Is it too early to dream about summer and the pools yet?

Well anyway, here's some pretty looking pool houses to keep us stay in shade during bikini season ;p

(photos are linked to their original source in Pinterest)

 Which one is your favorite?

 See you on my next post!
 

Valentine's Day Series: Love-themed Party Ideas

It's Valentine's Day today and I know this is a late post. This post was supposed to be up two days ago but blogger scheduled post failed me (again). Oh well...

So anyway, here is some "late" inspirations for you. Incase you want to throw a valentine's lunch party on the weekend tomorrow or  maybe you have a love-themed party comin' up, here are some ideas for you. 

As usual, I round up these inspirations from Pinterest and every photo are linked to the original pinterest source (click click). Hopefully this could inspire you somehow...

Valentine Party
First of all, the invitation card:

The venue:

Snack table:

Properties for the Photo Booth:

The Food:

Cookies served on the table:

French Love Letter cookies

Raspberry Heart-shaped Cookie Pops

And of course, Chocolate covered strawberries!

Appetizer:

Grilled Shrimp Salad

OR

Red mooli, chard leaves, pomegranate seeds, and dill Salad.

Main Dish:

 Heart-shaped Pizza !

 Red Beet Risotto

+

Roasted Heart Potatoes

 Dessert:

 Heart-shaped Ispahan

Vanilla Cherry Ice Cream Float

Drinks:

 Shirley Temple in milk jars

 Pink Lemonade

And of course, the Cake:

 Rosette cake!

The Goodie Bag:

 Everyone get a bag of these by random

 And what's inside it:

 Red Velvet Cake in a jar (complete with spoon)

Valentine Chocolate bars

There you go... My kind of "imaginary" Valentine late-lunch party ^o^

Also, if you haven't seen my other Valentine inspiration post for Home Decor, then CLICK HERE. 

For outfit ideas to wear on Valentine's date, CLICK HERE to go to my fashion & beauty blog TWO THOUSAND THINGS.

Adios Chicas!

App of the Week: Virtual Makeover via HomeStyler

I recently had a lot of fun with an iPad app called HomeStyler which is a home designing app where you could browse for decor inspirations, see some lookbook and designs from the professionals, or you could even create your own decorating design!

You know interior designing is one of my passion, right? My dad is an architect so I am accustomed to seeing and reading interior magazines since I was a child. He always had a pile of interior magazines and design books on his office and I love flipping those magazines and borrowing them to my bedroom ;p

I guess that's where my passion for interior design started to grow. I still love browsing for interior design photos until now. So if there's any app about interior or home designing on my gadget, I would download them immediately ;p

So as I told you above, in this HomeStyler app we could create our own home decor style aside from browsing interior photos in it. I made a couple of room designs that I managed to create out of the app. Here's a BEFORE & AFTER photo of a living room that I designed:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

It's my first design so please bear with my newbie skills, LOL. I'm thinking of a coastal theme design when I decorated this living room. That's why I had the wall paint that resemble a seafoam green, a sand colored floor and furnitures, and a shell-inspired lamp and small knick-knacks. I also kept the room sleek and towards the clean look because I want to achieve a semi-formal type of a living room.

Now let's see my next try-out design which is a city apartment bedroom:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I was thinking of another sleek and clean look for this one. A modern sleek-looking design that's perfect for an apartment bedroom in a high rise building. I also chose a neutral color theme in this room to go with the sleek look I'm looking for.

So what do you think of my decorating style? LOL. I know this is pretty standard and nothing special, it's totally a newbie style ;p But the app still has limited option of furniture and knick-knacks so this is what I came up with in the end. I like them though, especially the bedroom :p

So if you like interior design and you have an ipad you might want to check out HomeStyler. They have a website where you could also design a room via their website, so I think it's pretty cool ;)

Another interior design app that I like is Houzz, but in Houzz you can only browse for interior photos and you could not make your own design like HomeStyler does, but Houzz sure do have lots of photos collection and the photos are all in high resolutions so it's always nice to browse it for ideas and inspirations. I use Houzz a lot for my Apt Project inspirations.

What are your favorite home design apps?

 

My Working Table Necessities

I basically work from home. I do freelance jobs from my computer at home, and I also blogged a lot because blogging is part of my job ;p So I literally spent my days in front of the computer for at least 8 hours a day!

I have a small working space in my bedroom, that's where I put on my computer and all of the essentials right beside it. When I looked at a corner in my work table, I realized that I have such random essentials for work-must-haves, LOL.

Okay, let me tell you about my work table. 

It's not really a table but a single drawer with short legs. I used the top surface for putting on my laptop and knick knacks (notebooks, stationary, etc). Aside from all those notes and journals that I kept on my desk for writing important tasks, I filled the drawer with all my files, past work thingies, calculator, bank's remote key, as well as brochures / press release and work sheets for my recent jobs or recent blogging necessities.

Right beside my laptop is a small corner with random essential things such as these:

Those are all my necessities which I need when I'm working in front of my laptop. You can see that there's a calendar on the right, and then in front of it is a pretty box that I just bought and haven't opened yet because I'm afraid it would get dirty, LOL. So it's just standing there for my inspiration ;)

You can also see that there's a kitty cat phone holder and then at the back is a Goofy glass which I used to store my pens and pencils (and a ruler). You can also see that there is a set of cow print pencils + eraser at the front. I forgot why it's there when I photographed it, it's usually stands inside the goofy jar with all the pens and pencils.

So here is the normal look of the corner without the cow-print pencils set:

I moved the cow-print pencils set into the glass jar where they belong. You can also see my current favorite pen there inside the glass, the one where I talked about here.

On the other side of the table I put on another desk calendar (just because I don't know where else to put it ;p). It's a very pretty calendar that I got from the L'Occitane event several months ago:
 

As I mentioned above, I spent my days in front of my laptop for at least 8 hours a day non-stop. I only stopped for meals. I also mostly worked at night and my air con is always on at night time, and that's why I always need a hand cream and a lip balm near me. I have quite a few of hand creams and lip balms all around the house and car because I can't stand dry hands and dry lips. So I gotta have them close ;)

I also like to snack in front of my laptop and I'm always make sure that my hands are clean before snacking. So that's why I got a hand sanitizer in this corner too ;p

I know those three items are not your usual work essentials but they are to me ^o^

Here's a close up of my essentials: Hand Sanitizer Gel, Hand Cream, Lip Balm, Mobile Phone in standing position so I can see who's calling or texting me while I'm in front of my laptop ;p

Note:  

I'm using The Body Shop Satsuma Hand Cleanse Gel, Garden of Love White Rose Hand Cream, Made From Earth Citrus Fresh Organic Lip Balm.

App of The Week: Set The Mood with GAZE

It's rainy season here in Indonesia and I just did a "Wet Seasons Essentials" on my fashion/beauty blog: TWO THOUSAND THINGS a couple of days ago. You can read what's my beauty essentials for the wet seasons here.

I also wanted to add something that I usually do while staying in my room when it's raining all day outside. I always enjoy the rain (unless it's a storm or scary big rain), I love to see the rain falling softly on the branches of trees outside the window, and how the rain splashes teeny tiny water spots on the window. I also love the cool temperature it brings, it's just feels relaxing somehow.

To bring out the relaxing mood even more, I would usually set the mood by making a hot cup of tea or coffee, watching movies while snuggling underneath the blanket, or just reading a book or read some magazines while enjoying the relaxing sound of the falling rain outside. I would also usually put on some candles to help set out the mood even more...

I usually light these candles on my bedside table!

Yes, candles!

How soothing, right? They are somehow very relaxing too, especially if they are scented candles infused with relaxing aromatherapy scents. But unfortunately scented candles are not very common here in my country, so they are usually very expensive. That's a pity because I myself love scented candles :(

But anyway, if you think that I have many candles as the picture you see above, then you're totally wrong! 

Ha!

I actually only have one big candle in my bedroom ;p The rest of the candles above are just "illusion candles" that I get with the help of this amazing iPad app called "Gaze"  ^o^

Did I fool you? LOL...

I love this app, because it help gives you the right atmosphere that you want. Well, I guess this app would only work if you have big imagination, or if you believe in "creating atmosphere", because hubby K didn't seems to understand the purpose of this app  >__<

Oh well....

So anyway, this has been one of my fave app. It's free to download, and with this app you could feel like you're in a room at a resort because if you close your eyes you'd hear those birds chirping outside your window. Or you'll hear that waterfall running in the background. Or you could also feels like you're in the middle of winter or feels like you just turned on the fireplace ;p

There are similar apps like this one, and you could choose many backgrounds with real moving images and real sounds. Some of them are in-app purchases but a few of them are free. My favorites from the "free sections" are the candles and the fireplace background. The fireplace sounds like the real thing!

The crackling sounds of the fireplace are very similar to the real ones, and all of the pictures in this app are not a still picture, so the flames on the candles above really moves as if it was blown by wind. And the fire and flames on the fireplace really moves as if it's a real one.

If you have an iPad and love this kind of thing then check this app out because I think the illusion will work better in those big screen. I personally don't think the illusion would work out as well on the iPad mini.

Enjoy the app!


NOTE: 
The Ylang Ylang Candle is courtesy of Tree Harvest via Raw Gaia, I reviewed it here.

 

Sitcom Floorplans

If you think that watching your favorite sitcoms really makes your day, then how about seeing their living spaces from a different point of view? Check out these absolutely magnificent floor plan drawings from the best TV shows that you love so much.. I was in awe when I first saw these on Buzzfeed website.. :D

(you can click the picture below to enlarge)

That floorplan from Friends looks so real, it's like re-living the life of Chandler, Monica, Ross, Rachel, Joey and Phoebe all over again! And that Carrie Bradshaw's apartment also looks so real! I can imagine Carrie walking from the bedroom to the bathroom via her closet right now, right on that floor plan! ;p

So which TV shows are your favorites? You can find more floorplans on Buzzfeed website here..