Moroccan Warehouse Bowl and Stoned Cherrie Vase. 'Raoul Asofa Stripe' fabric available from St Leger & Viney.

Featured in our IDEAS ISSUE No. 83, these hand painted ceramics want to come home to you and only you, don’t they? This Stoned Cherrie vase and the Moroccan Warehouse bowl are both begging to check out of the DECO office. Just comment on this blog post. Say where you’d put them in, and why they’d work well in your place. The judges will let you know!

Oh, do have a look at Sara Trickett’s ‘Book of the Week’: Visionaire Sun Beams, posted last week on itswhatiminto   A celebration of gilt and shimmer, every spread is beautiful and artful in the true sense of the word.

Brass Etch Pendant and Etch Web by Tom Dixon

Like we said last week, we’re enjoying seeing how metallics keep shining through and we’re fascinated by Tom Dixon’s astonishing new pendant light, the Etch Web (above right), with its unusual open structure. An irregular pentagon shape is repeated 60 times across the body to create a total sphere, making it the ultimate shadow play pendant. The Brass Etch Pendant, released by Dixon in 2011 is joined by the copper and stainless steel versions. This piece is digitally manufactured from metal, creating a mass of intricate shadows when lit. Coming to Crema Design soon-soon.

DECO stylist Hendrik Coetzee has moved into a new place. So now the fun begins. He’s been doing a few things at the weekend to get his ducks all lined up. He picked up a bunch of hooks and things from the Milnerton market and then found this rack at the R5 stall outside Game in Darling Street. How cool and satisfying, doing things with a superslim wallet.

For more handy house-loving hints, flip through the pages of the DECO Ideas Issue, No. 83, on shelf now.

Paola Navone designed these massive colourful nests, woven with 11,000 hazelnut branches from springtime prunings. ‘The Secret Garden’ project was part of an installation presented by Barovier & Toso and Citco in the Botanical Gardens in Brera, Milan this year.

Nests of different shapes were either built on solid turf or hung, suspended and free-floating. And inside? Murano glass blown chandeliers by Barovier & Toso.

The nests contain the chandeliers, hiding and protecting them, almost like eggs, and inviting visitors to peek between branches and gaps. This powerful visual display demonstrates the magic that a Barovier & Toso chandelier gives to a space, whether in a magical fantasy space like this, or at home.

Posted by Renée Rossouw

The souffle

On Wednesday night, DECO stylist Hendrik and I joined 15 of our readers at a Lindt chocolate workshop held at the Lindt headquarters in the Cape Quarter, Cape Town. Chocolate, its provenance and all things cacao related, was the main event.

When there’s chocolate involved it’s hard not to be happy and feel the endorphines flow. Chocolate was without a doubt going to be dinner for the evening. We ate our way through a chocolate appreciation lesson given by professional international chocolatier Dimo, who took us delicately through the journey of the cocoa bean from the tree to the truffle. What an amazing experience, seeing how chocolate engages all of the five senses.

It was then time to make the long awaited chocolate souffle. (We tried to hold back on licking our bowls but couldn’t resist the airy chocolate mixture.)

The souffle took 6 minutes to bake and about 3 seconds to disappear. Delish.

With superb Paradyskloof wines from Vriesenhof to wash it all down, the atmosphere was giddy and happy. Everyone who attended went home with a 6 month subscription to ELLE DECORATION and a hamper of Lindt worth R450. Long may the chocolate high last!

How about trying the souffle we made? Visit our Facebook page for the recipe. Let us know how it works out for you.

Posted by Kyllie Hogg

This year’s pile of invitations to scope out the “Salone Internazionale del Mobile” was a show in its own right. Our editor Laureen Rossouw got bagsful of beautifully designed ‘Come See’s’ for The Milan Furniture Fair 2012. We’ve spent the morning drooling over all the juicy design. Envelopes made of trace, lots of layered texture and pattern, acid brights and neons, a mock vinyl record and some dangly laser-cut letters to keep.

Posted by: Inge van der Merwe

As the relevance of design is becoming hotly debated, young designers are approaching their work with a sense of mischief. We couldn’t help noticing a playful approach to products coming through at this year’s Milan Design Fair.

Kirstin Overbeck used the colourful world of sweets as inspiration for her Candy Collection, seen at Ventura Lambrate. She jokes: “Products with zero calories guaranteed!”. (Above)

Thomas Schnur designed this rubber table that suctions onto surfaces – a table behaving kind of like a pet! (Above)

Bambi Chair by Kamina & C in oak looks like a must-have for tots. (Above)

Katinka Versendaal was inspired by Alice in Wonderland’s famous line: “Follow the White Rabbit”. Says Katinka: “Instead of following the white rabbit, the rabbit had all his friends in tow, and took over the tea party.” (Above)

( Post by Renée Rossouw for Elle Decoration )

Metallic Nature by Neville Trickett

We’re running into a lot of shimmer ‘n shine lately. How beautiful. The artful bug composition here was posted by Neville Trickett (see more -  itswhatiminto) whose eye for the interesting and the extraordinary we admire hugely.

The Shala yoga studio

And then we saw this glinty door across from our offices on Dunkley Square in Cape Town. A new yoga studio called The Shala opened last week. Jaco Janse van Rensburg designed the interior and was responsible for the beauty within. We’re curious to see what goes on up those stairs, so we’re scheduling a little look-see. Coming up one of these fine days.

Posted by Jenny Mason for ELLE Decoration.

We know about 3D printing and we’ve heard a lot of talk about the fact that in the future everyone will design their own furniture with 3D printers at home. Before 3D printing came into our lives, industrial laser-cutting also started to become a popular tool in design, and was used in cutting Perspex jewellery, card and metal.

I’m noticing a re-emergence of laser-cutting in a very interesting medium: FOOD.

Look at these, sugar paper doillies (below) and laser-cut seaweed for sushi (above). How edible is this?

This aesthetic in food is definitely a taste of the future. Come to think of it, if food is too beautiful to eat, maybe we’ll all be able to look a little more, and eat a little less?

( Post by Renée Rossouw ) (Images via boingboing & Etsy)

Scandinavian furniture house IKEA launched their PS 2012 Collection in a big innovated warehouse at Ventura Lambrate at the Milan Design Fair this year.

For the IKEA PS 2012 collection, IKEA gave 19 designers the task of reviving ideas, memories, thoughts, shapes and products of the past and translating them into the future, inspired by 60+ years of IKEA history. Materiality was also reconsidered, introducing such materials as Bamboo, PET recycled plastic and compound wood plastic composite.  Their slogan, Design belongs in real homes, hit home for a big audience, and is an innovative response to  the current economic climate.

Plant Stand by Nicolas Cortolezzis is a mobile garden that lets you grow plants indoors and vertically. It can also double up as a green room divider.  (above)

The Easy Chair by Wiebke Braasch  is an updated version of the 1950s classic. Keeping only the original metal frame and using one material through-out turned it into a new chair for both indoor and outdoor usage . (above)

Bowl by Marcus Arvonen is an attractive green bowl into which you wish you could put all your pencils into. Although perceived as plastic, it’s actually made from wood plastic composite, a more environmentally friendly material to produce. (above)

Chest of drawers by Ehlen Johansson is a cheeky cabinet designed in pine wood, inspired by the long standing relationship of IKEA with the material. (above)

Apart from the PS 2012 collection, the IKEA warehouse also had a big colourful selection of new textiles on display, next to a cafe at the heart of the exhibition. This created a great informal atmosphere and a constant flow of people. The place was buzzing. (below)

To find out more about all the designs, visit PS 2012 – IKEA or IKEA PS AT HOME, where people upload photos of their own homes and spaces, filled with pieces from the collection.

(Photos + Text : Renée Rossouw)