Elle Decoration South Africa » Elle Decoration

Take to the streets

heather moore — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 05:32:42 +0000

Everywhere you look, the city is alive with colour. Be inspired by the energy and colour of the streets with our free downloadable collaged posters (click in the sidebar to download each one). Then use the Freeworld paint swatch strip to bring the same vibrant energy into your home with colour.

Skermunkil

heather moore — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:06:49 +0000

Cape Town jeweller Marietjie Beeselaar has opened an online shop for her Skermunkil line, where she is selling these exquisite vintage silver spoons. Each one is hand cut, and is quite unique. They’re intended as pendants, but I could also imagine one hanging as a window decoration. Just beautiful.

However you choose to use your spoon, be sure to keep an eye on what Skermunkil will be bringing to us by visiting the Skermunkil shop, and by following Marietjie at her Eendag op ‘n Reendag blog.

DECO Workshop

heather moore — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 06:00:26 +0000

ELLE Decoration and Le Creuset invite you to a fun-filled foodie evening at the Silwood School of Cookery in Rondebosch, Cape Town. Learn to cook a range of mouthwatering dishes, before enjoying a leisurely two-course meal. Plus, you’ll take home a goodie bag to the value of R580 and stand to win le Creuset cookware!

This exciting reader event only takes place on the evening of 29 September, but we’re giving advance warning, as there are only 20 places available. The course costs R290 (subscription holders pay R260), and apart from the demonstration and meal, you’ll get a Le Creuset goodie bag, and a 1-year subscription to ELLE Decoration!

To book email Lauren with the words ELLE DECORATION in the subject line, and wait for a confirmation email with more details.

Design Showcase: Karen Suskin

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 06:08:00 +0000

The Design Showcase feature in each issue of ELLE Decoration looks at home grown artists, designers, architects and innovators. You’ll find more of these under the Profiles pulldown menu at the top of the page, and right here, we’re featuring textile artist Karen Suskin in an interview by deputy editor, Kelly Berman.

Karen Suskin is a multimedia artist, interdisciplinary designer and design lecturer. She’s been a proponent of all things sustainable before it became a buzz word, and built her own straw-bale house 12 years ago with her husband, Anthony, her family and a small local workforce.

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY

‘In everything I do – be it designing a garment, creating an art installation, working with a community, collaborating on a piece of furniture, or mentoring a student – I’m aware of the context and of the need to find environmentally sensitive and ethical ways of working. I frequently walk on the beach or in the mountains close to my home; I observe and collect things that inspire me and return to the studio with new treasures and deeper insight into nature’s fascinating processes.’

CROSS POLLINATION
‘I work predominantly in felt, sometimes using it on existing pieces such as these stools. I also dabble in other artistic mediums, often incorporating natural materials.’

‘The design on this felt dress came from a line drawing I did while working out an idea. The chalk doodle she’s drawing continues down into her dress as a physical embodiment of the idea itself.’

Interview: Kelly Berman.
Production: Laureen Rossouw and Karen Suskin.
Photographs: Justin Patrick.
Model: Thola van Speyk

Issue 71: The Room

heather moore — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 05:00:16 +0000

Our Small Spaces: Big Ideas issue comes with a fab 48 page supplement called The Room, brought to our readers by Freeworld Coatings.

The Room is absolutely saturated with colour ideas, DIY projects, helpful painting tips and sheer colour inspiration for every single room in your house, using Freeworld products like Earthcote, Plascon, Midas and Hamiltons. There are ideas for kids’ rooms, a home office, a loft, your front door, and more… I particularly fancied this dresser and fireplace makeover, myself.

While helping prepare the supplement, DECO’s intern Maryke Olivier went the extra mile and took some behind-the-scenes pics of just how our brilliant stylists managed to give a dreary old dresser a new lease on life, with the help of a couple of pots of paint from Freeworld Coatings:

Step 1: Sand the wood before applying a coat of Midas Universal Undercoat.

Step 2: Use a pencil and ruler to draw equal-sized squares along the front surface, leaving a border around the edges.

Step 3: Connect the squares’ opposing corners with lines to form triangles, then carefully mask the spaces you want to paint. Remember to mask one triangle completely, if you would like the bare wood to show.

Step 4: Choose your colours. Our stylist, Misi Overturf chose Plascon Cashmere ‘White Canvas’ (D13-1) and ‘Lapis Blue’ (B6-B1-1), and Midas Midacoat Satin ‘Black’.

Step 5: Use a small, flat brush to paint the triangles very carefully. Here are all the DECO interns and production assistants in full concentration.

Step 6: Paint the border and remaining sides black, then step back to admire your handiwork.

Production: Misi Overturf

Assistants: Elsa Gouws, Nina du Plessis, Maryke Olivier

Photographs: Justin Patrick

Issue 71: Big City Life

heather moore — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:50:28 +0000

Developer Jonathan Lieberman has brought to life a future-minded lifestyle concept aimed at young urban creatives on the edge of downtown Joburg. Main Street Life adds a resedential dimension to the Maboneng Precinct, kick-started by the successful transformation of Arts on Main from a remote industrial tenement into Joburg’s hippest arts hum.

Main Street Life is a multi-use complex with a mix of residential studios, a workshop space, exhibition spaces, and it is topped by a boutique hotel and seven penthouses. We feature both Liebenburg’s penthouse suite, as well as one of the compact studios of this cutting edge complex on pages 74 – 83 of Issue 71.

Production: Nicole Ravenscroft

Photos: Pieter Vosloo

Issue 71: Air Apparent

heather moore — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 06:10:28 +0000

The home shown on the cover of our brand new issue (on shelf Thursday this week) sums up the ‘Small Spaces: Big Ideas” theme just perfectly.

After moving back to South Africa from the UK in 2007, Matthew White and Marissa Botha decided to settle in Cape Town, and found a place with a great view on the slopes of Signal Hill. They loved the Victorian facade, but not the poky rooms, so they worked with their architect Victoria Perry (we featured her home too, in Issue 54) to create a clan, modern interior behind.

White-painted walls, a hidden deck, floor-to-ceiling cupboards replacing walls and large folding glass doors all work together to make this airy home testify to how a smart renovation can be key to working with a small space.

Production: Jo Skelton

Photographer: Mark Williams

Issue 71 : Small Spaces: Big Ideas

heather moore — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 06:00:42 +0000

All those smart people who subscribe to ELLE Decoration will be finding their copies of Issue 71 in the postbox in the next few days. For the rest of you, don’t forget to keep an eye our for the Small Spaces issue, on shelf next week. It’s packed with brilliant storage and shelving solutions, and includes a special 48 page supplement with colour and decor inspiration for every room.

From Monday, and all week long, we’ll be blogging about what you’ll find inside the magazine. But to get you into the colour zone over the weekend, we have three free downloadable posters for you, celebrating pops of colour from South African city streets. Click the sidebar to download the Pink, Red or Blue poster, and get printing.

Shed new Lite

heather moore — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 05:48:47 +0000

Designer Porky Hefer has just brought out a new collection of his beautiful lites, hand-turned from American Walnut.

The lites’ design was inspired by Ray and Charles Eames’ wooden stools and also by wooden spinning tops, and Hefer says that the emphasis of these LED-lit shades is ‘the way the light falls on the shades themselves and the interaction of the negative spaces.’
Get your lite from LIM on Kloof Street Cape Town, or contact Porky Hefer directly.

Recreate

heather moore — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 06:25:08 +0000

Loving these witty and mad re-thinks of household objects by Katie Thompson of Recreate. You’ll never look at the contents of your attic in the same way again.

Milk Bottle Lamps

Teacup lamp

Typewriter lamp

I’ve just posted a couple of things from the lighting section, but a visit to the Recreate website is definitely in order, if you want to see more of Katie’s creations. Amazing what the right mind can do with an old hoover/watering can/suitcase, eh?