Zaishu by Matthew Butler

Matthew Butler is the furniture designer behind BlueSquare and Zaishu. I love Zaishu. I think I saw it few months ago in one of the Milan Show ad, but didn't really pay attention to it until I read it at INSIDE OUT, an australian home magazine. Zaishu is a portable seat/table/box, which doesn't require screws, nails, or glue for assembly. How could you not love this thing? it would make my life so much easier if all furniture are like this. ;-P Yeah, I'm pretty lazy in reading assembly instructions. I rather admit I'm terrible at this, so that my nice husband could do the job for me. *wicked* :) Anyway, Matthew Butler is currently offering customised selection of Florence Broadhurst print designs on Zaishu, see them here.

Publisher Textiles

Australia based designers, Mark and Rhynie Cawood, create amazing hand painted fabric and wallpaper prints. They started out in 2002 by producing their own clothing range, then they moved into fabrics, wallpapers and artworks. Although they mostly do commercial projects, I figured it's worth to share their creations. Can you imagine they are all hand painted? Wow. Check out their site: www.publishertextiles.com.au

more on tendence lifestyle fair

Since the mag doesn't feature other things that I like, I visited the Tendence Lifestyle website. I found pretty things such as placemats, wall accessories (pic shown reminds me of tord boontje's until dawn curtain), cushions, tablewares, candles, and many more. Here are my favorite pics.

Yummy Cake Man

I've just purchased a copy of Singapore Home & Decor magazine, and there's a report on the recent Tendence Lifestyle fair in Frankfurt. One caught my eyes. It's Sandra Weinmann's baking tins and pre-mixed cake mix (see pic above). BTW, the lady on the pic is not the designer, 'coz the magazine has Sandra's pic., and this lady is not her. Yeah, too bad... I don't own the bloody scanner! so sorry folks, can't show you the pics from Singapore Home & Decor. Anyway, I like her idea of having the baking tin man (it's a man alright, look closely...) and 5 flavours associated with different types of men, such as nut for the muscleman, marzipan for the sensitive new age vegetarian guy, chocolate flake for the millionaire, yogurt for the metrosexual, and chocolate for Latin lover. Cakes can't get yummier than this! And on top of that, it comes in a brilliant packaging, each box of cake mix features the man associated with the flavour. Perfect design concept, I must say!

NICHOLAS

ok, finally here's a blog entry on singaporean designer, Nic Wong. His fashion label, NICHOLAS, was established in April 2004. He has both menswear and womenswear under this label. I visited his shop at Stamford House during Singapore Design Festival. I love the way he uses colors, prints and textures together in a piece of clothing. Too bad, the collections that I saw at his shop were not posted on his website, so I can't really show you the pieces that I like. But here are some shots from the 2004 collections taken from NICHOLAS site.

fave brands...

I came to realize that I never mentioned my long-time favorite brands. Not that I can afford any of these brands, but for me, their designs are consistently irresistable. Here they are:

Wallpapers and fabrics: Osborne & Little, UK, Designers Guild, UK.

Rugs: Missoni Home, Italy.

Flowers: Paula Pryke, UK.

Children's Apparel: Oilily, Netherlands.

Too bad I don't have fave brands for women / men fashion, or even beauty products. I'm a homemaker, what do you expect? ;-)

ibride

I have to confess, I am a real prints addict. What can I say? I love them on anything! ibride have them on lamps, chairs, and tables. Not much details about the designers though, other than their names, Rachel & Benoit Convers, presumably french designers. I like their bed design (Invisible 2002) for Zanotta, brilliantly genius, I must say.

Pure Deco

I'm so happy to find this site. Pure Deco is an interior decor shop based in Lyon, France. They have lightings, tabletop, home accessories, and tables available for online purchase, but too bad, they don't ship outside Europe. They have the usual suspect, Atelier LZC. Love them. And I've found my second love, Ibride. Here are the pictures of my favorites from Pure Deco.

vynil at home

Looove this company. Domestic, Paris based, has a great selection of window and wall vynil stickers from great artists. Vynil stickers are commonly used by retail shops, but now more and more ppl want to have them at home. I have to say it's a fresh alternative to the usual wallpaper. I like "Tree" by Antoine+Manuel, "PAM" by Trafik, "Flora and Fauna I" by Tado, and "Mushroom Forest" by Jeremyville. They even have the DIY user guide on how to apply it, click here.

To cuckoo or not to cuckoo

I've never been a fan of cuckoo clocks before. In fact, the cuckoo clock I got from my relatives couple years back, is sitting still in my closet. But few days ago, I saw a White DIAMANTINI & DOMENICONI Cuckoo Forest by Pascal Tarabay in a French mag. And I'm totally hooked! I went searching for it over the net, but could only get its pictures on a japanese site, NOASIS, an online home decor shop. It seems that they have pretty good details on Cuckoo Forest, such as its sound, designer, and manufacturer. But hey, it's just my guess, 'coz I have no knowledge of Jap, so go check it out if you do. Anyway, all I know DIAMANTINI & DOMENICONI is an italian clock manufacturer, and Pascal Tarabay is the brilliant lebanese designer behind this alluring cuckoo. More about Pascal Tarabay on The Daily Star, click here.