Merry Christmas

Wishing all my blogging friends a very Merry Xmas. I'm signing off for the year and will be finishing work on Wednesday to spend time with Lily making Xmas cookies, visiting Santa and last minute Xmas shopping, wrapping presents and just spending time with my Family. I have had a wonderful year at lily-g and next year is going to be pretty exciting with the opening of our new cafe, on-line shopping and yes I'm getting married. I was divorced 6 years ago and met Paul a few years later we had lily together, Paul lost his wife tragically and I became the mum of 3 step children as well as my two children from my first marriage and of course lily and my biggest challenge lily-g my store. Christmas time for me is the most special because its times like this I love having such a big family it really makes us all feel how lucky we are to have each other. Thank you for always stopping by my blog and I'm looking forward to seeing you all again in the new Year, Merry, Merry Christmas,

Love always

Judy xxxxxxx

Hong Kong Shopping trip

I leave in the morning for a shopping trip to Hong Kong. I'm taking my daughter Jess and my sister Anita which means only one things lots of laughing, non stop talking, shopping, lots and lots of shopping and fun girlie days together, hopefully fit in a few pamper treatments especially foot massages (because we shop that hard we need it!) and Xmas shopping too! It's really a buying trip but I have so much fun buying that I can hardy call it work. Have a great week-end and I'll see you in a weeks time xx

The Beauty of silver

This week has been a very busy week at lily-g and I can't believe it's already Friday. We have so many new silver pieces arrive in store this week that I decided to do a silver post, the top images is not from my store but we do have a beautiful hand painted silver leaf commode due this week and so many other new pieces arriving every day.

Monday pink Post

 Just a quick pink post because I'm taking my lily Christmas shopping and we plan to decorate the tree today. Pink is always such a happy, pretty colour and I just love this beautiful pink wall-paper (not sure who its from?) the gorgeous Moss and Spy dress that arrived in store last week, the vintage collection of gorgeous girlie pink collectables and just a pretty table display, have a great week x

New Ideas's

I'm always blogging about my home wares and Interiors but I actually have a very busy fashion store as well, I create my own jewelry pieces using pearls and semi precious stones and I have them manufactured over-seas, this winter our fashion is very vintage inspired, furs, gold accessories are huge and my pearl designs will fit beautifully in this look, so I'm thinking of adding these beautiful handmade brooches to the multi strand pearl necklaces. I have designed one piece that I will post tomorrow, I'm planning on using vintage diamond brooches to this collection too. I'm also looking at manufacturing a small clothing range which I have been working on for some time, vintage styled dresses in amazing fabrics, well it may be a disaster but I wont know if i don't try! I'm also loving the idea of pinning vintage brooches to cushions and by pulling the centre of the cushion with a thread, like a buttoned effect I add a stunning flower brooch like this to the centre of your cushion, looks amazing on a silk cushion and if all else fails try it in your hair in a half up style. Just have fun being creative!

Xmas Inspiration

I love my tree filled with beautiful silver and bronze decoration, every year I change my ribbon colour to suit my theme but this year I'm definitely keeping it neutral massed with xmas lights. The tree with old watches, reminds me of Cathy's charms and the silver tray with baubles just looked so pretty I had to share it with you.

Vintage inspiration

I just love this collection of vintage Doilies sewn onto a voile runner, a perfect way to display grandmas treasures that can be handed down generations, (did I spell Doilies right, my kids didn't even know what I was talking about so they were no help!!!!) Most of our cushions at lily-g are custom made but I couldn't resist the hand screen printed linen cushions in an assortment of designs new to lily-g.

Recipe of the week

Very embarrassing to admit but I'm not the greatest lover of cooking, hard to believe as I own every printed cook book, love watching the cooking channels on TV, have heaps of crockery and obsess about setting the table beautifully, but the actual art of cooking just never blessed me, so my New Years resolution is to help my partner Paul in the kitchen and to start having more dinner parties whether formal, casual what-ever! So my blogging friends forget the dieting (never works for me anyway) I'm posting yum food every week till Xmas. So my first recipe is Berry-Banana Ice-cream it goes like this...

2 cups of frozen raspberries

2 bananas, chopped and frozen

1 cup premium thick store-bought vanilla custard (love that ingredient)

fresh raspberries to serve

store bought biscuits, such as amaretti or shortbread, but I think home-made shortbread would be great to serve.

Method:

Place the raspberries, banana and custard in bowl of a food processor and process till smooth. serve immediately with fresh raspberries and biscuits.

As simple as that, surely I can't ruin that!!!!

For Lauren

My dear friend and work colleague Lauren has starting her own part time job doing wedding floristry, she also studies full-time Interior design at Uni when she works in my store we love chatting about flowers and I found these gorgeous table settings, I'm totally in love with them so pretty and very girlie, Brisbane girls who need flower arrangements or wedding flowers please contact me and I'll forward on her details x

A White Xmas

I have decided this week that I'm going to put up my christmas tree, normally I wait till the 1st of December but it takes so much work that why not enjoy it just a little longer than usual and because I'm being a little impatient! I'm sorry that I haven't been blogging the last few weeks, our retail side of the business has been extremely busy and with interior work etc.. I'm just having trouble keeping up. I hope to be back and blogging this week as usual.

Blue inspiration

The home above previously had yellow walls and furniture that was looking very tired, we re-painted the walls re-covered the chairs and purchased new linen sofa's, the coffee table was originally green and we repainted it an aged pewter. We still have contrasting scatters to be added to the window seat and the sofa's, the small paintings I found at a market in China and we had them framed. There is still bit and pieces to be added before the job is complete. The bed below is part of our new collection of bed-linen that arrived this week at lily-g

Garden flowers

I love nothing more than collecting fresh flowers from the garden and filling vases in my home, they are the perfect size for those small dainty vases, clustering them in a group makes such a pretty statement too!

Collecting silver

I love collecting silver and especially old hotel silver, the old worn look, every piece with a story to tell!

A Busy day

A splash of colour

Love the old iron chairs and how great are the colour cushions to give this courtyard a real summer feel!

Holiday Style

Its not a flashy holiday home but I love the all white exterior, the pool and the simplicity of this home, my perfect get away!

Country Charm

Picking up my latest copy of NZ house and Garden I instantly feel in love with this country home, the beautiful gardens, the grandeur restored how I would love a home like this, imagine the garden parties you could have!

Vintage Charm

I cant think of anything more fun than vintage shopping and I'm lucky my daughter Jess loves it too, we love searching for beautiful pieces and not just home wares but old diamond brooches, and vintage Glomesh bags, I cant quiet get into the vintage clothing but Jess is a natural and puts it together so well, so here are a few images that got me in the vintage mood!