Inspired by nature and motivated by sustainable principles

Re-bagging

July 13, 2010 in Interesting Finds by wendren | No comments

It is great when practical and sustainable ideas are real … and easy. For example, how often do you have cement left over when you build? This is one instance where you have to see the bag half full as opposed to half empty.

Local hardware stores are encouraging you to bring in your half full bag of cement, re-bag it and with the help of a few others, the bag fills up and potential waste is eliminated.

Now you know what to do with that half full bag in your garage that you have no need or use for.

[Thanks to Stuart & Cindy from Douglas&Co for getting one of the bags for me.]

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Yellow Dust

July 7, 2010 in Inspiration by wendren | 1 comment

Gorgeous pictures spotted on various blogs showing how yellow and all natural earthy tones from blue-grey to sand stone come together.

Dusty pipes from Colour-stripes, Mushrooms from Skinnylaminx, breaded okra lunch from Smoothpebble and yellow shoes from Sakurasnow – all lovely yellow sunshine highlights to brighten up your day.

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Casamento Opening

July 2, 2010 in Events by wendren | No comments

Last night jeremy and I went to the Casamento Showroom and Pop Up Shop Opening which is at the Old Biscuit Mill in Salt River.

It was by far one of the best openings I’ve been to – small, not pretentious and good food (made in awesome small clay ovens).

Henry (and Eve who are the designers behind Casamento) used to work on film settings and it really shows – the layout, composition and selection of products showcased were wonderful.

There was such an array of South African design. Bamboo lights by Weyers Marais, Bulb lights by Porky Hefer, furniture from Peddersen+Lennard, ceramic cows, a standing light laser cut out of cork, artworks, …and spot the Wren bags resting on the cabinets.

Being a bad blogger, I forgot my camera so I grabbed Jeremy’s iphone and shot away. I am sorry the quality is not great but I thought it was more important to show you why you really should go and take a look at Casamento’s Pop Up shop and showroom. I’ve always been a fan of Casamento’s work but this….all together….is a real treat.

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Best shots

July 1, 2010 in Me by wendren | 1 comment

Jeremy and I enjoy taking photgraphs and playing with the different settings but it is rather intimidating when the car next to you rolls down their window and out zooms a 50cm long lens – you get camera shy in a different way. Either way, we did manage to get some really lovely photographs.

Half of the photographs are sitting on Jeremy’s brother’s computer in Johannesburg becuase we forgot the second memory card and thus, had to empty the first memory card onto his computer so it will be few days before we see those images. But of the one card, this zebra and elephant are my favourite.

To see more photographs visit my flickr kruger set.

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Drawing wildlife

June 29, 2010 in Me by wendren | 2 comments

I took my sketchpad with me to the Kruger with an array of charcoal, pencils and pastels. I have managed before to do some really nice gesture drawing of wildlife but …. I haven’t done this or any drawing in quite a while and my hand froze when it saw the paper. I needed the animal to stay still – something that was not going to happen. The only animal I managed to sketch was the Impala becuase if the one I was drawing moved, there would be another in the herd that was standing in the same position.

I really enjoyed doing this sketch – you see and notice things you would ordinarily not. For example, the female Impala has a black diamond on the top of their head.

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Kruger spotting

June 28, 2010 in Me by wendren | 4 comments

My holiday to the Kruger was amazing. We saw two leopards which is a first for me. I grew up in Botswana and spent many holidays in the bush but I never saw a leopard….this time we saw two and at close range. This was definitely my highlight.

The park had a good summer season with lots of rain so the grass was long, all the animals looked as healthy as they could be and there were many young ones hidding behind their moms. This is the smallest giraffe (just over 1.5m which is the height they are born) and zebra i have ever seen – all fluffly and wobbily. We also saw 8 lion cubs.

The funniest moment on our holiday was our experience with the soccer fans that were visiting. Most of them were in small rental cars which made spotting animals in the long grass almost impossible.

We had stopped the car to watch baby bushbuck and a baby male nyala which are quite rare to see and a car full of Argentinian fans pulled up beside us. I am not sure if they didn’t see or hadn’t looked but the buck were right in front of them. After we had pointed it out to them they scrambled with excitment for their cameras. About two minutes later a berry fell out of the tree above and all five of them found an open window to hang out off. I think they thought that something in the tree was throwing things at them. Their confused faces as they searched the trees in vain were just too much. Jeremy and I were laughing so hard we had tears in our eyes. Nevertheless, the buck scattered and the Argentinians followed us around for the rest of the afternoon.

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Great Things

June 11, 2010 in Wren by wendren | 3 comments

Today is the kick-off of the Soccer World Cup. The feeling around South Africa is quite special. Almost all the cars have flags and even our post-man was dressed in Bafana Bafana gear with a flag.

In all this World Cup maddness I’m going on a road-trip up and through South Africa to the Kruger National Park. From there we are camp hopping all the way up to the Mozambique border. I will be back on the 24th of June – see you then.

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House and Leisure Feature

June 8, 2010 in Wren by wendren | 2 comments

I know this is a little late as the June issue of the House and Leisure has been out for a few weeks already (thank you to those who spotted me and commented on the feature). In my defence, my laptop crashed and has caused endless troubles and my scanner would not make friends with my borrowed PC and somehow the magazine got pushed to the bottom of the pile…but here it is, my few moments of fame.

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Dark Red

June 7, 2010 in Featured by wendren | 2 comments

What is the difference between maroon, burgundy and ox-blood?

Maroon comes from the French word maroon (“chestnut”) and is a brownish-red like the suede leather on this ‘antique linen and leather bag’. Did you know that the word maroon used as a verb is to put (a person) ashore on a desert island and abondon that person there, as pirates or mutineers sometimes did (ref).

Ox-blood is also said to be a brownish-red colour but richer and brighter than maroon. The pigment comes from a rare type of Italian coral but the colour is said to look like that which an ox bleeds, hence the name.

Burgundy is a colour name that has its origins in a French wine region and it refers to red wine. The first recorded use of burgundy as a colour name in English was in 1915 so it is a relatively new name. This is the colour of the double stripe that runs through this ‘antique linen and leather bag‘.

Now you know something you didn’t know before …

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What a lot of Fiiissh!

June 3, 2010 in Interesting Finds by wendren | 2 comments

On the way back from my seamstress yesterday I noticed that the fish sellers had managed to string drying Snoek along the full length of this school fence (200m long and I counted nearly 1500 fish). Salted and dried Snoek is a delicacy that is used to make the traditional stew called Smoorsnoek. Honestly, I have never tried salted and dried Snoek or Smoorsnoek. After seeing sights like this where the fish is dried opening on rusted fences, I do not think I want to.

P.S. I couldnt fit the whole image in without making it tiny. To see up-close, click on the image and a larger version will load and you can zoom in.

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Linen Ribbon

May 31, 2010 in Interesting Finds by wendren | 2 comments

My parcel of linen ribbons and navy blue linen canvas arrived on Friday all the way from Linnet, Japan. I have no idea what I will do with it, for now it is sitting on my desk allowing me to dream up possibilities. It is so beautiful…

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Landscape Map Art

May 24, 2010 in Me by wendren | 4 comments

Searching through my stack of maps for a tiny town called Nieu-Bethesda I was inspired to do something creative.

My studio room was full of maps that I had sorted into colours, areas and sizes (according to the Gift Map Bag patterns) and using the different scales and colours to show perspective I spent the afternoon cutting, sitting and arranging.

For the sky I used the aeronautical maps that border on the shorelines. Part of the sky is the Atlantic Ocean and part of it is the Indian Ocean.

Needless to say I did not find Nieu-Bethesda on any of my maps (it just snuck off the borders) but our sitting room no longer has a large empty white wall so it was, in a different way, a very successful afternoon.

To see more photographs visit the flickr gallery.

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