A beach house with fab colours

I don't usually let many bright colours into my country home, I am very much a black and white gingham or black and white toile style girl, I love surrounding myself with white and natural colours. But spending time at my sister and brother in-laws beach house I found each day quite invigorating living with all the colours in the living room.

It's funny actually, I packed our bags, baskets of beach stuff and food & fruit and threw in some extra things that I thought I might need, a few bright tablecloths and some orange Dahlias, (everyone needs flowers whilst your at the beach) and when I unpacked my things I realised that nearly everything was either orange or yellow. I was surrounded by colours and such beautiful colours too.

This house has wonderful pieces of furniture in all the living rooms and bedrooms, Lloyd Loom woven fibre furniture, sweet little old wicker chairs and a dining table to die for (more on that on a later post). Australian original "Mambo" door shades, great size coffee tables (and yes, this table is very similar to the ones that Brooke Giannetti from Velvet & Linen gave away late last year).

The rug in the living is fantastic and made from lots of tiny leather off-cuts, it's perfect for a beach house with many little sandy feet running through. There are huge comfortable modern sofas with big cushions and wonderful pieces of interesting artwork hanging on the walls in each room. I think Georgy, Andrew's sister, has done an amazing job decorating this home. A beach house needs to be beautiful and really comfortable and she has definitely achieved that here.

We picked as much fruit from our trees in our country garden to take to the beach, some ripe, so not so ripe and filled this wonderful old wooden grain bowl with peaches and plums. The colours were gorgeous and the fruit was delicious, what wasn't used for munching on was then stewed for breakfast.

and just below: what was I to do, but sit and think, sit and ponder and sit and plan my next year ahead. No, not really I was exhausted after doing this shoot so I flopped in the chair and Andrew snapped me. Hmmmm

This is only a small part of this beach house ( the bedrooms are divine and all white) and it's part of my Summer homes and decorating stories. There's quite a few more boat houses and entertaining ideas to come over the months ahead. I know many of you are still surrounded by snow and I'm sure your starting to plan your summer holidays, why not come over here to Australia, it's a great place to be. Actually, hang on, when you get to Summer we will be in Winter, so why not come on over now.

Welcome to all my guests from Susan's Table scape Thursday party at Between Naps on the Porch, it's a little different style "coffee" table setting this week.

and some new things for 2010

Advertise on Styling by Coty Farquhar or Styling Gardens

Email for rates - cotyfarquhar@bigpond.com.au

Your ad can either appear here or on the sidebar & I can help you with a design if you need it,

I'm very happy to say that when visitors come by my blog they do stay and look around for a quite a while.

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and this is really exciting news !

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Also coming soon, our "Styling" shop full of interesting props & vintage clothes, furniture and bric a brac and some Coty and Andrew designs as well. I will keep you up to date as to when the opening "on line" and " our store" at Bowral will be.

Have a great week, and thanks for visiting me x Coty

My first photographs taken in 1977

These are the first ever black and white portraits that I photographed with an old Pentax camera when I was just 15 years old. I loved photography and art back then, and I still do and I was so fortunate as my school had the most wonderful Art Department with professional artists teaching photography.

My teacher, who was also a professional photographer and screen printer taught me how to develop my own black and white film and to print my own images.

I just loved it so much and who knew where it would take me. These images marked the very beginning of my career, I took so many more images whilst I was at school and I remember spending most lunch hours in the darkroom printing out my pictures. I can still remember the smell of the photograph chemicals and coming outside with all my wet picture to hang and dry.

This small collection of images I took of my younger sister Caroline modeling around our home. She was the perfect model back then and even then I was "Little Miss Art Director" directing and styling her every move. I dressed her in our Grandmother's hats, used props from around the house and I found these lovely little white linen petticoats in the dress up wardrobe at school. I dressed Caroline in many different outfits that day and I remember telling her what to do for me in front of the camera. It was 33 years ago and I can still remember everything about the day the weather and how excited I was to be creating these images.

Unfortunately many of the other images from this shoot are gone, I wished I had printed them all. These prints are so old now and they are marked with yellow stains & scratches from the years. I have lost the original film so this is all I have left. I found these photographs at Caroline's home a couple of years ago and she had somehow ended up with them after all these years, thank goodness.

and my Grandmother's hat above was the hat that I also wore on my wedding day, see here(something old.....something new..) which we covered in many more daisies and a yellow veil.

I wish you all a wonderful week

xx Coty

Copyright: Coty Farquhar 2010

A lazy lunch by the Sea

When Andrew came back from a walk along the beach with a bunch of wild flowers and an arm full of driftwood I decided to do a table setting under the tree. Everything I then looked at around the house was the colour of the sand, straw hats, baskets, driftwood, the gorgeous tall candlesticks in my sister's home, even her furniture was perfect. So what does a crazy stylist like me do when on holidays? Set the table for lunch of course in the shade overlooking the beach especially for Susan's Tablescape Thursday party at Between Naps on the Porch.

I used muslin as the tablecloth and just plain white plates, and that's it. What else do you need when your near the seaside. Mackerel Beach is so private and quiet and it's away from the noise of the traffic as it is only accessible by boat. Choosing somewhere to have lunch each day was really the only thing we had to think about. There are only fifteen permanent residents living on Mackerel Beach throughout the year, what a wonderful peaceful life they must have.

My family, Andrew, Thomas and Bec - looking far too relaxed

and I know that look on their face.... Mum, please stop photographing everything we do....

and a couple of friends for lunch

Summer School holidays are over and my two went back to school this morning and now it's time to get on with all my plans for the new year.

Wishing you all a wonderful week xx Coty

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Spending time with my family

Late last night I arrived home after spending nearly two glorious weeks with my family and friends on a beautiful beach at Pittwater. No Internet, no blogging, no emails, no cars and no shops...........nothing to do but relax

and I loved it,

however I did miss you all and I did think about blogging an awful lot while I walked the beach.

This is where we also had our Christmas lunch with all of Andrew's family at my sister and brother in law's beautiful beach house at Mackerel Beach which is directly opposite Palm Beach at the north end of Sydney. We took everything we needed and more, piled it in the boat and here we stayed watching the world go by each day surrounded by clear beautiful water, boats, and some interesting Aussie animals.

Once you arrive at Mackerel beach you instantly relax, so guess what I spent the many days doing? photographing, photographing everything!!! As you know I love photographing and I have thousands of images to edit, four or five table settings that I set up on the beach and at some of the most gorgeous little beach houses and gardens at Mackerel. I have some lovely interior shots in sweet little old original boat houses and some private beach homes, lots and lots of children shots and more all hopefully to be posted in the next couple of weeks. I had a ball and each day was different to the next. We drank far too many bubbles, caught up with some old school friends and made some new friends as well.

Above: Thomas and cousin Angus on the boat most of the day

But the best part was spending time with my family

Cousins Bec and Lexie - catching up with a years gossip

Thank you for all the wonderful comments and emails from my last post, I will reply as soon as I get myself organised. I really wished I had a laptop with me at the beach, however I think it was best that I didn't as I would have missed all the special moments at Mackerel with my family and they would have killed me as well. School starts on Thursday and that's the end of our Summer holidays for this year.

and a special thank you to Lisa Porter at the Lisa Porter Collection Blog who has a wonderful story on her blog about a post I did last year about my friend & artist Susannah Blaxill,

and to Minna Mercke Schmidt from Blomsterverkstad who also has a lovely post about the lunch we had a couple of weeks ago, and yes Minna, I will try and get my book published this year. Are there any publishers out there that want to take me on?

Thanks also to Polkadot Bride for featuring my story last year "A day in the life of a Stylist" in their good holiday reading post

and to Kathryn at Snippet & Ink for adding my 'Black & White Gingham Story to her top favourite posts for the last year.

What a year we are all going to have together, I'm rested, relaxed and ready to go. I have too many ideas to know where to start and many bloggers to catch up with. Let all have fun blogging together and who knows where it will take us.

""""Happy Australia Day to all my fellow Aussies"""""

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Coty

Blomsterverkstad - Lunch with Minna

Over a year ago I received an email from my good friend, the very talented and gorgeous Minna Mercke Schmidt from Blomsterverkstad blog in Sweden, saying, Coty, I'm coming to Australia next year to visit my sister and we must get together. I was absolutely thrilled and on Saturday & Sunday we prepared and cooked a special "Summer "lunch for Minna and her family. Her two teenage children, Minna's lovely mother, her sister and brother in law and their gorgeous little baby boy all drove down early Sunday morning from Sydney to our home in the Southern Highlands for lunch.

I'm sure everyone already knows Minna and her blog, I certainly have always loved her work and her beautiful country home in Sweden. As both Minna and I are photographic Stylists we have been communicating for quite a while about our work, our homes and just about life as busy working mums. Minna is a lot younger than me, as you will see in the photos below, and she is just as I had expected her to be, very beautiful and caring and all her family were just delightful. Minna is also the very first blogger that I have ever met in person and now I just want to meet all my special blogging friends, it's fantastic!

It was a really hot & humid summers day here on Sunday so I set the table in our sun room, above Minna and me(I'm the old one in black) It was so hot I had three fans blowing air around the room and all the birds outside seemed to be hiding in their nests throughout the whole day and they didn't come out at all, I was amazed as our garden has been full of birds feasting on our fruit trees all week. It would have been so nice to have all our Australian birds in the trees all day for them to see. Oh well, I put a couple of birds on the table instead along with my two urns filled with vintage flowers.

Preparing the dessert with Thomas and Bec above in the kitchen, luckily Minna had her camera out snapping all day to get most of these photographs, as I was too busy chatting with everyone and there was no time for me this day to take many photographs. The delicious chocolate swirled cheesecake above was made especially for Minna by my friend Vicki, she is so good at making puddings and I asked her if she could make one for us, she's so clever.

Above: Andrew with Minna and her sister,

Minna is just about to launch her first book "Blomstrande Ideer" in March filled with all her beautiful images. Many, many orders have already been taken by her publisher and I can't wait to get my own copy. Work is also underway on her next book as well, click on the book below to go to Minna's blog to get all the details about her new book.

As Minna flies back to the cold weather in Sweden today, I say farewell to my dear friend and how wonderful it was to meet Minna and her family. I know my family all found the day quite a wonderful experience. I really wished we could have spent much more time together as planned so I could show you some of my favourite styling spots. Minna did say she will be back as soon as she can, but as Andrew said over lunch, we are so lucky to have met and become good friends through blogging over the last year and half and we can always keep in touch most weeks through our blogs.

Cheers to blogging & good friends. xx Coty

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Welcome to everyone also from Susan's Tablescape Thursday party at Between Naps on the Porch

Come and visit some beautiful blogs showing their winter tablesettings today.

LAZY DAYS OF SUMMER

So far, I must say this new year 2010 has been a very good year for me already. I have spent many wonderful long days with my family at home just being together which I adore. We have relaxed and celebrated with relatives here in the country and at the beach. I have finally met my very first blogger friend, Minna Mercke Schmidt yesterday from the wonderful blog Blomsterverkstad in Sweden who came here to my home for lunch with all her family.....I will post on our day together soon. I really hope this will be a year to meet many more of you from this great blogging world that I love being a part of.

Surprise, surprise , I was also contacted by two long lost girl friends from school which was a complete thrill, it's our thirty year school reunion this year and I think we are all thinking about it now, Mmmmmm ....well I actually have been thinking about it for a while, hoping I would shed some weight and look a little younger before it, well guess what ? I have done the total opposite and bloody put it on and I just can't find the old me in the mirror anymore.

I have been nominated for the "Best Costume Designer for a Musical" for the Wizard of Oz production for the Cat Awards, Canberra which will be held in February, what a fun night that will be.

We have all been clearing lots of clutter from cupboards and finally fixed a few things around the house that I have been wanting to do for years and years and years. Basically have just relaxed in my garden & at the beach with many afternoon naps. My mother visited yesterday and commented (whilst at church the other day) about all the bags of clothes that were delivered for the needy, she said, there were bags and bags there. I know Mum! , we dropped them there on Sunday, it's been a couple of years, maybe more since I have gone through the cupboards.

....and I especially want to thank everyone that left me such wonderful wishes and beautiful comments for my last post on Christmas and I do apologise for having it here on my blog for so long, at least I've taken my tree down. I'm still not quite back to blogging yet, as much as I would love to be, we have another couple of weeks of our Summer holidays left before a new school year starts where Thomas finishes his final HSC year and Bec goes into year 10, what a year it will be! We're off to spend some time in the sun at the beach, which will probably be the last time we will all be together, who knows where Thomas will be next Summer.

Drop by and say hi, I'm the one sitting in the shade of the tree at the top of the beach with my ideas book and pencil.

See you soon... x Coty

..................and for some beautiful, inspirational reading this week go to Florali and have a look at Susan's beautiful images. Look at this adorable little girl below, her name is Isabella.

You will need to make a cup of coffee or pour a glass of wine before you visit, you will be there for a while. Click here