Tablecloths Back in Stock

Just in case you missed out the first time round, I thought I would let you know that we have some of our beautiful embroidered tablecloths back in stock over at the online store.  There is only 3 red and 2 blue left so if you would like one CLICK HERE... UPDATE - ALL THE BLUE CLOTHS ARE NOW SOLD AND THERE IS ONLY 2 RED CLOTHS LEFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  HURRY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, if you liked our fabulous beach towels I have marked the green and coral coloured towels down to half the original price.  CLICK HERE...

We also have a few more blue and white owl jugs back in stock...CLICK HERE

This Friday will be our last day for guaranteed pre-Christmas shipping within Australia just in case you wanted to do any last minute Christmas shopping!!

http://www.absolutelybeautifulthings.com.au/ xx
Anna

Seaforth Cottage

Jane & Neville {above}

Janes Lilies {above}

Harry on the front steps {above},  He looks like he lives there!!

Me with Max and Charlotte {above}


I have long admired {actually, ever since I was 14 years old} the very pretty cottage which is located diagonally opposite my parent's house.  It is called Seaforth Cottage and was built C.1897.  It has been owned by Jane and Neville for the past 30 or so years and they are some of the most beautiful people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.

As a young girl I would often talk about the pretty white cottage across the road.  I even told Brad when we were looking for our first house years ago that if that house ever came on the market then I would really, really love to live there.

I recently plucked up the courage and went over and introduced myself to Jane and Neville.  We sat on their front verandah and I asked them the huge favour of whether I could use their beautiful home for our upcoming Christmas/Summer photo shoot for our online store.  I explained to them that I had always loved their pretty cottage and I would often wish I could go inside to see what it was like and what lovely things they had furnished it with.  There was absolutely no hesitation and they offered their home to me with open arms.

One of the most beautiful things about Jane and Neville is their generous spirit.  Jane is actually a potter and an extremely talented one at that.  She holds classes for a couple of ladies in the street one morning a week in her gorgeous white timber shed at the back of the house.  You might have noticed the pottery animals on the verandah under our Christmas tree over at the online store.  Well, those are Jane's.  She has lined her entire verandah with her pretty and enchanting pottery animals.  I told her I wanted to take them all home with me!  She laughed.

I should also mention that next year Neville turns 100.  I really couldn't believe it when Jane told me. 

We had the most glorious day setting up our Christmas/Summer vignette on their front verandah and front lawn.  Did you notice the beautiful garden in the pictures?  It is amazing to say the least.  When we were there all the November lilies were beginning to flower.  It is just so beautiful and rambling and imperfect.  Just the way I like gardens to be.

I hope you enjoyed hearing a little bit about the beautiful house we used for our online vignettes this season.  I feel that Seaforth cottage was the perfect setting for our photo shoot.  It gave us that beautiful, lived-in, comfortable, old family house feel which is exactly what I wanted this season to reflect...a place where good times are shared and memories are made.


xx
Anna

Above are some of Jane's pieces.  They are so gorgeous!!

Happy Friday!

What a week!  It's been madness to say the least.  I thought you might like to see this little snippet of our Christmas/Summer Vignette which will go live over at the online store next Thursday. 

Something very exciting and new for this season is we have people in the vignette including some very well-known Brisbane fashionistas, my children and their friend Charlotte and even I make a little appearance...eeeekk!!   

We also have a beautiful live Christmas tree which is filled to the brim with colourful decorations, some of which we have hand-made ourselves. 

This vignette is definitely my favourite one yet.  I can't wait to launch it next Thursday!!

Hope you have a great weekend. 
xx

Anna

image - elouise van riet-gray

Owl See You Next Week

I haven't posted much this week!  I am sorry!!  I have been playing catch up with my work and trying to stay OFF the Internet.

We seem to have had lots of enquiry about our very special hand-made and hand-painted owl jugs and I thought I would let you all know that they will be making a big appearance in our next online Vignette.  The ones in our next vignette will be much larger than the little ones we had in the Spring Vignette and they will be available in Blue and White and Green and White so if you want one make sure you keep watching the blog for updates about when our next Vignette will go live!  I think they will make an excellent Christmas present.

Hope you have a great weekend and Owl see you next week!!
xx
Anna

Behind The Scenes

I thought it might be fun to share some behind the scenes shots of our Spring Vignette.  It all started with this pile of fabrics, lamps, pictures etc. on my work table at Black & Spiro.  Some might consider this to be just a pile of mess but my schemes usually start off in this manner.  There's nothing like a big pile of ideas, fabrics, colours, snippets of things I like to get the creative juices flowing...

Photo shoot day always starts with lots of coffee for everyone involved.  It's a full day of arranging flowers and placing and moving things around so as to get the perfect shot.  I am usually completely over it by the end of the day.

The photo shoot for our Spring Vignette actually went into the evening.  As you can see above it was getting quite dark by the end of the shoot.

Here's the room from a different angle.  I took this photo the night before Elouise came and photographed the Vignette. I usually get the room set up the day before so that I am all prepared for her when she arrives the next morning to start taking the photos.

Here's a close-up of the coffee table.  I actually preferred it arranged this way but it didn't photograph very well so I had to change things around slightly as you can see when you compare this photo with the actual vignette over at the store.

And here's a little close up of some of the cushions on the sofa.  You might notice that I used the same sofa in the Spring Vignette as the Winter Vignette.  I did this on purpose because I wanted to show how interchangeable our looks are.  It's all just a matter of changing the accessories to achieve a new look!!

Without a doubt, my favourite piece in our Spring Vignette was the vintage flamingo.  I think it was one of the first items to sell and rightly so.  It is so gorgeous!!

I hope you enjoyed seeing a few behind the scenes photos of our Spring Vignette.  We are working on some more very exciting additions to the online store so make sure you keep watching here for updates!!

xx

Anna

Our Spring Vignette Is Now Live



I hope you enjoy our Spring Vignette.  It is now live.  Click HERE to be directed to the store.

xx

Anna

Spring Vignette Live Tomorrow

Just thought you might like to know that our Spring Vignette will be going live tomorrow sometime.  You will notice tomorrow that we have already upgraded our site so that we can have 2 vignette pages for Spring and we've also made the images larger so that you can see the items more clearly.  There's lots of wonderful vintage items so make sure you are quick to click. 

http://www.absolutelybeautifulthings.com.au/

Oh and this bunch of flowers was picked from my garden yesterday.  I really cannot believe that all of these flowers grew in our garden.  They are an obvious sign that Spring is here!!

xx
Anna

Only a Few Days Away...

I am thrilled to advise that our fresh and exciting Spring Vignette over at our online store - http://www.absolutelybeautifulthings.com.au/ will be up in just a few more days. 

Keep checking back for updates...

xx
Anna

image via pretty stuff tumblr

Half Price

Just in case you might be interested I have just put our 4 remaining neon framed embroideries over at the online store on sale.  They are now half the original price which is very exciting!!  Only 4 left though...

CLICK HERE to see...

xx
Anna

PS.  Please note, all of these embroideries are hand-made and will vary slightly in design to the one shown.  If you want to see a selection of what is left prior to purchasing just email us info@blackandspiro.com.au and we would love to send you some images.

Winter Hues

I loved seeing the pics Heather from Habitually Chic shared last week of her new apartment.  I particularly loved these 2 {above and below} as the colours reminded me of our Winter Vignette.

The beautiful photo below has been saved in my inspiration files since it appeared in Trad Home a while back.  Again the colours remind me of the colours I chose for our Winter Vignette.

Talking about our Winter Vignette, I was so excited that Loni mentioned our new store in her latest issue of Adore magazine.  Thank you Loni for your tremendous support!! Oh and what a fantastic issue it is!!  If you haven't already read it then click HERE now...xx





PS.  I had a reader ask me what's hapenning with our Black & Spiro website.  I am working on that too.  It will be the website where we feature our portfolio of design work.  Fingers crossed it will be up again before Christmas.  We are just finishing off getting some of the houses photographed which we have worked on over the last year or so and as other designers would know it is so time consuming getting jobs photographed!!! xx

Thank you!

When you put all your efforts and thoughts and energy into a project which you are so passionate about you can become extremely stressed and nervous and anxious as to whether it will work, whether people will embrace it, whether it will happen the way you had hoped and dreamt it would. 

Yesterday saw the launch of our online store which has been a project I have been dreaming about and working on for a very long time.  Seeing it come to fruition in the last month or so has been an extremely exciting yet anxious time.  It is different and sometimes when things are a little different to the norm people might not understand how it works or what the idea is behind the concept.

To my complete relief and excitement yesterday's launch went extremely well and I was completely overwhelmed by the wonderful and positive response to our concept.  I think the vintage items sold out within the first couple of hours which was amazing.  We also sold out of the geometric throw rugs but we were able to restock those later in the afternoon so there are a few more left if anyone wants one.  The 8 pink cockatoo lampbases have also sold out.  I am considering getting some more in so keep checking back for updates on those if you missed out on one yesterday.  The stock levels are going down rather quickly which is just so incredibly exciting.

Some people have said that they wished there was more.  I will say that 'from little things big things grow'.  This is just the beginning.  As this concept is so new I really was not sure how it would go.  So, it needed to be small to start with.  It is my plan to hopefully present 8-10-12 vignettes a year.  We will have our seasonal vignettes which will be for Winter, Spring, Summer & Autumn but keep watching as we are going to have some others in between the seasons as well.  We are also hopeful to expand the vignettes to maybe 2 or 3 or 4 room scenes/vignettes per season.

So, there certainly is going to be lots more to come and the scope of this concept is endless.  We have lots of ideas and we can't wait to put them into the works. 

The next vignette we present is for Spring and it is all ready to go so keep watching for it's launch which will be sooner rather than later...it's going to be very pretty and colourful!

I would like to thank a few very special people because without them yesterday would not have been possible.  Here goes...

Kell, Liv, Eve, Claire, Michelle, Tony, Michael, Max, Andy, Katie, Krishna, Mum, Dad, Brad {for putting up with my very cranky and anxious moods these last couple of weeks}, Elouise, Nick, Sam & Pete.

You guys are amazing and I really couldn't have done it without your help, guidance, feedback and support.

I would also love to thank those amazing bloggers who have posted about our store launch on their blogs and for spreading the word.  You guys are just the best and so very supportive.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart - Will from Bright Bazaar, Kimberlee from Brown Button, Kate from Polka Dot Pantry, Kell from Little French Nest, Mrs Blandings, Loni from Adore magazine blog, Natasha from Northern Light, Interiors Addict, Of Beauty & Love blog, Briana from HGTV Blog, Stylishirish blog, Australian Gift Guide blog, Gabrielle from Savvy Home Blog, Gild & Grace blog, Ivy & Piper blog. Chic Cottage Charm blog, Six Different Ways blog, Vicki Archer from French Essence. And if I've forgotten anyone please let me know!!

So, today there's lots to do, lots to ship and a house full of furniture to install into a house which was completely inundated by the floods earlier this year. 

There certainly is never a dull moment around here...

Thank you again for making our launch so wonderful!  I was blown away.

xoxo
Anna

P.S. There's lots of pink parcels heading out our door today! 

How It Works...

In preparation for tomorrow's launch I thought I would give you a brief tutorial advising how the store is going to work and what my idea is behind the concept. 

First and foremost I am a Designer and I really wanted that to be reflected in our online store.  I wanted to create something which was different and exciting.  Over the years we have had so many requests from overseas and interstate blog readers wanting to access our things which has really pushed me to open an online store so that everyone can have a piece of what we do. 

One of the most important things I wanted to achieve with our online store was for our customers to have that same wonderful experience of entering our online store, as those who enter our bricks and mortar store.

In an attempt to make this succeed I thought it would be wonderful to present a series of seasonal vignettes which will showcase special things I have either found or had custom made.  Items for sale will be put together in a room scene/vignette and basically each product which is for sale will have a number on it.  You click on the number and then you will be directed to a full description of the item including the price, the size, how many we have available and see some more close-up images of the piece. You can then you can either add it to your cart or continue shopping in the room - it’s as simple as that.

The first vignette which we will be presenting in tomorrow's launch is for Winter 2011.  Our next vignette after Winter will be for Spring and it will go live in around 8 weeks time.

Below, I have posted some images of our site structure using a dummy image.  {This is just to give you an idea how the site will work...this is not the actual vignette}.

First Page {above} - Entry page into the store...

Second Page [above} - An image with some text describing our look for that season...

Third Page {above} - This page is the page you will be able to purchase from.  You will basically be able to click on each product number which will then take you to a page similar to the page below which will give you full details about the product including the price, the size etc.  And from that page below you can either add the item to your cart or continue shopping in the room...



The thing I will say is that we are not going to have a lot of stock of any particular item in an attempt to keep our things very special and exclusive.  So, if you really want something then I suggest you go for it because it may not be there when you click back next time...

And yes, we are shipping our small goods internationally.  It's just the furniture which we won't be shipping internationally at this time.

So, that's it.  I hope you like my concept and I hope that each vignette we present will inspire you.  If you've registered on our holding page over at http://www.absolutelybeautifulthings.com.au/  you will be one of the first to know tomorrow when the site goes live and then after that I will post about it here on the blog.

Thank you to everyone for your continued interest and support...

xo

Anna

Tomorrow...

Tomorrow we will draw open the curtains on Anna Spiro's Absolutely Beautiful Things online concept store.  If you would like to be one of the first to know when we actually go live then make sure you register on our holding page over at http://www.absolutelybeautifulthings.com.au/

We've got lots of lovely things all wrapped and ready to be shipped...

To celebrate our launch tomorrow, the first person to purchase something on our new site will be sent this wonderful vintage book as a gift from me...

The 1oth person to purchase something on our new site will receive this set of 8 vintage linen table napkins as a gift from me...

And the 20th person to purchase something on our new site will receive this very special vintage book as a gift from me which I have read.  It is the most gorgeous story about a man who finds his ideal house and how he restores it's eighteenth-century simplicity and how he decorated and furnished it.  It talks about the things he collects in the house and is just such a lovely read.

Later tonight I will be posting a guide as to how to use our site as it is a little different from other online stores you may have visited in the past.  So make sure you check back for that later on...

In the meantime, if you would like to know a bit more behind the scenes info. head over to Will at Bright Bazaar HERE as he has the full exclusive scoop on our store which launches tomorrow!!

Big Week Ahead...

It's a big week in this neck of the woods.  Our online store goes live on Thursday...eeeekkkk!!  Scary!!  If you want to be one of the first to know when we actually go live on Thursday make sure you sign-up on our holding page over at http://www.absolutelybeautifulthings.com.au/

We are also very busy getting our back rooms at Black & Spiro ready to open again.  Hopefully they will be ready to open by Friday.

So, lots happening and lots to do.  Thank goodness I have lots of fresh flowers in the house which we picked from our garden over the weekend.  They keep a smile on my face in busy times like these!!

White & Wander

Just wanted to give you all the heads up {if you don't already know} that the extremely talented and creative Emma Clements from White and Wander and her mum have launched their amazing online store.  It is filled to the brim with antlers and globes and all sorts of amazing collected things. I really think their store fills a void in the market {here in Australia} for stylish vintage treasures and in their own words "it is a discovery of time worn treasures and imperfect luxuries." 

Click HERE to start fossicking through their wonderful collection...

We Have a Date...

So there you have it - our very exciting online store will be going live Thursday 28th July, 2011!  Make sure you circle your calendar!! 

www.absolutelybeautifulthings.com.au

xx
Anna

Black & Spiro Today

Here are a few snapshots of some of our new things at Black & Spiro.  Lots of great things including beautiful table linen, cushions, ginger jars, trays, rugs and fabrics.  It's almost like Christmas here at the moment with things arriving daily.

Exciting News

I am delighted to share some very exciting news with you all.  It has been a long time coming but I am always of the opinion that it takes lots of time, lots of thought and lots of planning to do something properly.  So here goes....

At the end of July/beginning of August 2011 {just over 1 month away} we will be launching our very exciting online store which will be called - Anna Spiro's Absolutely Beautiful Things.  Because I always like to be different, it won't be like a normal online store.  It is a unique concept which I have had in my mind for over 2 years and now it is finally going to come to fruition.

I will be keeping you all updated over the next few weeks as to when it will actually go live.  All I can say at this point is that once we go live you will have to be quick as the early bird catches the worm!!

Exciting times ahead.

The site address is - www.absolutelybeautifulthings.com.au

xoxo
Anna

PS.  There will definitely be some 'Signature Spiro' things available to purchase like our beautiful pink cockatoo lamps which are made in the pink exclusively for us!!

Stay tuned....