plants, masking tape and your favourite colour paints plus a paint brush. I used a fluro pink paint to match a frame that I have in the same room. So mask away a pattern / shape / section on your pot plant you DON'T want painted and get your painting skills on the uncovered sections. After completing my two pot plants, I would suggest using a base layer of white first to make your colour more true to its original. Be sure to paint a couple of layers. Once the paint has dried, gently remove the masking tape to reveal your beautiful colour pattern! Voila!

Easiest DIY you could ever do to add some vibrancy and life to your pot plants!