Jeremy Clarkson would be proud

I, like many women I'm sure, have Top Gear to thank for my sudden love of cars. Especially super cars! Before Jeremy, Hamster and Mr Slow I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between a Veron or a Volkswagen (ok, I'm not quite that bad), but now I really appreciate a beautiful car.

And today our very generous client from RCSD (watch this space for the new website launching soon) took Rudi and I for a spin in his R8 Spider. Words can't even describe it. If you have a car like that you don't need drugs as the natural high you get from driving (very fast) in it is enough. In the space of a couple of seconds you go from 0 to 200km/h without even trying. It's insane! I think I would be way to nervous to drive one myself, but it was a lot of fun getting a quick go in it. As you can imagine, Rudi and I both had huge grins on our faces for the rest of the day.

Thanks Ryan!

be awesome today

pretty pastles

Do you think it says something about me that most of the images I save off pinterest have something to do with baked goods or sweet things? :D

the next big challange

Well, now that our house is 99% sorted it's time to tackle our garden. For someone who has the worst black thumbs imaginable (the complete opposite of green thumbs) this is a terrifying prospect. The only plants I am able to keep alive are cacti, because you can forget about them for months and they still hang in there. Even the plants I diligently look after I kill. Anyway, we have to do something out there so now I'm scouring the Internet for ideas. I love the ones in the above pictures and I think that if I could have a succulent garden that would be the best.

pinterest love

it's sour!

This dog made me grin for hours.

And doesn't he look surprisingly like snoop dog?

serenity

I just want to be lying out there in the middle of nowhere *sigh*

bunny pendent

I'm going to gush a bit and tell you how I have the best husband in the world. Not only does he cook me wonderful meals, help with the housework, make me as many cups of tea a day as my little heart could desire and treat me like a princess (just to name a few things), but he also buys me presents out of the blue and for no reason. I got this darling little bunny pendent on Wednesday and I think it is just too cute!

I love you with all my heart Rudi. You are the best!

nifty pallets

I have to get my hands on a pallet or two (mom, are you listening?). All these simple diy ideas are just great, and soooo easy, especially the coffee table and those headboards. I wonder where I could find a few lying around?

***I see I've been getting an amazing response to this blog post, so thanks to everyone that's posted about it on Pinterest.  If you're anywhere in the Cape Town area and would like to get your hands on some stunning pallet furniture go and visit Jasper & George. They do custom made furniture for a great price, so I'm sure if there's something specific that you'd like just let them know :)

charming chalk

Aren't these chalk drawings by Dana Tanamachi just beautiful? I would love to cover one of the walls in our house with blackboard paint, but who would I get to do the artwork?

chevrons

Ok, so they might be way over used at the moment in home decor, but I'm still loving the chevron look. You can put them on anything :)

our house

You know how I promised to post more pics of our new house? Well, for those who are interested, here is a photo of our bedroom. I love how much light it gets :)

doppio

Oh dear, almost 2 weeks without a post. I hate it that I work so hard I have not time for my own stuff, but there is no-one to blame but me. Anyway, get ready for all the things I wanted to post about and didn't get round to :)

When Rudi and I lived in Pretoria, Doppio Zero in Southdowns was our favorite restaurant. We had our first valentines date there and you could find us there most Sunday having breakfast and buying some yummy things from their bakery. There aren't a lot of things I miss about living in Gaugteng, but that Doppio is one of them.

When we moved to Cape Town we really missed our regular spot. Not that Cape Town doesn't have wonderful places to eat and hang out. But then we spotted the Doppio in Seapoint (more than a year and a half ago) and we've been threatening to try it out since then. Anyway, it took us a while, but we finally went to have dinner there on Saturday night. The gnocchi was just as amazing as it was in Centurion and we will definitely be going back. It just doesn't have the same feel as our old Doppio, but that probably has more to do with all the memories we made there than anything else.

I definitely suggest going to give it a try sometime.

it's sooooo pretty!

Aah, you have to love Amazon.com. I ordered my Kate Spade Idiom bangle on Thursday and was only expecting it in a week, but this afternoon there was a knock on our door and there stood the DHL guy :).

It's prettier in real life that what I was expecting and I've been bouncing around with glee since I opened it. I like this me to me present idea and should definitely do it more often.

art from on high

These are just amazing and completely take my breathe away. And can you believe they are made with a big stick :).

As is says on his website "Jim Denevan makes temporary drawings on sand earth and ice that are eventually erased by waves and weather." His art just blows my mind. The precision and size is astounding. I would love to own a massive photography print of one of these.

logo design

Three new logos I did recently :). I really should update my website sometime

ducky

Just a cute plastic duck in our spare bathroom. I gave him the bow ;)

across america

This stunning photo was taking by Claes Källarsson on his road trip across America. This is how I would love to see the States, out of a car window, rolling down one of the many long highways I've only ever seen in movies. One day! I promise.

blah...

{before and (hopefully) after}

As I'm sure you've noticed from my previous posts today I'm not all that in the mood to write anything, mostly because I'm tired and feel like my brain is shutting down. It's been a long week with tons of work, but what's new. I'm sure you're just as happy the weekend is almost here.

I have a bunch of things that I want to do in the house this weekend and at the top of my list is cleaning, sanding and painting the shutters I found on my expedition to Salt River last weekend (the white grubby ones pictured above. Hopefully they end up looking like the ones on the right, but just in a brighter colour). We'll see how far I get :)

Another great find from the shops in Salt River is this little stool made out of sleepers. It's my new favourite piece of furniture in the house.



In other exciting news (well exciting to me) is that I splurged and ordered my very own Kate Spade bangle (like the one pictured at the top here). I don't usually buy stuff like this on impulse as I suffer from major buyers remorse, but my hubby convinced my that I deserve it. It should be delivered sometime next week. I can't wait!

Anyway, here's to the weekend :)

sunset from our back yard

pinterest love

I'm loving the hues in these photos

dream BIG

styling pups

Mmm, I wonder if our dogs would dress up like these styling pooches? I'll have to try it sometime :)

pinterest - i love you, but you gobble up my time

If you haven't been over to Pinterest.com you are missing so much. I stumbled across it a while back and I can't get enough of it and I'm always finding amazing images. So I've decided that once a week (if I get to it and I promise I'll try) I'm going to do a image dump of some of the stuff that I've found and saved that week. Some things I see on there make it onto my blog as posts, but there are so many other great images that I just can't help saving because the are so beautiful, funny or interesting and I need to share them with you :)

wednesday in stellenbosch

On Wednesday, while my poor hubby had to work, I went and walked around Stellenbosch with my mom and dad. My mom and me just love walking around places, taking photos of the buildings, and my dad was happy to tag along. It was freezing, but a lot of fun.

the first thing up on our walls :)

Apart from doing as little as possible over the holidays I also got stuck into tidying up some of my stuff at home. I packed all my summer clothes away and unpacked my winter stuff (as it is officially winter here, brrrr!), got rid of stuff that I really don't use any more and unpacked a few last things that had been stuffed away in all sorts of places.

One of the lots of things that I got stuck into was my costume jewelry necklaces. I have a lot and I had them hanging up behind our bedroom door in our old place, but needed to find a new spot for them. I like to see them all displayed together so that I can just grab something when I want. I found this very cute hook set and then went about decorating it with some embroidery yarn, silver hearts, beads and flags. I think it turned out quite nicely.

model photo shoot number two

On Good Friday my uncle let me tag along on another of his photo shoots so that I could get some more practice. The lovely Petronel was our model and I played around with my zoom lens a bit. It's a canon 70 - 300mm, not ideal for taking portrait shots, but I wanted some flexibility and this is all I have at the moment. I now really want a 70 - 200mm f2.8 lens, but will have to seriously save up for that!

Petronel was very brave as the wind was icy and the water even worse, but she was a great sport and we got some nice shots. And I definitely learned a few more things :)

the easter break

Wow, I don't know where the last 9 days have gone! All these holidays have completely thrown me off, but after tomorrow it's all back to normal. Whether that is a good or bad thing... I don't know yet.

It was a pretty quite break here in the van der Walt household. I did a photo shoot with my uncle (photos to come), went to super at the Chapman's Peak Hotel (above photos), spent some time with my family over Easter, went to watch a comedy show at the Purple Turtle in Long Street (will definitely do that again soon),  did some work during the week (not everyone was lucky enough to be on leave), walked around Stellenbosch in the freezing cold (it had actually snowed on the mountains) and had a pajama breakfast with our good friends. The rest of the time was spent watching tv, reading or working.

It was a good break and I feel more rested, but have a ton of things to do for work so even though tomorrow is another public holiday I'll be spending it in front of my pc.

What did you get up to?