Drool: Art pillows with a zing!

The easiest and the smartest way to spruce up your living room décor is to add bright, colorful and unique, one-of-a-kind cushions. If you can lay your hands on Kim’s designer art pillows, be assured that you will have something to set the conversation going.


Kim Wilson is an art pillow specialist from a small southern Saskatchewan town called Rockglen whose unusual creations have been featured in several magazines and art galleries in Canada, the U.S and Mexico. She also makes art dolls, designs jewelry, textiles and home accessories.


The custom made art pillows are designed using her customer’s photographs, posters or their treasured collections. The Indian touch in her work can be seen in the Ganesh art pillow and the vintage black&white pillow. My son, a great fan of Ganesh would have loved this one.



The right combination of art, texture, accessories and colors add visual interest to the decor.


You can order your personalized art pillow at her online store Candiangemstones.com. Meanwhile sit back and enjoy her work.


My favorite is the Black&White vintage pillow, what's yours?

Oh, Btw I must thank Lakshmi of Taste of Mysore for the wonderful Lemonade award.

Thanks Lakshmi!

House Tour: The uniquely styled Manhattan apartment owned by Garry Jensen and Elena Bertinetto

I wish all my compatriots a very happy Republic Day! I am in Mangalore, my home town, which is filled with so many beautiful homes and structures. I am dying to shoot them and share them with you, but with my favorite camera not working, the pictures will have to wait until my next trip here.

Today I bring you a home that has been featured in several design mags. It will soon appear in a show called "Some of the most beautiful homes in the world" by a Canadian TV Channel. The apartment is a loft located in the heart of New York city and used to be a button factory. It is the home of husband and wife design team Garry Jensen and Elena Bertinetto (pictured) of DeeplyMadlyLiving fame.

I love this home even though it doesn't qualify into any of my "beautiful home" preconcieved brackets. Come to think of it, it's something so new and different that I have to now make up a new category just for it - it is an eclectic blend of flea market finds and the uber modern, antique and vintage pieces mixed with new design and material, a home like no other! Elena, to whom Garry credits the interior work to, has her own unique style of mixing elements. Well, have a look, and you will know what I mean.

This cosy living room has a revolving wall that changes color and it serves a purpose too. It houses their home theatre system. The furnishings are modern pieces such as the seater with an attached mini bar, and older looking pieces that blend in like the wrought iron table in front of it.

This is the master bedroom. It has a banana tree (yes, the real thing) in the corner, with several flea market finds such as elephants and buddhas placed on the window sill. Definitely unique!

This is a close-up of one of the side tables in the master bedroom. Incidentally, they also have a similar colored bathroom sink. Oh, I'll just include the picture here, so you can have a look too:)

The sink is incidentally a DeeplyMadlyLiving product.

This pool table was actually found discarded and lying outside a Canary Islands hotel. Garry rescued it, and gave it a new lease of life with some graffiti art. No prizes for guessing why the legs were painted canary yellow!

The chairs are actually Chesterfields from a London flea market. To give them a modern look, Elena had them reupholstered in purple, and they transformed just beautifully!

The kitchen is functional, done up in black and chrome and has some really classy accent pieces on display. ave a Look closely at the dining table in the picture below. It is not just another marble table, but a mosaic church altar top, a $500 find by Garry at an Italian flea market.

The chandelier over the dining table is another expensive flea market find, and Coco Chanel's home supposedly had two others exactly like it. Well, reason enough to buy it, if you ask me!

The house also has a genuine Picasso and graffiti on the fire escape (done by a Harlem artist). A decor that endorses the unusually bold use of color, a chrome, steel and ultra modern finish interspersed with quaint antiques, and pieces that have been rescued and given a new lease of life, well, you would be crazy not to include it in the list of the world's most stylish homes!

Eat, drink and sleep on burgers!

Oh, isn’t this supposed to be a design blog? Now, why on earth is food discussed over here? Well, I am a complete foodie and I just have to see food to pile on pounds and then work out extra hard to shed them! No wonder, I freaked out when I stumbled upon this bed on Neotarama.

Some people can go extremes when it comes to showing their passion about food. Check out this hamburger bed, that comes complete which comes complete with an oversized bun duvet, as well as tomato and pickle slice pillows. Face book lovers can catch up on this bed over here. Now, all I want is an Indianized version of this- an idli bed with a dosa duvet, yummmm!

Btw, I must thank Navita of Zaayeka for this Butterfly Award. Thanks Navita!

Window frame from Trash to Treasure

Here is a wonderful makeover idea from an American children's clothes designer, Gretchen Schock-Skovron. Gretchen always had this great idea of using an old window frame as part of her interior decor. When she finally saw one going free, she wasted no time taking it home. This is what it looked like.

Gretchen wanted to use it as a display piece, like a constantly changing scrap book. Well, I must say the finished product achieved that for her pretty well. Have a look.

And, if you thought that was cool, you will like it even more when you see this shot.

Quite well put together, wouldn't you say? Read more about the details on how Gretchen managed this makeover here.

Salvaged door gets a stunning makeover!

Some people have this amazing knack of creating something out of nothing! Recycled products are a rage among green lovers. While it’s easy to buy recycled products from stores, the high you get when you create them can simply not be matched.

Craftynest blogger, Monica has the skill of turning junk into beautiful things. Look at what she came up with when she found a stash of cupboard doors at her local salvage yard. The doors were transformed into designer serving trays.

Monica has step-by-step instructions of the DIY project on her blog. If you are inspired to make one like this, click here. Do let me know how it turned out.

Color me pretty - featuring the home of a young Swedish designer.

I'm back after an extended X'mas break, and I so look forward to another new year of blogging and reading.

This is the perfect time to share with you some really awesome pics of Lisa's designing efforts. She is 25 and lives in Sweden, studies art and design and likes to be creative. She loves colors, and she loves mixing, as you will soon gather from these pictures of her home.

Imagine having a riot of colors, particularly pink right next to orange and green, all in one room. Sounds garish? Have a look at Lisa's work and you will instantly change your mind. She has managed to mix the Indian, Bohemian, modern, the personal and the kitschy to create this jaw dropping look.

Best of all, Lisa picks up her "finds" not from expensive lifestyle stores, but from flea markets, garage sales, and she sometimes even reinvents her old decor to come up with new, exciting ideas.

Now you know what I meant about the colors. Beautifully mixed up, aren't they? It is so difficult to put a name or label to this decor, but I think Lisa has got it right when she says she likes humor in her decor. Yep, that definitely describes this home best.

Here's to more cheerful homes, here's to more of second hand resusables, here's to making homes just what they are supposed to be - cosy, warm and welcoming! :) Have a colorful 2009!

Loose Ends: Stuff less ordinary!

If you happen to be house proud and enjoy things that are unusual, you shouldn’t miss Loose Ends, a lifestyle store located in Bandra, Mumbai. The store promises to stock refreshingly eclectic day-to-day stuff that have the classic ‘Made-in-India’ feel and things you are unlikely to find anywhere else. Some products could even make your grandparents go nostalgic!

Here’s what they say about their store
Who says a store has to be ordinary? Loose Ends - the store – is not born out of an idea. It is born, like all good things, out of conflict.

They also offer customized furniture and personalized products such as pillow covers, CD cases, lampshades and mugs to suit your needs. One thing’s for sure – each product screams ‘I’m different’! Check out their products and tell me what you think.

Unusual shelving ideas

Statica by Daniele Lago

We, Sharon and Rekha at TheKeyBunch wish all our readers a 'Happy and a Rocking 2009'! We kick start the new year with some unusual shelving design ideas.

Shelving ideas have evolved over the time. Gone are the days when you just had rectangular boxes to stack books or display your collectibles. Take a look at some of the interesting shelving ideas I compiled. The units are not only contemporary but also become interesting design elements in the décor.


Shelving units take a cue from nature!


Nature inspired shelves by Maria Yasko


Autumn by David Sanchez


Pisa Book shelf
Shelving unit inspired by the one of the 'Wonders of the World'.