Love the light in photographerRyan Benyi’s work. I can feel the warmth of the air and imagine dust slowly wafting in the faint breeze. The shadows are cool and you know the sun is oh so bright outdoors. The rooms have a life instilled through his lens and they are real not pretentious at all. Speaking of real don’t miss his wedding portfolio.

A couple of weeks ago I was squealing with delight when Victoria from sfgirlbybay featured her latest apartment incarnation. I love her style but was sooooooo happy when on closer inspection there was one of my chair prints. I love seeing my work in other people’s homes and when it’s one as wonderful as Victoria’s well you can guess how I felt. Several emails later from people who had seen the link to my etsy store in the comments and I realised I was very low on chairs. Only know have I managed to paint a few new ones. So kudos to Victoria on her gorgeous home and a shameless plug from me 😉

Kim has a small rather bare backyard. We were only discussing the other day what to do with it now that summer has arrived. Normally on a Sunday Kim scours Flickr for inspiring finds and I thought I would do the same. After typing deck and garden into the search box I didn’t have to go far to find all the inspiration I needed. I found modular.garden. Checking their profile I discovered that they are one of the UK’s leading garden design companies. Not hard to see why. These are fabulous small space solutions with interesting hard landscaping and gorgeous plantings. With their designs the indoors and out meld seamlessly and “garden rooms” provide much needed extra space. Check out their website for cool before and after shots as well as plans for some of these gardens. I love Flickr finds don’t you?

Scott Weston emailed earlier this month with a sneak peek at his latest perishable architecture. He wowed us with his installation for Nokia (see it here) and now it’s time for an installation at the “oh so stylish must be seen at” Australian Fashion Week from Monday 28 April – Friday 2 May 2008. This is the concept model but I’ll let him explain the idea behind this room.

“We have been asked to do a chic room for Rosemount Australian Fashion Week 2008 at the end of this month (April) for Sony.

We have presented a chillout space with (refer our concept model):
1. Purpose designed Black carpet in filigree roses, leaves & butterflies.
2. A continuous techo fabric printed in filigree roses to cocoon the space.
3. Topiary sculptures of peacocks & cranes sitting in glowing white pots studded with fresh flowers to reference the preening & strutting of our Sydney fashion editors.
4. Quilted leather chairs to sit, preen & be seen.

The idea of fashion (to be seen, preening & the art of display/artifice) we have referenced architecturally formed topiary sculptures of peacocks & cranes. We are working closely with a person who makes these topiary forms individually & painstakingly by hand. It’s going to be the space to be at Fashion Week & our topiary will be mini works of living floral art for 5 days.”

Scott says he took the idea of topiary from the spectacular eagle on a ball he has been tending in his backyard. Such a clever idea referencing peacocks and preening at a fashion week! Very tongue in cheek. I love these peeks into the creative process and Scott’s presentation boxes just blow me away. Don’t forget to send us photos of the finished room Scott.

WINKS – weekend links. Here we list what has come in during the week, things we’ve found and things we think you’ll want to see. If you’d like to see your blog or website featured email us and if we think it fits with our readers we’ll link you. So what’s in this week?

• Press release from Lena. “Design Aglow is an online resource for information and products directed at professional photographers. We are an online collection of resources, including articles, Photoshop actions, templates, marketing ideas, interviews, and seminars for the boutique wedding and portrait studio. We consider ourselves a hybrid of design and photography and how they relate to each other and our mission is to inform, to teach, and to inspire.” Design Aglow is offering as a comprehensive e-seminar in PDF digital book format, the Inspire Guide: Silhouettes, enabling photographers to learn at home at their own pace. “It’s 83 beautifully-designed pages detail the process of creating heirloom silhouettes for clients in-depth and step-by-step, including lighting how-to, camera settings, and Photoshop. Detailing each aspect of the creative process, the guide proceeds through set-up, planning, shooting, digital manipulation, designing, marketing, and selling.” Interested? You’ll find more details here.



• Jordi Vayreda emailed to share the exciting news that he and his design team had made the cover of Casa Viva. Congratulations Jordi! You can see our earlier feature on Jordi here.
• Geraldine, Gisele and Mariela are three Interior Designers from Buenos Aires, Argentina who emailed to introduce their vinyl wall decal company Almavinilo. Looks like the wall decal trend is still going strong. It’s great to see new designs from other parts of the world too! The ladies are also blogging their enterprise.



• Andrea Heimer has a new show “Icons – Portraits of Female Saints” at Bluebottle Art Gallery. The show will run throughout the month of May and pieces can be purchased online or at the Seattle store.



• This email will definitely be a great source for US readers! “My name is Stephany, and I am an editor here at SeenON! the place to find products seen on the screen. I am reaching out to you because we have been doing some great things with our design pages like Divine Design and Dress My Nest and would love to have you share with your readers. On top of featuring Products seen on the show we have Shopisodes, where you can watch while you shop. Additionally if you or your readers have any questions about home dé
  cor or products seen on Divine Design or others please direct them to Shoptalk where product questions are answered! Thanks Again!” Will someone please do this for Australia? I’d love to have the inside on products I see on the screen. Thanks for letting us know Stephany!
• 66degrees is a new website, a place for people with one-of-a-kind tastes. It’s a beautiful online store offering unique hand crafted fashion accessories and home decor (often one off always very limited) sourced from designers and artists around the world. So much to drool over on the website. Stephen Lagan from emailed 66degrees “to see if we get the word out about us- who we are and what we do, and about the talented roster of artists and their pieces that we are proud to be featuring.” One of the reasons this WINKS has taken me so long to write is that I’ve been clicking from page to page coveting gorgeous artisan pieces.



• Drop by Christine Andrzejewski’s etsy shop this weekend and check out her pretty bird originals and cheeky animal collages. Good luck with the store Christine!