ELLE Decoration Philippines!

For a home magazine junkie like me, this is a very exciting news!  We  now have Elle Decoration Philippines!  Woohoo!!    I was pleasantly surprised to see it at Fully Booked and immediately grabbed a copy.  My daughter said "Ma, that's impulse buying, I said... No, I need these materials for my job."  LOL!  Grab a copy and be proud of our very own  beautiful  homes!

Another great read is Dwell Asia.  Comes every two months.  Every issue is packed with lots of inspirations!

These are my little luxuries in life!  Magazines, coffee and books!

Have a good week ahead everyone!  :)

I would love to hear your thoughts!

DECORATE!

Hello!  Are you still there?  It's been a looong time!  What have you been up to?  As for me, been busy with i.m.home  and there's another one coming up but I can't reveal just yet.    Anyways, I missed blogging, and surfing the blogland.  I have not read my favorites for quite sometime now! But the urge to write kicked in, as soon as I received my new book!  Yay!  Thank you Amazon!  I've been patiently waiting!

DECORATE is co-written by Holly Becker of Decor8.  She is my all-time favorite blogger and  her blog was actually one of my inspiration in coming up with my own.  I admire her passion for design and blogging.  She writes in a way that is so casual and yet, inspiring and motivating for  (relatively) new bloggers like me.  I wonder where she gets her energy as she travels around the world, and yet is able to make her blog so personal.  She is an amazing lady!  So in case you haven't checked her blog, which may not be the case because Decor8 is super popular, please drop by and be inspired with her posts!  And be sure to check on her book too!

Decorate is fully packed with photos that will make you swoon and for sure, you will be itching to start fixing an area or two in your own homes!  I love that the authors included floor plans of the featured area, which is very helpful in visualizing the layout of the featured space.  I've finished browsing the whole book and now I will go back to the first page and devour every page, making sure I don't miss any detail.  This is a must have book for people who love to decorate.  And one last thing why I adore this book...it's very real, it speaks to you and make you think of the pieces, small treasure, souvenirs, etc,  that you already have and how to create vignettes that will give warmth and soul to your space.  All the featured homes have their own personality and are actually "lived-in", unlike some decorating books that contain perfectly done, made-up spaces that seem to tell you "I'm all for show..."  So don't delay anymore, get a copy of DECORATE now and be a fan!


And if you got a copy already, which part of the book is your favorite?  Tell me about it.  Mine is the section on Attention to Details.  Those small details really make the difference!   I would love to hear your thoughts!

My (Little) Prince Charming

I've noticed of late, I have not been blogging on Mondays.  I always have a weekend hangover and it would take me the whole Monday (sometimes 'til Tuesday!) to get back to the groove.  Anyways, I have this post in draft for the longest time and thought today would be a good day to share with you one of my family's (minus the hubby!) all time favorite book! I'm sure most of you have read or at least heard of THE LITTLE PRINCE by Antoine De Saint-Exupery.

We actually own three versions of this book.  The first one is a mini board book which I bought for Bianca when she was 5 years old. (Then passed on to Rapha.)  It does not really tell the whole story, but sort of an introduction of the characters.  It's a set of 4 mini board books with beautiful illustrations that will definitely catch the attention of toddlers. (Yes, this is recommended, for kids as young as 3 years old.)  This is a great set if you want your children to start knowing and liking The Little Prince!

And when my kids turn 9 years old, I let them read the full text version.  (To initiate, I read the first few chapters to them.)  I knew they will not understand it the first time, but it's ok, (because I didn't also..haha!) at least they were already familiar with the characters from the board book so it was an easier shift to the "real" thing.   

And here is our newest copy.  My most favorite of them all!  TADAAA!!!!  Meet The Little Prince in POP-UP VERSION!!  The moment Bianca and I saw it, we didn't let go of it and we inspected each copy to make sure each page is in perfect condition.   Another good thing about this version is, it is UNABRIDGED!  You will not lose interest reading this version because of the wonderfully created pages.  The beautiful illustrations plus the carefully-made cut-outs bring the story to a higher level of enjoyment! 

Here are more of the pop-up pages that are so impressive!  Each page has a unique cut work.  Some would require you to flip, pull, slide, dial or simply turn the page and wait for  "boababs" to pop up!  Kudos to the paper engineers!

the majestic little prince

the boababs

the flower (rose)

the high mountains

the little prince's planet

the little prince raking one of his 3 volcanoes

This is the type of book you would want to read over and over again and a must have in your home library.  The story is profound, especially for young children, but you get a dose of wisdom on life and love through the eyes of the little prince...What are you waiting for?  I hope my little prince has worked his charm on you.  Grab yourself a copy now, if you don't have one yet. :-)

The Little Prince deluxe pop-up book (unabridged text)

is available at Fully Booked, Fort Global City and amazon.com.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

How To Be Lovely

Style.     Grace.     Elegance.

AUDREY HEPBURN. 

To the world, she represented all that a woman could be,

and what we, women wanted to be. 

HOW TO BE LOVELY

by Melissa Hellstern

A book that will let you feel and hear Audrey's take on Happiness, Success, Love, Style, etc..

Be inspired and let the Audrey in you come to life!

Breakfast at Tiffany's.  Do you ever wonder how it feels to be a socialite-gold digger? 

It should be exciting...if done in Audrey's fashion!

Or how about appearing in a musical like My Fair Lady?

Haven't seen this, but I'm sure, I will envy Audrey's charm, class and style!

Be lovely and have an Audrey-filled Thursday! :-)

Book Review

I have to admit I was not a reader when I was a child...and I realized that partly, that's the reason why I didn't grow up to be a good writer.  So I promised myself that I will do my best to bring up my children as voracious readers.  And I'm happy that Bianca and Raphael both turned out to be readers, and good writers too!  I should give credit  to our family's two simple rules that molded them to be book lovers.

 

1 of 2 book shelves in Bianca's room

(1)  One-TV policy.  Yup!  Even at this time and age where practically most children have their own TV in their bedrooms, my children grew up not owning a TV.  We had to watch TV together or take turns.  So when there's no TV, they always turn to books!  Now that they are used to having books over TV, I am more lenient, and we now have 3 TVs in the house, but still not in their own rooms.            

Rapha's bedside book shelf

(2) Books are necessity, toys are luxury! They can ask me to buy books for them, but they have to wait for birthdays and Xmas or for family and friends to gift them with toys. And it worked pretty well. They now keep their own little libraries and we continue to build our collection with books from all genre.

Rapha's bookshelf in his room

Here are some book shelves I found very unique and interesting!  I wish you will have the time to enjoy a good book this weekend!  I'm starting Word Snoop by Ursula Dubosarsky ( a recommendation by Bianca and Rapha!).  Gone are the days when I read the books first to see if it's a good fit for them, now it's my kids who read first and then they'll tell me if I will enjoy it.  Maybe it's never too late to improve on my writing and Word Snoop should do the trick!  Happy reading! 

Photos via 1 & 3 designsdelight 2 stylehive 4  dyscario 5 anyways.us