Same, same but different

We thought we'd commemorate today's royal wedding by bringing you something completely unrelated - our new feature, 'same, same but different'.

Each month, we'll post pictures of three or more versions of the same idea, whether it be related to fashion, DIY, gardening, cooking or the home like today's first installment. Hopefully it will give you some ideas and inspiration.

Enjoy!

Carla

Sources: Style Files, The Modern Home, The Leiter Side of Life

A new dimension

We're back already, the holidays have flown by... but they've given us the chance to recharge our batteries and fill our heads with ideas and inspiration. We hope you had a great time too :). 

To make getting back into the routine as painless as possible, we wanted to share a really original project with you that made us smile when we found it. Back of a web page shows the designs of the backs of lots of programmes and applications we use on a daily basis.

 Google

 Flickr

 Twitter

 Facebook

Who knows, now that transparent screens are coming onto the market, maybe in a few years time everything will have two sides.

Olga

Happy Easter!

Take a bath...relax, the holidays are here!

Wishing you all an eggcelent Easter...

and if you're planning on doing an Easter Egg hunt, why not print off some of these

Carla

Pick ‘n’ Mix: Eggtastic

We’re just about to start our Easter holidays (yippee!) so April’s Pick ‘n’ Mix is full of ideas for you to try out over the next few days. We’ll leave you with our selection of the best Easter eggs we’ve spotted on the blogosphere. Easter’s not just about stuffing your face with chocolate, right? ;)

1. DIY bunting at Poppy Talk

2. Painted wooden eggs at Etsy

3. Glam egg tutorial at Design*Sponge

4. Bird’s nest cookies at Art of Dessert

5. Printable decorations at Spagat Blog

6. Egg containing a secret message, also at Poppy Talk

7. Eggs as tiny vases from 79 ideas
8. Easy-to-make and original candles at Martha Stewart

      Olga

And breathe...

I can’t believe Friday’s here already. This week seems to have gone in a flash. Things have been pretty busy, which is good but also requires a certain knack for controlling the tendency to get stressed when attempting to do several things at once. That can be tricky at the best of times but I came across this on Miss Moss’s blog  and thought it would be good to share it since it contains some wise words:

It also reminded me of this song, which always makes me feel better and puts things into perspective:

Most of you will probably be familiar with it since it was a worldwide hit in 1999 but no harm in listening to it again, I say. Interestingly, I just found out that it was inspired by "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young", an article written by Mary Schmich published in the Chicago Tribune in 1997. That’s a fact kids - you learn something new with me every day ;).

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and make sure to relax/dance/eat cake/sleep well/get lots of fresh air and sunshine (delete as appropriate) and of course take plenty deep breaths should you encounter any obstacles to fun times!

Carla

Origami power

A few years ago, my friend Alma brought me this lovely bookmark (I like it so much though I’ve got it framed on my wall instead of inside a book) back from Japan and since then I’ve always wanted to have a go at origami.

So the other day, on one of my far too frequent visits to Tiger, I was pleasantly surprised to find one of this month’s new products – origami paper in beautiful designs and colours.

Source: Tiger Stores

 With a little skill, some paper and the right folds you can make really amazing shapes. I’ve been putting together some ideas to get down to work:

Decorative hearts from Happy Serendipity

                                                                 

Panda and Asian raccoon from Origami Club

Mushrooms from How about orange

We’d also like to use today’s post to encourage you to participate in this beautiful initiative by Makiko, a Japanese lady living in Madrid, as a symbol of support for the Japanese at such a difficult time. The idea is to make your own crane corresponding to the Japanese legend that says a desire will be granted to whoever makes 1000: Las mil grullas.

Crane from Bethan in Flickr

Olga

"I'll have a pint of cake, please"

St. Patrick’s Day may have passed a few weeks ago now but it doesn’t mean you can’t continue to celebrate it in some way, especially if making a chocolate and Guinness cake counts!

I made this recently for my Guinness-loving boyfriend’s birthday. It was a bit of a risk as it was the first time I’d tried to make it and was essentially treating my friends and boyfriend as guinea pigs but they all obliged and seemed to like it...or at least that’s what they said anyway.

I used the recipe featured on Design Sponge here, which is the work of Katie of What Katie Ate. If you haven’t already, you should go and have a gander at Katie’s blog – it’s full of beautifully assembled photographs of the dishes she creates. You will feel hungry after reading it - a sure sign of an excellent food blog. However, you will also come away inspired to make your own dishes look all pretty and tasty too.

I just hope my version of the Guinness cake had the same effect.

Carla

A-Z Barcelona Jumping Project

Today we’d like to tell you about a project run by Ana of Fácil y Sencillo, one of our favourite blogs. Some of you might already know about it since it’s been talked about a lot on the blogosphere, but it’s always nice to look through it again, isn’t it?

It’s a photography project entitled “A-Z Barcelona Jumping Project”, which was originally part of a local photography course. A letter of the alphabet appears in each photo together with a person jumping and each letter also represents a place or an action related to Barcelona.

The project is bursting with joy and colour and shows the very photogenic centre of this city in an original way. Take a look at it here and tell us which your favourite letter is. Mine is the “F for flowers” and the “T for tiles” but all of them have made me smile.

via: Fácil y Sencillo

Olga

Go potty!

With Spring upon us, it’s time to sort out the garden and get planting so what better way to start than to spruce up some of your plant pots!

Winter was harsh on a few of my terracotta pots and they’re all looking a bit worse for wear. My plan is to clean off any mould and give the pots a new lease of life by following the tutorial at the end of this post. That way they’ll be ready to grow me some lovely fresh herbs and look good at the same time ;) 

A crafty friend of mine made me some really nice pots which inspired me to write this post. Using scraps of fabric and PVA glue, she made this:

 

You simply coat the outside of the pot with PVA glue and take scraps of fabric (or you can also use paper) and start to stick them on. You could also finish off the top with some varnish if you wanted to protect it a bit more. I think it looks really effective and it made a great gift, I was over the moon to receive it. If you don’t have any fabric, you could paint your pots following Design Sponge’s tutorial here to produce lovely pots like these:

 

I think these will make your garden/balcony look really fun and you can experiment with lots of different shapes and colours for a variety of styles. 

Carla