Sad

I've been enjoying these beautiful images from Karen's Flickr pages. Today has been such a sad day for me, and looking at photo's like this reminds me not to give up hope and become too cynical. Over the last week, in shanty towns in and around Johannesburg, 22 people have been killed, 18 of them in the past two days, in an outbreak of shocking xenophobic violence.

I don't like to write about serious things on this blog, in fact this is the first serious post I've done, but this is all so horrible and distressing, it's the only thing on my mind right now. Nobody leaves the country of their birth unless they have to, immigrants from other African countries come to South Africa to escape from war, brutality and poverty. How can we treat them this way? Powerful countries like America were built from the hard work and ingenuity of immigrants. Why can't we be the same?

Simple pleasures & ordinary things

I've been enjoying images from the home of Dutch blogger Something White. Simple beauty, simple pleasures, and the appreciation of ordinary things. Ordinary things seen in a new light. I look around the room I'm in, at all the objects that I just don't see anymore because I'm too busy stressing and rushing around to notice. I see three pieces of black volcanic stone that my husband brought me from the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro which he climbed last year. I see a wood and silver Greek religious icon that a good friend got me when she was on holiday there. I see a collection of poetry books that I haven't read in years. Ordinary things that are meaningful to me. As I get older, I'm starting to realise that it's the simple pleasures, and small unhurried moments that make life worth living. I'm trying to be more conscious of the present moment and to appreciate the ordinary things in my life. Why do we insist on making life so complicated?

A pot in progress

I had a really nice day today. A friend came over, and we spent the day doing mosaics. We did a mosaic workshop about three years ago, and every couple of months (not often enough) we get together and spend a day making things. I have been working on a number and address sign to put on the outside wall of our house for about two years now, the project turned out to take a lot longer than I thought it would. It's been one of those things lying by the wayside, gathering dust - but today I FINALLY finished it! I still have to attach it to the wall and grout it, so I'll show you what it looks like when it's up.

I also worked on a little flower pot, which you can see in the photo. It still has to be grouted, so it doesn't doesn't look all that great at the moment. The grout is the magic ingredient that turns even the most dodgy looking project into something that you end up feeling quite good about.

I felt good afterwards, like I had achieved something, just something small...and I even managed to sort out my mosaic supplies and store them together all in one place. Now it's just the rest of my craft supplies I have to worry about :) I am a great collector of things that I plan to make something with one day. Chaos rules supreme, I don't even know what I've got lurking around, piled up in corners and hibernating in dark cupboards. All in good time, but sooner rather than later!!!

The power of journaling

A couple of weeks ago I found an empty 1970's gardening notebook in a second hand book shop. It's divided up into sections for each season with gardening information, photographs, advertising, and blank lined pages. I loved the look and feel of it, and it immedietely "spoke" to me and said journal. Just a plain simple journal for writing in, and expressing feelings, emotions, thoughts, ideas and any old triviality that I feel like writing down.

There was a time in my life, through adolescence and university that journalling helped keep me sane in an unhappy home environment. Putting pen to paper forced me to put my jumbled and confused thoughts into some sort of logical semblence, and helped me to make sense of my world. I have about 10 journals from that period, written in hard covered lined exercise books. While I was writing them, I always thought it would be kind of fun one day when I was older to be able to read them and look back, and remember. The truth was that until the beginning of this year, I'm 39 now, I never really went back and read them thoroughly. It was simply too painful to dredge up the past. Now, I'm in a different head space, and I've been doing "work" on releasing and letting go of all the useless baggage of the past - one suitcase at a time :) I've found my old journals have been so valuable in helping me, in some ways to remember how things were and to clear up the mental fog so I can forgive, release and let go.

During my adult life, after university, I only journalled intermittently. About two years ago I started a few visual journals, and although these have been a form of self-expression, they haven't been particularly deep and meaningful, they've been more of a way of having fun with different art techniques, doing collages and playing. In my new gardening notebook, I've been compelled to start writing again, sometimes about emotions etc, sometimes trivialities, some pages I just write on, some pages I do simple art work on as well. I must say though, my hands have become lazier to write after so many years of computers and keyboards.

Finally.....

Yippy!!! I'm finally getting to do some real decorating. I'm busy fixing up my spare room. It's my favourite room because it's particularly bright and airy, with big windows and it get's wonderful afternoon sun.

Ever since we moved in three years ago, it's been a shabby, insipid, way past it's sell by date, shade of pale blue. It's now becoming a bright, sparkling, clean, pure white. Here is the ladder that I'm too scared to climb - I hate ladders, climbing a ladder is almost as scary as climbing a mountain, except when you climb a mountain you get a helmet, a harness, and ropes, and little metal things to plug in and keep you safe.

These are my supplies. Right about now, I'm taking a big, deep breathe and getting ready to go.

And here I am, dressed for business in old jeans and even older sneakers. In South Africa we call sneakers "takkies" - go figure?

I started painting at around 10.00 Saturday morning, and finished the whole room, two coats of paint, by 3.00 this afternoon. Well.... at least the hubby was impressed and said I did a wonderful job. I felt really good. This is one of those projects that has been falling by the wayside. It's been hanging over my head for ages, and now it's almost done. The yucky slog work is over, and now I can have fun with the room, arranging furniture, pictures and accessories. All against a background of pure, clean white. And I think that anybody who has got to know my taste through reading this blog will know what to expect......some very bright colour accents, perhaps a dash of shocking pink, a squirt of lime green, a dab of fabulous purple, and maybe even a touch of sky blue turquoise.

Tomorrow I'm going shopping for curtains. I want to find something ready made, that will be simple, the right colour and relatively cheap. When we bought this house three years ago, we thought that we would be here for quite a while. Now things have changed, and we want to sell in the next 12-18 months, so I don't want to spend a lot of money, but at the same time, I still want something that I will enjoy while I am here. This room is going to be my little sanctuary, a place to read, and think, and dream....so I want it to be nice.

New bracelet

The height of elegance

I love fashion photography through the decades. These pictures by photographer Henry Clarke are quite exquisite. I love their elegance and simplicity, and that 1950's classic ideal of feminine beauty. I found these photo's on Flickr. Luckily I saved them on my computer because the page unfortunately no longer exists.

Hazy, lazy Sunday

The late afternoon view of the Joburg city skyline, and my neighbour's roof :) from my front veranda. I absolutely love this view and the feeling of the atmosphere and essence of the city that it invokes in me.

Today was one of those perfect, relaxing Sundays. We're having great Autumn weather at the moment in Joburg. It's getting colder, but during the day time it's warm and sunny with clear blue skies. I went around the garden towards the end of the afternoon looking at how the plants are doing and enjoying the seasonal changes starting to appear.

I'm so excited that my basil is doing well, especially since insects got to all the dill and coriander. We just sprinkled a packet of seeds on top of the soil and turned over the top layer, and hey presto, a few weeks later they started to pop up. I want to start growing lots of herbs, and maybe even a few veggies. I was in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape recently visiting my sister and brother-in-law. They were such an inspiration to me. They are really green conscious, and they grow lots of herbs as well as their own fruit and vegetables.

I've always wanted to have a vegetable patch, but somehow it's always seemed a bit daunting. Maybe if I start with one or two things and see how that goes, I'll get the confidence to grow more.

Little House

When I was a child I enjoyed reading the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. For some unknown reason, I recently had the urge to re-read Little House on the Prairie, and once again I thoroughly enjoyed it, but from a very different perspective as an adult. It's generally acknowledged that rather than being purely autobiographical, the books are autobiographial fiction, and that she changed certain elements to tell a good story. Nevertheless, the books are based on real experiences, and they provide a wonderful, if romanticised insight into the lives of American pioneers.

Those were the days when men were men :) Pa could almost singlehandedly build an entire log cabin from scratch by chopping down trees for logs and hauling stones from the creek to build the chimney. He could dig a well, hunt animals for food, keep livestock, plant and grow produce, make all of his own furniture - and sing and play the fiddle. It's hard to believe that nowadays a lot of men can't even change a plug or a light bulb.

As for Ma, well, she quilted, and sewed all their clothes and soft furnishings from scratch by hand, often by lamp and candlelight, she did all the heavy laundry in a tub, and could even use a manually heated iron on the back of a wagon. She plucked prairie hens, did the cooking and baking, most of the cleaning, saw to the family's health, comfort and well-being, all this while minding and educating two little girls and a baby.

For entertaiment Pa played the fiddle and sang. Just about about every night he'd sing the children to sleep inside the log cabin. They told stories, Ma read to them, mainly from the bible, the girls strung beads on thread, sewed quilt squares, cut out paper dolls from scrap paper, used string to play cat in the cradle, sang songs together, played with their rag dolls, played hopscotch, tried to catch prairie dogs and rabbits, and helped with the smaller chores like minding their baby sister, setting the table and washing dishes. The nearest neighbours were far enough away to make visiting inconvenient. They lived solitary lives and learned to make their own simple entertaiments.

For Christmas Laura and Mary each got their own new, shiny tin cup (previously they had to share a cup), a stick of red & white striped candy cane, a little cake made from white flour and sprinkled with white sugar, and a penny. The girls were practically blown away with excitement at the luxury and splendour of these few simple gifts.

It absolutely intrigues an an amazes me how people managed to live contented lives at such a simple and basic level. No television, radio, internet, movies, electricity, shopping malls, and none of the abundance of material products and accessories that we live with today and never seem to feel satisfied that we have enough of. We always want more, more, more. Can you imagine children being happy with a new tin cup and a couple of sweets for Christmas - no playstations, iPods, cellphones, CD's or branded clothing.

I suppose that after a day of hard, physical labour, you wouldn't need a lot of entertainment and mental stimulation. Although I could pass out at the mere thought of having to do all the things that Ma did, on another level I yearn for that kind of simplicity, and a life lived without getting caught up in over consumption. I'm thinking I really need to go through my house from top to bottom, to throw away what I don't use, like or need anymore. To organise and sort out....and try introduce more simplicity and sanity.

New vintage finds

I recently got back from a short holiday in Port Alfred, a small seaside holiday town in the Eastern Cape. Although the winter cold has started to set in, I was hoping it would be at least warm enough to picnic on the beach. Unfortunately it was cold and rainy the whole time we were there. I still enjoyed it though, it's always nice just to get a change of scenery. It was fabulous to be by the sea, and to rest and relax, go for walks, explore the town, and eat great food.

On our last day there, we stopped in town quickly on the way to the airport to go to the chemist, and I stumbled upon the most amazing little vintage & antique shop. I barely had time to look around because we were in a hurry. The shop was crammed full, and lined from top to bottom with a wonderful array of treasures, and it was the kind of place I could have happily spent an hour in, slowly exploring everything. And, I couldn't believe how cheap everything was, about a fifth less than what similar vintage items cost in Joburg. I was truly in vintage heaven. I only had about fifteen minutes to rush around but I managed to pick up a few cute finds. Nothing comes between me and my thrifting :)

This is my husband walking along the pier in Port Alfred. He soon beat a hasty retreat after getting drenched by the waves.

This is a collection of vintage perfume bottles I found in the shop. I'll be giving them to a friend as a birthday present.

I also found this cute little ceramic deer penholder.

And this ceramic vintage Cango Caves souvenier. It's incredibly kitch, but it belongs to a particular era of South African "Africana" from the fiftiess and sixties, and I like to pick up a few pieces in this style here and there, although it's not something I'd ever go overboard with.

Time for a change

My apologies for going AWOL. I am now back properly. As you will notice, I have made some changes to the blog. To be totally honest, I have to confess that I sort of began to lose interest in Smoke & Ochre. It was starting to feel stale and boring to me, and I just didn't have the same level of enthusiasm that I did before in scouring the web for that perfect chair or cushion. Also, there are so many wonderful blogs out there showing the latest, great new items, I feel it's pointless for me to just post things that I've already seen on other blogs, if I don't have anything more to add. Original content has always been important to me, I've tried my best to find my own content as much as possible. But now I'm tired of posting the same themes I've been focusing on, and I feel I need to broaden and make some changes to the scope of the blog.

I'll still be concentrating on home style posts, and will keep looking for eclectic interiors, but I want to do a little more art (and photography) including older classics and wander away from the new "cute" kind of art, to explore what else is out there. I also plan to do a few historical posts. I love history, especially the way that people have lived in the past, what they wore, what they ate, what they thought. I've read some great books that I think bring out some fascinating aspects of the past that I'd love to start sharing. Some other topics I want to start blogging about are interesting and unusual places, food and cultures. More about lifestyle as opposed to home style, and a bit more of my life, art and photo's. All in all I want to try and add a little more spice, a little more of what's exotic and enchanting.

I really appreciate everyone who reads my blog, and I hope you will continue to follow my journey and explorations, and hopefully I will be able to put together something more interesting than what I've been doing over the past while.

Furo.....what?

The talented and creative Denise from Freshly Found demonstrates the Japanese art of Furoshiki....don't worry I hadn't heard of it either...okay, maybe you have heard of it, anyway...isn't it just lovely! And something that the sewingly challenged among us can realistically attempt. Just scoot on over here to see how Denise did it.

Flowers make my heart sing

I hope everyone is well, and that you're enjoying the change of season, whether you're going into Spring, or Autumn like myself. I love the change over of seasons, it's always a nice time of year, when you kind of have new expectations, and become more aware of the changes taking place in the natural world. In Joburg, the leaves are starting to turn yellow and gold and fiery red, the temperature is getting crisper in the mornings and evenings, and the air is starting to get that still, echoey, more silent Winter feel.

My husband came home with a huge armful of flowers for me on Saturday, which after eight years of marriage, not an enormous amount of years, but not to be sneezed at either:) just made my heart sing. They're now in vases all around the house, adding splashes of colour and happiness to the rooms.

You can see some of them in these photo's. Also included is one of my pashmina's draped over a chair in our bedroom, a vintage evening bag from my granny, and a thrifted vintage hat. The purply blue flowers are in a gold etched Indian glass, part of a set that was a gift from my wonderful friend Angie, the Chinese beaded bracelet I got at a market on holiday in Sydney, and the mother of pearl shell and crystal necklace in the background was made for me by my mom-in-law.

Sage Moon McKee Competition

I have some exciting news to share, the lovely Lynne from the blog Love dream live at home, is having a competion where you can win a beautiful painting by Taos artist Sage Moon Mckee. Pop right over here for the details. From Lynne's blog, "I think Sage is one of the finest young artists to have come out of Taos for quite some time....Her work is modern, edgy and original, while paying homage to those who inspire her."

Mainly white

There's somthing special about Scandinavian blogs, and the decor combination of lots of white, with lace, and silver, and religious icons, and a very feminine , elegant take on vintage style. Here's a little round-up of images I've been enjoying.....and sorry about the lack of posts lately.




En Doft en Danmark

A Home from the Heart

Katter och Pasta

Lilla Blanka

Lantlif

Autumn days are creeping in...

We are having the most miserable, cold and wet weather in Joburg at the moment. I hope this doesn't mean an early winter for us this year, even though I know that all my northern hemisphere friends are more than ready for an early spring:) Last night we had a power failure, no electricity from 6.00pm until after midnight. That meant takeouts for supper. Also our local supplier had already run out of gas by the time I got there, so my hubby made a fire in the fireplace in the lounge and we spent the evening reading our books by candlelight. Luckily no power problems tonight and I managed to get gas for the gas heaters, so we're nice and cozy....and I'm on the computer.

Ben and Bandit snoozing away, enjoying the gas heater.

This is my dining room cabinet which I love. My step-mom gave it to me when she and my dad moved into a smaller place a couple of years ago. In our old family home it used to be a bookcase, but I use it for an assortment of odds and sods like ornaments and crockery.

In this picture, you can see my clay tajine. This is a Moroccan, North African kind of casserole dish. I got it for my birthday about two years ago, and I'm embarressed to admit that I still haven't used it. I am determined to use it this winter, a nice North African dish with couscous will be perfect on a cold winter day. From Wikepedia, "Tajine dishes are slow-cooked at low temperatures, resulting in tender, falling-off-the-bone meat with aromatic vegetables and sauce." Mmmm...that does sound tempting.

My pet giraffes, far better behaved than the dogs...but not nearly as much fun.

Above and below you can see some of my scarf and pashmina collection. I love scarves and that is one positive thing that I can say about winter, I am looking forward to wearing lots of scarves.

Love at first sight

OMG! Did you ever see anything more cute and adorable than these beautiful bears and soft toys by Whendi's Bears? I am totally and utterly smitten. The mohair bears are made by Wendy Meagher, and she's been chosen four times in the Top 100 Traditional American Craftsman by Early American Life. i can certainly see why. She also has a blog right over here.

Tea with butterflies

Welcome to the wonderful, magical world of Jo who lives at Fairy Cake Pond somewhere in Australia. Oh how I would love to fly over and spend afternoon tea with her, talking to butterflies and eating brightly coloured cupcakes.

"Mid West African"

I love the catalogue styling, clothes and home accessories available from Side Attraction 3. It's a South African shop selling local products but I think their Kalahari collection in the top two images has a kind of mid west modern feel to it. This makes sense beause the Kalahari is a dry, desert like region in the Northern Cape in SA extending into the bottom of neighbouring Botswana. I also like their brand philosphy, "SideAttraction3 is a lifestyle brand based on a philosophy of consciousness, creativity, identity, freedom and being African.
The brand is inspirational in its language and aligns itself with integrity, tolerance, art and culture.The images that we create are in themselves a strong statement, in their unity of cultures and their acceptance of individuality- a lifestyle space that is truly South African.Our roots are African, but our interest is global progressive and non-sectarian. "

Pink is the mood

Simply pretty and romantic pictures from Natasha Burn's Flickr photostream.

These images are from the Florida home of Franciose O'Neill also known as Fifi. For the past 20 years Fifi has worked as a freelance writer and photos stylist for top magazines including Coastal Living, Romantic Country, Cottage Style and Country Living. The bottom image is a photo she styled for the latest issue of Romantic Country. She's always looking for charming homes for feature stories, so if you've always wanted to see your home in a magazine feel free to email her some photos at fifiin(at)comcast.net.

Romantic

Some French style romantic inspiration from Pretty Petals at Flickr. Heather has a boutique called Pretty Petals where she sells vintage finds, pretty papers, dolls, handmade creations like embellished vintage hats, antique linens and lace. She also has a Pretty Petals blog where you can see her latest creations.